The Books of Fell (6 page)

It was close to ten o’clock when I got down to the place where Delia Tremble was an au pair. On the phone she’d told me it wouldn’t be much of a date. The family she worked for went out, so she couldn’t leave. She said she was tired, too, and hungry, and there wasn’t anything in the house but eggs.

I said I didn’t feel like much of a date, anyway. I was tired, too, and I could do fantastic things with eggs.

It was a big stone house near the ocean, the kind with the front facing the dunes. When I walked in the door, the kitchen was right there on the left. Delia Tremble steered me that way.

“I ate about five, with the kids,” she said. “Then the Stileses had lobster, which I hate, and now I feel like something sweet and there’s only eggs.”

“Is there bread?” “Yes, a whole loaf.” “How about French toast?” “Can you make it? I love it!” I watched while she cleared away a cup of coffee and an ashtray from the butcher block table. She was wearing skintight jeans and spiked heels, with a white cotton sweater. Her earrings were tiny gold hoops and she wore several gold rings.

She looked back at me and smiled. “Do you really know how to make French toast, because I can hardly cook?”

“I like that.” I smiled and began rolling up the sleeves of my plaid shirt.

“What? That I can hardly cook?”

“Yeah, because I really like to.”

“Be my guest.” She laughed, pointing to the stove.

She got a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator and slid a loaf of bread down the counter. She was tall; with her high heels, as tall as I was. Her hair was very black and very long, touching her shoulders.

“I’ll need a bowl and a frying pan. I hope you have milk and butter.”

“I’m glad you came, Fell. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but now I’m glad you came.”

“The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.”

“Usually not.” She laughed again, and I looked at her waistline and figured she was telling the truth. She didn’t look like someone who lived to eat. She looked like someone who lived to dance or play tennis or swim. She had a good tan. She almost had dimples when she smiled. Very long black eyelashes, a straight nose, and straight white teeth.

I beat the eggs and milk, and added a little salt and sugar.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she said. “It seems strange to have someone you don’t even know walk in and just start making you French toast.”

“Everything that’s happening to me lately seems strange,” I said.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I heard her scratch a match, and smelled a fresh cigarette.

“No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is this how we’re going to begin? With you keeping secrets from me?”

“Yes,” I said. “Tell me about Delia Tremble.” I put the slices of bread into the liquid.

“I look younger than I am. I never tell my age. I like serious guys who are good talkers.”

“What do you like to talk about?” I put some heat on under the frying pan and dropped in some oil and some butter.

“I like the way people talk on planes,” she said. “They just start in telling you about themselves.”

“Do you know why that is? It’s because people on planes don’t have the scenery people on buses and trains have to distract them.”

“Is that true?”

“My father used to be A detective. He said you could travel more unnoticed on a train. People don’t look at you as closely.”

“I never thought of that, Fell.”

“Okay,” I said, “we’re on a plane. Start talking.” I raised the heat and waited for the frying pan to get hot.

“When I first noticed you in Plain and Fancy I figured you for one of these prep school kids. A preppy. I figured you came from money.”

“Were you wrong!”

“Do you go to high school?”

“Umm hmm.” I dropped the bread into the pan. “I’ll need some paper towels in a minute. Were you after my money?”

“Maybe.” I liked her laugh. “I liked the way you moved, too. I figured you’d be a good dancer.”

“And that we could dance outdoors. That’s what you said you wanted. To dance outdoors. Why outdoors?”

“Because I smoke,” she said. “People are really getting to hate us smokers.”

“So that’s why,” I said, and she came up behind me and reached around me to put down some paper towels.

“Did you ever smoke? Do you drink?” she asked.

“I used to do both,” I said. “Name it, I did it.”

“I’m glad you don’t drink now. I don’t really like men who do.”

I noticed the
“men.”
Keats still said “boys.”

I said, “Do you go to boarding school or high school?”

“I graduated from high school.”

“Oh,” I said, “an older woman.”

“Not that much older than you are. I was ahead of everyone.”

“Are you going to college?”

“I want to travel. I haven’t been many places. Have you been many places, Fell?”

“Not many at all.”

“Oh, Fell, it looks good!”

I dropped the fried bread on the paper towels. “Jam, or maple syrup?”

“Maple syrup,” she said. “I’ll get it from the cupboard. Will you go to high school again next year?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe I’ll go away to school. I might get a scholarship. I might go to Switzerland.”

“I want to hear all about it!”

“I’m not going to talk about it. It’s bad luck to talk about something that hasn’t come through yet.”

She had out plates and I put the French toast on them.

She said, “Let’s take this into the living room. If the twins wake up, I can hear them better from in there.”

I followed her, carrying some forks and napkins she handed me.

“Are you a happy type, Fell?” “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Are you a sad type or a happy type?”

I watched her bend over to put the plates down on the marble coffee table in front of this long, beige sofa. I saw the movement of her breasts under her white sweater.

“Right now I’m a happy type,” I said.

“When were you last sad?”

“The last time? When my father died.”

“That makes sense.”

“And you?”

We sat down side by side on the sofa.

“Sometimes I get a melancholy feeling out here, so close to the ocean, not really connected with anyone in Seaville. I think the beach brings out a sadness in you, if you’re alone. But it never stays with me. It comes and goes.”

“Now you know me, so you’re not alone anymore.”

“Now I do.” She took a taste of the French toast. “You’re a good cook, aren’t you, Fell?” “Yes.”

“And what else about you?”

I put up one hand. “Don’t rush us.”

She looked over at me. She wasn’t smiling.

“Oh, Fell, I like that you said that. That’s the best thing you’ve said all night. Do you mean it?”

“I do.” I did. I wanted to take my time with her. I liked the way she looked, and I liked her style. She was easier than Keats, wiser, less manic-depressive. I liked what she’d said about being at the beach alone, and the sadness it brought out in you. Keats wouldn’t have had the good sense to figure that out. She always made any sadness into something she was doing wrong, into failing and spending her life on nothing.

“We should have some music on, I guess,” Delia Tremble said.

“We don’t need it.”

“What do you like?”

“Everything, but I don’t know anything about classical stuff.”

“I don’t either. I like Whitney Houston. I like songs I can hear the lyrics in more than I like hard rock, and I don’t like heavy metal.”

She was telling me the names of singers and songs she liked when I happened to look across the room and see this painting of the ocean. Down in the lower right was the familiar fern.

I waited until she was finished talking. Then I said, “This family you work for …”

“The Stileses.”

“Did they buy that painting?”

“Mrs. Stiles owns the Stiles Gallery in town.

One of her artists did that.”

“Fern Pingree,” I said.

“Do you know her?”

“Not well.”

“How come you know her, Fell?”

I told her that I had dated a girl who lived next door to the Pingrees.

“What does she say about this Fern Pingree?” “She doesn’t know her.” “I’d be curious about her.” “Would be or are?”

“You listen too carefully sometimes, Fell. I would be, if I lived around here. She’d be someone I’d be curious about if I lived in Seaville.”

“Why?”

“Look at that painting.”

I looked again. It was an angry-looking ocean, with another sun above it that looked hot enough to fry eggs on the sand. There was a haze over the whole scene, the kind of whiteness that comes over a beach on a sizzling day when the sun just breaks through the clouds.

“Do you know what she named that painting?” Delia Tremble asked.
“Arizona Darkness.
Figure that one out!”

We both laughed.

Delia leaned back against the couch cushions. We were silent for a while. You could hear the sounds of the sea off in the distance. Delia was twirling a strand of her black hair around her finger.

“Fell? If you could have one wish now, what would it be?”

“That I could see you tomorrow.”

She smiled at me. “Not tomorrow. They’re having company. But maybe Monday night.”

“And what would you wish for?”

“What would I wish for?” She thought about it for a while. “I want to get away. I want to travel.”

Then we heard the Stileses arriving, heard Mrs. Stiles say, “Something smells good!”

“I told you it wouldn’t be much of a date, Fell,” Delia Tremble said.

I said quickly, “If you’d like to travel, how about traveling out to the Surf Club with me Monday night? You can dance outdoors there.”

She said okay.

I’m
all for the idea
[Mom had written].
You’ll get a good education, money to use for college or a restaurant, and don’t you think your father would want you to go? I’ve thought and thought and I vote yes! Jazzy and I are at church. Meat loaf for dinner is cooling, don’t put in fridge…. I think you should tell Mr. Pingree you’ll do it, before he changes his mind!

But I wanted to think about it, and talk more about it, and figure out how the whole scheme would work.

“All right,” Pingree said, “but don’t take too long to decide. If I can’t get you to take the offer, I’ll have to think of someone else.”

Pingree watched me through a cloud of his own cigarette smoke.

We were sitting out on the front porch of the Frog Pond, having Sunday breakfast. He’d called early and I had said I’d meet him at ten. I couldn’t sleep late, anyway. I usually liked to, when Mom took Jazzy to church and I didn’t have to get up, but I couldn’t. I woke up thinking about going to Gardner as Ping, and I laughed aloud at the idea. I thought of the way kids back in Brooklyn would say “Farrrr out!”

I kept thinking about Delia Tremble when I first woke up, too. I kept remembering the look in her dark eyes when she talked about sadness. I even got out of bed, pulled on my shorts, and tried to reach Keats at Four Winds. I guess I was guilty because I’d awakened thinking of someone else. Finally. After a year!

But Keats wasn’t around. They rang that cow bell of theirs and shouted, “Keats! Keats! Keats!” She wasn’t around. The girl who answered the phone asked me if I was Quint. I said yeah, Quint. She said someone just told her Keats was on her way to my motel; she’d left about ten minutes ago.

“You seem distracted this morning, Fell,” Pingree said. “Or are you just a sad type?”

I remembered Delia asking me if I was a happy type or a sad type.

“You ought to know the answer to that. You’ve done enough research on me.”

“All right. You’re not yourself this morning. Why?”

“I can’t imagine going through two years answering to the name Ping.”

“You don’t have to answer to that name. You can be Woodrow, Woody. My middle name is Thompson. You can be Thompson, Tom.” “Just kidding,” I said.

“I don’t like Ping, either. No one ever called
me
that.”

There was a young couple behind Pingree who looked as if they’d just left a bedroom somewhere and it was too soon, because they couldn’t stop touching each other. I remembered what that was like back last year when Keats and I would go anyplace. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. What was the word Pingree’d used to describe falling in love? He’d said he was besotted. I’d looked it up later in my Webster’s. It meant mentally stupefied, silly, foolish.

Pingree looked around to see what I was looking at. He shook his head as though he knew what that was like, too.

He gave me a wistful smile. “Do you miss Keats?”

“I miss her. But I don’t think she misses me. I might take your advice. I might cool it with Keats.” I’d already decided not to go up to Four Winds for the play. Let Quint Blade go.

“Good!” he said. “Cool it.”

“Not because I’m taking you up on your offer.”

“All right. It’s probably still a good idea.”

“I can’t trust her.”

“Can she trust you?”

“I don’t know, after last night.”

“I forgot about last night. How did it go?”

“Fine.”

“You liked her?”

“She was easy to talk to. She likes to talk.”

I watched the couple kiss. Everyone out on the porch was watching them. The waitress was standing there with orange juice on a tray, grinning, waiting for room to put the juice down in front of them. I counted to five, slowly. They were still at it.

Pingree said, “Let me tell you about this club at Gardner.”

“Another thing,” I interrupted him. “What if I get a thing for Delia Tremble?”

“If it’s ‘a thing,’ it won’t matter, will it?”

“You know what I mean. What if I fall for Delia Tremble?”

“Write her. That’s what you’d do anyway, isn’t it? She’s not from Seaville, is she?”

“No.”

“Well then?”

“But I’d want to see her.”

Pingree stabbed some bacon with his fork. “You can’t have everything you want. You can have a lot, but not everything. No one can ever have everything!”

I looked out at this fat pigeon waddling around on the green lawn, and bit into my English muffin. I said, “What club were you going to tell me about?”

“It’s called Sevens. It’s a secret club at Gardner. It’s
the
club.” “Like a fraternity?”

“No. No. It’s not like anything you’ve ever heard about. They have their own rules, their own privileges. They control The Tower there.”

“Why do they call it Sevens?”

“No one knows.”

“What do you mean, no one knows? Someone must know.”

“Members of Sevens know what it means, of course. My grandfather knew. He was the only member from our family.”

“Did he tell you anything about it?”

“Never! If you get into Sevens you never tell the reason you got in, or the meaning of the name, or anything about Sevens. You’re set apart when you get into Sevens … some say for life.”

“You didn’t make it, and your father didn’t?”

“Just my grandfather.”

“Why are you mentioning it this morning?”

“There’s something else I didn’t tell you about my grandfather’s will,” he said. He finished his bacon and eggs, pushed his plate back, and lit a cigarette. “If you make Sevens, you automatically get another ten thousand dollars. You get it instantly.”

“You didn’t think I’d make it, so you didn’t mention it before, hmmm?” I couldn’t eat any more. I tossed the rest of the muffin out toward the fat pigeon on the lawn.

Pingree began to speak extra clearly, as though he wanted what he was saying to really sink in.

“No one knows why a boy qualifies for Sevens. There’s no type. Anyone can be in Sevens, but few are. Only about five or six a year. One year there was no one tapped for Sevens.”

“This club really impresses you, doesn’t it? You’re not just talking about it because of the extra ten thousand, are you?”

“Yes, I guess it does really impress me, Fell. I like solutions to things. I could never solve that one — what makes a Sevens.”

“If I were to go to Gardner, and if I got in, I’d tell you.”

“Oh, no. No one’s ever been told.”

“But I think that stuff is crap! I don’t care about secret clubs!”

“Gardner will teach you about tradition. Tradition isn’t a bad thing, Fell. Sometimes it’s the only continuity.”

“I don’t mean tradition. I like tradition, too.”

I did. So had my dad. Christmas used to be this big production when he was alive, starting with the tree trimming on Christmas Eve. He always made Christmas breakfast, too. “It’s snobbery I don’t like. It’s people thinking they’re better than other people just because they’re in some stupid club.

“I see.”

He stirred his coffee. We both checked out the lovers. They were still at it. Pingree met my eyes and we grinned.

Then Pingree said, “I wish I’d been more like you when I was growing up. I was all caught up in what it meant to be a Pingree, what was expected of me. My father drilled that into me. I’ve done a lot of bad things to Ping, but I’ll never do that to him. I’m surprised Fern isn’t more sympathetic in this regard. She hates snobbery, too, but she’s dead set on Ping’s going to Gardner. Ping can’t conquer that phobia of his. We’ve tried hypnotism, everything. I think Fern thinks he’s faking it.”

I said, “I saw
Arizona Darkness
last night.”

He looked across at me. “That belongs to the Stileses.”

“Delia Tremble’s their au pair.”

“Ah! For the twins.”

“Yes. We wondered why your wife named something
Arizona Darkness
that’s this ocean under this hot sun?”

“She chooses very unusual titles for her paintings. I think that one had to do with Jerome, Arizona. Oh, they all do, really.”

“What does Jerome, Arizona, have to do with your wife?”

Pingree ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Her grandfather was there in World War Two, long before she was born. They had one of those internment camps there for Japanese-Americans. Our version of concentration camps. We didn’t gas them the way the Germans did the Jews. Didn’t work them. But we confined them. They were our prisoners. Only Japanese-Americans were put through that. Fern can’t forget it.”

I remembered watching a program about it on TV.

“I didn’t even know she was Japanese.”

“Her father is. Not her mother. Her mother’s Irish-American.”

I was remembering the barracks in the field, in the painting she called
Smiles We Left Behind Us.

“Then came Hiroshima, another shattering blow to Asians. And Vietnam. Fern has a very melancholy nature as a result. I fall in love with very melancholy women. My first wife was the same way.”

I liked him. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he never talked down to me.

He called for the check.

“There’s so little time,” he said. “You know that, don’t you, Fell?”