The Lincoln Highway (43 page)

O
h, what a night
they were having!

To start things off, at the stroke of eight Duchess opened the front door to reveal Emmett on the doorstep, a cause for celebration in itself. Not fifteen minutes later—just after Woolly had presented his uncle’s watch to Billy—there was a small explosion and who to their wondering eyes should appear, but Sally Ransom, having driven all the way from Nebraska. And before they had a chance to celebrate
that
, Duchess was standing in the doorway announcing that dinner was served.

—Right this way, he said, as they all went back inside.

But instead of heading to the kitchen, Duchess led them into the dining room, where the table had been set with china and crystal and the two candelabra, even though it wasn’t a birthday or holiday.

—My, oh my, said Sally when she came through the door.

—Miss Ransom, why don’t you sit here, said Duchess, pulling out her chair.

Then Duchess seated Billy next to Sally, Woolly across the table, and Emmett at the head. Duchess reserved the other end of the table for himself, the one that was closest to the kitchen door, through which he promptly disappeared. But even before the door had stopped swinging, he was back with a napkin over his arm and a bottle of wine in hand.

—You can’t appreciate a good Italian dinner, he said, without a little
vino rosso
.

Circling the table, Duchess poured a glass for everyone, including Billy. Then having set the bottle down, he was through the kitchen
door and back again, this time carrying four plates at the same time with one in each hand, and another balanced on the crook of each arm—the exact set of circumstances, thought Woolly, for which the swinging door had been designed!

After zipping once around the table in order to serve a plate to everyone else, Duchess disappeared and reappeared in order to serve one to himself. Only this time when he came through the door, his apron was gone and he was wearing a vest with all the buttons buttoned.

When Duchess resumed his seat, Sally and Emmett were staring at their plates.

—What in tarnation, said Sally.

—Stuffed artichokes, said Billy.

—I didn’t make them, Duchess confessed. Billy and I picked them up earlier today on Arthur Avenue.

—That’s the main drag in the Italian section of the Bronx, said Billy.

Emmett and Sally both looked from Duchess to Billy and back to their plates, no less perplexed.

—You scrape the meat off the leaves with your bottom teeth, explained Woolly.

—You what? said Sally.

—Like this!

In order to demonstrate, Woolly plucked one of the leaves, scraped it with his teeth, and dropped it on his plate.

Within a matter of minutes, everyone was having a grand old time plucking leaves, and sipping wine, and discussing with due admiration the very first person in the history of mankind who’d had the audacity to eat an artichoke.

When everyone had finished their appetizer, Sally straightened the napkin in her lap and asked what they were having next.

—
Fettuccine Mio Amore
, said Billy.

Emmett and Sally looked to Duchess for an elaboration, but since he was clearing plates, he asked Woolly to do the honors.

So Woolly told them the whole story. He told them of Leonello’s—that restaurant at which no reservations were taken and no menus given. He told them of the jukebox and the mobsters and Marilyn Monroe. He told them of Leonello himself, who went from table to table greeting his customers and sending them drinks. And finally, he told them how when the waiter came to your table, he didn’t even mention
Fettuccine Mio Amore,
because if you didn’t know enough to ask for it, then you didn’t deserve to eat it.

—I helped make it, said Billy. Duchess showed me how to properly slice an onion.

Sally was staring at Billy in a mild state of shock.

—Properly?!

—Yes, said Billy. Properly.

—And how, pray tell, is that?

Before Billy could explain, the door swung open and Duchess appeared with all five plates.

As he had been describing Leonello’s, Woolly could see that Emmett and Sally were a little skeptical, and he couldn’t blame them. For when it came to telling stories, Duchess was a bit of a Paul Bunyan, for whom the snow was always ten feet deep, and the river as wide as the sea. But after the very first bite, everyone at the table could set their doubts aside.

—Isn’t this delicious, said Sally.

—I’ve got to hand it to you both, said Emmett. Then raising his glass, he added: To the chefs.

To which Woolly responded: Hear, hear!

And hear, hear said they all.

The dinner was so delicious that everyone asked for a second helping, and Duchess poured some more wine, and Emmett’s eyes began to glitter as Sally’s cheeks grew red, and the candle wax dribbled delightfully down the arms of the candelabra.

Then everyone was asking somebody else to tell something. First, it was Emmett asking Billy to tell about the visit to the Empire State Building. Then it was Sally asking Emmett to tell about the ride on the freight train. Then Woolly asking Duchess to tell about the magic tricks that he had seen on the stage. And finally, it was Billy asking Duchess if
he
knew any magic tricks.

—Over the years, I suppose I’ve learned a few.

—Will you do one for us?

Taking a sip of wine, Duchess thought for a moment, then said: Why not.

After pushing back his plate, Duchess took the corkscrew from the pocket of his vest, removed the cork, and set it on the table. Then picking up the wine bottle, he poured out the dregs, and forced the cork back inside—not simply into the neck where it usually resides, but all the way
through
the neck so that it dropped down to where the dregs had been.

—As you can see, he said, I have placed the cork in the bottle.

Then he passed the bottle around so that everyone in turn could confirm the bottle was made of solid glass and the cork was truly inside. Woolly even turned the bottle upside down and gave it a shake in order to prove what everyone knew in principle: that if it was hard to push a cork all the way into a bottle, it was impossible to shake it back out.

When the bottle had completed its circuit, Duchess rolled up his sleeves, held up his hands to show that they were empty, then asked Billy if he would be so kind as to give us a countdown.

To Woolly’s great satisfaction, not only did Billy accept the task, he used the tiny little second hand in the dial of his new watch in order to execute it precisely.

Ten
, he said as Duchess picked up the bottle and lowered it into his lap out of sight.
Nine . . . Eight 
. . . , he said, as Duchess breathed and exhaled.
Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . .
, as Duchess began rolling his
shoulders back and forth.
Four . . . Three . . . Two
, as his eyelids fell so low it looked like he had closed them altogether.

How long is ten seconds? thought Woolly as Billy’s countdown took place. It is long enough to confirm that a heavyweight boxer has lost his bout. Long enough to announce the arrival of another new year. But it didn’t seem anywhere near long enough to remove a cork from the bottom of a bottle. And yet, and yet, at the very moment that Billy said
One
, with one hand Duchess thumped the empty bottle on the table, and with the other set the cork upright at its side.

With a gasp, Sally looked at Billy and Emmett and Woolly. And Billy looked at Woolly and Sally and Emmett. And Emmett looked at Billy and Woolly and Sally. Which is to say that everybody looked at everybody. Except for Duchess, who stared straight ahead with the inscrutable smile of a sphinx.

Then everyone was talking all at once. Billy was pronouncing it magic. And Sally was saying,
I never!
And Woolly was saying,
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
And Emmett, he wanted to see the bottle.

So Duchess passed the bottle around and everyone got to see that it was empty. Then Emmett suggested, rather skeptically, that there must have been two bottles and two corks, and Duchess had made the switch in his lap. So everyone looked under the table and Duchess turned around with his arms extended, but there was no second bottle to be found.

Now everyone was talking again, asking Duchess to show them how he did it. Duchess replied that a magician never reveals his secrets. But after a
proper
amount of pleading and prodding, he agreed to do so, nonetheless.

—What you do, he explained after returning the cork to the bottom of the bottle, is take your napkin, slide the folded corner into the bottle’s neck like so, toss the cork until it lands in the trough of the fold, then gently withdraw.

Sure enough, as Duchess gently pulled, the folded napkin corner
wrapped around the cork, drew it through the neck, and liberated it from the bottle with a satisfying pop.

—Let me try, said Billy and Sally at once.

—Let’s all try! suggested Woolly.

Bounding from his chair, Woolly dashed through the kitchen into the pantry where “Dennis” stored his wine. Grabbing three bottles of
vino rosso
, he brought them into the kitchen, where Duchess pulled the corks so that Woolly could pour the contents down the drain.

Back in the dining room, Billy, Emmett, Sally, and Woolly each forced their own corks down into their own bottles and folded their own napkins as Duchess circled the table giving helpful instructions.

—Fold it a little more at the corner like this. . . . Toss the cork up a little more like that. . . . Get it to rest a little deeper in the trough. Now pull, but gently.

Pop, pop, pop
went Sally’s, and Emmett’s, and Billy’s corks.

Then everyone looked to Woolly, a circumstance which generally made Woolly want to get up and leave the room. But not after dining on artichokes and
Fettuccine Mio Amore
with four of his closest friends. Not tonight!

—Hold on, hold on, he said. I’ve got it, I’ve got it.

Biting the tip of his tongue, Woolly jostled and coaxed, then ever so, ever so gently he began to tug. And as he tugged, everyone around the table, even Duchess, held their breath until the moment that Woolly’s cork went
pop
and they all erupted into a great round of hurrahs!

And that’s when the swinging door swung and in walked “Dennis.”

—My, oh my, said Woolly.

—What in God’s name is going on here? “Dennis” demanded, using one of those
W
questions for which he expected no answer.

Then the swinging door swung again and there was Sarah with an expression of anticipatory concern.

Stepping abruptly forward, “Dennis” picked up the bottle that was in front of Woolly and looked around the table.

—Château Margaux ’28! You drank four bottles of Château Margaux ’28?!

—We only drank one bottle, said Billy.

—That’s true, said Woolly. We poured the other three bottles down the drain.

But as soon as Woolly had said this, he realized he shouldn’t have. Because “Dennis” was suddenly as red as his Château Margaux.

—You poured them out!

Sarah, who had been standing quietly behind her husband holding open the door, now stepped into the room. This is where she would say what needed to be said, thought Woolly, the very thing that he would later wish he’d had the presence of mind to say himself. But when she stepped around “Dennis” and had the chance to take in the scene in its entirety, she picked up the napkin from beside Woolly’s plate, which, like all the others on the table, was stained with big red splotches of wine.

—Oh, Woolly, she said, ever so softly.

Ever so heartbreakingly softly.

Everyone was silent now. And for a moment, no one seemed to know where to look. Because they didn’t quite want to look at each other, or the bottles, or the napkins. But when “Dennis” put the empty bottle of Château Margaux on the table, it was as if a spell had been broken, and they all looked directly at Woolly, especially “Dennis.”

—Wallace Martin, he said, can I speak to you in private.

When Woolly followed his brother-in-law into the office, he could tell that a bad situation had just gotten worse. Because despite “Dennis” having made it perfectly clear that he did not like people going into his office when he wasn’t there, here was his telephone stuffed in the desk drawer with the cord hanging out.

—Sit down, “Dennis” said as he returned the phone to its proper spot with a bang.

Then he looked at Woolly for a good long minute, which was something that the people sitting behind desks often seemed to do. Having insisted upon speaking to you without further delay, they sit there for a good long minute without saying a word. But even a good long minute comes to an end.

—I suppose you’re wondering why your sister and I are here?

In fact, Woolly hadn’t thought to wonder that at all. But now that “Dennis” mentioned it, it did seem worthy of wondering, since the two of them were supposed to be spending the night in the city.

Well, it turned out that on Friday afternoon, Kaitlin had received a phone call from a young woman asking if Woolly was at her house. Then earlier today, a young man had appeared on Kaitlin’s doorstep with the very same question. Kaitlin couldn’t understand why people would be asking if Woolly was there, when he was supposed to be completing his sentence in Salina. Naturally enough, she became concerned, so she decided to call her sister. But when she dialed Sarah’s house and Woolly answered, not only had he hung up on her, he apparently had left the phone off the hook, because when Kaitlin kept calling back, all she got was a busy signal. This turn of events left Kaitlin little choice but to track Sarah and “Dennis” down—even though they were dining at the Wilsons.

When Woolly was a boy, punctuation had always struck him as something of an adversary—a hostile force that was committed to his defeat, whether through espionage, or by storming his beaches with overwhelming force. In seventh grade, when he had admitted this to the kind and patient Miss Penny, she explained that Woolly had it upside down. Punctuation, she said, was his ally, not his enemy. All those little marks—the period, the comma, the colon—were there to help him make sure that other people understood what he was trying to say. But apparently “Dennis” was so certain that what he had to say would be understood, he didn’t need any punctuation at all.