She brandished the mug. “I haven’t thought about it in years, wondered if raking it up might bother me, but apart from thinking about the babies, this is rather fun.
For twenty years we lived above the newspaper office, scrounged for advertising, took extra jobs to get by. Orton did people’s bookkeeping, I tutored incredibly stupid children in English and wrote press releases for the yahoos at the C of C.”
“So you never had much contact with Peake.”
“I knew who he was-rather conspicuous fellow, lurching around in the alleys, going through the garbage-but no, we never exchanged a single sentence.” She recrossed her legs. “This is good. Knowing I can still remember a few things- some juice in the old machine. What else would you like to know?”
“The Crimmins family-”
“Morons.” She sipped more soup. “Worse than the Ardullos. Vulgarians. Carson was like Butch, uncreative, obsessed by the dollar, but minus the charm. In addition to walnuts, he grew lemons. Orton used to say he looked as if he’d been weaned on them.
Never seemed to take pleasure in anything. I’m sure you have a word for it.”
“Anhedonia.”
“There you go,” she said. “I should’ve taken Intermediate Psychology.”
“What about Sybil?”
“Slut. Gold digger. Dumb blonde. Right out of a bad movie.”
“Out for Crimmins’s money,” I said.
“It sure wasn’t his looks. They met on a cruise line, faw-gawdsakes, what a horrid cliche. If Carson had had a brain in his head he’d have jumped overboard.”
“She caused him problems?”
Pause. Eyeblink. “She was a vulgar woman.”
“She claimed to be an actress.”
“And I’m the Sultan of Brunei.”
“What kind of difficulties did she cause?” I said.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “Stirring things up-wanting to run everything the moment she hit town. Transform herself into a star. She actually tried to get a theater group going. Got Carson to build a stage in one of his barns, bought all sorts of equipment. Orton laughed so hard telling me about it, he nearly lost his bridgework.
‘Guess who moved in, Wanda? Jean Harlow. Harlow in Horseshit.’ ”
“Who did Sybil plan on acting with?”
“The local yokels. She also tried to rope in Carson’s boys. One of them, I forget which, had a minor knack for drawing, so she put him to work painting sets. She told
Orton they both had ‘star quality.’ I remember her coming into the office with her ad for the casting call.”
Leaning toward me, she spoke in a chirpy, little-girl voice: ” ‘I tell you, Wanda, there’s hidden talent all over the place. Everyone’s creative, you just have to bring it out.’ She even thought she’d rope Carson in, and just being civil was a performance for him. Guess what play she had planned? Our Town. If she’d had a brain, you could have credited her with some irony. Our Dump, she should’ve called it. The whole thing fell apart. No one showed up at the audition. Carson helped that along. The day before the ad was supposed to run, he paid Orton double not to print it.”
“Stage fright?”
She laughed. “He said it was a waste of time and money. He also said he wanted the barn back for hay.”
“Was that pretty typical?” I said. “Crimmins buying what he wanted?”
“What you’re really asking is, Was Orton corrupt when he dealt with wealth and power?, and the answer is, Absolutely.” She smoothed her sweater. “No apologies.
Carson and Butch ran that town. If you wanted to survive, you played along. When
Butch died, Scott took over his half. It wasn’t even a town. It was a joint fiefdom with the rest of us serfs balancing on a wire between them. Orton was caught right in the middle. By the late seventies, we decided we were getting the heck out, one way or the other. Orton had qualified for Social Security and mine was about to kick in, plus I’d inherited a small annuity from an aunt. All we wanted was to sell the printing equipment and get something for ownership of the paper. Orton approached
Scott first, because he thought Scott would be easier to deal with, but Scott wouldn’t even listen.”