“No, I haven’t switched,” I said. “I’m on tonight.”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea, anyway. Not the way she is right now.”
“Maybe not. Thanks for your news.”
“You’re welcome. Pray for my Melinda, Paul.”
I said I would, thinking that I might do quite a bit more than pray. God helps those who help themselves, as they say in The Church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty. I hung up and looked at Janice.
“How’s Melly?” she asked.
“Not good.” I told her what Hal had told me, including the part about the swearing, although I left out cocksucker and rooster-dick motherfucker. I finished with Hal’s word, sinking, and Jan nodded sadly.
Then she took a closer look at me.
“What are you thinking about? You’re thinking about something, probably no good. It’s in your face.”
Lying was out of the question; it wasn’t the way we were with each other. I just told her it was best she not know, at least for the time being.
“Is it … could it get you in trouble?” She didn’t sound particularly alarmed at the idea – more interested than anything – which is one of the things I have always loved about her.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Is it a good thing?”
“Maybe,” I repeated. I was standing there, still turning the phone’s crank idly with one finger, while I held down the connecting points with a finger of my other hand.
“Would you like me to leave you alone while you use the telephone?” she asked. “Be a good little woman and butt out? Do some dishes? Knit some booties?”
I nodded. “That’s not the way I’d put it, but-”
“Are we having extras for lunch, Paul?”
“I hope so,” I said.
9.
I got Brutal and Dean right away, because both of them were on the exchange. Harry wasn’t, not then, at least, but I had the number of his closest neighbor who was. Harry called me back about twenty minutes later, highly embarrassed at having to reverse the charges and sputtering promises to “pay his share”
when our next bill came. I told him we’d count those chickens when they hatched; in the meantime, could he come over to my place for lunch? Brutal and Dean would be here, and Janice had promised to put out some of her famous slaw … not to mention her even more famous apple pie.
“Lunch just for the hell of it?” Harry sounded skeptical.
I admitted I had something I wanted to talk to them about, but it was best not gone into, even lightly, over the phone. Harry agreed to come. I dropped the receiver onto the prongs, went to the window, and looked out thoughtfully. Although we’d had the late shift, I hadn’t wakened either Brutal or Dean, and Harry hadn’t sounded like a fellow freshly turned out of dreamland, either. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one having problems with what had happened last night, and considering the craziness I had in mind, that was probably good.
Brutal, who lived closest to me, arrived at quarter past eleven. Dean showed up fifteen minutes later, and Harry – already dressed for work – about fifteen minutes after Dean. Janice served us cold beef sandwiches, slaw, and iced tea in the kitchen. Only a day before, we would have had it out on the side porch and been glad of a breeze, but the temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees since the thunderstorm, and a keen-edged wind was snuffling down from the ridges.
“You’re welcome to sit down with us,” I told my wife.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I want to know what you’re up to – I’ll worry less if I’m in the dark. I’ll have a bite in the parlor. I’m visiting with Miss Jane Austen this week, and she’s very good company.”
“Who’s Jane Austen?” Harry asked when she had left. “Your side or Janices’s, Paul? A cousin? Is she pretty?”
“She’s a writer, you nit,” Brutal told him. “Been dead practically since Betsy Ross basted the stars on the first flag.”
“Oh.” Harry looked embarrassed. “I’m not much of a reader. Radio manuals, mostly.”