Читать книгу Coasters - Gerald Duff - Страница 11

“My boy’s back home,” Charlie McPhee said to Hazel Boles, watching her watch herself in the mirror of the dressing table as she poked at her hair with a brush.

“A visit?” she said, lifting the end of the last word she uttered more than was needed for it to be a question and enunciating each syllable like the chime of a silver bell.

“Say that again, Hazel,” Charlie said.

“What? A visit?” she said, looking at him through the mirror and thinning her lips into a line as she reached for a tube of lipstick on the table.

“You said it,” Charlie answered and adjusted the pillow between his head and the back of the bed. “I love the way you say what you say.”

“Well, is it a visit?” said Hazel, ignoring the compliment in order to study her mouth in the mirror. “They’re the worse. These little cracks. I’d rather be sightless than to have to see them.”

“More than a visit,” Charlie said. “Waylon’ll probably be with me again until he finds another job.”

“Jobless is he? Was he laid off?”

“Fired, really,” Charlie said, sitting up in bed to be able to explain better. “But they didn’t call it that, BP didn’t. Downsizing is the word I believe he told me. Or maybe re-engineering, something like that. He said both of those things.”

“Whatever it’s called, he’s no longer employed, right?”

“Yeah. They have cut Waylon loose, that’s for sure.”

“How old is he, this son of yours, Charles?’

“Let me see,” Charlie said. “He’s two years younger than Beth and two older than Terry. Right at forty-eight or -nine, I reckon, his next birthday.”

“A little long in the tooth to be out of work, isn’t he?” Hazel had finished filling in her lips and was now staring intently at her forehead. As Charlie watched, she reached for some instrument on the table before her without taking her gaze off the problem area she had spotted.

“Waylon’s always had a hard time settling down to just the one thing,” Charlie said. “He’s always kind of worked around the edges of stuff. First this thing, then the other. I don’t think this one’s his fault, though.”

“I think I’ve met the type,” Hazel said, leaning forward to get a closer read on what she was doing with the tiny tool in her right hand. “What’s your son worked at, then?”

“Taught school some at first. Operated a TV camera for a while. Lots of stuff. Sold encyclopedias.”

“A college man?”

“Yeah, well,” Charlie said. “But it took him a long time to finish up his degree. He kept changing directions up yonder at Lamar. Engineering at first, then that worked out to be too hard. Then math and that got too far out for him. He said they were expecting him to solve problems that didn’t have a thing to do with this world at all. Finally settled up with education.”

“He wasn’t teaching in this last position, was he?”

“What?” Charlie said. “Oh, no. This last business was at the BP refinery job in Beaumont. I figured he was set up there for life, too, dern it.” He stopped speaking to regard Hazel’s cosmetic operations as she shifted from one eyebrow to the other. “That’s sure a pretty color lipstick on your mouth,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” Hazel said without losing concentration on her left hand, the wrist of which she steadied with her right. “So your son— Waylon, is it?—is now on the Charlie McPhee dole. How lucky for him that you’re able to take him in.”

“Don’t get me wrong, now,” Charlie said after a moment. “He’ll pitch on in and help around the house, Waylon will. He’s always good at that. Picking up, cooking, grocery shopping, all that kind of stuff.”

“He won’t be able to earn his keep, though, I wager,” Hazel said, finishing up and straightening her back to rest it from the strain she had been placing it under. “You’ll be paying the large portion of his tab.”

“He’ll give me rent,” Charlie protested. “Every month that rolls. Waylon, he always does that.”

“At a sharply reduced, non-competitive rate,” Hazel said. “I warrant you.”

“Oh, honey,” Charlie said, standing up beside the bed and looking for his shoes, “Waylon’s not like what you’re thinking at all. You’re really going to like him. You just wait and see.”

“I’m sure he’ll be perfectly charming,” Hazel said. “I have no doubt about that.”

Pushing back the bench on which she’d been sitting, Hazel rose and looked one last time at her image in the glass before turning toward Charlie. “Do you want to put my brassiere back on me now, love?” she asked.

Shoes forgotten, Charlie moved in her direction.

Waylon’s older sister Beth lived out toward Sabine Pass with her husband Wayne DeCluitt and two wire-haired terriers named Bip and Bop. Jason, Beth’s and Wayne’s only child, worked in the information technology division of a multinational corporation in Dallas and didn’t get home much anymore, so the terriers figured largely in the emotional life of the DeCluitt family, enough so that Terry hated to visit her sister and brother-in-law.

“It’s going to be a pain in the you-know-what,” she had told Waylon on the phone. “Those damn dogs will be all over anybody new that walks in the door, but there’s not any way around it. All three of us have got to get together to talk about Dad and that woman.”

“Put your foot in their faces and shove,” Waylon said. “That’ll back them off.”

“You don’t know Bip and Bop. They spend all their time trying to climb onto your leg. That, or they’re going at their little pillows that Beth made for them.”

“Are they possessive about their pillows?” Waylon said. “Will Bip let Bop have a turn at his pillow and vice versa?”

Terry had not answered that question, so Waylon went on. “It’ll be something to watch anyway. While you and Beth talk about stuff.”

“You pick me up early and we’ll go in your car,” Terry said.

“Can’t. Let’s just meet there. I’ve got an appointment in the afternoon.”

“Job-related, I hope.”

“We’ll see,” Waylon said. “I’ll keep you posted. You’ll be the first to know.”

Once he got past the main body of traffic coming in for the eight o’clock shift at the Texaco refinery, Waylon found the drive south from Port Arthur toward the Gulf of Mexico pleasant. Red-winged blackbirds were working the swarms of insects above the rice fields on both sides of the highway, swooping and diving in graceful arcs as they fed. He rolled his window down to listen to their cawing despite the damp heat of the breeze which rolled into the car, and twice he saw ospreys perched at the tops of telephone poles along the roadbed, waiting to spot something moving in the dark waters of the marshes.

The sight of creatures working for their breakfast lifted his spirits, and by the time he had driven eight or ten miles, about halfway to the subdivision where Beth lived, Waylon felt good enough to let himself think about the time he had lived in his own house with a wife and child. He remembered the circular driveway that led in from the street and took up most of the front yard and how Brian had peddled furiously around and around it on a yellow Big Wheel trike, trying his best to make his vehicle spin out on the tightest part of the curve.

“He never could make it work out,” Waylon said out the car window toward a circling moil of red-winged blackbirds. “He ought to have let his old man show him how to get that centrifugal force working. Make that back part swap places with the front. It’s a gift.”

When in about twenty minutes he pulled up in front of Beth’s house on Dick Dowling Drive, Waylon saw that Terry had beat him there, her Honda Civic with the Pro-Family, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life sticker parked precisely in the middle of the driveway. The door to the house opened as he killed the engine, and Beth stepped out and waved as though to tell him he had found the right destination, Bip and Bop swarming to get past her feet to the ourdoors.

“I’m not going to let your dogs hump my leg,” Waylon said as he approached the stoop. “Tell you that up front, Sis.”

“They don’t do that anymore,” she said. “Wayne broke them of it.”

“Not what I heard,” Waylon said, staring at the dog closest to him, so excited it seemed to be trying to stand on its rear legs. “Down, no, uh-uh.”

“Like I told you,” Beth said. “They won’t try to do that to you. It’s called aversion therapy. You’re late.”

“How could I be late?” Waylon said, moving past Beth into the house and looking around for Terry. “You’re not running a business establishment here, are you? Seeing people according to a tight schedule these days?”

“Not hardly,” Beth said, bending over to scoot Bip and Bop away from the door and back into the house. “But you’re still late. Nuh-uh, Bop.”

Terry was sitting on the far side of a coffee table, taking a bite from a pink-colored pastry out of a Dunkin’ Donuts bag and holding a napkin under her chin to catch the crumbs. She looked up at Waylon and gestured toward the bag, her mouth too full to speak.

“No, thanks,” Waylon said. “I’ve already had me a big vegetarian omelet this morning for breakfast.”

“See,” Terry said to her sister, pausing to swallow her bite of the pink thing and then going on. “I told you he was cooking.”

“You can imagine what it must taste like,” Beth said, finally looking away from the terriers which immediately seized the chance to run toward the chair where Waylon was sitting. He lifted both feet as a barrier, and the dogs skidded to a stop, their claws skittering on the polished wood of the floor.

“The messes he would come up with,” Beth went on. “Everything cooked in a skillet.”

“I didn’t eat the chopped-up green parts,” Waylon said. “They looked too scary.”

“Vegetarian,” Terry said, reaching into the Dunkin’ Donuts bag and rattling her hand around for what was left. Nothing was. “Mama never cooked a vegetarian meal for him in her whole life.”

“Salads, sometimes,” Waylon said, relaxing his guard against Bip and Bop, now sitting back on their haunches and looking intently at his knees. “For lunch now and then.”

“There was always bacon crumbles over the top of it,” Beth said. “Fresh fried, not from a bottle. Isn’t that right, Terry?”

“Always,” Terry confirmed. “Always on any stand-alone greenery. Mama always cooked it the same way.”

“It wasn’t much meat, though,” Waylon said. “Just crumbled-up bacon was all.”

“Lots of fat,” both his sisters said in one voice.

“So what’re you all worried about?” Waylon said. “Charlie McPhee’s vegetarian diet? Sounds healthy enough to me.”

“It’s what it means, Waylon,” Beth said. “It’s all a part of the way she’s changing his life and his lifestyle. I don’t care what Dad eats, no, long as he’s not raising his cholesterol levels too much. The bad kind, I mean.”

“Let me ask you something,” Terry said in a challenging tone, looking from her sister to Waylon and then back again at Beth. “Has Dad ever mentioned Mama’s name to you in the last two months? Answer me that. That’s all I’m asking you.”

“I don’t have to study to be able to tell you the answer to that,” Beth said. “He hasn’t said word one about her since a week after the funeral on Friday, March the eighteenth. You know, when we had him out here with you and Ronnie to eat supper that Sunday after the Oilers game.”

“Astros,” Terry said. “Exhibition game.”

“Astros,” Beth said, making a dismissive gesture with both hands. “Whatever. You know it’s the truth.”

“Well, hell,” Waylon said. “Mama’s gone. Maybe he’s trying not to think about her. You know, working out his grief. Life goes on, and all that. Dad’s a healthy man.”

“He first met her two months ago,” Beth said, dropping her head forward and looking up at Terry from under her bangs. “Remember when he announced that in no uncertain terms?”

“At the Piggly Wiggly produce section,” Terry specified. “Out on the Golden Triangle highway. Can you imagine?”

“I thought it was the one on Proctor, there in town close to the Thunder Bowl.”

“Uh-uh,” Terry said with certainty. “The new one. The Gucci Piggly Wiggly. How I know is he said she asked him if cilantro was the same thing as parsley. They don’t carry that in the one on Proctor. Cilantro, I mean, of course. Everybody’s got parsley. Even Sav-Mor carries that.”

“As if she wouldn’t know the difference.”

“Oh, he bought the whole thing,” Terry said. “He was real proud he knew parsley wasn’t cilantro.”

“Dad didn’t really know,” she went on. “He just guessed. But to hear him tell it, he’s been cooking Santa Fe Southwestern all his life and knows all the herbs.”

“Ha,” Beth said and made a shooing motion at Bip and Bop. “Go play in your room, boys. Go on, now.” The dogs gave no sign of hearing and in fact edged a little nearer to the chair where Waylon was sitting.

“Come ahead,” Waylon said. “Just try me.”

“Listen,” he continued, turning his attention to his sisters. “Don’t y’all think Dad’s just lonely? Needs him a little company? A little female companionship?”

“I would never begrudge my father his friendships with other people, men or women,” Terry said, Beth nodding in agreement. “It’s the quality of that relationship I’m concerned about, and the intentions this Hazel Boles person might have that worries me and Beth.”

“You don’t think they’re dishonorable, do you?” Waylon asked. “You don’t figure she’s trying to get in Daddy’s pants?”

“Make light, Waylon. Go ahead,” Beth said. “It’s not Daddy’s pants we’re talking about, and I don’t even want to think about his damned old pants. We’re thinking about this Hazel wanting to get in something else of his.”

“Right,” Terry said, pointing toward her sister with all five fingers on her left hand. “Charlie McPhee’s pocketbook’s what we’re talking here.”

“What’s Dad got in his pocketbook for a woman to be interested in?” Waylon said. “You know what he makes at the plant. Next to nothing, really, on this reduced shift schedule. He’s as good as retired. He just works to be doing something.”

“The very fact that all you consider about Dad’s net worth is his semi-retired salary shows how much you know about finance, little brother,” Beth said.

“I guess you mean the house on Helena,” Waylon said and leaned forward to stare into the eyes of the wire-haired terrier to his left. “Bip, I’ll give you such a bop as you’ll never forget.”

“You’re talking to Bop,” Beth corrected.

“Bop, I’ll give you a bip that’ll make your ears ring until next Christmas,” Waylon said.

“The house on Helena,” Terry said, speaking in a singsong, counting tone. “Two cars, one less than a year old. Forty years worth of retirement fund. Fully-vested, I might add. One CD I know of, maybe more, and last but not least, over four hundred acres of property in Limestone County.”

“That’s what we mean when we use the term net worth,” Beth said as her sister sat back on the sofa triumphant from her recital.

“Shit,” Waylon said. “I didn’t know I was living with a fucking tycoon.”

“No reason to say that word in this house,” Beth said. “None at all.”

“Tycoon is not a racial slur,” Waylon said. “Look it up in the dictionary and learn something.”

“Oh, hush, Waylon,” Beth said. “It’s time for us to get serious.”

“I guess you’re right. Anytime four hundred acres of rocks and scrub cedar and scorpions in Limestone County’s at hazard, we ought to put on a long face.”

Waylon felt like it was his turn to sit back in his seat after delivering a telling comment, so he did, looking from sister to sister with a smile for each.

“You can’t grow anything on that land,” he added. “Y’all know that’s why Dad had to move us down to the Gulf Coast in the first place, to get a job he could raise us on. And there’s sure not any oil on it. They’ve already punched dry holes all over that part of Texas.”

“Oh, my,” Beth said to Terry. “Don’t we know our economic trends, to be so unemployed.”

“Uh-huh,” Terry responded in a sweet voice, emphasizing the huh part of her agreement with her sister. “But it looks like to me Waylon’s not up on what developers are doing these days to build high-dollar residences for all those commuters into Dallas.”

“He’s been busy,” Beth said. “Advancing his career at BP. Hadn’t had time to keep up.”

“Commuters,” Waylon said. “That’s a long haul into Dallas from out yonder in Limestone County.”

“Not the way Dallas is spreading out,” Beth said.

“And not with interstate highways going every direction,” Terry added. “If you haven’t noticed.”

Everyone fell silent for a space and watched Bip and Bop watching Waylon for an opening to one or both of his knees. In a while Terry leaned forward to put her napkin into the Dunkin’ Donuts bag and fold its top over to keep crumbs from falling out onto Beth’s coffee table.

“Hazel Boles doesn’t necessarily know about traffic patterns around Dallas, does she?” Waylon finally said. “Or Dad, neither.”

“We don’t know what Hazel Boles does or doesn’t know,” Beth said. “But we know what we know, and that’s enough for us to be real concerned about what might be developing between those two senior citizens.”

“Maybe it’s a love match,” Waylon said. “Did you ever consider that?”

“This situation’s not a tennis game,” Terry said, looking pleased with the response she had come up with on the fly. “It’s dead serious for all of us, Waylon. Us with our families and you with, well, your work prospects.”

“I’m just between gigs,” Waylon answered. “Like the young folks say. I won’t have to be living at Charlie’s long.”

“You hope,” Beth said.

“We all do,” Terry said. “That’s for sure.”

“There’s nothing we can do about Dad’s love life, is it, even if we wanted to,” Waylon said. “It’s out of our hands.”

“Something you can do,” Beth said. “You’re going to have a ringside seat for the foreseeable future, and you can watch what’s going on.”

“So I watch the lovebirds,” Waylon said. “Maybe see what’s happening between Dad and his English lady friend. What’s that going to do?”

“Information,” Terry said, “is good.”

“You said it, little sister,” Beth said. “What we don’t know does hurt us. And what we do know can help us know how to plan.”

“I’m not going to be a spy on what Charlie’s up to. It’s not any of my business and I’m not involved in it.”

“Oh, you’re involved, all right,” Beth said. “Want to be or not. It is your business, and you’re living there now, and all Terry and I want you to do is keep your eyes and ears open and let us know what you see going on.”

“Want me to keep a notebook?” Waylon said. “Hide it under the bed?”

“Don’t be silly,” Terry said. “We want you to be sensible and think about yourself and about your family, that’s all.”

“Us,” Beth said and paused, as though waiting for somebody only she could hear to whisper something to her. “And Dad, too, of course.”

“Oh, yes, I know Charlie McPhee’s welfare’s heavy on your minds,” Waylon said and stood up, Bip and Bop backing away a step in unison as he did so. “I’ll tell you what, girls. I’ll think on what you said, and if I see anything weird going on, I’ll sure take notice.”

“That’s all we’re asking,” Beth said. “But we’re not looking for weird. We’re looking for changes in financial status. Don’t kick at the dogs, Waylon. My Lord.”

As Waylon went through the front door, Terry was asking her big sister if there was maybe a bagel or two or an English muffin in the kitchen and Bip and Bop were running pell mell to crash their heads into the bottom of the screen closing before them.