Herb's Pajamas Page 7
She decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum. She remembered being hurried past the Greek and Roman statues when she was a little girl, although as far as she could remember they had mostly had it broken off or had a leaf on top. She knew she could buy an anatomy textbook but she wanted to find the mystery uncovered in art. At least there would be a little atmosphere. A little bitty frankfurter. But when she got off the M4 bus she realized that it was Monday and the museums were all shut. Oh well, she thought, monkeys, and started to walk down to the zoo. It was a warm day and Edith removed her jacket. But the zoo was closed for repairs. So Edith bought herself a nice bacon sandwich at the Gardenia Restaurant, which didn’t shoo you out at this hour, and then she went home.
There was a fuss on the first floor. Mr. Richards had somehow gotten loose again. The poor old man had suffered a stroke last year, and had lost the part of his brain that contained common sense. He was in the lobby wearing a towel as Edith came through the door and Edith nodded to him nicely. There seemed to be a good deal of soap still in Mr. Richards’s hair. “You!” he shouted. “Who won the Battle of Thermopylae! None of these idiots seem to know.” Edith swallowed: the towel was sliding off Mr. Richards’s right hip, but just then the nurse came running pink-faced down the stairs. She ushered Mr. Richards into the elevator. “You’ve been a naughty boy!”
Later Edith took down the encyclopedia. “The Battle of Thermopylae,” she wrote in her neat script, “was fought by the Persians and the Greeks. The Persians were the winners.” She slid the note under Mr. Richards’s door. The next morning he was back, ringing her bell. “You come into a room like the Spanish Armada, my dear,” he said, looking her up and down with a practiced eye. Mr. Richards had once been quite the ladies’ man. He winked. “You are a fine figure of a woman. My hat is off to you.” And the hat, which had been covering the most important of the naked bits of Mr. Richards, was whisked away and Edith, astonished, stared. Well, she thought, so that’s it.
It was a little sad, thought Edith. Not very useful looking. Of course she didn’t permit herself much of a look; she had turned quickly, or fairly quickly, and gone back inside, closing her door politely but firmly just as the nurse had appeared on the stairs again. “It is much too warm for a hat,” she heard Mr. Richards protesting loudly a moment later, “Much too warm for a hat, goddamn it!”
They certainly had their hands full next door.
SUNGLASSES
EDITH’S MOTHER’S CAR had been kept in a garage all these years. It was a 1955 Buick Skylark, two-tone, white on top and red on the bottom. The insides were red leather and very comfy; a little tray for a Kleenex box was hidden under the dashboard and it swiveled out if you needed a good cry. It was in this car that Edith had learned to drive, and in this car that she and her mother had driven to the country in the summertime. They had even spent one week long ago on the banks of the Delaware River, where Edith had gone wading and later tried unsuccessfully to cook shad. When driving, Edith’s mother insisted, Edith had to wear sunglasses. “Glare is the enemy of the safe driver,” her mother had said. The sunglasses were tinted a dark blue, and Edith didn’t like the way the world looked when she wore them. Nevertheless, when she decided to take the car out again, she put them on. She sat in the car in the dark garage. With its battery charged the motor started right away, and it only had twenty-five thousand miles on it, every one of them driven by Edith herself. The mechanic had offered to buy it from Edith should she ever want to sell. So had the man in the parking garage.
A Saint Christopher medal did not hang from the rearview mirror. It was with a Saint Christopher medal that Edith’s mother had attempted to explain to Edith the concept of irony. The example her mother had given was that in the one accident she knew of the only injury done to the driver was from just such a medal, which had put out one of the driver’s eyes. Her mother had relished the story. “It put his eye out, Edith. Other than that, he did not have a scratch. Now there is a perfect example of irony.” Edith had nodded her head knowingly, but really it had taken her a long time to understand about irony.
It made her nervous at first, driving out of the city. She was afraid it would revive old memories of her mother in happier days. She decided to drive without the glasses. Even if it made her sad, she wanted to see what the world looked like.
SHOES
ON MOST SATURDAYS since her mother had died, Edith had taken to driving into the country. She left early, right after her cup of tea (Edith was not partial to a big breakfast), and seldom had any particular plan. Sometimes she packed a sandwich or a piece of fruit. Today, she had taken the highway that went out past the closed-down factory on her way to Lambertville (there was a waterfall near Lambertville somewhere) but instead, on an impulse, she had followed a series of cardboard arrows that had brought her to a small house in the woods, a cabin really. A sign on old construction paper read simply HERE. TODAY. She slowed and stopped. There were a number of things in the yard, some broken furniture, a table and three wooden chairs, a battered chest of drawers, as well as a great many sheets and blankets, several towels, and a certain number of what appeared to be clothes draped over the porch railing. Ordinarily Edith would not have stopped at a place like this, but there was something glittering on a rack on the front yard that she just had to see. Without her good glasses she couldn’t make out anything except the colors, orange, red, green, and a curious midnight blue. It looked like a shoe rack. She parked her car and got out cautiously, smoothing her skirt as she stood there, looking first toward the bright objects and then, upon hearing banging, toward the house.
On the front porch a man was kneeling over what appeared to be a screen door, a hammer in his hand. She coughed politely. He was wearing a pair of yellow boots, and he looked young from the side but when he straightened up Edith saw he was probably close to seventy. He had blue eyes and his hair was sandy going gray, and as he looked at her Edith noticed that his hands were enormous, much too big for an older person. The hammer looked tiny in his grasp. Edith blushed; she felt ridiculously prim in her gray skirt and white blouse with the Peter Pan collar and her sensible shoes that laced. Well, she was who she was, nothing to be done about it. “I saw your signs,” she began. She walked a few steps toward the shoe rack, and her left hand was touching one beautiful bright orange dancing shoe. What an extraordinary collection! They were all high heels and open toes, they had delicate yet sturdy straps, and they were such marvelous glittery colors.
“Wife put them up,” he said. “You’re early.”
“Well, I hope not too early,” said Edith. She found herself trembling with pleasure over these shoes, but she did check her watch. Actually it was rather early. It was only seven-thirty. She looked at him again. His overalls were of a liverish color and the blue shirt he wore underneath was missing all its buttons, or at least all of them that Edith could see. She noticed, with a start, that his fly was open. It wasn’t exactly a fly, but those big snaps. He was not looking at her anymore, thank goodness, and she turned away hurriedly. It would be impossible for Edith to meet his eyes now and when he spoke again she tried to look at the clapboard behind his head, up where the porch roof met the siding, but she saw a hornet’s nest there, which unnerved her, and everything was so sadly peeling. Edith thought of getting back into her car and driving away but that would be embarrassing.
“Long as you’re here you might as well take a look around,” he offered. “Help yourself. I don’t see a crowd waiting at the gate.” He bent back to his work.
Edith approached the porch. She touched a few of the garments lying atop the old blankets on the railing. There were a number of sweaters with beads sewn in, from long ago days, and a few sweatshirts. There was a small plaid dress and a fake leather jacket with fringe, suitable for a little girl. There was also a pink tutu and several pairs of pink tights, all of them with stained feet. Edith had only wanted to see the shoes but she thought it was impolite not to look at everything.
A thin ti
red-looking woman came through the door to the porch, and she took the tights out of Edith’s hands. “These are not for sale,” she said, frowning. Edith had only been touching them. “Well, all right,” said Edith. “They’re probably too small for my niece anyway, although she does love to dance.” The woman didn’t say anything and Edith continued. “Of course she’s just starting, and it’s nothing fancy, just ballroom dancing. I admit it’s very old-fashioned. Not like children you hear about today.” Edith smiled and stopped. She had grown uncomfortable. She didn’t have a niece! She had made one up on the spot! She hoped they wouldn’t ask her niece’s name as she didn’t know what she would say. But the woman didn’t ask her anything. Instead, her hand rummaged in her apron pocket and withdrew a paper napkin and a tiny toy rabbit. Her face was pale and her hair the color that is no color at all. She wiped her face with the napkin, and disappeared back into the house, the pink tights in her arms.
Edith looked at some household utensils. A rusty egg-beater, a chipped bowl, a set of nesting bowls with the small red one missing. Edith knew this because Edith had a full set of well cared for nesting bowls in which she beat her eggs and let her bread rise, in which she made her batters for cakes and stirred her puddings. Even now, with her mother gone, Edith continued to bake.
“Cleaning out the room,” said the man, kneeling over the door frame and unrolling a large piece of screen. He had a staple gun in his hand now and it made sharp satisfying sounds as he stapled the screen into place. “Most of the furniture went last week. Can’t keep this stuff forever, I told her.” Several plastic dolls poked out of a cardboard box which the man shoved over to Edith with his foot. “How old’s your little girl?”
“Well,” Edith began, “she’s not exactly my little girl.”
The woman reappeared at the door. She looked at Edith, her eyes pink, then came out onto the porch again. She stooped and picked up the box of toys and she carried the box indoors under her arm.
“You going to keep everything?” The old man sounded impatient. “All this junk?”
“Nina might want them.” The woman stood in the doorway.
“Nina doesn’t want them. She wants new.” The old man shook his head.
Edith began to feel peculiar. She knew she should get to the point. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be worrying your wife. I was just looking at the shoes anyway. Hildegarde loves to play dress-up and dance. She really just loves to dance. She loves Ginger Rogers, although for myself I like Cyd Charisse. She was the partner Fred Astaire preferred, if I recall correctly.” Edith blushed and went on blushing.
“Never heard of either one,” said the old man. “I never did dance.”
Edith collected herself. She patted the front of her jacket and smoothed back her smooth hair. Thinking about Fred always made her feel like a big flower. “Well, Hildegarde would just have the best time with those shoes,” she repeated. “Are the shoes for sale?” asked Edith, just out of curiosity.
“Nobody around here to wear them anymore,” said the man. “Belonged to the wife’s daughter and she ran off six months ago.” He grunted. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“No, I’m sure it isn’t,” said Edith, nodding her head, and touching her hair with one hand. She had recently done the bluing thing to it and she was glad as it made her feel respectable and grown-up. It made for a nice barrier between her and whatever this old man was living his life about. An old dog, mostly beagle, limped across the dirt and slid under the porch. “Good-for-nothing mutt,” said the man good-naturedly. “Ran down to North Carolina, she did,” he continued. “I know because we got a card. If you’re interested you can have them for, I don’t know. Five dollars?” He shook his head. “Don’t know who’d want them, myself. But the girl spent a lot on them. Got to ask the wife.” He had the screen door on its end now and was attempting to fit it back on its hinges. His back was to her, thank goodness. Edith’s eyes strayed to a cardboard box full of picture frames. Some of them contained pictures still, and she reached for one with a photo of a serious little girl with crooked teeth. She bent down and picked it up. The cheap wooden frame was painted with what appeared to be red nail polish. She was looking into the girl’s face when the man startled her again. “That’s her,” he said. “That’s her when she was a little thing. You should have seen her a couple years later. Makeup? She grew up quick. That was the problem.” He came and stood next to Edith, she could hear him breathing. He took the picture out of her hands and placed it on the aluminum chair by the side of the door. “Didn’t mean for that to find its way out here,” he said, without further explanation. He turned back to the door and began hammering the bolts down into the hinges he’d lined up. Then he closed the screen door and wiped his hands on the sides of his overalls. He put the staple gun on the windowsill and put the hammer in his pocket.
Somewhere inside there was the sound of a television turned on and Edith heard a clatter of pans in the kitchen. From the back came the sounds of barking. “Carl?” called out a woman’s voice. “You got the dog?”
“Under the porch,” he yelled back. “Door’s hung. Come take a look.”
The woman came outside again. In her thin arms she was carrying a big paper sack. She didn’t say anything to her husband but spoke instead to Edith. “Did you pass a green Chevy Caprice parked on Route 118 today? Near the turnoff to the lake?”
“No, oh dear, I didn’t.” said Edith. “I didn’t come from Briscoe.”
“There’s a girl living right in that car. You drive by you give her these apples, will you?”
Edith hadn’t time to answer before the woman handed her the paper sack.
“We saw her yesterday, but he”—she pointed at Carl— “wouldn’t stop. I wanted to stop but he wouldn’t do it. Next time we went by with some sandwiches but she wasn’t there. It was a green car, old Chevy. She moves it around from place to place. You’ve seen it?” The woman seemed to have forgotten Edith’s answer.
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I’m not from around here. This is just what I do on the weekends.” The woman’s eyes were so dark as to be almost black. Edith didn’t see a pupil anywhere in those eyes. “But if I see her I’ll stop. Certainly.”
“I’d be obliged,” said the woman. “Just if you give her these apples. They are washed and ready for eating. If she’s not in the car you can leave them on the hood, I guess. I put a roll of toilet paper and some napkins in there too. Don’t know how a girl lives when she takes to living in a car.”
“It’s not the way we do things around here,” muttered the old man. “Nobody lives in a car around these parts.” He was sitting in the aluminum chair now, the picture in his lap.
“If you don’t see her you can keep the apples yourself,” said the woman.
“How much for the shoes, Lil,” asked Carl. “The lady here is interested in them shoes.”
“Those shoes?” Edith held her breath as the woman’s eyes bored into her. “I got to get ten-fifty for the lot.”
Edith put the apples down on the floor. “Well, that sounds very reasonable,” she said, and she reached into her purse for the money.
“That’s a genuine bargain,” the woman said, her lips tight.
“Oh, I know,” said Edith, handing her two five-dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece. “I’ll go get them,” she said and went down to gather them off the rack.
“Do they fit right?” asked the woman when Edith returned to the porch. “Did you try them on?”
“Oh, they’re not for me,” said Edith quickly. “They’re for my niece.” But she did sit down on the top step and remove her right shoe. She was wearing stockings even though it was a warm day, and she slid her foot easily into the orange dancing shoe. They might have been made for her. “She’s going to be a big girl, tall like me,” said Edith happily. “I’m sure they’ll fit her fine.” The woman nodded although she didn’t smile and packed the shoes in a shopping bag and then she went inside.
The girl shook her head. She was wearing a blue dress. The hem was coming down in the front, Edith noticed, and the buttons were torn off in the back so the dress hung off one shoulder. Edith reached down and put her hand on the child’s head. It was warm and sweaty and unlike anything else Edith had ever touched.
“Don’t be grabbing the lady,” said the boy with a glance at Edith. He looked angry.
“Oh no, it’s quite all right, she reminds me very much of my niece. Just so full of mischief.” Edith stopped herself, conscious of prattling.
“Did you do this, Nina?” he asked the child, coming closer and holding up a bit of cloth with a knot tied in the middle. His face looked so red. The child moved closer to Edith, popping her thumb into her mouth. “Did you do this to my shirt?” The old woman came out and pried the child away, taking her indoors with her. The boy went inside too and Edith could hear arguing, and then the back door slammed.
“Son-in-law. Wife’s daughter’s husband. Hard to believe, isn’t it? He’s no more than a brat himself.” The old man was speaking freely now. “He didn’t treat her good and she ran right off. What a mess, eh? Left the little girl behind, too.”
“I am so sorry to hear it,” said Edith, who was.
“Well, none of your worry.”
Edith said she had to be going. She said she didn’t need any help with her packages. She picked up her bag of shoes with one hand and her sack of apples in her other and went toward her car. Before she left, the woman ran down the porch steps and across the yard to her. Edith had just gotten in the car.