“What business are you in?” Max’s voice mocked him. “I’m a journalist, when anybody has the courage to print what I write. Free lance. When they won’t, I’m a pretty good carpenter-handyman, or I do PR for people, lawn work, just about anything. Tonight I’m a society photographer for some dumb chick’s engagement party. And what’s your business?”
Jeff felt the man’s hostility. He shrugged his shoulders, kids didn’t have business.
“No, seriously, what’s your name, Jeffrey? Jeffie’s no name for a kid of — what are you, thirteen?”
“Almost.”
“I don’t know why anybody has kids, in this world. But then I guess she wasn’t planning it, she just got pregnant so she had to get married. It wasn’t as if she wanted to have a kid, or get married. But abortions were illegal then and she was such a straight chick — that’s what she says anyway. I never believe half of what she tells me.”
Jeff held the gaze of the probing blue eyes, but he couldn’t speak. He didn’t think his face was giving away what he was thinking.
“As chicks go she’s not too bad. We’ve been together, off and on, for more than three years.”
A waitress brought two cups of coffee and Jeff’s supper. He didn’t want to eat, but he made himself. Melody came back and slid in beside Max. “Are you two getting to know each other?” she asked, but her eyes watched Max’s face for his response.
“Don’t be any dumber than you can help,” Max said. Melody looked across the table to Jeff and smiled apologetically.
“He’s terrible, isn’t he?” she asked. Jeff almost grinned in answer, but stopped himself by jamming hamburger into his mouth. “Jeffie, Gambo had a stroke in March, and she’s weak. So it won’t be quite the same. She stays in her room a lot of the time; they have a nurse on nights when Miss Opal isn’t there. Her mind’s all right, but her heart — I guess it was always weak. You’ll be careful with her, won’t you?”
“Of course. I didn’t know.”
“She was in the hospital for a long time — well, she’s old and it’s to be expected. Are you finished? We have to go. Max’ll get two hundred dollars for this job, and we can’t be late. We have to catch the guests arriving. Do you have any money to pay?”
Jeff did, his father had given him twenty dollars again.
“If I’d known it was the kid’s treat I’d have ordered myself something,” Max said.
“Don’t be awful Max,” Melody said. She put her slender tan hand over his on the table, the hand with the silver and turquoise rings. Then they slid out of the booth. Max wore a shirt and tie and blue jeans that rode just at his hips. He moved smoothly, like an athlete. He put his arm over Melody’s shoulders; she smiled up into his eyes. Jeff passed her the camera and she slung it over her shoulder. “Let’s get going. We have to drop Jeffie off, but that won’t take long. I’m sorry Max, his father just wrote to say when he was arriving, he didn’t ask if it was convenient.”
“What the hell,” Max said. Jeff followed them out of the diner.
They dropped him off on Broad, because the ten minutes taken negotiating the one-way streets to get to Gambo’s house and then back again would be ten minutes too many, Max said. Jeff watched the car drive away, its two bright red lights at the rear, the two heads inside moving close together, as Melody shifted over to sit next to Max. She had said she would be very late and she’d see him in the morning. She had said he should go in quietly, so as not to disturb Gambo. “Miss Opal is waiting for you. See you in the morning, Jeffie.” She reached back to lay one of her soft hands against his cheek.
She did love him, Jeff believed that; she wanted him to go to the party with her. They had the whole summer, after all. He picked up his suitcase and walked to Gambo’s house. The dark air smelled of flowers, and the houses showed lighted windows above the high fences. He passed people walking toward the busier streets, he overheard soft voices in conversations that floated down from the second-story verandas. He entered Gambo’s house by the kitchen door.
Miss Opal sat at the table, drinking a glass of iced tea, thumbing through a magazine. “You’re late,” she said, at the same time Jeff said, “I’m here.” They greeted one another. He told her he wasn’t hungry. He apologized for being late, keeping her late at the house.
“Oh, I sleep over here now, this is my home now,” she said. “But you’ll want to see Mrs. Melville.”
“Is she feeling all right?” Jeff asked. “I didn’t know she’d had a stroke.”
Miss Opal nodded her head slowly. “She’s mending. It’ll take more than a stroke to kill off your great-grandmother. Your momma treats her like spun glass, but that’s wishful thinking, if you ask me. Let’s go let her know you’ve arrived. She’s not what she used to be, though. You’ll see that.”
Jeff followed her down the passageway to the dining room. He set his suitcase by the staircase. The size, the symmetry, and the beauty of the rooms opened around him. He took deep breaths, to swallow it all at once.
Gambo sat with the aunts in front of the television. She held a cane in one hand and the remote control in the other. She looked older, about a hundred years older. She was dressed in silk and jewels, the diamond flashing on her left hand, the little jade adorning her right. Her hair was perfectly arranged. But her face looked bony, and her fingers moved nervously along the top of the cane, and her dress was loose, bunched in at the waist. Her skin was pale, and her eyes riveted to the TV screen. She lifted her cheek to his kiss. “You go on to bed now,” she told Miss Opal. “There was no call for you to wait up for him, and you’re tired. He’s a Boudrault, we find our way home.”
Her voice, too, had changed: it creaked, and she took deep breaths between sentences.
Jeff sat down beside her. “Hello, Gambo, you look fine,” he said, even though she didn’t. But the more closely he looked at her, the more she looked about the same, essentially the same. He felt as if he had never been away.
The aunts turned to him with twittering voices. “The boy’s back,” they said. Jeff got up and greeted them. They said hello, hello, and then their eyes flicked back to the television screen.
“Oh look, it’s that new Japanese car.”
“I saw one, last week, parked all afternoon, right out front.”
“You didn’t, you’re making that up.”
Jeff returned to Gambo. “They just get worse,” she told him. “Someday, they’ll have to go into a home, but not while I’m alive,” she said. She read the expression on his face. “They’ll live forever, not that I envy them, and they’ll be taken care of. How did your mother look to you?”
The same,” Jeff said.
“Even with that hairdo?”
“Well,” Jeff admitted. “I liked it better long.”
“At least your taste is sound,” Gambo said. “I don’t know why she can’t resist fads and fashions. It’s that man, of course — with Melody it’s always some man — and that one just doesn’t go away. I wanted to meet your father, but Melody never would bring him down here. She said he wouldn’t be comfortable in this setting, she said it was too rich for him, as if we were a chocolate mousse. I always thought she was afraid I’d win him away from her. I always did have a way with men. And Melody has a jealous streak — I’ve always suspected that.”
Jeff didn’t know what to think. “She’s always beautiful.”
“Beautiful,” Gambo said. “Since it all comes to the same end, I’m beginning to wonder myself what even that’s worth. In another five years I’ll be just as brainless as they are.” She indicated the aunts with a gesture of her hand that made her diamond catch the light and glitter. But her fingers trembled, and she caught hold of the cane again. “I told him it was too big, flashy, but he would have it,” she said. “And in another sixty or so you’ll be just like us. I don’t know why we bother.”
Jeff didn’t say anything.
“Go away, Jefferson. You make me tired,” Gambo said. She leaned her head back against the
sofa and closed her eyes.
Jeff went upstairs to his own room. He unpacked his suitcase into the drawers. He changed into his pajamas and folded back the bedsheets. Then he turned off his light and sat by the window, looking out over the back yard to the familiar lighted windows, savoring the remembered sounds and smells. But he’d thought Gambo liked him, he’d thought he was welcome, he’d thought this was his real home. The disappointment tasted bitter, but he swallowed it quickly, because what Gambo and the aunts thought didn’t make any difference. It was Melody, only Melody who mattered.
After a long time, he went to bed. He hadn’t heard her come in, and he thought he would wait up until she was home safe, keeping watch over her even though she’d never know. But he fell asleep.
When Jeff went down to breakfast, Melody was not yet awake. Gambo had eaten and was drinking a cup of coffee, taking pills that she selected out of a tiny gold box set by her place. He said good morning to everyone, first Gambo, then the aunts. Gambo rang for Miss Opal to come and ask what Jeff wanted for breakfast. “You’re going to have to amuse yourself, I don’t know what you’re going to do with yourself,” Gambo said to Jeff. Her eyes were not friendly.
“I don’t mind,” Jeff said.
“Very generous of you.”
“I’m really grateful to be here. I’m very glad you asked me,” Jeff said. He didn’t understand what he had done wrong, so he didn’t know how to undo it.
“I didn’t ask you, you asked yourself.”
Jeft didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“As long as you understand that.”
“I’m sorry you’re feeling tired.”
“Not tired, old. Young people don’t understand so I can’t expect you to.” She breathed raspingly twice before continuing, “I must admit I thought your father would know better.”
Jeff thought she shouldn’t talk, and he looked around him at the long windows with their folded drapes, at the smooth, creamy walls and the portraits hung on them. He smiled at the aunts, who chattered with their heads together, casting sidelong glances at him. He heard Melody’s footsteps on the stairs and he looked to where she would appear.
She stood in the doorway for a minute, slim and smiling, her eyes seeking Jeff’s before she went to kiss her grandmother good morning. Miss Opal set a plate down before Jeff and he picked up his fork. Melody wore a flowered sundress and sandals and she moved as gracefully as wind over a garden of flowers.
“I’ll never understand why you did that to your hair,” Gambo said.
“I like it,” Melody said. “I like the way it looks.”
“It looks common.”
“If you want me to, I’ll grow it out again,” Melody offered, her hand on the back of Gambo’s chair.
“I’ve given up trying,” Gambo said. She reached for the little bell again.
“You know I’m going to eat in the kitchen,” Melody said.
“Take the boy with you,” Gambo said.
Jeff got up happily, carrying his plate and juice glass. He ate at the kitchen table, watching his mother ask Miss Opal for scrambled eggs, then sit down across from him while Miss Opal set the table with a fork and coffee cup, with a little bowl of jelly and a glass of juice. Melody didn’t think there should be servants, so she always ate breakfast out in the kitchen, because she didn’t think Miss Opal or anyone else should have to wait on her; Gambo didn’t approve but Melody stuck to her principles.
“She’s crotchety this morning,” Melody said.
“What can you expect?” Miss Opal asked, beating eggs in a little bowl. “She never likes it when you’re out with that young man.”
“He doesn’t come here,” Melody said, “and she can’t ask anything more than that.”
“Oh well,” Miss Opal said, “once she faces up to things, she’ll be herself again. Facing up is the hard part.”
“Well, I wish she’d hurry up,” Melody said. “I don’t know what she’s got to complain about.”
Miss Opal poured the eggs into a pan and stood with her back to them. “Just the usual things, and they’re enough,” she finally said.
“Jeffie, Jeffie. What would you like to do today?” Melody reached over to take his hand, which he reached out to have taken, “I’ve got to work in the darkroom for a couple of hours, developing, and then I’ll have to run off prints this afternoon — how would you like to take your old mother out to lunch? Would you like that? It’ll give me something to look forward to.”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “Yes, please.”
“Can you amuse yourself this morning?”
“Sure. Can I borrow your guitar?”
“I sold it last fall. But I thought you had one of your own.”
“I didn’t bring it. That’s OK. How come you sold yours?”
“You know, I can’t remember. Miss Opal, can you remember?”
Miss Opal set a plate of eggs down in front of Melody, flanked with strips of bacon and slices of buttered toast. “You said you needed the money, that’s all I remember.”
“Well, there must have been some reason,” Melody said. She ate hurriedly.
“I could come down and help you out in the darkroom.”
“Oh no. No. Not today anyway. Are you interested?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll teach you, I promise, first thing. It’ll be our project for the summer, OK? I’ll meet you up here, about noon; that should give me enough time. I’d steer clear of Gambo if I were you. She’s having a bad day. Why don’t you take a walk?”
So Jeff did that, because he wanted to do what Melody wanted him to do. When he was doing what she wanted, they were connected — in a way — they were touching, even if they weren’t really.
* * *
He wandered for a while, and then walked uptown, to one of the cemeteries beside one of the old churches, where he strolled along the stone paths, reading inscriptions. The high walls made it seem like an overgrown garden, and muffled the city noises just beyond. The air grew hotter so that even in the shade of live oaks and glossy magnolias it was uncomfortable. Jeff sat beneath one of the oaks and waited through the ringing of the church clock, which marked off the quarter hours as the morning passed on toward noon. The thick silence of the graveyard was broken only by the chiming of the clock, 9:30, 9:45, 10, as he waited; 11, 11:15.
He was a little early getting back to Gambo’s. He could hear lunch being served in the dining room. He sat on the bottom step of the stairs and waited for Melody. By the time she finally appeared, the women had finished their meal and gone back into the living room, to watch the afternoon soap operas. Melody ran up the stairs past him, “I’ve got to wash my hands and get my purse, I’ll be about two seconds. Are you terribly hungry?” She stopped halfway up, came back down to where he stood and put her arms around him, then kissed his head, just above the ear. “It’s so good to have you back,” she said, then ran up the stairs.
When they had ordered their lunches, after conferring about how much money Jeff had, she leaned across the table to smile into his eyes. Happiness welled up in Jeff so that there was nothing left of him but the beating of his heart and the gray of his mother’s eyes. “What did you do this morning?” she asked.
It took him a minute to collect his thoughts. She laughed as if she knew the effect she had on him. “I went up to see the cemetery,” he said.
“I missed you terribly, all the time,” she said.
“Me too.”
“You’ve gotten taller.”
“Not much, only an inch or so.”
“Did you like Max? Isn’t he wonderful? I’m so glad you two finally got to know each other. Gambo can’t stand him — you probably figured that out. She won’t have him in the house. Isn’t that perfect? Just like somebody in Faulkner’s books? Well, he’s not one of her southern gentlemen, he doesn’t bow over her hand and make pretty speeches. But Jeffie, I have to go out of town for a week, just a week, I wanted to tell you. You don
’t mind, do you?”
He minded terribly. “No,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a folk festival in the mountains, the first annual South Carolina folk festival and fiddling contest. All the proceeds, after expenses, are going to the environmental group that’s sponsoring it. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the eroded areas, the rural poverty — little children, Jeffie, who never get enough to eat, or medicine or shoes. Max wants to write an article on the festival and I’ll take pictures. We talked it over and he said there wouldn’t be anything for you to do, so it’s better if you stay here with Gambo. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” Jeff said.
“And it’s only for a week. And I have a picture I want to show you, I want to show you all my pictures.”
“I’d like that,” he said truthfully.
“Maybe this afternoon; we’re leaving tonight. I’m really sorry, Jeffie,” she said, watching his face.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I wouldn’t go if I thought I needed to worry about you. I expect — living with your father — you’re used to being left alone. That man left you alone even when he was with you.”
“I’ll be OK, I promise,” Jeff said. He guessed he knew what she meant about the Professor; he knew he didn’t want to argue with her. “Melody?” he asked, then waited until their plates were set down in front of them. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You sound serious.”
“It’s OK, I’m not. I don’t have to know.”
“Go ahead, you silly goose, ask.”
“Why did you marry the Professor? I mean — ” Jeff couldn’t think of how to finish the sentence, so he let it dangle. Max had said she was pregnant and had to. The Professor hadn’t said that.
His mother nibbled at a potato chip, drank some of her iced tea. “He was so handsome,” she said. “I was younger then — well, of course. Distinguished is the word I guess, he was so distinguished looking. I was taking a course with him, and we used to laugh because he got so embarrassed if you tried to talk to him. He was so — good looking, and shy and stand-offish. I thought about how lonely his life must be and the more I thought about it, I began to feel sorry for him. So I set out to be friends with him, just to see if I could, to see if I could make him like me. It was kind of like a challenge. And — well, when he talked with me he laughed and wasn’t so dignified. He’d been so lonely and I made him happy. The poor old thing.”