The only mystery was why such a pretty woman was still unattached.
* * * * *
The following Tuesday Ernie returned to the library. "Which story did you like best?"
"The one about the middle-aged school teacher."
"Yes, that one’s terribly sad but beautifully written," Jillian agreed. "Are you looking for more books?" Ernie nodded. Again he trailed her across the slate blue carpet to adult fiction where she gathered up an armload of hardcover offerings.
"I was wondering," Ernie screwed up his courage, "if you might like to go out for dinner this Saturday… maybe catch a movie."
"A date?" She handed him the books.
"I don't mean to -"
"I live with my sister, Abigail." Jillian scribbled her name and telephone number on a scrap of paper. "Usually one of us is home in the evening." She suddenly reached out and pulled the topmost book from the pile. "This Alice Munro novel is grossly overrated. Let me suggest something else." Several rows over, she pulled a tattered volume off the shelf. "Read the third story then go back and take a look at the others if you like."
"The third story?" Ernie opened the volume at random. The pages were yellowed and frayed.
Thursday evening Ernie called Jillian at home but she was out. "Could you tell your sister Ernie called?"
"Bernie?"
"No, Ernie… from the garage. I'll pick her up around seven this Saturday night." There was no immediate response. "Around seven." After waiting a discrete interval he added, "Could you make sure Jillian gets the message?"
"Yeah, whatever." The line went dead. The following day he called Jillian at the library. "Did you get my message?"
"What message?"
Ernie felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that quickly fermented into blind rage. "Your sister didn't mention that I called?"
"Abigail's a bit scatterbrained… not good with information, but Saturday's fine," she replied. "Did you read the Turgenev?"
The question caught Ernie unawares. It had been a rough week at the garage. He single-handedly pulled a drive train on a Chevy truck, which backlogged the scheduled repairs. Since the beginning of the week, he hadn't closed shop much before seven. There was no time or residual brain power for intellectual calisthenics. And anyway, he was far too excited about the date to worry about musty, nineteenth-century Russian literature. "Yes, I read it," Ernie lied.
"Did you like the story?"
"Oh," he was getting flustered now, "I'll tell you all about it Saturday night." The response seemed to please Jillian immensely and they ended the conversation on a happy note.
Later that night, Ernie took an early bath and climbed into bed with the bearded Russian. Reading the story required almost as much personal investment as pulling the drive train! Each time his mind wandered off from the printed page Ernie lost the gist of what the author was saying and, more often than not, the convoluted language spoke on several different levels at once.
The Turgenev story - it was a stupid, stupid, stupid bit of literary fluff!
A young Russian girl from an aristocratic family had fallen under the influence of a crazed, religious zealot. Her life was ruined. Putting the tattered book aside, Ernie killed the light and lay on his back in the dark. He ran a thumb over a scab on his index finger where an errant wrench had opened a deep gash earlier in the week. Momentarily turning the light back on, he gazed at the formidable stack of books on the bedside table. All that unfettered truth and wisdom - it felt like a talisman, an omen of good things to come. But why had Jillian insisted that he read such a crappy tale?
* * * * *
Saturday evening Ernie arrived around quarter to seven at Jillian's apartment. Abigail let him in. "You're the grease monkey?"
"Mechanic," he corrected.
The younger girl wasn't nearly as pretty as her older sister. She had the same dark hair and burnished Mediterranean complexion, but that's where similarities ended. Scrawny and disheveled with a wide, mannish jaw, she wore raggedy jeans below a wrinkled T-shirt with no bra. Abigail’s hazel eyes flitted distractedly about the room as though she couldn't wait to be rid of him. "You don't seem like my sister's type."
Ernie coughed self-consciously. "Jillian's not here?"
"Director called a last minute staff meeting at the library. She's running late and asked me to entertain you in her absence." Flinging herself down on the sofa, her unencumbered breasts swung lazily from side to side.
"Do you work locally?"
"I'm between jobs." She teased a piece of lint off her jeans and deposited it on the rug. "I was employed over at the Dairy Mart until I had a disagreement with the assistant manager. Now I'm thinking of going into business for myself."
"What did you have in mind?"
Abigail shuffled over to a computer tucked away in the far corner of the room. "Ever heard of bawdybodies.com?" Without waiting for an answer, she typed an address into the search engine and brought up a screen.
Ernie leaned over and read through a raunchy doggerel. "You're gonna sell sexual toys and herbal supplements?"
"Hell no!" Abigail seemed genuinely miffed at the suggestion. "This smutty crap is just a lost leader." She tilted her head at an angle and smirked impudently. "You know what a lost leader is?"
Ernie was getting aggravated. He wanted Jillian to rescue him from this crazy woman."Something a businessman gives away to encourage customers to shop their store."
She wagged a forefinger at the computer screen. "Over to the right... what do you see?"
"A bunch of naked women in erotic poses."
"Correctamundo!" Abigail scrolled down the menagerie of topless females until she reached a slightly pudgy blonde with sclerotic legs and a strawberry birthmark on her inner thigh. "That's Bethany Garret."
"Name doesn't ring a bell."
"Beth was a year ahead of me at Brandenburg High."
"Not necessarily the valedictorian." Ernie was feeling light headed.
"When some horny guy clicks on this racy photo," Abigail positioned the cursor over the blonde’s left breast, "the hyperlink transports him directly to Bethany's personal website where, for a small fee, he can view more photos and steamy videos."
"How far along are you in your start-up venture?"
"I need a professional camera." She reached for a cell phone resting on an end table. "All I got for now are these grainy nudes I shot with -"
"Sorry I'm late." The door flew open and Jillian burst into the room. "We had this spur-of-the-moment staff meeting and then I got stuck in traffic.
"I’m bringing Ernie up to speed on my latest business venture." Edging closer to the computer, Abigail flipped a switch and the monitor faded to black. Lifting up on her toes, she kissed him on the cheek. "He's a real peach of a guy."
"What business venture?" Wiping the wetness away with the heel of her hand, Jillian clearly had no idea what Abigail was talking about. "We're already ten minutes late, but I do appreciate your keeping him company in my absence.
* * * * *
"You sister's got a wild streak." Ernie and Jillian were hunkered down at the Cathay City Chinese Restaurant with a pu pu platter and pot of Oolong tea.
"Abby's all bluster and false bravado." Jillian maneuvered a pair of wooden chopsticks over a nugget of Colonel Tso’s chicken. The supple fingers moved with a ballet-like precision as she effortlessly lifted the food. "At some point my kid sister has to grow up."
"I read the Turgenev story."
"Yes, you told me." Jillian's eyes, which normally were opaque, sparkled with a rich luster. "And you understand it?"
"I lost focus and had to go back and reread certain passages."
"But you grasped the underlying message?"
"Yes, of course."
“Sometimes,” Jillian confided, “when I’m reading Russian literature or the Victorian writers, I feel like I might have been happier in the 19th century horse and buggy days.”
“Wouldn?
??t work so good for me,” Ernie quipped, “without cars to repair.”
“But you could have been a wheelwright, blacksmith or a carpenter.”
“Hadn’t considered the possibilities.” Jillian Crowley was the wholesome, earthy, slightly ascetic girl next door, and her effervescent chitter-chatter set him at ease.
“So how was your day?” Jillian asked shifting gears.
“A funny incident,” Ernie lowered an egg roll back to the plate. “A tow truck hauls a rat trap Chevy from the high school to our repair shop. A seventeen-year-old kid sat in the parking lot with the air-conditioning cranking full blast, the radio tuned to heavy metal. Problem was, he never bothered to leave the engine running so the battery drained away to nothing.” Ernie sipped at a miniature tea mug. “He just got his driver’s license a month ago and said his father would kill him when he found out what happened.”
“So what did you do?”
“I hooked up the charger. When the battery was restored to full life, I read the kid the riot act and told him to ‘pay it forward.’”
“You didn’t charge him?” Ernie shook his head. “It was the right thing to do.”
Maybe yes, maybe no. The other day a customer bounced a check for eight hundred and thirty-five dollars. The deadbeat swore it was a mistake and wrote out a duplicate. The second check came back marked ‘insufficient funds’, and the garage ended up eating the cost of a catalytic converter and replacement exhaust system.
“I have to use the lady’s room.” Jillian rose from the table. Her hips swayed side to side with a lilting gait, as she picked her way toward the rear of the restaurant.
Later in the car before he turned the engine over, Ernie kissed her on the mouth. "I want to see you again."
She placed her lips next to his ear. "Yes, I'd like that."
Reaching the apartment complex, he accompanied her to the door. Slipping his arms around her waist, Ernie pulled her close. "If you don't mind my asking, what was the big deal with the Turgenev story?"
"Was there something you didn't understand?"
"No, not really. When the religious fanatic started spouting all that gibberish about personal atonement..."
“You lost me.” Jillian's eyes suddenly narrowed and her sing-song voice assumed a caustic edge. "What are you talking about?"
Just then, the apartment door opened and Abigail stood gawking at them. "The crackpot who ran off with the landowner's daughter… he ruined the girl's life. And at the very end of the story, when they reached the inn during the rainstorm -"
"You read the wrong story." Jillian's smile faded. "I told you to read the third story, and you read the one before it."
Kachunk! Kachunk! Kachunk! Ernie felt the turgid blood thudding in his ears, the precursor to a full-blown anxiety attack. "I did what you told me!" Over the woman's shoulder he could see the braless younger sister smirking vicariously.
"Apparently not very well, because you read the wrong story." There were no more kisses, hugs or terms of endearment. Jillian Crowley disappeared into the apartment as her future porn-star-of-a-younger-sister slammed the door shut.
Ernie went home and had a good cry.
Then he got drunk, threw up all over himself and fell asleep on the couch still dressed in his clothes. In the morning, hung over and overwhelmed with self-loathing, he took a closer look at the tattered Turgenev book. Yes, he read the wrong story. Punin and Baburin - that was the name of the tale he should have read. But Ernie, incorrigible dope that he was, began counting from Edward Garnett's scholarly introduction, leaving himself one short. One short - he might as well have been a thousand pages off the mark!
Punin and Baburin - it was another, equally stupid story! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Baburin travels about the country with his friend Punin, who is bald with a head shaped like an egg. Ernie stopped reading around lunchtime. He was only halfway finished but needed protein in his stomach before soldiering on. The kitchen phone began ringing with shrill insistence until the answering machine finally picked up. The caller left no message. Brinnng! Brinnng! Brinnng! The phone erupted again, demanding, begging, pleading to be answered. Fleeing the apartment, Ernie wandered down to the lobby and gathered his mail.
When he returned the red LCD light was flashing on the answering machine. A thoroughly remorseful Jillian Crowley would be calling to leave the first of many unanswered apologies for his public humiliation. Ernie pressed the message tab.
"Hi, it's Maureen. Just got back from an education seminar in Palo Alto. Still upset about that silliness with the bathroom graffiti? Give me a call. We'll patch things up over a bottle of wine and a porn flick."
Ernie slumped down in a kitchen chair. He hit the playback tab a second time and listened to Dr. Kwong's officious nasal twang. A third and a fourth time he listened to the message, and then Ernie tried to imagine the despotic oriental, married with family, structuring domestic bliss with the same autocratic efficiency she favored at Brandenburg High School.
Around seven Ernie called Jillian's apartment. "She doesn't want to talk to you." Abigail was sounding particularly self-righteous.
"If nothing else, would you at tell her I read the story… the right one."
"I'll do no such thing." She slammed the phone shut.
An hour later, Ernie showed up at the apartment. "Punin and Baburin… I finished the story earlier this afternoon."
"And what did you learn?"
"Baburin was a republican."
"Which tells me nothing."
Ernie began to whimper, making crude snuffling sounds and blotting the wetness away with the back of a hand. Abigail was sitting on the sofa, looked back and forth between her sister and the uninvited guest. Only when the mechanic began blubbering did she rise to her feet, yawn languidly and disappear down the hallway into the bedroom.
"For Baburin being 'republican' meant respecting the freedom of others… he took care of Punin even though he didn’t work, spouted sappy poetry and acted like a halfwit."
"Turgenev's nothing like Tolstoy." Jillian wet her lips with her tongue, "bludgeoning you half to death with mystical malarkey."
"I don't give a crap about Tolstoy," Ernie protested. "I don't even like Russian literature. I only read it to get to know you."
"And the young girl?" Jillian pressed.
Ernie paused to catch his breath. "Baburin takes Musa Pavlovna under his wing. When she elopes with the college student, Baburin doesn't rush after her… he simply lets her go."
"He doesn't force his will her."
Only now did he cover his moist eyes with a calloused hand. "This is all new to me. It's all getting mixed up in my brain."
"It's a package deal," Jillian replied dryly.
"Yes, I figured as much.” Ernie understood intuitively that they were no longer talking about the Turgenev tale.
His tormentor moved closer and, wrapping her arms around his waist, rested her head up against his chest. "It's package deal," she whispered what she said a moment earlier but so softly her words were barely audible.
"I need to speak with your sister before I go."
"Okay."
The door to Abigail's bedroom was open. Ernie entered, closed the door behind him and flopped down on a straight-back chair in the far corner. Abigail was resting in a full lotus position on the top of the covers thumbing through a copy of The National inquirer. "What are you doing?" she bristled.
Ernie continued to sit staring morosely at his penny loafers. Five minutes passed in total silence. "I want to go to sleep. How much longer are you going to sit there like a goddamn retard?"
"Bawdybodies.com… I don't think it's such a great idea, but everybody's got to make their way in life. God knows I've done some dumb-ass things that I regret even to this day."
"You're freaking me out!" Abigail muttered, throwing the magazine on the floor.
"If your entrepreneurial venture doesn't pan out, my brother-in-law works
in human services over at WalMart. I could get you an interview. Pay isn't the greatest and you would have to work your way up."
She shut the light and the room went totally dark. "Anything else?"
"No, that's about it." Ernie rose to his feet. "Goodbye, Abigail."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Loyalty was a big thing.” Back out in the foyer, Ernie picked up where he had left off. “Turgenev kept yammering on and on about how, even after Baburin went into political exile, he stood by his friends and principles." He fished about in his pocket for the car keys.
"Baburin was loyal in ways that most people couldn't begin to imagine," Jillian confirmed. "I thought you said you didn't like books."
"The ending worked out rather nicely, don't you think?" The mechanic and the reference librarian seemed to be communicating at cross purposes.
“Yes, it did.” Jillian kissed him on the side of the mouth. "Come over for supper tomorrow night. I'll cook a small pot roast with baked potatoes, glazed carrots and string beans. What would you like for dessert?"
back to Table of Contents
A Middlemarch Reunion
Arriving at the restaurant, Glenn Stottlemeyer ordered a gin and tonic – heavy on the gin, light on the tonic. Hopefully, a couple of stiff drinks before the meal arrived would loosen him up sufficiently to deal with whatever unpleasantness the ten-year, high school reunion might throw at him. He had no insatiable craving to relive the past. High school had been a confusing, bittersweet experience – a dreary nether world intended to prepare young people for ‘adult life’, whatever the hell that was. But it hadn’t worked all that well. The illusive dream – college, professional career, wife and family - had somehow gone awry, the trajectory falling far short of its mark somewhere between college and adoring spouse.
The reunion was held at the picaresque Grist Mill Restaurant in Seekonk. The huge nineteenth century wooden paddlewheel was still intact as water from the abutting lake cascaded over the motionless wooden blades. The restaurant’s interior was done in a colonial New England theme, with antlered deer heads on the walls, carved ducks and other period pieces scattered about the bar and dining area.