“My boss is stopping my route,” he said. “People don’t want their soda delivered anymore. I’m going to Maryland. More jobs down there.”
“What about the house?” Ace said. He now realized there was the faint aroma of perfume in the garage, as if someone had scented the skirt of the dressing table.
“I’m selling it and everything in it,” Mr. Corrigan said. “I told my wife I’ll buy her everything brand new.” He stared at the dressing table. “Let someone else throw out her stuff, let the new owners do it. I can’t.”
Ace looked beyond the dressing table and saw that it was still all here in the garage. Everything Cathy had owned, cartons of notebooks and bags of skirts and dresses, boxes of sneakers and high-heeled shoes. It was garbage night tonight and after their kickball game was over, boys all up and down the block would be pulling out trash cans.
“I’ll do it,” Ace said.
“Don’t do me any favors,” Mr. Corrigan said.
Ace nodded but when Mr. Corrigan looked at him they both knew he would. After Mr. Corrigan had locked up his truck. Ace stayed in the garage and had another cigarette, and when he was through it was finally dark. It was the soft darkness of late spring, a violet-colored darkness that felt warm and damp. Now Cathy’s mother wouldn’t have to look outside and see what was set out for the trash. Ace carried out the dressing table first and then he worked on the boxes, stacking them neatly on the curb. Rudy edged over, closer and closer, until he finally came to lie down on the grass strip between the sidewalk and the gutter, Cathy must have saved everything; there was a box filled with stuffed animals and dolls, there was a box of old makeup, all tossed together in a jumble, and all the bags of clothes, some of which felt like bodies when Ace picked them up and held them to his chest. When he was done Cathy’s belongings stretched from the driveway to the large elm that marked the end of the Corrigans’ property. Ace sat down on the curb and he put his head down, like a man who’s been drowning and then finds himself propelled to the surface for no good reason other than the fact that his body was stronger than he’d ever imagined. He whistled for Rudy. The dog came over to sit beside him, and when Ace put his arm around him he realized the dog was shivering.
It was the time when the youngest children were already in bed and the older children took their baths or begged to watch one more TV program. Cathy Corrigan used to set out her clothes carefully for the following morning at this time of night. Among the looseleaf notebooks and the comic books and romance novels, Ace had found a notebook of the weekly sheets she made up, completely planning each day’s outfit, including accessories. She never wore the same thing twice in a single week. Half the money she earned at the A&P went to her mother, and the other half she used for herself, mostly to buy earrings and shoes. The largest of the boxes was filled with shoes; the leather ones were all polished and the sneakers had special pink laces.
Ace looked into the dark and listened to the hum of the parkway. He had his arm around the dog’s neck and he could feel the low vibration of a growl before he actually heard it. There, in the middle of the street, was a pair of Cathy’s shoes. Rudy would have bolted and run after them if Ace hadn’t grabbed his metal collar and held on tight. He pulled the dog back onto the curb and forced him to stay as the shoes began to walk. They were red high heels with a strap and a small buckle; Rudy could have easily fit both of them into his mouth if Ace had allowed him to go fetch. Left alone, the shoes continued down Hemlock Street, and when they reached the far corner, past Nora Silk’s house, the asphalt beneath them turned a silvery blue, like tracks made of phosphorescent dust, and as soon as the shoes disappeared the tracks dissolved into the calm May air.
Ace loosened his grip on the dog, now that it was impossible for him to fetch the shoes. Rudy whined, then he tilted his head back and made a soft howling sound, and the howl went right through Ace, it cut him in half. There were stars in the sky now, and the lights in living rooms along Hemlock Street were turned on. Ace sat where he was for a little while longer, and by the time he got off the curb and headed back to his parents’ house, he knew he didn’t live there anymore.
WHEN NORA CAME BACK FROM ARMAND’S, MARIE McCarthy let her put her feet up and she made her a cup of Sanka while they waited for the baby to wake from his nap. There was a blueberry pie in the oven and the smell of it made Nora feel sleepy. She popped two saccharin tablets into her Sanka.
“No wonder he’s sleeping so good,” Marie said proudly. “He must have climbed up and down the basement stairs fifty times when I did the wash.”
Marie took the pie out of the oven and the crust was so perfect that Nora got to her feet. She stood next to Marie at the stove and watched the steam rise from the golden pastry.
“How do you do that?” Nora said, awed.
“The secret of a pie is in the crust,” Marie confided. Her daughter-in-law to be, Rosemary, was such a good baker that it gave Marie the greatest pleasure to have Nora admire her pie.
“I can bake everything except pie crust,” Nora said. “Mine are always white. They look like glue.”
“You use butter,” Marie guessed.
“Butter and sugar,” Nora said.
“Never,” Marie told her. “Use Crisco instead.”
“Ah.” Nora nodded.
Nora and Marie looked at each other and smiled.
“Prick the top with a fork seven times after you flute the edges,” Marie said.
Nora put her arms around Marie and thanked her.
“What’s a pie crust?” Marie shrugged.
“You know what I mean,” Nora said.
It wasn’t just that Marie took care of the boys; she had also introduced Nora to all the other mothers in the neighborhood and, as a friend of Marie’s, Nora had been accepted. Now it wasn’t just Ellen Hennessy who called Nora on the phone but Lynne Wineman as well. Lynne had been terrifically impressed when Marie brought Nora over and Nora got rid of her daughter’s wart. All Nora had done was tie a string around the wart; she attached the other end of the string to the handle of the toilet and flushed once, then threw the string into the bowl and flushed it away, just as her grandfather, Eli, had always done. In the morning, the wart had disappeared and Lynne Wineman phoned to invite her over for lunch.
Nora had been elected head of the playground committee at the last PTA meeting after she vowed to have the dangerous old slide replaced with a newer model, and she got a lot of support when she suggested tulip bulbs be planted all along the blacktop in September. Sometimes, when Nora was waiting outside the school for Billy at two forty-five, a stone would come skittering along the sidewalk and Nora would jump, but it would be nothing more than a pebble rolling down the incline of the sidewalk. She was not someone children threw stones at now.
Nora felt closer to Marie than to anyone else in the neighborhood, and sitting there eating warm pie and drinking Sanka she thought to herself, I am sleeping with this woman’s seventeen-year-old son, and she felt dizzy and had to fan herself with her hand.
“Let’s go peek,” Marie said, and they tiptoed into the living room, where the crib was set up. Marie thought that James wasn’t a proper name for a baby and, even though she tried to call him that, he was Jimmy as far as she was concerned. As he slept he clutched an old bear that had yellow glass eyes.
“He loves that bear,” Marie whispered.
“Googa.” Nora nodded.
Earlier that day Marie had thrown Googa into a pillowcase and washed him in the delicate cold-water cycle. James sat by the washing machine, patiently waiting for his bear to be washed clean of jam and mud. Marie had stopped judging Nora. So what if Googa was filthy, or if the little sneakers Jimmy wore had holes in them? So what if she let Ace’s vicious dog live in the house with her children, or if she listened to Elvis—although actually, Nora had confided that ever since Elvis had gone into the army his charm had been wearing thin. He just wasn’t the same in those uniforms.
“What do you hear from your ex?”
Marie would sometimes ask.
“Zippo,” Nora would usually say, but once in a while she’d admit that she’d gotten a postcard and that Roger was playing in a motel not far from the Sands or that he’d sent an envelope with a twenty-dollar bill tucked inside for the boys. She would have loved to tell Marie the truth, that it wasn’t her ex she thought about but Ace and that the real reason she had stopped listening to Elvis was that his voice made her feel so sulky that she could let dinner burn in the oven. Sometimes Ace wasn’t able to sneak over and get his dog at night. Nora would watch the dog waiting by the front door and she’d sit by him and take his head into her lap and stroke him between his eyes and along his ears and she’d know sooner or later there’d be a time when Ace wouldn’t come back. At least, not for her.
On the nights they dared to be together Ace was so fierce as he made love to her that Nora forgot where she was. When they weren’t in bed he almost never spoke to her now; but Nora often caught him looking at her, when he thought she didn’t see, and she knew that something had happened inside him and that he wasn’t the same. The dog knew it too, and when Ace was around, he followed him more closely than ever. But even with Rudy beside him, Ace was alone. The only one he felt comfortable with was Billy, and that was only out on the field. He’d decided that Billy was going to make the Little League team, and during the week before the tryouts they practiced every night until ten. Billy insisted they keep the tryouts secret from Nora. He didn’t want her worrying, sitting there snapping her gum while he was working hard to concentrate. But he definitely wanted Ace there with him.
“You don’t need me,” Ace told him.
“I do,” Billy insisted. “I’m not that good, but if you’re there, maybe I won’t strike out completely.”
“Listen,” Ace told him. “You are good.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Billy said. “As good as Danny Shapiro?”
Ace thought it over. “No,” he said. “Better.”
On the day of the tryouts they walked to Policeman’s Field together, and all the way there Billy had a lump in his throat. He kept thinking about what Ace had said to him until he believed it. The day was hot and beautiful and blue. There were so many boys trying out that the bleachers were filled with parents. Billy stopped at the gate to the field. He had holes in his dungarees and he’d forgotten to comb his hair. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed Ace’s hand.
“Go on,” Ace said. “You think you’re so special they’re gonna wait for you?”
Billy dropped his hand, embarrassed. “Maybe I’ll skip it,” he said.
“Go on,” Ace said. “I’ll be right here watching you.”
Billy walked into Policeman’s Field alone. He just hoped to God they wouldn’t put him in with the Pee Wees, first- and second-graders he wouldn’t want to be caught dead with. He waited his turn on the bench with the other new kids, most of them younger than he was. When it was his turn at bat he looked back toward the fence. He saw Ace McCarthy nod and he hit the ball just as hard as he would have if Ace had been pitching. The ball flew up, high and long; it sailed over the outfield and over the fence that separated the park from the Southern State.
“Great!” one of the sign-up coaches shouted to him as Billy ran back to the bench.
Billy felt so happy he didn’t think he could keep it all inside. If someone had touched him he would have burst open. He didn’t even notice Stevie Hennessy until Stevie had walked right up and sat beside him.
“You’re not bad,” Stevie said.
“Oh yeah?” Billy said cautiously.
“They might even put us on the same team,” Stevie said.
Out in the field the dust had risen up and it smelled sharp and sweet. There was the sound of traffic and the boys shouting out on the field and maybe that was why Billy couldn’t hear a thing when he tried to listen in to what Stevie was thinking.
“Seeing we live on the same block,” Stevie explained.
“Yeah,” Billy said. “They might.” He couldn’t hear a thing inside his head. Just one of the coaches out in the field shouting and a plane overhead.
“I was on the Wolverines last year,” Stevie said. “We could have used you.”
Billy put both hands on his head. The constant hum he heard was gone and with it the headache he always had when he picked up anyone’s thoughts. Out by the gate, Ace’s shadow looked long and thin as a scarecrow’s as he turned and began to walk home. And really, there wasn’t any reason for him to stay. Billy had made the team, anyone could see that; when they called out his name he ran to the team sign-up sheets so fast that his sneakers didn’t leave any tracks in the dirt.
10
THE SOUTHERN STATE
IT WAS TERRIBLY HOT ON GRADUATION day; steam had begun to rise from the streets. Some of the graduates, who had to stand out in the sun for over two hours, fainted and others had to drink quarts of ice water after the ceremony was finally over, and still others put their arms around their classmates and cried salty tears that were hot enough to mark their cheeks with tiny red burns. Danny Shapiro gave the valedictorian’s speech, just as everyone always knew he would, and Ace McCarthy graduated, as few would have guessed. The tradition of going to Tito’s Steakhouse for graduation dinner begun by the very first graduating high-school class six years earlier continued, and Gloria Shapiro drove Rickie and Danny there in her new Ford Falcon. Phil had shown up late for the graduation and had left early, missing Danny’s speech, because he hadn’t wanted to run into Gloria.
“I could wring his neck,” Gloria said as their steaks were brought over. “I could watch him eat dirt.”
“Mom,” Rickie Shapiro said, “please.”
Rickie’s eyes were red because she had broken up with Doug Linkhauser and she still didn’t know why. Everyone said he wanted to marry her, they said he was already looking at rings, but the last time he had tried to kiss Rickie she had gotten all panicky. She started to avoid his calls, and finally she mailed him his I.D. bracelet, which was the coward’s way out, but a way out all the same. Sometimes she’d look out her window at night. She’d watch the McCarthys’ house and she’d try to wish Ace into coming to her window, but it never worked and she knew it wouldn’t. Once, on a clear night, she’d opened her window and thought about climbing out, but then she’d seen Ace cutting across his front lawn, coming home from Nora Silk’s house. She had leaned her elbows on her windowsill and some of the first of the season’s fireflies caught in her hair, forcing her to brush her hair hard, so hard that her scalp hurt all through the night.
Danny sat across from his mother and sister, wearing a white shirt and a blue suit and a new silk tie. After his speech, several of the parents and teachers had come over to congratulate him, and he’d thanked them politely, but the truth of it was he couldn’t even remember what his speech had been about. Hope, he thought. Belief in the future. He watched his mother call the waiter over to order a gin and tonic and he knew he’d have to drive them home from Tito’s. He planned to work at the lab this summer, to earn extra money for whatever his scholarship at Cornell wouldn’t cover. He was already registered for two advanced math classes, even though he didn’t care much about math anymore. He wasn’t certain if he cared much about anything other than getting to a place where there were green fields, and where, in the winter, the snowdrifts would be deep enough to cut him off from the rest of the world.
“Ace isn’t here,” Rickie Shapiro announced after scanning the room.
“Why should he be?” Gloria said. “They passed him through his classes because they wanted to get rid of him.”
Danny looked around the restaurant. “Nope,” he agreed. “They couldn’t drag him here.” He smiled. He looked at his sister across the table as their mother stirred the ice in her drink. What an idiot she was to have listened to his advice, but then she’d always been that way. He wished someone would slap her, just to wake her up.
“Miss him?” Danny asked Rickie meanly.
Rickie took an onion ring off her plate. She studied her brother and suddenly realized they were not as different as she’d always thought they were. The restaurant air conditioner was turned up so high that her fingertips were blue. “Not as much as you do,” she said, and instantly she regretted it because she could see it was true.
ACE HAD REFUSED TO GO OUT TO DINNER, although Marie had begged him. Instead he went to Nora’s house, without bothering to get out of his suit and tie, and he didn’t care who saw him. He went right up to the front door, even though Lynne Wineman was out in her front yard clipping back her hedges.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Nora said when she opened the door and it was so true, and had been so true all along, that they both laughed.
Nora brought him into the kitchen, where his present, not yet wrapped, was on the table. It was her grandfather’s pocket watch. Ace picked it up and turned it over in his hand.
“I can’t take this,” he said. “It’s gold.”
“Plated,” Nora said, and then she closed his fingers over the watch.
For weeks she had been knitting him a sweater, before realizing it wasn’t what she wanted to give him. She had found the watch in the bottom of her jewelry box, and she knew this was the right present as soon as she saw that it was ten minutes fast and always would be.
Billy came in and he whistled when he saw Ace. “You’re supposed to be at Tito’s. Your mom made reservations last week.”
“Yeah,” Ace said. “Well, I’m not hungry.”
But he managed to eat two servings of the macaroni and cheese Nora had made, and then two cupcakes and ice cream for dessert.
“How does it feel?” Billy said, while Nora was clearing the plates.
“Like lead in my stomach,” Ace joked, and Nora turned around from the sink and made a face at him.
“To be free,” Billy said. “Just think. You never, ever have to go to school again.”