A Marriage Made at Woodstock (26 page)

Frederick put the pictures back into the box. There were hordes more, but he didn't want to look at them. He heard the wind start up about the eaves of the house, the sound of a shingle flapping up and down. He shut his eyes, and he was Kim, in the old Kipling book, resting at the top of the world. He longed for his boyhood with such intensity that he feared he might hyperventilate. His heart beat fiercely. What if he died, there in the attic? Who would find him? Would Walter Muller come looking for him, a chocolate cake in one hand, a pan of fudge in the other? Frederick opened his eyes, almost expecting to see Chandra appear before him, so intensely had he tried to conjure her up. But all he saw through the round attic window were the tops of the outdoor trees swaying back and forth. All he heard were the drops of rain that had started a steady beating upon the roof.

His composure regained and the image of Chandra diminished, the next box he opened said
Christmas
cards
. There they all were, souvenirs from holidays gone by. Why she had saved them, he'd never know. Especially since it had turned out that she didn't even want them anymore. He found the last card Polly had ever sent, in 1983, the Christmas before she died. Inside, there were three school pictures. Polly had written on the backs of each:
Vanessa, age 6; Jason, age 7; Charles, age 10
. Frederick looked at the faces of his nephews and his niece. When was the last time he'd seen them? This was Christmas of 1983. They'd be nine years older now, young adults. How had they managed without Polly? Had their father, Percy Hillstrip, ever remarried? He slipped the three pictures out of the card and fitted them into his wallet.

The other holiday cards were from more ancient friends who one year sent a final Christmas card to Frederick and Chandra Stone, that couple they used to know up in Portland, Maine. He wondered if Chandra had sent cards back, with pictures inside of the two of them, aging, a pair of bright balloons deflating with time. He had not been good at things like occasion cards, considering them a business venture that benefited only Hallmark and its ilk. A lot of men were like that, though. His father never signed a card. That had always been his mother's job. And Frederick remembered cards from aunts and uncles, years of greetings, always in the aunts' handwriting:
Best
of
luck
from
Aunt
Minnie
and
Uncle
Bob.
Happy
Birthday
from
Aunt
Trudy
and
Uncle
Stan
. Could his uncles even write? Had they perhaps been expelled from kindergarten—little Stone boys that they were, little rocks—never learning to take pen to paper? Had Chandra, and Aunt Minnie, and Aunt Trudy, and Thelma Stone minded this sole job of communication? Well, what now did it matter if Frederick had been damned excellent at it? Where had it gotten Chandra? How had it elevated Karen Foster? Was the whole world singing Aunt Minnie's praises these days? Canonizing Aunt Trudy?

He opened the cardboard box that had
College
Correspondence
written on the lid. Inside were the letters from his father, addressed to Frederick at his Boston address. Dr. Stone
had
written letters, perhaps afraid that Mrs. Stone would make them too friendly if this task were left to her. No need to send the boy a lilac-scented envelope or a heartwarming platitude scribbled at the bottom of a note. The letters had averaged about six a year for the four years he was at college. None were more than a paragraph long. Some contained an occasional clipping, a neighbor's son becoming a hero in Vietnam, another winning a medical scholarship, one studying at the Sorbonne, successes blossoming up and down the street. Looking through the letters quickly, Frederick saw that they all read much alike, with a brief line that Thelma was finding the weather a bit too warm or too cold, then a general reminder to keep one's nose to the university grindstone. Unlike the letters from home received by his classmates, there was never a twenty-dollar bill clinging to the stationery. Well, so what? It had taught him cool, firm independence, an ability to stand on one's own two feet. It had taught him all of that, indeed, and it was perhaps that very lesson that had cost him his marriage.

He dug deeper into the box in order to find the love letters from Chandra.
I
can't wait for the wedding
, she'd written in the first letter he opened.
Joyce
told
Mom
that
our
plans
are
crazy
and
Mom
seems
to
feel
cheated
out
of
the
church
thing, but Jenny and Bob think it's the coolest thing they've ever heard.
They had stopped off at the courthouse to get married, just the two of them. Then they'd taken the Bluenose ferry from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, had spent the night at a tiny motel in Yarmouth, and then taken the eight-hour ferry back the next morning. It had been a perfectly sixties notion of the ideal honeymoon. Or had it been? Had the honeymoon night meant as much to Chandra as it had to him? He had felt swelled with pride—a near physical sensation—that she was his wife. It wasn't that they hadn't made love before. It's that they had promised to join their lives together forever and, because of that, the lovemaking had been even more charged. He wondered now what that honeymoon night had meant to Chandra, and wished that he could ask her. Had she closed her eyes and thought of Woodstock? Who the hell were Jenny and Bob?
Dear
Sweetie, Rain coming down here today, reminding me of you and how much I love you and always will
, the next letter declared. He couldn't read on. She had been writing from Portland on a rainy day, and now, all these years later, he was in Portland reading the letter again on a rainy day. He had known that time was a prankster. But he had no idea until now how vicious the bastard could be.

He brought the huge bundle of letters, most of them in baby-blue envelopes, down from the attic. It would take another pitcher of martinis, but he would read them all. He would remember how much she had loved him. Maybe he could find a clue in the letters as to what went wrong. But the letters were written before they were married, in those days when
nothing
was wrong. What was wrong in the present had to do with gin. He was out. Well, that's why the gods had invented liquor stores. And as long as the Hormonal Harpies were not working down there as clerks, Frederick imagined he would be able to replenish his stock.

He had just turned off the car's engine and gotten out when he noticed the ubiquitous brown car pull up beside his own in the liquor store parking lot. The passenger door opened and a man got out, a man about Frederick's own age and height, but a stranger to him. A second stranger, this one wearing a red and green tam, leaned over from behind the steering wheel and peered out at him.

“Frederick Stone?” the first man asked. Frederick suffered a wild impulse to deny his own identity, but he could feel his head nodding. This was unfolding like a scene out of
The
Godfather
. He imagined being whisked out to a patch of thick woods in the trunk of the brown sedan, never to see Chandra again, never to see Portland again, never to resurrect Stone Accounting. He considered for a reckless moment petitioning The Girls. But then, he'd been less than polite, a male chauvinist pig to them lately. What had he called them, aloud, just that morning? Oh yes, the Goddesses of PMS. He glanced toward the large glass window of the liquor store. If he waved his arms frantically, would the clerk see him? Probably not, considering that, from his present view of her, she was swathed in cigarette smoke.

“Mind taking a little ride?” the stranger now asked. Indignation and terror teamed up in Frederick Stone's emotions.
How
dare
this
person
infiltrate
his
right
to
come
to
a
liquor
store
and
purchase
gin? Oh, good God, he was doing to die!

“Do I know you?” he heard his voice finally ask.

“You know my boss.” His
boss
, as in
godfather
? Frederick knew then that he had made a grievous mistake in dropping James Grossmire of Grossmire Imports just because the IRS and U.S. Customs had discovered—much to Frederick Stone's chagrin—that many of those said imports were stuffed with a variety of illegal sundries, some of it white as snow. “His name is Arthur Bowen.” Frederick felt his feet rattling beneath him, taking him toward the brown sedan, propelling him inside the door that had opened to the backseat. Arthur Bowen himself was sitting there, a bowl of macadamia nuts on his lap. Frederick's door was slammed shut and the sedan pulled out of the parking lot. They were almost to the end of Jefferson Street before Arthur Bowen spoke.

“Macadamia?” he asked, extending his arm so that the bowl of nuts rode before Frederick's face. Frederick refused with a shake of his head. What did Arthur Bowen want? The best that could happen would be if Doris had finally put in that good word for Stone Accounting after all. Now Frederick was thankful that he had let Doris see him cry. Any large firm could do with a sensitive accountant. Maybe Frederick Stone would evolve into a kind of social conscience for Bowen Developers, steering them away from acts of environmental assault, fulfilling his sixties heritage. How can one go wrong with Bambi keeping an eye on the company books? But before he had time to further consider the best that could happen, Frederick was hit with the worst.

“Have you been fucking my wife?” Arthur asked. He continued to crunch on macadamias. Frederick felt his heart slip out of his rib cage and flutter beneath his shirt, wanting desperately to escape the chest of such a stupid, imprudent man. The warm flushing of his face told him that his blood vessels had enlarged again, probably to record proportions. He wished he had the opportunity to tell Chandra that she was wrong in thinking the talk of money caused his blushing. Talk of fucking a rich man's wife could do it, too. Especially if the rich man himself initiated the conversation.

Frederick floundered for a few seconds, uttering such things as “Ah” and “Ahhh” as he struggled for the best answer. The truth, pure and simple—and he could thank Mr. Bator for this—was that he had not actually consummated the act. Or had he? Was ejaculation necessary these days to constitute adultery? No matter how Frederick personally looked at the incident, he felt quite certain that Doris's husband would not view penetration as
politically
correct
.

“No, I haven't,” Frederick said, and quite firmly, he thought. “Your wife and I shop at the same supermarket. You might say we're acquaintances.” He was satisfied with the business tone with which he was addressing one of the richest men in all of New England. His heart was returning to a normal beat, and the little drum in his temple stopped pounding. “I've enlisted her help in offering my accounting services to you, however. I
am
guilty of
that
.”

“I see,” said Arthur Bowen. He had been nodding agreeably, and this compliance encouraged Frederick to explain further.

“It was merely a business venture,” he added. Arthur Bowen reached for a brown envelope at his feet. “Mrs. Bowen was kind enough to listen to my proposal that Stone Accounting represent Bowen Developers.” Arthur was now rifling through a stack of papers and what looked like the occasional photograph. “And she was patient enough to let me pester her about it. At the IGA, of all places.” He offered up a tiny chuckle but, as Mr. Bator would know well, his diaphragm obviously didn't move up and down sufficiently enough to stimulate the larynx. What emerged was a light squawk. “However, I'll be doing my grocery shopping at Cain's Corner Grocery from now on.”
Why
don't you just shut up?
he heard Mr. Bator suggest. “The IGA has seen the last of me.” He hoped this promise would appease Arthur Bowen, who seemed to have found the documents he was looking for. “Mr. Cain is a very nice old gentleman who is competing with such a large conglomerate that I've decided to give him my business.” This was what was known as
prattling
, and Frederick knew it. Couldn't he shut up, as Mr. Bator had suggested? Couldn't he just keep his lips closed tightly together, the fate he'd wished on Walter Muller all these years of living next door to him? He couldn't. His face knew better. Fiery red now, his face knew that no way in hell did Arthur Bowen believe him. His whole body seemed to comprehend this, and told him so by trembling. What did King Arthur have in those blasted documents? Frederick knew now how poor Sir Lancelot probably felt, when cornered about Guinevere.

“See this?” Arthur asked. Frederick accepted the photo he was being handed. In it, he was on his front steps kissing Doris Bowen's pale white hand.

“Ah,” said Frederick. “Ahhh.” He knitted his brows into a puzzling look, as if to say, “Yes, now let's see. What was
that
all about?”

Arthur Bowen waited, amid the sound of macadamia nuts being crushed. Frederick crossed his legs, the metaphor painfully apparent. He tried to pass the photograph back to its owner, but his hand wouldn't work. It dropped to his lap, the hand of a rag doll. The hand of a ghost, maybe, nothing of substance to it, just a wisp of smoke. The faint trill of radio music drifted in from the front seat. The man in the red and green tam turned occasionally to glance back, assuring himself that “the boss” was okay. One of his eyebrows seemed to be missing, the other disappearing in wild hairs under the corner of his tam. He looked like some kind of Scottish pervert. His buddy, riding shotgun, was eating something from a crinkly wrap. The smell of ground beef hung in the air.