Enchanted Isle (13 page)

So I did, almost the way I’d already told it three times, to Steve, Mr. Wilmer, and that same day to Mr. Clawson, except that I left stuff out, though not to speak untruth. Like, on why I left home I said, “I was kind of fed up, like with school and A-square plus B-square, and decided to visit my father a while.” That was all and everyone nodded, like A-square plus B-square would kind of feed anyone up. So, except for the algebra, I didn’t put it on either one, Steve or Mother, I mean. And about my father I said, “I called him that night, but me shacking with Rick kind of loused it, my moving in with him.” And about the mink coat I said, “I wanted it, wanted it bad, as I wanted my father to know I wasn’t mooching off him.” And about Pal and Bud I said, “Mr. Haynes, I don’t know if you ever faced guns, but I tell you one thing: the butt of one sticking out, a blue butt in an armpit holster, is going to talk louder to you than anything you ever heard.” And about Rick I said, “I bear him no ill will, but I’m sick and tired of this thing, and I want to help all I can to get it all the way cleared up and get that money back, as I think can be done if you handle it right with him, with Rick I’m talking about, so he cooperates. I’m doing him a favor, I feel, by telling it all like it was, so the word can go out to him, so he’ll read in the papers about it and then go and give himself up, so he’ll be shut of it too. So OK, Mr. Haynes, that’s all. I’ve told it like it was, partly to wind the thing up, and partly for Rick’s own sake.”

“OK, Mandy, thanks.”

In between it had come out about Mother’s remarriage, which was mainly due, I said, “to this wonderful man, Mr. Wilmer, trying to make it up to her for her upset at losing me.” They all kind of bowed very friendly, first to her, and then to Mr. Wilmer; a little extra for him, I thought, as he was a very big wheel. When I finished, the question of money came up, and I had to hand over the balance of what I had left in my handbag from what I had grabbed from the floor of the car, less what I’d spent on the coat, meals, and bus fare. Then the coat was brought up, and they decided an officer should “impound it,” as Mr. Haynes said, as evidence, after going to Hyattsville. But then Mother got in it, protesting, “Evidence of
what?
It was not part of the crime, but it is a beautiful thing, and to have it kicking around in some kind of locker under the tender care of policemen.”

“Something wrong with them?” asked a detective.

“Everything, from a mink coat’s point of view.” Then, very snappish: “It’s the woman’s angle, of course, but I remind you, it’s her
coat.”

“It was bought with stolen money.”

“Just the same, it was bought!”

They had it some more, but then Mr. Clawson got in it. He said. “Jack, technically speaking, Mrs. Wilmer is right. It’s not evidence of anything the indictment will cover, assuming we get that far. So far as the money goes, the money she found in the car that she used to pay for this coat, Ben Wilmer has already agreed to make good whatever it amounts to, which covers the coat and any turpitude it involves. If you want, we’ll stipulate.”

“For the time being, then, OK.”

“It’ll be there, don’t worry, in case.”

It was decided that I’d be released in Mother’s custody, and then they all got up. Mr. Haynes told me, “OK, Mandy. The lady will type this up today, and then tomorrow you can come in to my office in City Hall and sign. Mr. Clawson will bring you over.”

“Will do. And thanks, Jack, for being so decent.”

They left to call the FBI and get them started looking for Rick, and to go on their teletype to police all over the country.

Then at last we were alone, Mother, Mr. Wilmer, Steve, and I, but Mother had barely started. She ran with real quick steps, her bottom all aquiver, to the phone and gave the girl a number. I felt my heart go bump, as I recognized it at once as Vernick’s. A man’s voice came on and she started to talk. She brought him up to date, telling how things stood, real quick, and went on, “Ed, Mandy handled it beautifully and really gave you a break. She said not one word about the rotten way you treated her or the things you alleged about me. They’ll be calling you, especially the papers will, but I’m telling you, Ed, one crack from you out of line, and I’m letting you have it. You may have forgotten, but I don’t, that you owe me nine thousand six hundred and fifty dollars, and that under Maryland law you can be jailed until it’s paid.” Then he must have said something mean, because she listened and then went on. “I don’t care what proof you have, what proof you think you have. I’ll move in just the same. And I suggest that you think this over: I’ll be the plaintiff, you the defendant, when my suit comes to trial, and proof or no proof, though the plaintiff’s lawyer takes a contingent fee, the defendant’s has to be paid, in cash, before he goes to court. He wants a retainer, as it’s called. So unless you want to shell out that retainer, you talk right when they call you today. But why must you talk at all? Ed, Mandy has treated you decently, not saying a word, not one, about the rotten reception you gave her, and I appeal to your decency now, before hitting you with a brick. But if you don’t have any decency, Ed, I just happen to have a brick. That’s all I wanted to say. Ed, did you hear me?”

When she hung up she was hysterical, and Mr. Wilmer, Steve, and I all had to take turns calming her. But at last she was quiet and said, “It wasn’t myself I was thinking of, but of us, Ben, and our marriage. Because if he starts shooting his mouth off, even if not one word of it’s true, I can’t go home anymore. Oh, dear God, beat some sense in his head!”

M
R. WILMER BEGGED ME
to stay with him and Mother there in the suite at the hotel, where they decided to spend the weekend, or part of the next week, until things would be settled in Baltimore. He said the suite could be enlarged by unlocking the door to a bedroom, and then I would be there with them. And I have to omit I was tempted to stay again in that hotel, with my own color TV and all, wearing Mother’s nighties and having lunch in the coffee shop. But even more I wanted to be with Steve and thank him for what he had done, on account that at last I had a father who took up for me. So I drove home with him in his car, a Chevy, the way we had come over. On the way, we had dinner in a new place near Laurel, and I told him how I felt. I said: “It’s so funny, here a week ago I was mad, at you and also at Mother, and sure that Vernick was the answer, that he would take me in. And now it’s all come opposite. You’re my father at last, and Mother’s my mother at last, and Vernick’s just a rat. How can that be?”

“Well, look at me. I was ready to jump off the roof. I mean I wanted to die, ’stead of which I drunk me some beer. Then when I opened my eyes you were there.”

“It’s all backwards.”

“OK, and I’m glad it’s that way.”

“Steve, you mean it’s all for the best?”

“I hope it is. We don’t know yet.”

“You’re talking about Rick?”

“He’s the wild deuce in our deck.”

“But they’ll get him, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but will they get the money?”

“And that’s important?”

“It’s the whole story, Mandy.”

“Anyhow, tomorrow should tell the tale.”

“Or next week, looks like.”

He said if Rick surrendered and still had most of the money, “maybe they decide he was forced and panicked afterward, and they let him up easy so he pleads guilty to some minor charge, like accessory, and gets a suspended sentence, something like that. With immunity for you, that ends it.”

“Funny, when he ducked out on me, I hated him something awful. Now I don’t. Now I feel sorry for him. It’s all backwards.”

“Mandy, life is like that.”

I was looking forward, I guess, to another visit from him to me in my bed as I lay there and he would kiss me good night. But that wasn’t to be for a while yet. We were no sooner home than the phone rang, and when he took it he said: “That was the Washington Post. They’re sending a man out, and he’ll have a photographer with him. So get yourself fixed up.”

“Well? Isn’t this all right?”

I motioned to the dress, and he said, “For me, perfect. Anything you put on always looks perfect to me, but if it’s what you want, I don’t know. That’s all I meant. Don’t change it for me.”

“I bought a pantsuit in Baltimore.”

“OK, put it on.”

So I went upstairs and did, and as I came down he yelped to come quick, I was on TV. It was the evening news, and sure enough there I was, in a picture taken of me the summer before at the beach in a bikini which they dug up heaven knows where. And, brother, was I showing all I had. There was also a picture of Rick that didn’t look like him, as it showed him wearing short hair, with a little grin on his face that gave him a queer expression. But what was said wasn’t too bad, and in fact was halfway funny, as the announcer kidded the cops, the Baltimore police that is, for “the thorough and diligent way they’ve been following false leads.” When it went off Steve kissed me, and I had trouble calming him down, as he was acting the least bit balmy.

Then the doorbell rang, and he let in the Post reporter, with the photographer he had. So he began putting questions to me, and I answered as well as I could, trying to small things down so nothing amounted to much. When Vernick was mentioned I just started to laugh and acted like it was all a joke. But it brought up the coat, and I had to get it out and pose for my picture in it, sitting and standing and walking around. So while that was going on, the doorbell rings again, and it’s a guy from the Baltimore Sun, and he had a photographer too. So I had to do it all over again. Then the doorbell rings again, and it’s a girl from the Washington Star, also with a photographer, to do a “feature” on me, though what a feature was I didn’t know then and don’t know now. So I do it again for her. And when we’re just about finished up, the phone rings and it’s for the man from the Baltimore Sun, with instructions to get dope on Mother’s marriage. So I tell what I know about that, strictly sticking to it that she was so upset at me running off that way, that Mr. Wilmer wanted to make it up to her by having a wedding. I felt I did all right, and then at last they all went. Steve fixed us a couple of drinks, beer for him, Coke for me, and then we went to bed. Then, sure enough, here he came, being himself once more, to kiss me good night again and tell me that he loved me. So I kissed him and told him the same.

In the morning we got up real early, me still in my kimono, to grab the paper and see what it had about me. But it wasn’t at all bad, except for what Rick’s father, mother, and sister said about me, that I was a “Junior Jezebel” who had led a good boy astray “in a flagrantly immoral way.” They said he’d led an exemplary life, not giving any trouble “until this girl came along.” Why they’d put him out, why he had no home, that they didn’t say, but the paper did, putting in about his arrests. Vernick was let out with a line: “No comment. Absolutely no comment at all” was all that he had to say and all that they put in. On page one were two pictures of me, one in the bikini, the other modeling the coat, but on the page that the story jumped to was a whole picture layout: Mother, in the green linen suit; Rick, the same shot as had been on TV; and me, more shots in the coat, another in the bikini, and one in a leotard, when I was twelve years old, from gym class in junior high, the cheesecakiest one of all. And under it:
JUNIOR JEZEBEL?
Still and all, none of it was too bad.

I made coffee and toast for us, and while we ate on the breakfast room table, we read the paper, taking turns. Then Steve said get dressed, we were going to Baltimore to get there quick for whatever was in the works for me. So we rode over feeling close, but when we got to the hotel he didn’t go up to the suite. He said he’d finish his breakfast and wait in the coffee shop. So when I went upstairs Mr. Wilmer looked kind of funny and said I’d better go in and see how my mother was doing. I knocked on the door of the bedroom, and when she told me come in I did and found her in bed, with papers all over the covers, not only the
Baltimore Sun
but the
Washington Post
and another Baltimore paper. And when she saw me she held out her arms and gathered me in and kissed me. She was in a beautiful black nightie, with a black bow in her hair and looking prettier than I’d ever seen her. She kissed me all over the face and back of the ears, and asked, “Have you seen them?” meaning the papers.

“I saw the
Post.
I thought it was pretty OK.”

“OK?
OK?
It was perfect. That Ed Vernick, I shut him up! Did you see what he had to say?”

“He had nothing to say, just ‘no comment.’”

“Keeping his head down from my brick!”

“You’re just a sweet, crazy goof!”

So then she was laughing and Mr. Wilmer was there, sitting on the bed, patting her. “The sun’s coming up,” he said.

“And I can go home again!”

“Mother? You mean, to
Hyattsville?”

I omit I was somewhat surprised, because why she’d be going back there I didn’t exactly see. But she said, “Home to me now is Lacuvidere, the place Ben took me to Thursday, when we got married—the house he built by his lake, up there in Frederick County, the house we both built by the lake, those beautiful golden days when Steve would be in New York and we could do things together. Mandy, he phoned one friend from Dover, telling the news, but that one friend was enough. When we got there and he carried me over the threshold, suddenly music started, and then there they all were with candles, his friends, bringing us into our home. For three hours they warmed us and cheered us and loved us. I couldn’t have faced them again if Ed Vernick had shot off his mouth. That’s what I mean, that ‘I can go home again!’”

“Well, Mother, he didn’t shoot it off.”

“That’s right, thanks to me.”

She gave me a little hug, then jumped up and whipped off her nightie, so except for the bow in her hair, she had nothing on at all. She was simply beautiful. She opened the closet and took out a dress, a dark red one of gros-grained silk. But then she took out another, a dark blue with black binding on it at neck, sleeves, and hem. She said, “Mandy, I got it for you yesterday, after you left.” Then she undressed me, so except for the ribbon in my hair, I was as naked as she was. We both stood in front of the mirror, she giving me kisses and slaps and slaps and kisses, a lot. And two funny things I noticed: first, except in the face and hair, I was practically her twin in height, size, and shape, something I hadn’t known. And second, Mr. Wilmer just sat there and smiled, making no move to go, and she let him. That seemed the funniest of all, when I thought about it later. I mean he didn’t go and I didn’t mind; I didn’t know why. I didn’t have a stitch on, and yet it seemed all right that he should be there looking on. Of course, not for long. I slipped into fresh underwear and the beautiful dress, feeling quite proud of myself at how I was going to look, going to sign my confession. When we were all dressed and breakfast was on the way up, she said, “Mandy, when this is all over, we’ll have a surprise for you, one I think you’re going to like. But first things first. Let’s wind this awful thing up before we start something else.”