Роберт Паркер - Edenville Owls

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You think she was telling us the truth?” Billy said.

“Not all of it,” I said.

“Why do you think it’s a secret?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think he was some kind of old boyfriend?” Billy said.

It was kind of exciting to think about Miss Delaney having a boyfriend. I didn’t exactly like it. But I didn’t not like it either.

“I don’t know, Billy. I don’t know who he was or what was going on except he grabbed her and she slapped him, and I yelled and she got away from him and came in the school.”

“And he didn’t follow her in?”

“No.”

“Was Mr. Welch here?” Billy said.

“He usually is,” I said.

Mr. Welch was the principal. The only man except the janitor in the school. He was a pretty big guy, and once when an older guy we were all scared of, Anthony Pimentel, had come in the school, Mr. Welch had taken him by the back of his collar, bum-rushed him down the stairs, and thrown him out the front door. None of us ever admitted it, but we were impressed as hell.

“You gonna tell anyone?” Billy said.

“We said we wouldn’t.”

“But maybe we should tell Mr. Welch,” Billy said.

“We said we wouldn’t.”

Billy nodded.

“I don’t want to get into trouble,” Billy said.

“You keep your mouth shut,” I said. “You almost never get into trouble.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Billy said. “Loose lips sink ships.”

“I think we should keep an eye on her, though.”

“An eye?” Billy said.

“Yeah, just stay ready, see what happens. Be alert, you know?”

“If we told the other guys, they could keep an eye on her too,” Billy said.

“Not yet,” I said. “We need help, we tell them. For now we just, like, stay alert.”

“So what do you think’s going on?” Billy said.

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

“Yet?”

I was quiet for a moment. Up behind us, the flag was still snapping in the breeze.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said.

I had a small brown GE radio in my bedroom and listened to it nearly every night. I listened to boxing from Madison Square Garden with Don Dunphy describing the fight. The ring announcer was Harry Ballough... The Fitch Band Wagon, with Dick Powell... “Don’t dispair, use your head, save your hair, use Fitch Shampoo.”... The Manhattan Merry Go Round, where I imagined myself actually going to the impossibly sophisticated clubs in Manhattan... Lux Radio Theater (Lux Presents Hollywood, with your host, Cecil B. DeMille)... And always the commercials: Get Wildwood Cream Oil, Charlie, start using it today... Ipana for the smile of beauty, Sal Hepatica for the smile of health... Serutan spelled backward in Nature’s... more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette... On Boston radio there was a fifteen-minute show at noon that an announcer would introduce every day by saying, “Sit back, relax, and listen to Bing Sing.”... like everybody else, I loved Bing Crosby... On network there was The Jack Benny Program with Mary Livingston, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester, and “yours truly, Don Wilson.” It was originally sponsored by Jell-O (J-E-L–L-O), and later by Lucky Strikes (LS/MFT). Jack had a pet polar bear named Carmichael, who he kept in the cellar... For adventure the afternoon programs were good — Jack Armstrong, Don Winslow of the Navy, Hop Harrigan... Afternoons I would listen to ball games, the Red Sox and the Braves... When a team was out of town there would be telegraph re-creations with Jim Britt or Tom Hussy reading the play-by-play off a telegraph setup and simulating a real play-by-play... For more grown-up listeners Big Town was good, Steve Wilson of the illustrated press and his girlfriend Lorelei Kilbourn: “Freedom of the press,” Steve would say at the start of every program, “is a flaming sword, use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well.” And “Mister District Attorney,” “I Love a Mystery” Jack, Doc and Reggie always on some lost plateau somewhere.

I had known Joanie Gibson all my life. We had met when we were three years old at somebody’s birthday party. We had been all through school together, and even though she was a girl, we were friends.

Joanie was one of the first girls in class to get boobs. They weren’t very big. But there they were. She had really nice eyes too. Very big eyes. Blue. The fact that she had boobs made her seem hot to us, but I also liked her. I wasn’t exactly sure where hot ended and like began, and I didn’t exactly know how to like a girl. On the other hand, I didn’t exactly know how to deal with hot either... Besides, we were friends.

Nick used to meet her after school sometimes, and buy her a Coke at the Village Shop, and maybe walk her home. So we kind of thought of her as his girlfriend. But she was still my friend.

In bad weather, especially when it was raining and windy, I used to like to go down to the empty bandstand and sit in it alone, protected by the pointed roof, and look at the way the rain and the wind made the harbor look. I was doing it on the Saturday afternoon after I saw Miss Delaney and the guy. Usually the harbor was dotted with sails. But the weather was too lousy, and all the boats were bucking and tossing at their moorings. Close in, there were a lot of Herreshoff 12s, and Beetle Cats. The wind made the empty gray surface of the harbor ripple in an odd crisscross pattern, sort of like the surface of a wood file. Farther out were bigger boats, of which I knew very little.

A girl’s voice said, “Are you thinking?”

I knew the voice.

“Sort of,” I said.

“You sure do a lot of that, Bobby,” Joanie Gibson said, and sat down beside me facing the water.

She had on saddle shoes and thick white socks and a camel’s hair coat.

“There’s a lot to think about,” I said.

“What are you thinking about now?” Joanie said.

“I don’t know.”

“I get like that sometimes,” Joanie said. “I mean, my mind is sort of out there moving around, but I don’t quite know what it’s doing.”

That was right. That was exactly how it was. Her too. I didn’t know what to say.

“It’s nice here,” she said. “Under the roof, out of the bad weather, warm coat. And out on the water it’s kind of rough and mean and cold, and we’re not on it.”

“I could be on it,” I said. “Sheet in one hand, tiller in the other, running before the wind. My hair blowing back like in the movies.”

“You have a crew cut.”

“So I’ll let it grow and then I’ll go out in a storm.”

“You’re embarrassed,” Joanie said. “Aren’t you?

“Huh?”

“You always try to be funny when you’re embarrassed.”

“What am I embarrassed about?” I said.

“Maybe embarrassed isn’t the right word,” Joanie said. “It’s more like you’re much smarter than anybody else, and you don’t want people to know it. So you always joke around.”

“So what am I supposed to do,” I said, “walk around, I’m smart, I’m smart all the time?”

“No, just don’t pretend you’re not.”

“It’s not good to be too smart,” I said.

“It’s not good to be too stupid either,” Joanie said.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t like that. I always knew what to say. Way out past the harbor mouth I could see a big schooner tacking back and forth across the wind, beating its way back into the harbor.

“I’m smart too,” Joanie said. “And I’ve known you all my life. I thought maybe we could talk.”

“About what?” I said.

“About why you like to sit in the rain and look at the water,” Joanie said.