Gentlehands Read online

  “Buddy,” Skye said. “This is my mother.”

  “How do you do, Mrs. Pennington.”

  “Buddy who?” She put on bright blue tinted sunglasses and looked up at me.

  “Buddy Boyle,” Skye said.

  “What sign are you, Buddy Boyle?”

  “I’m a Gemini.”

  “Mercurial, amusing, communicative,” she said. “Mr. De Lucca out there is a Gemini, too, with Leo rising. That’s why he’s a journalist.”

  We all automatically looked toward the float, and then Mrs. Pennington said, “He can’t hear us talking about him without his hearing aid. I’ve often lamented that I cannot close my ears as easily as I can my eyes.”

  Skye sat down and so did I, and Skye said to me, “Mr. De Lucca is out here in Seaville on some mysterious mission. He won’t tell anyone about it, will he, Mummy?”

  “I hope he doesn’t,” said Mrs. Pennington. “I like mysteries, and secrets and puzzles and games. Would you like to play backgammon with me, Buddy?”

  “I don’t know how to play,” I said.

  “You can tell a great deal about someone by how he plays backgammon,” said Mrs. Pennington. “Skye here gets careless after a while and fails to protect herself. That’s the way she is in life, too, I’m afraid. Aren’t you, darling?”

  “Oh I take care of myself, Mummy,” Skye said.

  “What do you play, Buddy? Do you play croquet?”

  “No,” I said. “I play Yahtzee with my kid brother sometimes. I play Monopoly.”

  “I don’t like Monopoly at all,” Mrs. Pennington said, “unless I get both Boardwalk and Park Place right away.”

  “The green properties are pretty good,” I said.

  “North Carolina Avenue and those?” she said.

  “I’ve won a lot of games with those,” I said.

  “Rrrrrreally?” she said.

  There was a splash as Nick De Lucca rolled off the float and kicked his way toward the ladder.

  “I hope Mr. De Lucca isn’t bored here,” she said. “They say the way to entertain artists and writers is to feed them or amuse them or shock them. Well we fed him; we’ve done what we could.”

  “I’m going to introduce Buddy to everyone,” Skye said while Mr. De Lucca walked toward us, rubbing his head with a towel.

  Mrs. Pennington said, “Hand him his shirt, dear, on the back of that chair. His hearing aid is in the pocket.”

  De Lucca took the shirt, hooked up his hearing aid after he put the shirt on, then dried his glasses on a corner of the shirt. “Why do people have heated pools?” he said. “Hello, Skye.” Then to me, with a lilt of surprise, “Well, hello there.”

  “Do you two know each other?” Mrs. Pennington said.

  “We met the other night,” De Lucca said.

  “Buddy’s been telling me the most interesting things about Monopoly,” Mrs. Pennington said.

  “I didn’t think anyone could tell a Pennington about monopoly,” De Lucca said, and Mrs. Pennington clapped her hands and giggled.

  “Oh we aren’t discussing oil, Mr. De Lucca,” she said. “I leave that to Ogden. We were discussing the game of Monopoly.” She picked up some knitting from the table beside her, placed it on her lap and began working the needles.

  “Sit down, Mr. De Lucca.”

  He said, “What are you making?”

  She held her knitting up for us to see. “Can anyone guess?”

  “Sweaters,” I said, “for Janice, January and Ophelia.”

  “I’m knitting only one thing, Buddy.” I was sure I’d guessed right. It was blue and white of course.

  “A sweater for one of the dogs,” I corrected myself.

  “I suppose it looks like a sweater,” she said, “but it isn’t. Mr. De Lucca? You love mysteries.”

  “I pass,” De Lucca said in a bored tone.

  “Why they’re golf-club covers!” Mrs. Pennington said.

  De Lucca winced and drew in on his fake cigarette.

  Skye took me around and introduced me to people. They sat in little cliques of three and four, by the pool, and we finally joined some kids our age, three girls and a boy. His name was Connie as in Conrad. Anyone in my crowd called Connie would have done something about it—fast—use his middle name or go by a nickname, but Connie Spreckles didn’t seem to mind his name at all. Skye told me later he was a San Francisco Spreckles, whatever that meant. I just said “Oh” as though it made perfect sense.

  Everyone took great care to say my name at the beginning or end of anything they said to me, like “Do you really live out here all year, Buddy?” or “Buddy, is there anyplace to go besides The Surf Club?” I could tell they were all bending over backwards to include me, even though there’d be long passages of time when they’d talk about people I didn’t know, and places I’d never been to. They all referred to The Hadefield Club a lot, as though it was their second home. I’d never even been inside it. It was this real snob place down the road from Beauregard, right on the ocean, the kind of place that didn’t let many Jews in, or anyone without tons of money. Around town we called it The Hate-Filled Club.

  I don’t remember whose idea it was to play “Whose Is It?” but apparently they’d all played it before and thought it was a hilarious game. One of the girls went to the pool house and brought back an assortment of clothes found in the dressing rooms. Then another girl would hold up something: a shoe, a belt, a shirt, a cap—and everybody would try to guess from the smell, the label, the look of the object, who had worn it.

  I saw my new red sweater in the pile, and didn’t think anything about it until the girl named Rachel picked it up and said, “The label says Made in Korea.” Then she rolled her eyes to the heavens and said, “Now, really, how tacky can you get? And it’s Orlon!”

  “It’s the yard boy’s,” Connie said.

  “It smells like a yard boy’s,” Rachel said, holding the armpit to her nose and making a face. I’d worn the sweater half the morning at Sweet Mouth.

  “It’s mine,” Skye said.

  “Oh sure it is,” one of the girls said. “Orlon’s never touched your sacrosanct skin, my darling!”

  Skye stood up and snatched the sweater out of the girl’s hands and said, “This is a jackass way to spend our time! Who wants to race to the beach?”

  Connie understood then and said something that sounded like “There’s nothing wrong with Orlon,” but he was on his feet and running after Skye, and the other girls followed. Rachel stayed behind with me.

  “I don’t feel like a race to the beach,” she said.

  She put the sweater on a chair and sighed. We didn’t say anything for a while, although I was trying frantically to think of something to say. She finally said, “I hate myself, you know.”

  “I think I’ll take a swim,” I said.

  I got up and dove into the pool.

  Later, when I was dressing to go home, Skye knocked on the door and slipped inside.

  “Mummy loves you,” she said, beginning to chatter fast the way she did when she was nervous. “Now we’re going to have to get out the Monopoly set and let her try the green strategy or she’ll never let us rest, honestly, Mummy can be relentless, and poor Daddy hates games, he can’t play backgammon or croquet. I mean, he plays golf but that’s about it!”

  “I suppose you’ve got something on tonight?” I said.

  “Oh and do I wish I didn’t, Buddy, because it’s the most boring thing in the world, a dance at The Hadefield and I can’t get out of it because Daddy has a table reserved and it’s this e-nor-mous sit-down dinner, but I’ll see you Sunday night, won’t I?”

  “If you want to,” I said.

  “I want to,” she said. She looked at me that way she had of looking at someone so intensely and I couldn’t hold it, and dropped my eyes before she did.

  She said, “I want to remember the color of your eyes, Buddy.”

  I just wasn’t used to that stuff at all, and I pretended to have to tie my shoelace
s which were already tied, and she probably thought I didn’t feel anything because she went back to chattering—something about not having time to run me home and how she hated sit-down dinners and wearing long dresses, it took her hours to put her face on, and would I mind if Mr. De Lucca gave me a ride?

  “I’ll see you Sunday,” I said when De Lucca called into the pool house, “I’m leaving, Buddy!”

  “Promise me?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “Of course I promise you.” For some reason I had the feeling I was this close to crying or something stupid, I didn’t even know, but I walked out of the dressing room without saying anything else, or looking back, just went, depressed as hell.

  De Lucca was driving this little white Fiat convertible, and I climbed in beside him, while he made the phony cigarette go red, puffing on it, not saying much as we headed down the long driveway, and then down Ocean Road to town.

  I could smell the sickly sweet scent he wore and I breathed in the air on my side of the window, wondering if it was possible that I was going to puke from the stink.

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Buddy,” I said.

  “Buddy what?”

  “Boyle,” I said.

  He took the fake cigarette out of his mouth and looked at me for longer than someone driving a car should gawk across at his passenger.

  “Is your father a cop?”

  “Yeah?”

  “William Boyle?”

  “Yeah. I’m Junior.”

  “No kidding,” he said.

  “No kidding.”

  “Well,” he said.

  “Well, what?”

  He didn’t answer me and I didn’t give a damn because I was too down to care what was on De Lucca’s mind.

  When I finally got home, I saw my father sitting on our front porch, where he almost never sat, in a way he almost never sat, with his legs crossed and his arms folded, and I didn’t even have to see the expression on his face to know he was waiting for me, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  6

  “WHERE’VE YOU BEEN, BUDDY?” MY FATHER SAID.

  “Kick asked me to work overtime.”

  “That’s where you were until now?” My father looked at his watch. It was six o’clock.

  “About four I took a swim,” I said.

  “I see.”

  “It was too late for clamming by then.”

  “I suppose it was,” my father said.

  Then my mother called out to us, “Come and get it!”

  “I better wash up fast,” I said.

  “On the double,” my father agreed.

  I collided with Streaker as he was leaving the john. “Hey, Streaker,” I said, running my hand through his hair. “How’s it going?”

  “I just combed my hair —don’t!”

  “You combed your hair, but you didn’t flush,” I said.

  “You flush,” he said.

  “Streaker, you get back in here and flush!” I said.

  “Oh let him alone,” my mother called in.

  “He never flushes!” I said. But I was really angry because I knew Streaker was hurt that I didn’t take him clamming, and it made me feel guilty. I knew he hadn’t flushed purposely. What I thought about while I washed up was: What if I’d really had to work overtime? What if it hadn’t been a lie? What if I’d come home beat from a double shift of work and my brat brother decided he’d just get into a snit and not flush, not say anything about how hard I’d worked, nothing! It wasn’t my idea to have a brother; it was their idea. They were trying for a girl and they got another boy, and because it was a boy, I was supposed to take over and help raise him! What was fair about that?

  We always ate in the kitchen. About the only time we didn’t eat in the kitchen was Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner, when we ate in the dining room. The rest of the time there was this empty room with a lace tablecloth on the table and four chairs set around it, and a silver bowl in the middle filled with wax fruit. That made a lot of sense, too, and for some reason that night it teed me off. I guess I was just in a foul mood, anticipating everyone else’s. But when I walked into the kitchen and sat down at my place, things seemed normal. My mother was humming and serving up spaghetti with clam sauce. My father was breaking the toe off a big loaf of Italian bread. Streaker was sounding off about the fact he liked “sketti” and meatballs better than “sketti” and clams.

  “Where’d you go for your swim?” my father said after we all began eating.

  “I went out to Skye’s.”

  “You didn’t have your suit with you,” my mother said. “You didn’t go swimming without your suit, I hope.”

  “They had a suit for me,” I said.

  “Who’s ‘they’?” my father said.

  “Her family,” I said. “They call the place Beauregard.”

  “This is delicious sauce,” my father said.

  “It doesn’t have too much garlic?” my mother asked.

  “It’s perfect,” he said.

  “I like sketti with meatballs better,” Streaker said. “But I hate sparrow grass.”

  “Well we’re not having asparagus,” said my mother.

  “We’re having it sometime,” Streaker said, “because I saw it.”

  “We’re having it tomorrow,” said my mother.

  “I’m not having it because I hate it!” Streaker said.

  “I’ll eat yours then, I love it,” I said.

  “You’re stupid!” Streaker said.

  “Don’t call me stupid, Streaker,” I said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t call me stupid, I don’t like it,” Streaker said. “You’re stupid.”

  “Eat your dinner, Streaker,” my father said.

  “What do you mean they had a suit for you?” my mother said.

  “They have just about anything you want at Beauregard,” I said. “Their pool house is bigger than this place.”

  “Well la-di-da,” said my mother.

  “They have a marble staircase,” I said; “and this butler named Peacock.”

  “La-de-da-de-da,” said my mother.

  “They have a heated pool and a six-car garage.”

  “Ver-ry fan-cy,” said my mother.

  “There’s a Rolls in the garage,” I said.

  “What’s a Rolls?” my mother asked.

  “A Rolls-Royce,” my father said. “It’s a car.”

  “Oh a Rolls-Royce. Why didn’t you say so? Even I know what that is,” my mother said.

  “They have these little dogs called Papillons, which means butterfly in French.”

  “Pass the salt,” my father said.

  “One’s named Ophelia. One’s named Janice. One’s named January.”

  “January’s a month, stupid!” Streaker said. “January comes before February.”

  “Mrs. Pennington was knitting something by the pool and I thought they were sweaters for the dogs, but she was knitting golf-club covers,” I said. “That’s a new one on me, golf-club covers.”

  “They looked like sweaters?” my mother said.

  “They looked like little dogs’ sweaters, but they were golf-club covers.”

  “There’s not too much garlic in this,” my father said. “It’s great!”

  “I’m glad you like it,” my mother said.

  “It’s delicious!” my father said.

  “Everything has monograms at Beauregard,” I said. “There’s a P on everything. Everything’s blue and white.”

  “I like a lot of color!” my mother said.

  “The P is for Pennington, of course,” I said.

  “What does Mr. Pennington do?” my mother asked.

  “He has oil wells, I guess.”

  “Oh oil wells,” my mother said. “How nice for him.”

  “They go to Europe and all that stuff. Ogden Pennington, Junior, that’s Skye’s brother—he’s traveling in Europe this summer.”

  “Pass the butter,”
my father said.

  “They play backgammon and croquet. They play Monopoly, too, but Mrs. Pennington says she doesn’t like to play unless she gets Boardwalk and Park Place right at the beginning.”

  “Streaker, tuck your napkin under your chin, you’re going to spill sauce down the front of you,” my mother said.

  “I told Mrs. Pennington I liked to get North Carolina and the greens, and she couldn’t believe it. She said she’s going to try it.”

  “Well good for her,” my mother said.

  “She’s into astrology and stuff and she said Gemini was—what’d she say again?” I tried to remember. “She said we communicate, something like that.”

  “You’re certainly communicating tonight,” said my mother.

  “She said we communicate and we’re amusing, or something.”

  “Well good for you,” my mother said.

  “You know how you’ve got just one picture out on the living-room table?” I said.

  “Yeah?” my mother said.

  “They have hundreds of them on this table in the pool house. They’re all in silver and gold frames. I guess they don’t just shove them in albums the way we do. They just frame them and put them out.”

  “In the pool house?” my mother said.

  “It’s not like a pool house, really; it’s bigger than this place.”

  “So you said,” my father said.

  “It really is, and they’ve got these thick carpets and paintings. You’d never think it was just someplace you changed into your bathing suit.”

  “Do you want more spaghetti, Bill?” my mother asked.

  “I’ve had enough, thanks,” said my father.

  “Buddy?”

  “I’ve had enough, too,” I said.

  “Thanks,” my father said.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said.

  “I’ve had enough, thanks, Mom,” Streaker said “Can I watch T.V.?”

  “Finish what’s left on your plate and you can,” my mother said.

  “I hate clams!” Streaker said. “I hate what’s left on my plate!”

  “You hate everything!” I said. “You’re turning into a pain in the ass, Streaker!”