What I Really Think of You Read online

  “Too bad he’s not around to ask,” I said.

  My father made one of his pained little facial flinches and went right on. “Summers out here, people are heading for the beach,” he said, “or they’re house hunting or looking for next summer’s rentals. We’re dealing with a resort area here. Now, if we try to compete with that, ACE is going to get blamed for the traffic jams.”

  Donald said, “They’re already three deep on the Montauk Highway by nine in the morning. We have a problem, anyway, but at least this early we’ll cut it in half.”

  “Who’s going to watch us at sunrise?” I said.

  “We’re going to tape the sunrise show and run it at our regular time,” said Donald.

  Then my father said, “Well, Jesse, have you noticed anything new?”

  “It’s a good poster,” I managed.

  “Not the poster,” said my father. “Me, Jesse. Me.”

  Donald chuckled. “It proves my theory that kids don’t notice their parents or what they do, until it affects them.”

  “I like to tell a story I once heard about John Denver, the singer,” said my father, who liked to tell that story so well Donald and I had both heard it a few times already. “He took his boy for the very first time to one of his concerts. They went to the spot by helicopter. Now this youngster didn’t really have any idea how famous his father was. As they were passing over the area where John Denver was to perform, they looked down and saw great masses of people waiting to get in, traffic jammed on all the highways. Well, the boy’s eyes got big as saucers. He looked up at his daddy, John Denver, and he said, ‘All these people came here to see some guy’s dad get up and sing?’”

  Donald slapped his knee and howled at the joke as though it was the first time he’d ever heard it.

  I said, “What didn’t I notice?”

  “You asked me why I was wearing the blue shirt, and I told you I had a surprise,” said my father.

  Then I noticed.

  Some guy’s dad had on a new pair of trendy blue-tinted prescription glasses, replacing the old owl ones.

  They were the same kind Donald wore.

  It used to be you could always see and hear us coming. My dad drove this old beat-up van painted gold with BROTHER PEGLER in black letters on both sides. There were speakers attached to the roof, and tapes of songs like “We’re Marching to Zion” to play through them.

  Lately we drove around in a new dark-brown Cadillac Seville. In tiny gold letters on the door of the driver’s side, there were just the initials ACE.

  Before we went anywhere to fund raise, Donald always prepared a profile of our hosts. Even though we were supposed to be having a friendly dinner with the Cheeks that Saturday night, Donald had done a profile on them.

  My mother read it aloud on our way there, while she sat up in front next to my father, and I sat in the back seat.

  Chester Cheek is the president of CHECKCHEEK SECURITY SYSTEMS, INC., a self-made multimillionaire.

  Dr. Antoinette Young Cheek is one of these modern “therapists” whose Ph.D. is in music, not psychology. She has an extensive local practice, with many clients who are teenagers from “the better families” in Seaville.

  She is an aggressive influence, skeptical about religious fund raising. (If the subject comes up, remember that a fifth of Christ’s teachings was taken up with stewardship. St. Paul felt it was just as spiritual to discuss money as it was the Resurrection. Et cetera.)

  She is the power behind the throne. … He is more business-oriented, and has always been a philanthropist on a grand scale, but has never included religious organizations in his gratuities, except for a small amount yearly to First Methodist. They are members but infrequently attend services.

  Their only child, Diane-Young Cheek, is a somewhat troubled teenager who has been in and out of a series of private and public schools.

  Diane-Young is the reason they now make their home in Seaville—an attempt to raise her in a small-town environment. She is their weak spot, fairly friendless, and of a sly nature with a suicide attempt in her background. She is highly suggestible, which probably facilitated her healing.

  Her mother is a balletomane. He is a member of A.A., and no liquor is ever served in their home.

  At the last sentence, my father reached in his pocket for his Breathbrace and gave his mouth a spray.

  “Guy, don’t drive with one hand,” said my mother.

  “We’re not exactly fighting our way through traffic.”

  Our car was the only one on the road leading down to the ocean.

  “There’s a fog, though,” said my mother.

  I said, “What’s a balletomane?”

  “Donald says it’s someone interested in ballet,” said my mother. “Guy, you shouldn’t wear those blue glasses when you drive at night.”

  “I can see, Rhoda.”

  “How many martinis did you have, too?”

  “I had one with Donald, do you mind?”

  “I never mind if you take a glass of wine. After all, Jesus turned water into wine, but he didn’t turn it into gin and vermouth. There’s the turn,” my mother said. “This is their driveway. Did you know St. Paul said it was just as spiritual to discuss money as the Resurrection?”

  “It’s all through the New Testament,” my father said.

  A good three minutes later we were there in front of the Cheeks’ house—the driveway leading up to it was that long.

  “Igor Sonnebend doesn’t have anything on the Cheeks,” my mother said. “You could put his Palm Beach house right down inside this one.”

  “Igor could have a house like this if he wanted it. He’s just not ostentatious.”

  “Wait a minute,” my mother said. “I must be losing my hearing. Did you just say that Igor Sonnebend wasn’t ostentatious?”

  I said, “That’s what he said.”

  “Dog pile on the rabbit,” my father said. “I’ll never understand what you two have against Igor.”

  “I wouldn’t call him a rabbit,” my mother said.

  Then she peered out the window at the Cheeks’ house. “Look at this place! This is like Buckingham Palace!”

  Wispy glimpses of an enormous stone structure loomed before us like a mountain behind the fog.

  “Check my breath, please, Mother,” said my father.

  He blew at her and she said, “You’re awfully minty.”

  Then we got out of the car and let the Cheeks’ valet park it.

  You could hear the ocean waves crashing down on the beach, out in back of the house. You could smell and feel the salt spray.

  “Don’t try and talk about ballet, because you don’t know anything about it,” my mother said.

  “Who’s going to try and talk about ballet?” I said.

  She said, “I’m talking to your father.”

  “Who’s going to try and talk about ballet?” my father said.

  “Oh, we have a parrot along with us this evening,” my mother said. My mother always made her little jokes when she was getting nervous.

  “Who’s going to try and talk about ballet?” I said.

  “Who’s going to try and talk about ballet?” my father said.

  The truth was we were all getting nervous.

  “Hush!” my mother whispered, giggling. “You two behave yourselves now.”

  At the top of long stone steps, in the light of the open door, a butler was waiting, with a maid behind him to take our coats.

  “Good evening,” the butler said. “My name is Grayson. The Cheeks want to thank you for not smoking.”

  “We don’t any of us smoke,” said my mother.

  When we were out of earshot of Grayson, my father said softly to my mother, “Don’t explain yourself to the help, Rhoda.”

  “He explained something to me and I explained something back.”

  Coming from a far distance down a long hall, under a gigantic crystal chandelier, a tiny woman approached.

  My father, out of
the side of his mouth, to my mother. “Don’t explain anything back to the help. It isn’t done.”

  “The Peglers!” the tiny woman called out on her way to us.

  My mother had on her best smile, but she looked my father in the eye and murmured, “Guy Pegler, I knew you when you were wearing white Sears, Roebuck socks with brown suits and black shoes, so get down off your high horse, hear me?”

  “Mrs. Cheek!” my father purred, bowed, smiled ear to ear. “It’s a pleasure to introduce you to my family.”

  Seven

  OPAL RINGER

  SOMETIMES I DON’T UNDERSTAND the rules in this life, I swear before the Almighty.

  Take the night I was hired to help serve over to the Cheeks’. I understood why I had to wear the hairnet, and the black uniform one size too big for me, with the crisp little white apron over it—I don’t mean those rules. I mean ways of acting, like what you all did when I came through the kitchen door with the bowl of brussels sprouts.

  Sometimes a prayer is like a daydream that you say aloud to Jesus. Sometimes I prayed that when The Rapture came and I had my own tableful of guests, I’d say to whoever it was come through my kitchen door carrying the vegetable, “How you doing, honey? Put the plate down and pull the chair up, and dig in, darling!”

  What you all did was pretend I didn’t come through the door with the sprouts, and when you finally had to take them from me because there I was at your elbows, anything you said to me you said in little whispers, not looking at me.

  V. Chicken was there and Jesse. Diane-Young. The Reverend Cloward with his wife and Dickie, and Dickie’s sister, Verna. The Peglers and the Cheeks. And me, slowly circling the room with the vegetable, wondering what kind of crack in the sky would come if anyone had said out loud, “Hi, Opal.”

  Mrs. Cheek, who looked like a little bug in glasses, was talking to Guy Pegler when I got to her. “What Chester and I aren’t comfortable with is all this endless money raising,” she was saying, “and the TV preachers are the worst offenders, though I’m not criticizing you in particular.” Whispered at me, almost in the same breath, “Opal. Thank you.”

  I had a mind to say what Mum said sometimes when she was feeling good and I started a sentence with “Mum.” She grabbed me and cooed, “That’s my name and lovin’s my game,” hugging me to her.

  Dr. Pegler said, “You know, Mrs. Cheek—” then, “Dr. Young—”

  “Antoinette. Please.”

  “Antoinette. A fifth of Christ’s teachings was taken up with money and stewardship.”

  Mrs. Pegler said, “St. Paul considered it just as spiritual to discuss finances as he did to discuss the Resurrection.”

  By that time I was all the way around to Diane-Young, who didn’t look like herself anymore. Bobby John had told me her hair got cut off, said Samson lost his strength that way. I said she’s not a man, one, and two she was never known for her strength, so don’t be so upset, Bobby John. But Bobby John was, whatever’d come between them since the healing.

  With most of her hair gone, Diane-Young looked like a shaved dog in summer, or a plucked chicken. It was the first time I’d ever seen her when she didn’t have on a hooded sweatshirt. She had this long skinny neck sticking out of this pink dress, the color of her glasses. Her little eyes darted up to meet mine when I served her the sprouts, and there was a fast flash of silver as she tried to smile.

  She polished off the brussels sprouts and I was headed back to the kitchen while Dr. Pegler was saying, “Do you remember your New Testament? One of the basic teachings is the importance of giving money to the Lord’s work. Now, television eats money like a horse eats hay, but—”

  Ripper Blades’ mother was the other person hired to help out that night. She was talking to the cook as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Well, at least she’s walking without the crutch,” she was saying.

  The cook said, “That little girl did that before any healing.” Then she saw me. “No offense meant where The Hand’s concerned,” she said.

  “No offense taken,” I said.

  “Opal,” she said, “don’t touch the Crabmeat Imperiale. There’s a tuna-fish casserole for us. We don’t repeat what we see, hear, or say up here, Opal Ringer.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I sat over on the stool and watched what was playing on the tiny TV on the counter, an old movie called Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet.

  A cosmonaut was saying, “There’s no fair or unfair to a meteorite. You get hit—you die.”

  I got to wondering again what death was, anyway, and if there really was a Satan’s hell, or was it all words and no one really knew anything, just made things up.

  Like Bobby John before I left the house, trying to come up with this snazzy sermon for Daddy. “Daddy,” he said, “listen here, something interesting I come up with for you. You can use it if you want to. ‘Success’ is spelled with seven letters. Of the seven, only one is found in ‘fame’ and one in ‘money,’ but three are found in ‘happiness.’”

  Daddy just looked across the table at him like he was some ant dared to speak out from the top of the anthill.

  “Bobby John,” Daddy said. “In the first place half the people come down to The Hand can’t spell period. In the second place, no spelling lesson’s going to pull them out of their living rooms where the TV’s on. They’re getting choirs of fifty and more in living color with all outdoors as a backdrop, and a preacher’s had his hair done down to the beauty parlor, and you’re going to give them a spelling lesson!”

  “Well, I tried, Daddy.”

  “Yeah, well, tried has got an r, and an i, and an e in it, and so does failure.”

  The cook said, “You weren’t invited up here to watch television, Opal.”

  “I’m not even watching,” I told her.

  “What do you call what you’re doing?”

  I thought of telling her I was wondering if there was a hell we’d all burn up in, and if there was how come we’d be able to burn without our bodies, which were somewhere back six foot under?

  I shrugged my shoulders instead, and she said, “Go back in there with more brussels sprouts, dear.”

  “You go to school with my son, Albert, don’t you, Opal?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ripper Blades, pick on you after you were run over by a bus, he was so mean.

  I took the bowl of brussels sprouts and pushed through the swinging doors.

  The Shadow, making a comeback.

  Mr. Cheek was talking. He was this thin little man in a bow tie, with glasses so thick you couldn’t see his eyes. “At first we weren’t too comfortable with Di-Y’s interest in religion.”

  “It wasn’t religion per se,” said Mrs. Cheek.

  “It was this Pentecost—” and he glanced up at me, stopped himself in midsentence.

  “You see,” said Mrs. Cheek, “we don’t express emotion very openly in this family.”

  “I know what you’re saying,” Dr. Pegler said.

  Mrs. Pegler said, “The sound and the fury.”

  “Exactly,” said Mrs. Cheek. “I like to say that commotion isn’t emotion.”

  “Fever”—Mr. Cheek leaned forward—“isn’t fervor.”

  “True feelings”—Mrs. Cheek leaned forward—“never shout.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Exactly!”

  “Opal?” Mrs. Cheek whispered up at me. “It’s too soon to pass the vegetable again, thank you.”

  Even the cook there had her rules, told me one thing she made a rule was never to help with the cleanup. I was finishing drying the silver she said never went in the dishwasher, not real sterling. I was asking myself, if Jesus was to say you could eat off real china plates with real sterling silver utensils or be part of The Rapture, what would you choose?

  “So you help Mrs. Blades, dear. I put the rest of the tuna-fish casserole in a Baggie for you to take home.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” I was watching the moon come through the fog in the s
ky out the window, wondering if heaven had a night. Never heard it had one. Heard it was paved with gold and shining without the need of the sun. Never heard hell had a day, only the light of the fires down there.

  Mrs. Blades said, “Now you’re leaving this little girl to help someone with a frozen shoulder.”

  “Someone with a frozen shoulder shouldn’t hire out to do kitchen work,” said the cook.

  “This little girl’s left to lift that big garbage bag and put it out in the can,” said Mrs. Blades, but the cook, in her coat, was on her way out the door.

  “You ought to come to one of our healings,” I said, “and have them lay hands on that shoulder.”

  “I’m a Catholic, honey,” she said. “I’m going to the chiropractor.”

  The last thing I did was haul the bag across the floor, though the back door. The air smelled fresh, like after a rain. A big, round moon had broken through the passing clouds, and I looked up at it, setting the bag down to catch my breath. I looked for shapes in clouds that could be omens, like Elijah’s servant seeing the cloud rise from the sea like a man’s hand, before the heavens turned black and the rain came.

  “Psssst! Opal!” a voice said. “Over here!”

  It was Diane-Young, standing in the shadows smoking a More.

  “I’ve been waiting for Mrs. Blades to leave so I could talk to you,” she said.

  She put out the cigarette and helped me drag the Tidy-Tall to the can and lift it inside. “How’s B. J. doing?” she asked me.

  “He’s dragging his tail some.”

  “Is that all he knows how to do? Ask him if that’s all he knows how to do!”

  “Did you and him have a fight?”

  “Chester Best and Dr. Antoinette think I’m too much under his influence,” she said. “They say I’ve got to raise my sights. They made me get this crappy haircut, too. Seal von Hennig gave them the idea.”

  “What’s she care about your hair?”

  “She’s talking about ACE sending me out on a Winning Rally, to tell about my healing. She said I should get contact lenses and removable braces. I want you to tell B. J. something for me.”