neighborhood detective club of which he’d been both treasurer and Official Historian. And he recalled club get-togethers where tall candles, snitched from the five ’n’ dime, flamed in Coca-Cola bottles, and how Exalted Operative Number One, Sammy Silverstein, had used for a gavel an old cow bone.
She glanced at the firepoker which had rolled halfway under a wing chair. “Would you mind picking that up and putting it over by the hearth? I was in here earlier,” she explained, while he carried out her order, “and a bird flew in the window; such a nuisance: you weren’t disturbed?”
Joel hesitated. “I thought I heard something,” he said. “It woke me up.”
“Well, twelve hours sleep should be sufficient.” She lowered herself into the chair, and crossed her toothpick legs; her shoes were low-heeled and white, like those worn by nurses. “Yes, the morning’s gone and everything’s all hot again. Summer is so unpleasant.” Now despite her impersonal manner, Joel was not antagonized, just a little uncomfortable. Females in Miss Amy’s age bracket, somewhere between forty-five and fifty, generally displayed a certain tenderness toward him, and he took their sympathy for granted; if, as had infrequently happened, this affection was withheld, he knew with what ease it could be guaranteed: a smile, a wistful glance, a courtly compliment: “I want to say how pretty I think your hair is: a
nice
color.”
The bribe received no clear-cut appreciation, therefore: “And how much I like my room.”
And this time he hit his mark. “I’ve always considered it the finest room in the house. Cousin Randolph was born here: in that very bed. And Angela Lee . . . Randolph’s mother: a beautiful woman, originally from Memphis . . . died here, oh, not many years ago. We’ve never used it since.” She perked her head suddenly, as if to hear some distant sound; her eyes squinted, then closed altogether. But presently she relaxed and eased back into the chair. “I suppose you’ve noticed the view?”
Joel confessed that no, he hadn’t, and went obligingly to a window. Below, under a fiery surface of sun waves, a garden, a jumbled wreckage of zebrawood and lilac, elephant-ear plant and weeping willow, the lace-leafed limp branches shimmering delicately, and dwarfed cherry trees, like those in oriental prints, sprawled raw and green in the noon heat. It was not a result of simple neglect, this tangled oblong area, but rather the outcome, it appeared, of someone having, in a riotous moment, scattered about it a wild assortment of seed. Grass and bush and vine and flower were all crushed together. Massive chinaberry and waterbay formed a rigidly enclosing wall. Now at the far end, opposite the house, was an unusual sight: like a set of fingers, a row of five white fluted columns lent the garden the primitive, haunted look of a lost ruin: Judas vine snaked up their toppling slenderness, and a yellow tabby cat was sharpening its claws against the middle column.
Miss Amy, having risen, now stood beside him. She was an inch or so shorter than Joel.
“In ancient history class at school, we had to draw pictures of some pillars like those. Miss Kadinsky said mine were the best, and she put them on the bulletin board,” he bragged.
“The pillars . . . Randolph adores them, too; they were once part of the old side porch,” she told him in a reminiscing voice. “Angela Lee was a young bride, just down from Memphis, and I was a child younger than you. In the evening we would sit on the side porch, sipping cherryade and listen to the crickets and wait for the moonrise. Angela Lee crocheted a shawl for me: you must see it sometime, Randolph uses it in his room as a tablescarf: a waste and a shame.” She spoke so quietly it was as though she intended only herself to hear.
“Did the porch just blow away?” asked Joel.
“Burned,” she said, rubbing a clear circle on the dusty glass with her gloved hand. “It was in
She glanced at the firepoker which had rolled halfway under a wing chair. “Would you mind picking that up and putting it over by the hearth? I was in here earlier,” she explained, while he carried out her order, “and a bird flew in the window; such a nuisance: you weren’t disturbed?”
Joel hesitated. “I thought I heard something,” he said. “It woke me up.”
“Well, twelve hours sleep should be sufficient.” She lowered herself into the chair, and crossed her toothpick legs; her shoes were low-heeled and white, like those worn by nurses. “Yes, the morning’s gone and everything’s all hot again. Summer is so unpleasant.” Now despite her impersonal manner, Joel was not antagonized, just a little uncomfortable. Females in Miss Amy’s age bracket, somewhere between forty-five and fifty, generally displayed a certain tenderness toward him, and he took their sympathy for granted; if, as had infrequently happened, this affection was withheld, he knew with what ease it could be guaranteed: a smile, a wistful glance, a courtly compliment: “I want to say how pretty I think your hair is: a
nice
color.”
The bribe received no clear-cut appreciation, therefore: “And how much I like my room.”
And this time he hit his mark. “I’ve always considered it the finest room in the house. Cousin Randolph was born here: in that very bed. And Angela Lee . . . Randolph’s mother: a beautiful woman, originally from Memphis . . . died here, oh, not many years ago. We’ve never used it since.” She perked her head suddenly, as if to hear some distant sound; her eyes squinted, then closed altogether. But presently she relaxed and eased back into the chair. “I suppose you’ve noticed the view?”
Joel confessed that no, he hadn’t, and went obligingly to a window. Below, under a fiery surface of sun waves, a garden, a jumbled wreckage of zebrawood and lilac, elephant-ear plant and weeping willow, the lace-leafed limp branches shimmering delicately, and dwarfed cherry trees, like those in oriental prints, sprawled raw and green in the noon heat. It was not a result of simple neglect, this tangled oblong area, but rather the outcome, it appeared, of someone having, in a riotous moment, scattered about it a wild assortment of seed. Grass and bush and vine and flower were all crushed together. Massive chinaberry and waterbay formed a rigidly enclosing wall. Now at the far end, opposite the house, was an unusual sight: like a set of fingers, a row of five white fluted columns lent the garden the primitive, haunted look of a lost ruin: Judas vine snaked up their toppling slenderness, and a yellow tabby cat was sharpening its claws against the middle column.
Miss Amy, having risen, now stood beside him. She was an inch or so shorter than Joel.
“In ancient history class at school, we had to draw pictures of some pillars like those. Miss Kadinsky said mine were the best, and she put them on the bulletin board,” he bragged.
“The pillars . . . Randolph adores them, too; they were once part of the old side porch,” she told him in a reminiscing voice. “Angela Lee was a young bride, just down from Memphis, and I was a child younger than you. In the evening we would sit on the side porch, sipping cherryade and listen to the crickets and wait for the moonrise. Angela Lee crocheted a shawl for me: you must see it sometime, Randolph uses it in his room as a tablescarf: a waste and a shame.” She spoke so quietly it was as though she intended only herself to hear.
“Did the porch just blow away?” asked Joel.
“Burned,” she said, rubbing a clear circle on the dusty glass with her gloved hand. “It was in
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