Pay the Piper by Joan Williams Page B

that she should chauffeur the neighborhood kids. But she would like to be out in the world, jumping into cabs, calling out directions, having a limousine wait for her outside Four Seasons, be recognized in Bendel’s and have little time to shop. She longed to have an engagement calendar scribbled over with appointments and to have to make a lunch date three months in advance. As the tenant inspected the house, Buff came up cordially to sniff the skirt of her daughter, who shrieked in terror. “Don’t touch the doggie,” the mother cried. “The doggie has germs.” “Oh, get away,” Laurel told Buff, meaning the opposite might be true. The poor city child would never love a dog or have the love of one in return. Once again, she had felt how out of her element she had always been in her exposure to New York.
    Mrs. Wynn looked back. “Poor Buff,” she said. She got in a parting shot in a warring game Laurel never played. Just when she could feel sympathy for her mother, Mrs. Wynn ruined the moment; often that was the case.
    â€œDoes Buff mind being in the car two days?” Rick said.
    â€œNo.”
    William on the porch again drew his chin into a long face and wiped at an imaginary tear. “See you soon, pal.”
    â€œâ€™Bye, Dad.” Rick hung out the window.
    Laurel, smiling through the windshield, thought, No sad face for me and no long goodbye.
    Rick shouted, “Gran, fly down and drive back home with Mom.”
    â€œI’m not going to Mississippi in August! I lived to get out of that heat, period. Send me a postcard from wherever you’re going out west.”
    â€œThanks a lot,” Laurel said.
    Rick settled inside. “I knew she wouldn’t come,” he said.
    He rose onto his knees and looked back until the house no longer filled the rearview mirror and they were around the corner from two familiar people, her mother and her husband. And suddenly, it seemed odd to Laurel that they were there together while she drove away leaving them.
    On the front seat lay a piece of paper covered with what she called William’s “squinchy” writing; it was hardly decipherable. His listing exit numbers and highways for her was the only way she got through New Jersey and Pennsylvania each year. She could not understand maps. In her worse times, she thought his handwriting showed a mean, suspicious, small nature, but Rick’s handwriting had turned into a carbon copy. So she changed her mind, deciding that in handwriting analysis probably opposites were true: small writing meant largesse of mind, a warm, loving, and sympathetic nature. She smiled at Rick, playing with a Slinky train at his age, folding the wire in and out like an accordion.
    Later, as they traveled into New Jersey and passed green exit signs for Princeton, she wondered about Edward and if he still lived there. She fumbled for William’s paper because soon she needed the exit for Pennsylvania. “Mom, why can’t you remember how to go year after year?”
    â€œI’m stupid. Once we get to Virginia I’m OK. It’s the same highway nearly all the way after that.” All the way home , she thought, home free. In Virginia, the countryside began to feel, look, and smell Southern. She slowed again for a toll. “Do you realize it costs almost eight dollars to get from Soundport to Philadelphia? In the South there are no toll roads.”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to say about that this year?”
    â€œJesus, God!”
    â€œWhat, Mom?” The Slinky train fell from Rick’s hands.
    â€œI missed the basket. Help me. Help me find the right change.”
    â€œI thought you’d had a heart attack. Get out and get that money.” But Rick grabbed the purse she held out and found coins.
    â€œI couldn’t get out.” Laurel breathed slowly again, driving on. “The sign says not to.”
    He repeated, “I thought you’d had a