not,” Vie said. “He’s probably there . . . unless you really need him. In which case he’d be gone. Catch-22.” He sounded depressed.
“Then what should I do?”
“Call the Ford dealership and tell them you want a tow.”
“But—”
“No, you have to. If you try to drive twenty-two miles over to South Paris, it’ll pack up on you for sure. And if you explain the situation in advance, they might be able to get you a loaner. Barring that, they’ll lease you a car.”
“Lease . . . Vic, isn’t that expensive?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She thought again that it was wrong of her to be dumping all this on him. He was probably thinking that she wasn’t capable of anything . . . except maybe screwing the local furniture refinisher. She was fine at that. Hot salt tears, partly anger, partly self-pity, stung her eyes again. “I’ll take care of it,” she said, striving desperately to keep her voice normal, light. Her elbow was propped on the wall and one hand was over her eyes. “Not to worry.”
“Well, I—oh, shit, there’s Roger. He’s dust up to his neck, but they got the kinescopes. Put Tad on for a second, would you?”
Frantic questions backed up in her throat. Was it all right? Did he think it could be all right? Could they get back to go and start again? Too late. No time. She had spent the time gabbing about the car. Dumb broad, stupid quiff.
“Sure,” she said. “He’ll say good-bye for both of us. And . . . Vic?”
“What?” He sounded impatient now, pressed for time.
“I love you,” she said, and then before he could reply, she added: “Here’s Tad.” She gave the phone to Tad quickly, almost conking him on the head with it, and went through the house to the front porch, stumbling over a hassock and sending it spinning, seeing everything through a prism of tears.
She stood on the porch looking out at 117, clutching her elbows, struggling to get herself under control—control, dammit, control—and it was amazing, wasn’t it, how bad you could hurt when there was nothing physically wrong.
Behind her she could hear the soft murmur of Tad’s voice, telling Vie they had eaten at Mario’s, that Mommy had her favorite Fat Pizza and the Pinto had been okay until they were almost home. Then he was telling Vic that he loved him. Then there was the soft sound of the phone being hung up. Contact broken.
Control.
At last she felt as if she had some. She went back into the kitchen and began putting away the groceries.
Charity Camber stepped down from the Greyhound bus at quarter past three that afternoon. Brett was right at her heels. She was clutching the strap of her purse spasmodically. She was suddenly, irrationally afraid that she would not recognize Holly. Her sister’s face, held in her mind like a photograph all these years (The Younger Sister Who Had Married Well), had gone suddenly and mysteriously out of her mind, leaving only a fogged blank where the picture should have been.
“You see her?” Brett asked as they alighted. He looked around at the Stratford bus depot with bright interest and no more. There was certainly no fear in his face.
“Give me a chance to look around!” Charity said sharply. “Probably she’s in the coffee shop or—”
“Charity?”
She turned and there was Holly. The picture held in her memory came flooding back, but it was now a transparency overlying the real face of the woman standing by the Space Invaders game. Charity’s first thought was that Holly was wearing glasses—how funny! Her second, shocked, was that Holly had wrinkles—not many, but there could be no question about what they were. Her third thought was not precisely a thought at all. It was an image, as clear, true, and heartbreaking as a sepia-toned photograph: Holly leaping into old man Seltzer’s cowpond in her underpants, pigtails standing up against the sky, thumb and forefinger of her left hand pinching her nostrils closed for comic effect. No glasses then, Charity thought, and pain came to her then, and it squeezed her heart.
Standing at Holly’s sides, looking shyly at her and Brett, were a boy of about five and a girl who was perhaps two and a half. The little girl’s bulgy pants spoke of diapers beneath. Her stroller stood off to one side.
“Hi, Holly,” Charity said, and her voice was so thin she could hardly hear it.
The wrinkles were small. They turned upward, the way their mother had