Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,9
on the Oreo.
“When did this happen?”
“Sometime.”
“What’s her name?”
Davey bit his lip, his top teeth grinding down in a sawing motion. It was a habit he had only recently started. “You’re not going to call her parents or anything.”
“I just want to know who you’re hanging out with.”
Davey ran his fingers through his hair, propping it higher. “It’s Tina.” He turned to go before any more questions could be asked of him.
“Hey,” Simon said, “you didn’t mow the lawn again today.”
“I know,” the boy answered wearily, as if he was always confirming the obvious to his father. “I was busy making things disappear.”
“You mean making things appear to disappear.”
Davey pulled a blue bandanna from his pocket. “Yeah, like coins and eggs. I was trying to make Casper disappear, but she won’t stay still long enough.” Davey opened his right hand to reveal a quarter. He draped it with the bandanna, then yanked it away. The palm was empty. “Cool, huh?” He hurried down the hallway past Amy, who patted him on the way by. She was always touching him when he came within her range. Should he do that, too, Simon wondered, or was it more of a mother’s thing?
She nodded at the mail in his hands. “Anything besides bills?”
He shook his head. “Sometimes I think we’re raising a very odd boy.”
She glanced behind herself, but Davey was already gone. “He seems normal enough to me.”
“You don’t think it’s strange for him to sit inside all afternoon trying to make things disappear?”
“You’re the one who bought him the magic book.”
Simon set the mail down on the hall table, and as he did his fingers felt the slickness of a postcard on the bottom. He pulled it out and saw a giant Ferris wheel with the inscription, THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, CHICAGO, 1893. He read the message out loud: “Greetings from the City of Big Shoulders. I saw one of those adages today that everybody is supposed to believe. It said: Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed. Faithfully …”
Amy touched his arm. “This is getting weird, Simon.”
He read the message again. “It’s just a little philosophizing.”
“It doesn’t bother you getting strange notes in the mail?”
“I figure the sender’s just confused me with somebody else.”
“How many Simon Howes do you think there are in Maine?”
“Apparently at least one other.”
She headed for the kitchen, and he followed her. “So,” he said as she took a sponge and wiped the counter, “aren’t you going to ask what I’m leading with this week?”
“What are you leading with this week, Simon?”
“The Virgin Mary.”
“She’s back?”
“Yep. In a yard on Larkspur, ensconced in a mound of dirt.”
Amy took out pots of various sizes from the cabinet drawers, banging them as she did. She wasn’t a delicate cook, but she was quick. “Does this dirt look any more like her than the freezer frost?”
“I’d say it resembles a face like the Man on the Moon does. If you want to see the Virgin Mary, you can.” Amy opened the refrigerator and searched through the crowded shelves until she found the containers she was looking for. She left the door slightly open, a habit of hers, and Simon nudged it shut with his foot. “You’d think people would expect more from their miracles,” he said, “not just someone sitting in dirt.”
“Are you going to run a story?”
“We have to. The line of people is already stretching out to the street.”
“Why don’t you get Father Elliott to say it’s a hoax? You know he finds this stuff embarrassing.”
Simon pulled out a stool from under the counter and sat partway on it. “I went through this the last time with him. Privately he’ll tell me it’s bullshit, but for attribution all he’ll say is that the Church has a rigorous process for determining miracles, and he’s pleased with the demonstration of faith by so many people.”
Amy lined up stalks of celery on the cutting board, then chopped them quickly into one-inch sections. It amazed him how close she was willing to come to her fingers. “It’s blind faith,” she said as she brushed the celery into a pan.
“What faith isn’t blind?” Simon leaned down to rub Casper’s back as she ate. The cat whipped her head around, a warning, and Simon withdrew his hand. “Maybe I’ll dub her Our Lady of Red Paint in a 60-point headline over a picture. That would put us on the map. I could spark a whole new industry selling Red Paint dirt. The Chamber of Commerce