Crow Fair: Stories by Thomas Mcguane

Author:Thomas Mcguane [Mcguane, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780385350204
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-02T21:00:00+00:00

The boy was born at two o’clock in the morning. Mary was exhausted and so was Arnold, who was both elated and confused but truly loving to his bedraggled wife. They had never chosen a name for the baby, thinking that it was presumptuous to do so before seeing whether it was a boy or a girl. They agreed that a list of gender-based alternatives was somehow corny. But Mary’s suggestion, based on a sudden recollection of the aspirant at loan-officer school, startled Arnold.

“Pedro? I don’t think I’d be comfortable with that, Mary.”

They settled on Peter, which left Mary with her glimmer of rationale and pleased Arnold, who liked old-fashioned names. Mary’s affectionate name for him, however, would always be Pedro. And, without question, he had a Pedro look to him.

Mary bought a horse and, as Peter grew, Arnold spent more and more time in San Juan Capistrano; the day came when he told Mary that he would not be coming back. As foreseen as that must have been, they both wept discreetly to avoid alarming Peter, who was in the next room. They tried to discuss how Arnold would spend time with Peter, but the future looked so fractured that they were forced to trust to their love and intentions.

“Will I always be able to see Peter?” Arnold sobbed. Mary was crying, too. But she knew where to put her pain. She had her boy to think of, and where to put pain was a skill she’d learned early on.

“The house is yours, of course,” Arnold said with a brave, generous smile that suggested he was unaware that he was speaking to a loan officer who had already begun to do the numbers in her head. She couldn’t help it. It was her latest version of tough.

“Thank you, Arnold.”

“And my owning the bank with my mother means that your job is assured.”

Mary loved Arnold, but this airy way of dispensing justice hurried her agenda.

“Don’t you find that a little informal?”

“You must mean divorce.”

“I’m not the one going to San Juan Capistrano. You are.”

“No doubt we’ll have to get something written up.”

“This is a no-fault state. When couples split the sheets, they split them fifty-fifty.” Mary laughed heartily. “I could keep you on at the bank, Arnold, but not from California.”

He’d let Mary see his origins, and Mary had reminded him of hers. Arnold sighed in concession.

His mother was not pleased when she learned of her new partnership. Her mouth fell open as Mary explained the arrangement, but Mary reached across the conference-room table and gently lifted it shut. News of all this was greeted warmly as it shot around the bank.

Mary learned more about banking every day. Mrs. Tanner, despite her claims at the beauty parlor, however, knew nothing except how she had come to acquire what equity she had, and she spent more and more of her time and money on increasingly futile cosmetic surgery. As a figurehead at board meetings, she wore costumes and an imitation youth

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