Fifty in Reverse by Bill Flanagan

Author:Bill Flanagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiller Press
Published: 2020-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Peter took a bus across town for band rehearsal. When he got to Buttongreen, there was no sign of any DeVille brother in the rehearsal shed. He waited awhile, strumming a guitar. He tried to work out the chords to a Steely Dan song. After half an hour he gave up and walked past the empty swimming pool to the back of the house and knocked on the kitchen door. Mrs. DeVille came and opened it. She was wearing a sleeveless turtleneck with a small rip at the collar, black Capri pants, and no shoes. Her toenails were bright red. Peter saw that she had beautiful toes.

“Hi, Peter.”

“The boys around, Mrs. DeVille? We were supposed to practice.”

“Oh, honey, their daddy showed up unexpectedly. Only way he ever shows up. Rocky and Ricky went with him and their little brothers to the drag races.”

“There are more brothers?”

“Their daddy has two little boys with his new wife. She has a twelve-year-old, too.”

“Jeez, they’re like the Osmonds.”

“Yes, well, Ricky and Rocky did me a favor, getting them all out of here. Raymond and I can stand to see each other for about nine minutes before one of us forgets to pretend to be civil. It’s good they see their father, though.”

“Okay. Well, tell them I came by.”

“You want to come in for a Coke, honey?”

He stepped into the kitchen, and Mrs. DeVille went to the refrigerator and came out with a Tab. She asked if that was okay and Peter said yes, and she poured it into a glass and handed it to him.

She said, “I’m glad you’re friends with Ricky, Peter. He’s more sensitive than he lets on, and he’s very smart. In first grade his teacher told me his IQ test said Ricky was gifted. Don’t tell him I told you that.”

“He’s a smart guy,” Peter agreed. He couldn’t get over how pretty Ricky’s mother was and how awkward that made him feel.

“I’m glad to see him making friends with a nice boy like you, a boy from a good home. A nice family.” She was looking into the middle distance. “All I wanted for my boys was to have a good home life, a solid upbringing. Raymond and I got married so young. But, you know. If we hadn’t, I wouldn’t have Barry…”

“I think,” Peter said, “that successful marriages are impossible to predict. A husband and wife need to be about fifty-five percent identical and forty-five percent compatible opposites.”

Ricky DeVille’s mother looked at Peter with curiosity. “What does that mean, honey? Compatible opposites?”

“Maybe the husband is good at making money but bad at hanging on to it. The wife is his compatible opposite—she keeps the books, pays the taxes, and keeps the operation solvent. Maybe he’s impatient and she’s always late. She teaches him to relax, and he gets her to church on time.”

“You are a very wise young man. Did you learn this from your parents?”

Peter couldn’t say he’d learned it from thirty-five years of marriage, so he gave his mother and father credit.

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