Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon

Author:Thomas Mallon
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780375425165
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

“Paul says it’s over a hundred degrees in St. Louis.”

“I guess we shouldn’t complain,” said Tim.

Mary Johnson, who’d had to persuade the boy to remove his seersucker jacket, fluffed the chicken hash on the burner and disagreed. “Oh, sure we should complain.”

“Doesn’t it get even more steamy than this in New Orleans?” Tim asked.

“They know how to build shade there. We used to spend half the day in the dark, behind the shutters.”

She looked at him as he set out the plates and napkins, and had trouble believing he would spend half his life like that, hiding in shadows. He reminded her a little of Lon McCallister, that slight, sweet actor who’d had to kiss Katharine Cornell in Stage Door Canteen and had just walked away from the movies at thirty. Right now she herself felt a little like the grand Miss Cornell, or at least Our Miss Brooks, though she couldn’t be more than a few years older than Tim.

“So, have you heard from him?” she was suddenly moved to ask.

He brightened up as if they’d decided to go straight to dessert.

“A postcard from Bar Harbor,” he answered, reaching for it in his pocket. “‘Dear Skippy,’—that’s a nickname he has for me—‘Nothing up here but the Bucksport papers, and even they still echo with praise for Citizen Canes.’ That’s what he calls my boss. ‘I won’t return until the first, by which time an air conditioner is supposed to be installed in every front window of 2124 Eye Street. You can come over when you need to get that scapular unstuck from your overheated skin. Sheen’s TV show, by the way, doesn’t reach these parts, so Mother will have to remain in the clutches of the Reformation for a while. HF.’”

She saw his face contract with embarrassment as he finished—not because it was too much; because it was too little. Where were “love” and “wish you were here,” or even a double entendre about the lighthouse pictured on the front of the card? The scapular might suggest intimacy, but of a small, controlled sort, a rationing prompted not by fear of the postman’s prying eyes, but wariness of the boy’s ravenous heart.

She had to give him the chance to display his feelings, had to force herself to say some words that would allow that: “You must miss him.”

The gratitude on his face was immediate, though he stopped short of saying anything.

“We even miss him in the office,” she declared, helpfully. “Though, of course, he is impossible.”

“He is, isn’t he?” said Tim, whose laughter was still more nervous than relieved. As if remembering his manners—and that he ought to share such pleasure—he asked: “Is Paul impossible, too?”

Mary thought for a moment. “Paul is, I’d say, very…possible.”

Tim smiled. “Is that a compliment?”

“Possibly.” She doubled her Southern accent to keep him amused, while realizing that this was not a question she wanted to entertain. “Okay,” she said, “the hash is finally hotter than the room.” She poured a tumbler of ice water for herself, and a glass of milk for him.

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