Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [102]
“Oh, that son of a bitch,” Shelly said. She handed the clipboard back. “Take ’em back, it’s a bum joke.”
“Jeez, I don’t know.”
“Take ’em back,” she said again. “I’ll call the Emporium and straighten it out.”
Shrugging, the driver put the cage back into his truck and drove off. Shelly came up on the piazza to where I sat–I have to admit, laughing. I said, “It seems a shame, they might have brightened up the house. One for every room.”
“Oh, man!” She flopped on the steps beside the ramp and took a strand of hair in her mouth and scowled down into the roses. She spit the hair out. “Didn’t I tell you? His jokes draw blood. A present. A little gift from my loving man. Charged to me. The son of a bitch stole my charge card when I gave him my purse to get himself some cigarettes. He’ll flood me with presents! I’ll be straightening out his God-damned cute tricks from now till Christmas.”
I suppose she may, at that. I wiped the smile off my face and suggested that she make her telephone call so we could go up and get to work. After an incredulous instant in which she looked as if I had suggested she bring her typewriter to somebody’s funeral, so we could get off a few letters while we waited for the praying to begin, she did just that.
I wonder what Grandmother would have done with such a husband? Answer: She would never have got mixed up with him in the first place. I suppose in a way we deserve the people we marry.
IV
LEADVILLE
1
Today was Rodman day. He might as well have put a gun to my head.
He called before nine, saying that Leah was taking Jackie to her camp, and he might drop up if I was going to be home. I wonder where he thought I might be going. I’d be glad to see him, I said, not untruthfully. Ada and I plotted a lunch: avocado salad, a soufflé, garlic bread, a bottle of Green Hungarian. There is simply no sense in letting him think I subsist on canned soup and peanut butter sandwiches.
A little before noon I heard his car in the drive, then the bell. Ada let him in, and they talked a minute or two down in the hollow hall. With all the windows and doors open to let the breeze through, sounds are carried through the house with great clarity.
There is a certain endearing innocence about Rodman–he makes the world’s worst conspirator or gumshoe. It has apparently never occurred to him that he has the loudest voice in the entire world, and that when he wants to be confidential he ought to retreat two miles. He reminds me of Bob Sproul, who was president of the University of California when I taught there, back in simpler times than these. There was a story they always told, that once a visitor came into his office for an appointment and heard Bob’s voice booming away in the inner office. Sit down, the secretary said, he’ll just be a few minutes, he’s talking to New York. It seems so, says the visitor, but why doesn’t he use the telephone?
That’s Rodman, to the life. He bellows at Ada in a way to rattle the windows. “Hi, Ada. Hot enough for you? How’s everything? How’s Pop?”
“Doin’ just fine.”
“How’s the pain? Any better?”
“Well, how would a person know? He don’t tell you when he hurts, he just takes his aspirin. Some day he’s just goin’ to blow up with those aspirin, two dozen a day.”
“Sleeps all right, does he?”
“He seems to sleep pretty good. I put him to bed about ten, and he’s up at six.”
“You work a long day.”
“Oh, I don’t get him up. He gets himself up. He’s up and down that lift, and out in the yard every afternoon. You’d be surprised what he can do for himself.”
“No I wouldn’t,” Rodman says. “I’m surprised he hasn’t started playing golf.” His voice drops a few decibels, the vase of marguerites on the desk quits trembling. “Any signs of, you know, failing? Still seem to have all his buttons?”
“Oh, buttons! Don’t you worry about his buttons!” (Atta girl, Ada.)
“No problems like Grandpa’s.”
I can’t quite hear Ada’s reply. She knows, if Rodman doesn’t, how sounds carry up the bare stairs, and I suppose it embarrasses her to be passing on my sanity in my hearing. I know what she thought of Father. He was such a gloomy man, she has said more than once. Just sat and stared at nothing for hours at a time, and got up and walked off without a word right while you were talking to him. Lived in some world off by himself. Got stingy, too, as he got worse