Ironweed - William Kennedy [71]
“She had a job,” Annie said. “She didn’t need that. I never liked that fellow that wanted to sign her up.”
“He was all right,” Billy said. “I checked him out. He was legitimate.”
“How could you know what he was?”
“How could I know anything? I’m a goddamn genius.”
“Clean up your mouth, genius. She would’ve had to go to New York for pictures.”
“And she’d of never come back, right?”
“Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t.”
“Now you got it,” Billy said to his father. “Mama likes to keep all the birds in the nest.”
“Can’t say as I blame her,” Francis said.
“No,” Billy said.
“I never liked that fellow,” Annie said. “That’s what it really was. I didn’t trust him.”
Nobody spoke.
“And she brought a paycheck home every week,” Annie said. “Even when the tool company closed awhile, the owner put her to work as a cashier in a trading port he owned. Trading port and indoor golf. An enormous place. They almost brought Rudy Vallee there once. Peg got wonderful experience.”
Nobody spoke.
“Cigarette?” Billy asked Francis.
“Sure,” Francis said.
Annie stood up and went to the refrigerator in the pantry. She came back with the butter dish and put it on the dining-room table. Peg came through the swinging door, into the silence. She poked the potatoes with a fork, looked at the turkey, which was turning deep brown, and closed the oven door without basting it. She rummaged in the utensil drawer and found a can opener and punched it through a can of peas and put them in a pan to boil.
“Turkey smells real good,” Francis said to her.
“Uh-huh, I bought a plum pudding,” she said to all, showing them the can. She looked at her father. “Mama said you used to like it for dessert on holidays.”
“I surely did. With that white sugar sauce. Mighty sweet.”
“The sauce recipe’s on the label,” Annie said. “Give it here and I’ll make it.”
“I’ll make it,” Peg said.
“It’s nice you remembered that,” Francis said.
“It’s no trouble,” Peg said. “The pudding’s already cooked. All you do is heat it up in the can.”
Francis studied her and saw the venom was gone from her eyes. This lady goes up and down like a thermometer. When she saw him studying her she smiled slightly, not a billboard smile, not a smile to make anybody rich in toothpaste, but there it was. What the hell, she’s got a right. Up and down, up and down. She come by it naturally.
“I got a letter maybe you’d all like to hear while that stuffis cookin’ up,” he said, and he took the yellowed envelope with a canceled two-cent stamp on it out of his inside coat pocket. On the back, written in his own hand, was: First letter from Margaret.
“I got this a few years back, quite a few,” he said, and from the envelope he took out three small trifolded sheets of yellowed lined paper. “Come to me up in Canada in nineteen-ten, when I was with Toronto.” He unfolded the sheets and moved them into the best possible light at longest possible arm’s length, and then he read:,
“‘Dear Poppy, I suppose you never think that you have a daughter that is waiting for a letter since you went away. I was so mad because you did not think of me that I was going to join the circus that was here last Friday. I am doing my lesson and there is an arithmetic example here that I cannot get. See if you can get it. I hope your leg is better and that you have good luck with the team. Do not run too much with your legs or you will have to be carried home. Mama and Billy are good. Mama has fourteen new little chickens out and she has two more hens sitting. There is a wild west circus coming the eighth. Won’t you come home and see it? I am going to it. Billy is just going to bed and Mama is sitting on the bed watching me. Do not forget to answer this. I suppose you are having a lovely time. Do not let me find you with another girl or I will pull her hair. Yours truly, Peggy.’“
“Isn’t that funny,” Peg said, the fork still in her hand. “I don’t remember writing that.”
“Probably lots you don’t remember about them days.” Francis said. “You was only about eleven.”
“Where did you ever find it?