not, and she reached out and squeezed Dewey’s hand and said, “But I’m sorry for you.” She sipped on a Coke and Dewey said, “You want that I should add something to that,” and she said, “Why, absolutely.” Dewey took out a bottle with a missing label, as if that was going to fool someone, and let the last of its contents drip into Miss Dazzle’s Coke. He slapped the bottle as if it were ketchup to get a final drop. Miss Dazzle’s body sagged peacefully. Another plate of french fries appeared before Beth and she just couldn’t hold back a smile and everyone laughed. She felt happy, boundlessly happy; she wanted to throw her french fries in the air. Then Dewey Durnford reached down below the counter and brought up a record album and presented it to a stunned Miss Dazzle. “The new one?” Miss Dazzle stuttered. “Does it have it on there?” Miss Dazzle’s voice was anxious as she scanned the cover photo—a picture of Calamity Jane with a Civil War scout cap perked over her blond curls. Beth’s grandmother had the very same album with that song she listened to six times in a row. “Oh, you’re a sweetheart!” Miss Dazzle cried. “Oh Lord! You’re a sweetheart!” She stood up and grabbed the sides of Dewey’s face and planted a big kiss on the bridge of his nose. Harry said he agreed about not liking fights. Dewey fixed up milk shakes and hamburgers and more french fries and they took them back to the motel. On the ride back to the motel Miss Dazzle talked about her boys being seventeen and eighteen—she snapped her fingers again—and how they were hitchhiking to California for the summer. They had a cousin who lived there and thought they had a used car coming to them simply because they were old enough to drive and cars just happened to appear out of nowhere once you were old enough to drive, right, Harry? Look at her car why don’t you. She was sure she could afford another one for their summer outing, like heck. But why complain? She touched the record album. Right now she was about as happy as a person could be.
Harry and Miss Dazzle ate with them in their motel room. The skin on Charlie’s face had that shiny blushed look so Beth knew her mother had pounded him and he had hacked out the visitor for another night, which was how they referred to Charlie’s situation. Miss Dazzle thought Charlie had taken a nap because he looked “refreshed.” They all went to bed late. From time to time Miss Dazzle would look around at all of them and a big grin would spread across her face. Harry finally stood up and said good-night. Miss Dazzle had no choice but to follow him out though it seemed to Beth she was just getting started. She was a people person, Miss Dazzle was, sort of the opposite of her mother. Harry went to his truck. “Harry, just take a room for free,” Miss Dazzle told him. Beth overheard them. She went to the window above the bed and watched as they stood together in the parking lot. “I couldn’t do that,” Harry said. “Besides I need to guard my wares.” He disappeared into his truck and Beth saw the shadow of Miss Dazzle shaking its head.
“What’s going on now?” her mother asked. Her mother was sitting at the tiny desk in the motel room while Beth did the spying. “He needs to guard his wares,” Beth told her. Her mother shook her head just as Miss Dazzle had done. They heard the engine churn over. Beth looked out again. “I guess he’s leaving.” The red brake lights of Harry’s truck lit up Miss Dazzle’s face. “For goodness’ sake,” Miss Dazzle was saying, “don’t be silly, park here overnight, Harry.” She was aflame from the red brake lights shining on her. Magicians’ scarves appeared to fly out of her hands. Her sweeping gestures left a neon trail of red in the sky. “You can help guard the motel,” Miss Dazzle told him. The engine switched off. “Is this place dangerous?” Beth asked her mother. Her mother laughed. “Why does Harry need to guard us?” Charlie said, “She’s just trying to make him feel good.” Her mother laughed again. Beth turned back to the window and saw Miss Dazzle disappear into the office. She heard the screen door bounce shut. The phonograph came on. The music was turned low but it was that song again and Beth heard a big whoop that belonged to Miss Dazzle’s voice. “Why do you hate that song?” Beth asked her mother. “What song?” her mother said. “I don’t hate any song.” Beth jumped down on her soft mattress. It felt so unusual to sleep in a bed again, as if her adventure had lasted months rather than a few days. She wondered where the wild tabby went during the night.
SIX
Jean lay in bed, holding her daughter. Through the screened window she heard the strains of Miss Dazzle’s phonograph. She recognized Doris Day’s voice. Miss Dazzle’s loud enthusiastic harmony almost drowned her out. Beth was mostly asleep but still humming along.
Miss Dazzle was that friendly, ebullient type, the kind someone like Jean might like to have along to fill out her own personality: those dark holes where the bright colors of congeniality had somehow been dug out. She could come up with justifications for it: the mothers in the hospital who panted sweetly and obediently for the staff got adored by the head-patting nurses but got nowhere as far as procuring real services for their child. But she knew, really, this was an excuse. Something of her true nature had been released, not changed, by Charlie’s illness.
She remembered visiting the house of the widow who had sold her their tent. She would have sent her mother on the errand had her mother not been so opposed to this adventure, since it required the fluid charms of someone who loved etiquette. The widow, Jean could tell over the phone, was another etiquette-lover.
The widow’s house was strangely designed. As soon as Jean walked through the front door she was on the staircase. It was as if the house itself were an aggressive salesman—Up or Down! it immediately demanded. On the coffee table where the widow put their cups of tea were photographs framed in velvet. The people in the pictures were too dated: none could have been the husband who had died of a heart attack in Yellowstone Park. She smelled that the widow’s oven was on. Its heat had loosed other smells. When they went upstairs to the husband’s closet to retrieve the tent, there drifted in the empty air a seasoned perfume, and Jean instinctively knew this was not the widow’s perfume. Even though the closet had been vacated of suits and ties and shoes, the perfume had remained, finally to have its say, one traitor turning upon another.
The tent was made by the Camel Company. The pickax a hunter had given her was a U.S. Forest Service brand, such a tempting item although nothing she was ever likely to use. As she lay in bed, she began to list the names of Geiger counters, the ones she could remember, the 1-Eleven Scintillator, the Price Ranger. She had researched the different types of detection instruments but had never considered purchasing one. The Lucky Strike was the cheapest Geiger counter by far and the name she liked best. The others vied for dullest: the Babbel Counter, the Gordon, the Winford-Bunce, all descendants of the Geiger-Mueller tube. It must have been a type of infidelity that she could remember pieces of equipment better than she could her own husband, for the Geiger counters were named after men she was sure.
In the morning they enjoyed breakfast by the pool. Eggs and bacon and raisin toast with icing for them; pastries for the three elderly ladies. Miss Dazzle served coffee on a tray, then sat down with Jean. Miss Dazzle was a talker who didn’t always need to talk. There was some comfort in that. There was a lot of comfort in that. Jean leaned back and breathed in the early morning. The air was still sleepy and unbroken, yet the sun sharp as midafternoon. No clouds. Never a cloud. On the chair between them was a stack of clean, folded clothes that Miss Dazzle had put there. Catching their aroma gave Jean a physical pleasure that traveled through her body.
Miss Dazzle refilled the silver pot of coffee for the three ladies and then took Jean and the children to the post office, where Jean collected the mail that had arrived for her. A lot of mail had arrived, but every single bit of it was from the children’s grandmother. Jean tried to view her mother this way—the children’s grandmother—to neutralize the pain, but it didn’t work. Upon seeing the handwriting she felt herself a daughter again. She was paralyzed. But of course her mother had anticipated this very reaction. Foreseeing that any sealed envelopes would never be opened, her mother had sent only postcards. At least a dozen of them. Brief messages popped out like ad campaigns, one after the other, until a letter’s full contents were equaled.
High school graduations
