[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.And he had been the best embalmer.A real artist.But now the trembling in his hands limited him to shaking hands with mourners and offering his condolences.Pearl realized that Barney’s hands were probably incapable of murder these days.She imagined the raised silver knife glancing off the victim and skittering like a fish along the pavement.She saw the bullet refusing to go into the gun as brittle fingers pushed at it.The match unable to ignite with such a slight scratch of itself down an alley wall.Old Barney couldn’t hurt a fly even if he were a spider and wanted to.He was too fragile with age, Pearl decided, and let the issue drop.“Speaking of firing,” Marvin said, his voice tight with tension.Pearl’s jaw grew taut.She waited.Nothing.“Yes?” she asked, finally.“What about it?” The tension floated like a balloon between them, ready to burst at the first sharp word.“If I ever run into Junior at work, I may just fire him.” Marvin said this quickly, hoping to make it sound as matter-of-fact as the possible firing of Barney Killam.But this was different.This was treading upon ground higher and taller than any sacred mound an Indian even conceived of building, for this Junior, this large, pinkish philandering heap, was, at thirty-eight years old, Pearl’s one and only baby.Juniorkins, she had called him in his baby years, and on occasion she still slipped and called him this.Juniorkins.And it seemed, she was sure, to please him.She had done all a mother could to protect Junior for years.His classmates had been cruel, she knew, singling him out on the basis of his father’s profession.So she had cradled him from those awful creatures all she could, had plied him with cakes and candies and high-caloric meals, insisting his bouts with unhappiness were a sure sign of low sugar.When Junior jilted her to marry batty little Thelma Parsons, Pearl had felt, family business metaphors aside, that a great grave had opened up wide and swallowed any chances for future happiness for her only child.Now Thelma Parsons Ivy had proved true to Pearl’s expectations of her.She was battier than ever.She was driving poor Junior to his wits’ end.Pearl knew this.A mother senses inner turmoil, regardless of how many layers of fatty tissue she must go through to reach it.“And Monique, the secretary with the big tits, was gone again.Another dental appointment.” Marvin offered more evidence, but to Pearl it was even further proof of poor Junior’s marital unhappiness.Thelma could have had breast implants.Pearl had seen her bras in the laundry room.Thirty-two A’s.“Walnuts,” Pearl had thought, “could fit in these cups.” How then could Junior not be tempted when veritable melons were flaunted before him, day after day? Pearl did pale at the thought of Monique, a fortune hunter, a gold digger if she ever saw one, trying to finagle her way in through the showroom doors of the Ivy Funeral Home as Junior’s second wife.And that was what Monique was after, to be sure.What woman wouldn’t want to be first lady of Portland’s largest, most academic funeral parlor? Parlor.Pearl grimaced.The last thing she needed that evening was the “we do not give massages” lecture.Pearl glanced over at Marvin, but he was staring straight ahead, still consumed with the anger he had brought home over Junior’s habitual disappearances.“All he thinks of is sex and food,” Marvin said.“In that order.”Pearl wished that Junior would come to her for the food, and for some motherly consolation.She might not be able to compete with Monique Tessier in some departments, but she could hold her own with quick, drive-through restaurants and the seedy sort of menus one might find in sleazy motels.She would make her son a three-tiered sandwich of homemade bread, cut him a monstrous slice of cake, fill a glass of Shulman’s Dairy milk up to a frosty brim.She would rub his shoulders and call him Juniorkins.“Maybe it was just a coincidence,” Pearl said, of Junior and Monique’s magical codisappearance.“Any more coincidences like that and the woman won’t have a tooth left in her head,” said Marvin.He finished off the coffee.“This is Thelma’s fault,” Pearl said, her eyes on Junior’s bronzed baby shoes, which glittered on the top shelf of the bookcase.Pearl could, if she listened hard enough, long enough, still hear the lovely patter of those plump little footfalls.“My God, where does the time go?” she wondered.“No.He’s a grown man,” said Marvin
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]