“Hallo!” he called cheerfully. “What pretty girls there are today!”
Marge feigned surprise and looked around. “What? I don’t see any girls. They must be in the bird cage.”
“Do you mean a couple of chicks?” Mr. Averstand guffawed. “Sure, sure, they’re cute. But honestly” – he grinned a grinned that would have fluttered the heart of even a woman a few decades younger – “can you imagine having to put up with all that squawking? The feathers alone would tickle me baby pink.”
The dark-tressed woman beside him laughed silently. “Oh, before I forget, have you two excellent ladies met this sweetheart?” He put a blue-veined hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Calls herself Janet? Sam? Candice?...I forgot.”
“Hello, my name is – ”
“Wait, I remembered.” Mr. Averstand gave her a gooey look, lowered his voice, and said, “Angel.”
Whereas the two seated figures on the bench were besides themselves, she smiled. “Actually, you can call me Grace.”
They exchanged pleasantries for a bit before Marge ventured an inquiry about lunch.
“It can’t be long now, see.” Mr. Averstand pointed at one of his knees. “My lucky horseshoe always gives me a nice long jab whenever something important is supposed to happen. And I’d say lunch is a pretty important event.”
“Your lucky horseshoe?” Suzanne whispered faintly.
“Yes, ma’am, right now it’s going off like a fire alarm on the Fourth of July. Would you like to see it?” Without waiting for a response he bent down and began to roll up his left pantleg, Grace holding him steady, each fold of the fabric enlarging the loose, soft brown canvas cuff around ankles like two splintery pine twigs, up over calves nearly as skinny, to just below the cap sunken in an extensive web of varicose veins. With a final flourish the pants lifted over a perfectly raised, flesh-colored letter “u”, neatly embedded with evenly-spaced gray dots. It had the exact resemblance to the shoes of the Clydesdales which Marge had seen in San Diego.
Suzanne gave a gasp, her hands fluttering over her heart, while Marge merely bit her lip and twisted her angered knuckles. The pant leg dropped down on the queer sight as Grace helped him straighten up again.
He gave a triumphant smile. “Got it in my last unit mission. One of my boys was leaping ahead of everyone, when suddenly he yelled – ” He chuckled. “Well, it’s not words to speak in polite company. Anyways, the jackrabbit comes hoppin’ back, screaming for us to get our hinnies out of there. The other men took the advice, and I took a bullet by Viet Cog fire.
“Ever since then this little charm has brought me luck. Why, just the other day I found the letter my dear Cynthia wrote me before we tied the knot, raging on about the kind of lover stuff that kids our age used to. She expressly mentioned this little kicker, saying it was the sweetest thing about me, aside from my handsome face. She also mighta said some choice words about those other girls I was seeing – har, har, you know, about if she wasn’t the only girl for me she’d leave, and I’d rue it for the rest of my born days – I think she mighta used my full name, too. Saint of a woman, really, but you didn’t ever want to cross her, ‘specially not in the kitchen. She had a set of knives like the teeth of a jumping tiger, and she knew how to use ‘em, too.”
Marge looked down at her twisted hands, the pain having gotten louder during the story. They throbbed with a heartbeat of their own, though they were cold. She slid them in and out of the sun’s strengthening rays.
Suzanne was held in a sort of spellbound awe, her gentle deer face enraptured in the light sifting through the soft shade of the tree. “Was she in the kitchen a lot? My mother always said that a woman too much in the kitchen is a dangerous thing.”
Mr. Averstand chuckled to himself for a bit before he started, remembering that he had an audience. “She sure was. And she was mad at me half the time for disturbing her with my yapping, so I think your mother was right.” He indicated his knee. “Every time she would waggle that slicer at me her eyes would fall to my knee and her expression would always change in my favor. It was this guy that kept me from being mincemeat. Although in one of her dishes, I bet I woulda tasted great.” He smiled jovially.
“She sounds like a good cook. I would have liked to try one of her dishes.” Grace had spoken so swiftly that Marge hadn’t seen her lips part. The voice was a mere murmur, like dusk-kissed wind.
Section 3 of 4
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