Chapter 19

It was almost eight o'clock before dinner was finished and I could go up to my room to call Brenda. Mrs. Parsons came downstairs when Hans, Gerta and I were about halfway through eating dinner in the kitchen. She was drunk and weeping, dressed in her robe, and obviously rumpled from too little rest. She sat with us through the remainder of dinner, but refused to eat anything. Gerta had to help her back up the stairs, and sit with her until she finally fell asleep.

This was the first time I had actually observed Mrs. Parsons in the grip of her melancholia. I couldn't imagine going through something like that for weeks at a time, especially when sleeping was either difficult or impossible for her, without taking something. At the kitchen table she had been talking aimlessly about her mother, something about believing that her mother had suffered from the same problem she now lived with. Gerta assured her that this wasn't true. Gerta had worked for the late Mrs. Chalmers for several years before her death, and she told Mrs. Parsons that her mother hadn't been unhappy.

By the time I went upstairs to call Brenda, I felt unsettled by Mrs. Parsons condition. Mr. Parsons was starting his vacation in the morning. I had hoped that he and his wife could work out their problems with the time they'd both be spending together through the week. Now, with his attitude about her condition, seeing her like she was, there was little chance for any reconciliation between them. I didn't have any ideas of what I could do to help either. I dialed Brenda's number.

When she came to the phone, she was too tired to make much of an effort at conversation with me. One piece of good news was that Mrs. Taylor had put her foot down with Ron about too much practicing in the heat, and he was grounded from practicing on Saturday. I felt good about that until Brenda asked me to practice with her in his place.

"Brenda, you need a break. Look how tired you are right now. If you go out again tomorrow, you'll be too tired to play well on Sunday. Take a break from it. Let's go to the pool and just relax together."

"Kenny, I have to practice if I'm going to play well enough for Ron to want to keep me as his partner. I might only have this one chance. That's all he gave his own cousin."

"Brenda, you're already way better than she was. You'll play better if you get some rest before the tourney. I won't practice with you, not tomorrow."

"This is important to me, Kenny. With Ron as my partner, I could gain entry into a lot of tournaments. I'd get some great experience, experience I'd never be able to get on my own. I have to try my hardest to do well."

"The problem with that is that you're working so hard before the tournament, you won't have anything left at the tournament. You're the one that told me that last week, remember? Doesn't that hold true for you too?"

"How about if we just hit balls together for an hour before lunch, and then another hour before we leave? Just enough so I can make sure I'm ready for Sunday."

"I'll pick you up at ten. We'll practice for one hour, and then we go swimming, okay?"

"Another hour before we leave too?"

"We'll see. Not if it's as hot as it was today. Ten o'clock, so be ready. Tomorrow, let's relax and spend time thinking about something besides tennis, okay?"

I went back downstairs after nine o'clock, to get a snack and to tell Hans that I needed a ride to Brenda's and the club in the morning. Mr. Parsons was just coming in the door when I got down to the bottom of the stairs. He wasn't supposed to be home until later on Saturday. He was a whole day early, and Mrs. Parsons was in no condition to greet him. He saw me as he was putting all three pieces of his luggage down.

"Kenny, come give me a hand with all of this, will you? Has Bertie retired already?" I went to help him, trying to think of something to tell him that wouldn't cause trouble for Mrs. Parsons.

"She went to sleep. She's been thinking about her mother, and it made her upset."

"Why does she do that to herself? Her mother has been dead for more than thirty years. She wonders why she gets so damn depressed, well that's why! She should try to live in the present, damn it. What good does it do for anyone to worry about the past?"

"It's my fault, I got her talking about growing up, and she was telling me about her childhood. Her mother came up in our conversation."

"No matter. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. It always is with her."

"I don't know why she even loves you when you are so mean to her." That just kind of slipped out. I was worried, and I had begun to get into the habit of not holding things in like I always had done at the orphanage. As soon as I said it, I wished I could take it back. I knew it would make him angry with me. He didn't say anything, but he did hand me a big suitcase to carry for him. We didn't say anything else to each other as he started for the staircase, and I followed behind him. The suitcase he gave me was heavy, and I needed both arms to carry it up the stairs.

He went to the door of their bedroom and opened it and turned on the light switch by the door. At first, I thought he was going to wake up Mrs. Parsons, but then I remembered she had her own bedroom and it had a door of its own. He turned left and went over to his bedroom and opened that door and turned on another light in there. He put his suitcase down, and his suit holder on top of that, before turning and taking the other bag out of my hands, and placing it inside with the others. When he had his luggage in his room and out of the doorway, he shut off the light in there, closing the door again. He and I then left the suite together.

"Come downstairs with me Kenny. I need to get something to eat, and I want you to fill me in on what's been happening. I found out a few hours ago that Bunny took off for Hawaii with Beatrice, is that true?" He was walking down the stairs fast, and I had to hurry to keep up with him so I could hear him when he talked to me. At the bottom of the stairs, he headed straight to the kitchen. It was empty when we got there, so he turned on the lights and went over and rang the buzzer that sounded in Hans and Gerta's bedroom, before going over to the refrigerator and looking inside. "Well, are you going to tell me about that or not?"

"It's true, They left on Wednesday."

"Details, Kenny. Give me all the juicy details. How did Bertie take the news? Where did Bunny summon the courage to even ask her? Has there been something going on between those two? I want to hear it all." He was rummaging through the fridge the whole time he was asking me all these questions, pulling out a few things that Gerta had put away in containers. Before I could get a chance to answer any of his questions, Gerta came into the kitchen, saw who it was, and shooed both of us out of her kitchen. Mr. Parson's grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge before he moved away from it. He opened the bottle, then he and I went into the dining room. I heard Gerta talking in German as we left. She didn't sound too happy about being summoned so late to fix Mr. Parsons something to eat. We sat down at the table. He sat in his usual spot, and I sat down next to him "Well? Tell me first how Bertie reacted."

"She was upset, mad at Mr. Chalmers."

"I shouldn't wonder. What did she say?"

"She didn't really say anything, but she stayed up in her room for awhile, after she found out about it. She didn't come down until after they left for Hawaii."

"Tell me how Bunny asked her to accompany him? I've known him for almost thirty years. I'd have given long odds against this ever happening. It boggles my mind that he'd do this, especially right now. If it was anyone else but Bunny, it would be easier for me to believe. Were you anywhere around them when he asked her? Did you hear it?"

"It was Monday when he called me after the merger was announced, so I could call Mr. Connor to tell him about him not being out of business."

"Stop. Tell me how Walt took the news."

"He was happy, and grateful. He told me to let you, Mrs. Parsons and Mr. Chalmers know that he wouldn't forget that. He had been real worried before my call."

"I'll bet. I bet he was cussing all of us out?"

"No. I told him before he got the chance to."

"Back to Bunny, Kenny. Tell me how he asked her. Not over the phone. Tell me he didn't ask her with a phone call."

"He didn't ask her, I did." He looked at me when I said that, then he started laughing.

"That's Bunny. That is so like him to do it that way. What did he tell you to say to her when you asked her?"

"He just told me to ask her if she wanted to go to Hawaii with him, for a two week vacation. He said I could tell her it was purely platonic or something like that."

"The dog. Kenny, tell me what I really want to know."

"She said yes?"

"Don't play dumb with me. I know you already know what I mean. How long has he been seeing her? How long has he been burying his bone in her?" I tried to look like I didn't understand what he meant, but he just laughed at me. Gerta brought in two plates for us, and a glass of milk for me and another beer for Mr. Parsons. My plate had a cold cut sandwich on it, and Mr. Parsons had leftover Fried chicken with some of Gerta's good potato salad. She had heated up the chicken too. It smelled good. When Gerta left, he looked over at my sandwich, the same way I was eying his chicken. "You want to switch?" I nodded that I did, and so we did that.

"She went up to Bolling with him last week when he went to the courthouse, and I visited my old orphanage. She offered to have sex with him, but he turned her down. After they dropped me off, she talked him into it. She told me that he was a lot better than she expected."

"She should have asked me. Bunny has a hard time getting dates the first time, but if he manages to get inside their knickers once, he can call them anytime after, and they'll drop whatever they're doing to go out with him. In college, I had the opposite problem. An ex girlfriend of mine, one that later dated Bunny, once told me that Bunny really liked and appreciated the girl he was with. She said that Bunny cared about their pleasure. She went on to say that I was a self absorbed jerk, and not half the sex partner that Bunny was."

"Bea said almost the same thing, except she didn't call you a jerk. She said you were selfish, and only out to please yourself."

"Kenny, while what you just said may be the absolute truth, and excellent reporting on your part, it was in poor taste for you to tell me that. As for Beatrice, it doesn't surprise me that she would be talking about me that way. Speaking of poor taste, I'm not exempting myself from censure either. What I did with her was extremely poor judgment on my part. It has probably cost me my marriage."

I was busy eating the chicken when he stopped talking. He didn't sound as happy about the divorce as I thought he might be. He started eating his sandwich too, so we both sat there, eating and not talking. It didn't take us all that long to finish our snacks. Mr. Parsons had finished his first beer and was just starting on his second one.

"She told me about how the two of you got married, and about all the trouble, and how long it took you to give her what she wanted. Didn't you even like her a little bit?"

"I'm not comfortable sitting here discussing my marriage with you, Kenny. But, since Bertie told you her side, I think I should be allowed to tell mine. We did get off to something of a rocky beginning, but, on the whole, I consider our marriage a success. I know many men who married solely for love, and then, they were divorced within five years time. Bertie and I weren't impetuous. Our relationship was based on a sound foundation, with good economic and social advantages for the two of us. That it had to be an arranged marriage is of no consequence now. What matters is that we both made the best of the circumstances we each found ourselves in. In a different set of circumstances, had we been social equals from the beginning, Bertie wouldn't have felt the need to keep putting me in my proper place as she did. Had she been more accepting, I might have been closer to what she was seeking in a mate."

"That isn't what she thinks."

"I've been all over this with her for the past twenty five years, Kenny. Believe me when I tell you that I know what she thinks. I've heard it from her lips a thousand times. I've heard all about how I cared more for her brother, her father, and my place in the company, than I ever did for her. That is pure claptrap, but that is her peculiar fixation, and nothing I can say to her will ever sway her belief. Believe me, I've tried."

"She loves you."

"She has a funny way of demonstrating that to me. Why do you say that?"

"Because she does. I hear it when she talks about you. She's mad at you, for a lot of things, not just Bea either. The thing she's maddest about is that you never loved her back. She loved you, but you didn't ever love her."