Page 21

Before Daddy was killed, he, Mommy, and I had gone to the beaches in Virginia a few times, but other than those trips, we hadn't traveled many places. I had never been north, and had only read about and seen pictures of cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston. Mommy tried to get me excited about the trip by telling me we would see Washington and Boston on the way to the Cape. Someday, she said, we'll go to New York City. She said she had been there once herself, but she went with her elderly adoptive parents who weren't much fun. She could barely remember it.

"But we'll have wonderful times going to museums and shows and eating in the famous restaurants. Right, Richard?"

"Absolutely," Archie replied. "Your life is really just beginning, Melody."

"See?" Mommy said.

As we rode on, I listened to their conversation. Archie talked about the cities he had been to, comparing them, complaining about this one or that one, raving about the others. He claimed to know the best restaurants in New York and Chicago. He had been to Las Vegas many times and Los Angeles at least three times. He bragged about the people in the entertainment industry he had met and gotten to know at the various bars and restaurants where he had worked. He said he was sure he could call any of them on the phone and get them to consider Mommy. Mommy squealed and laughed with delight at all his promises. I couldn't believe she was so gullible, but then I remembered Daddy once telling me that if you want something to be true hard enough, you'll ignore all the proof that it's not so. Mostly, you won't ask questions that give you answers you don't want to hear.

Mommy should be asking Archie Marlin if he was so friendly with all these important people, why didn't he have a better job himself? How did he end up in Sewell? I was tempted to lean forward and fire these questions at him myself, but I didn't want to anger Mommy so I tried to sleep instead.

We stopped for gas, got some snacks and drove until we reached Richmond. Archie bragged about knowing a little Italian restaurant, the owners of which he claimed would surely remember him and give us special treatment. He promised Mommy he would take us someplace special every step of the way. However, when we turned down the street where the Italian restaurant was supposed to be, it wasn't there anymore.

"That's the trouble with these little restaurants," he remarked. "They go in and out of business so quickly. Let's just stop at that roadside diner," he decided and pulled into the parking lot.

I wasn't hungry, but Mommy insisted I eat something. While we waited for our food, I took a closer look at Archie Marlin, trying to understand what Mammy liked about him, especially after she had been married to a man as handsome and strong as Daddy.

Besides having patches of freckles on his face, Archie had them on the backs of his hands as well. His pink skin was interrupted here and there by white blotches. It looked as if he had been splattered with permanently staining milk. I thought his wrists were not much wider than mine or Mommy's, and I laughed to myself at the thought of him lifting a pick axe or a shovel. No wonder the heaviest thing he ever hoisted was a glass of beer.

Archie Marlin was full of nervous energy. He lacked Daddy's strong, quiet, calm manner. Archie's gaze was forever wandering. When he answered questions, he rarely looked at you. He looked down or up at the ceiling or fiddled with a spoon while he replied. While we waited for our food he described how he had once been a Blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas casino. He demonstrated how he would flip cards and hide aces in the palm of his hand. He'd been one of the best Blackjack dealers in the whole city, he said.

"So why did you leave that job?" I blurted, finally filled to the brim with his stories.

"I was underage," he said. "And," he added with a wink, "I was throwing my pay back into the casino looking for the big win all the time, just like the rest of the poor fools. But it was fun for a while."

"It must have been exciting," Mommy said. "The lights, the glamour, all those rich people, the entertainers you must have met."

"Yeah, sure," he said, as if he had been doing that all his life. "I've had some pretty good times in Vegas, but I have a pretty good time wherever I am."

"Then why did you end up in Sewell?" I asked as sharply as I had intended. Mommy threw me a reprimanding look, but I kept my eyes fixed on Archie. He hinged his lips at the corners and smiled like a cat.

"It looked like a nice little town at the time," he replied. "I thought I'd settle down, take it easy. I thought I was ready for the simple life, but I was wrong." He laughed, then Mommy laughed too. "Boy, was I wrong about that."

"There's nothing wrong with a simple life," I snapped. They both stopped laughing. "What's wrong with having a decent job and friends you can count on and a nice house?"

Archie shrugged. "Nothing, if you're seventyfive or eighty."

"That's stupid," I said.

Mommy scowled. "Melody. You apologize. Go on."

"It's all right," Archie said. "She's confused. Remember what they say, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl." He winked at me.

"I don't care if the country stays in me," I muttered.

"That's because you really haven't been anywhere yet. Just wait," he promised. "You'll come around to my way of thinking."

Hardly, I thought. I'd rather be buried forever in a coal mine.

Our food came. I ate sullenly while they jabbered on about the things they were going to see and do. Every time Archie mentioned a new place, Mommy squealed. He had been to Niagara Falls, of course, and he had traveled through Yellowstone and he had seen the Grand Canyon, had-ridden over the Golden Gate Bridge and had been to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He had even seen the Alamo, and claimed he had gone river rafting and skiing in Utah.

"You must be a lot older than you look," I remarked in a casual tone.

"What? Why?" He held his forkful of food at his mouth and waited for my reply, his

thin lips stretching into another plastic smile.

"Because if we believe all the places you've been to, you're about a hundred."