Page 105

Harley nodded and looked down for a moment.

"This is an interesting house," he said. "How did you come to own it?"

"Oh, it's been in my family for a long time. About ten years ago, the county historian got it put on some special list and as a result. I don't pay real estate taxes. Big savings as long as I don't change it. Actually, now it's illegal to change it."

"Can't you even paint it?'" I blurted. Harley's father laughed.

"Yeah. I can restore it to its original colors and such. but I've just been lazy about it. You know how it is. You get work and you concentrate on that because someone's paying you and you forget your own place. One of these days, I'll get around to it. It's a nice size property, too."

"There aren't too many octagons, original ones like this," Harley continued.

"Right. You know about that stuff?" his father asked. surprised.

"Harley knows a lot about architecture," I bragged for him. "He's going to become an architect himself someday."

"That so?"

"I guess so," Harley said smiling at me. "Or elseIll be in big trouble."

"Right, right, know what you mean. It's in the Victor blood to have to have someone pushing you all the time. We don't have what some people refer to as much ambition on our own. Trouble with us is we're too easily contented. But we live long lives because of that," he declared.

"When the doctor asked us where we were going, we told him your name, but he said he knew you only as Buzz."

"Oh, he did. huh? Yeah, that's right. I've been going by that nickname since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. One of the first things I saw was a bee. I guess. At least, that's what they told me. because I used to go around making a buzzing sound. So... there's why I got the nickname. Of course, I never told your mother." he added quickly.

We were quiet for a moment. I nearly jumped when Suze appeared. She appeared suddenly in the doorway as if she had simply materialized out of thin air. She must walk on air. I thought. I never heard her coming down the stairs or walking in the hallway.

"Everything set already. Suze?" Harley's father asked. "she said. "I show you," she told us. "Come."

"Get settled in. We'll have some dinner and talk until we all pass out,," Harley's father said. He looked at me. "How else do you catch up on seventeen years. huh?"

I smiled.

How else? I thought. You don't run off and lose complete contact with your own child. That's how else. Of course. I didn't say a syllable of that. I simply nodded and rose with Harley to follow Suze up the stairs.

The rooms were small, but they did look tidy, each with a simple double bed, no headboard or footboard. Each room had a dresser and a pair of nightstands. The overhead fixtures in both rooms did not work, but there were standing pole lamps that did.

I saw a pink cloth with a string tied around it forming a ball set on my pillow.

"What's this?" I asked.

"That be good gris-gris, magic bag give you sweet dreams." she explained.

"What's in it?"

"Charms, herbs, some nail clippings."

"Nail clippings?" I looked at Harley and he raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

"You see, it will work," Suze insisted. "We gotcha a bathroom right across the hall," she continued. It sounded like they had just made it. "You share, all right?"

"Oh yes." I said. Harley put my suitcase down beside the bed and then took his to the room next door.

"Towels and such are in the hallway closet," Suze continued, standing in the doorway and nodding at a door in the hallway. 'La" she said. "There. You got soap and shampoo in the bathroom."

"Thank you," I said.

"Merite," she replied and nearly smiled. "That means you're welcome."