Read Goodbye, Columbus for Free Online Page B

banishment from the Newark Public Library and its branches had John or Mr. Scapello—or, God forbid, the hospitalized Miss Winney—come to investigate.
    “Who took these pictures?” he asked me.
    “Gauguin. He didn’t take them, he painted them. Paul Gauguin. He was a Frenchman.”
    “Is he a white man or a colored man?”
    “He’s white.”
    “Man,” the boy smiled, chuckled almost, “I knew that. He don’t
take
pictures like no colored men would. He’s a good picture taker …
Look, look,
look here at this one. Ain’t that the fuckin
life?
”
    I agreed it was and left.
    Later I sent Jimmy Boylen hopping down the stairs to tell McKee that everything was all right. The rest of the day was uneventful. I sat at the Information Desk thinking about Brenda and reminding myself that that evening I would have to get gas before I started up to Short Hills, which I could see now, in my mind’s eye, at dusk, rose-colored, like a Gauguin stream.

    When I pulled up to the Patimkin house that night, everybody but Julie was waiting for me on the front porch: Mr. and Mrs., Ron, and Brenda, wearing a dress. I had not seen her in a dress before and for an instant she did not look like the same girl. But that was only half the surprise. So many of those Lincolnesque college girls turn out to be limbed for shorts alone. Not Brenda. She looked, in a dress, as though she’d gone through life so attired, as though she’d never worn shorts, or bathing suits, or pajamas, or anything but that pale linen dress. I walked rather bouncingly up the lawn, past the huge weeping willow, towards the waiting Patimkins, wishing all the while that I’d had my car washed. Before I’d even reached them, Ron stepped forward and shook my hand, vigorously, as though he hadn’t seen me since the Diaspora. Mrs. Patimkin smiled and Mr. Patimkin grunted something and continued twitching his wrists before him, then raising an imaginary golf club and driving a ghost of a golf ball up and away towards the Orange Mountains, that are called Orange, I’m convinced, because in that various suburban light that’s the
only
color they do not come dressed in.
    “We’ll be right back,” Brenda said to me. “You have to sit with Julie. Carlota’s off.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    “We’re taking Ron to the airport.”
    “Okay.”

    “Julie doesn’t want to go. She says Ron pushed her in the pool this afternoon. We’ve been waiting for you, so we don’t miss Ron’s plane. Okay?”
    “
Okay.
”
    Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin and Ron moved off, and I flashed Brenda just the hint of a glare. She reached out and took my hand a moment.
    “How do you like me?” she said.
    “You’re great to baby-sit for. Am I allowed all the milk and cake I want?”
    “Don’t be angry, baby. We’ll be right back.” Then she waited a moment, and when I failed to deflate the pout from my mouth, she gave
me
a glare, no hints about it. “I
meant
how do you like me in a dress!” Then she ran off towards the Chrysler, trotting in her high heels like a colt.
    When I walked into the house, I slammed the screen door behind me.
    “Close the other door too,” a little voice shouted. “The air-conditioning.”
    I closed the other door, obediently.
    “Neil?” Julie called.
    “Yes.”
    “Hi. Want to play five and two?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    I did not answer.
    “I’m in the television room,” she called.
    “Good.”
    “Are you supposed to stay with me?”
    “Yes.”
    She appeared unexpectedly through the dining room. “Want to read a book report I wrote?”

    “Not now.”
    “What do you want to do?” she said.
    “Nothing, honey. Why don’t you watch TV?”
    “All right,” she said disgustedly, and kicked her way back to the television room.
    For a while I remained in the hall, bitten with the urge to slide quietly out of the house, into my car, and back to Newark, where I might even sit in the alley and break candy with my own. I felt like Carlota; no, not