Early Warning

THERE WAS A balcony off Minnie’s bedroom that she hadn’t noticed earlier. Since she had her robe and slippers with her (in case she had to deal with some problem among the touring honors students after curfew), she bundled up and went outside to look at the view. She had been out there only a minute or so when another balcony door opened, and Frank appeared, still dressed. Minnie put her hand on her door, but Frank said, “Did you look to the right there?”

Minnie looked to the right. Nothing but trees. She said, “Is there a view?”

“No.”

“Then why look to the right?”

“Just to start the conversation.”

Minnie laughed.

“How are you?”

Minnie wrapped her robe a little more tightly, then said, “Could be worse.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

“Oh goodness, Frankie. You have a beautiful house, and I read about you and your innovative weapons company, was that it, in the paper, and Richie and Michael—”

“Are safely confined for the moment.”

“Rosanna showed me their school pictures. They are very handsome boys.”

“Worse news.”

“You were a very handsome boy.”

“You told me so.”

“Me and everyone else.”

Frank leaned his elbows on the railing and stared out over the greenery. As always, he didn’t seem to feel the cold. Finally, he said, “Did your dad whip you?”

“No. My dad was reserved, as they say, and he didn’t even drink in the old days, hard as that is to believe. My mother used the flat of her hand every so often, but only on our behinds. My grandfather had a riding crop for all his boys. I know Walter whipped you.”

“By the time the others came along, he realized it was ineffective. I never whipped the boys, but now I wonder if I should have. I was in Caracas once when Richie nailed Michael on the head with a hammer. Knocked him out cold. I found out a year later.”

“What would you have done?”

“I have no idea. I was kind of glad not to be involved.”

Minnie didn’t say anything. Frank put his arm around her shoulders. She had only time to be surprised before he kissed her smack on the lips, and then, when she could not help sort of softening through her whole body, he put his arms around her. She felt her scalp prickle, and she had a profound sense of being taken by surprise, but that was all. She bent her knees and slipped out of his embrace.

—

FRANK HAD NOT EXPECTED her to be receptive — the last time he kissed her was forty years ago, in the cloakroom at the school, as she was hanging her plaid coat on her hook. He had taken her by surprise then, too. Probably that was the point, since Minnie had always seemed to be a half-step ahead of him. He said, “I’m sorry.” It was the appropriate thing to say.

“ ‘I apologize,’ or ‘I regret’?”

“Apologize. I won’t regret unless you hold it against me.”

“I don’t hold it against you.”

But she stepped out of reach. Frank said, “You can say it’s chilly and go back inside.” He was being quite a nice person, he thought.

“I might. But not if you want to talk.”

Why would this suggestion take him aback? But, then, who did he ever talk to, and what about? Lately, shooting differently shaped bullets into water and calculating how quickly they lost forward motion. The men he talked to about this had no names and no personalities. He said, “I don’t believe I know how to talk.”

Minnie said, “Frankie, you seem sad.”

“Already? I’ve hardly said anything.”

“Well, I was watching you at dinner and afterward.”

“I thought all eyes were on my wife.”

“Yours were.”

He said, “You know what she needs? She needs to drive a prairie schooner with a team of oxen across Colorado and into the Rockies, where she needs to save the party of settlers from three grizzly bears and a long winter.” He laughed at the thought.

“This is a lovely neighborhood.”

“I told Andy to find something around here. She did. One hundred percent class. Then she had it decorated and redid the grounds. But it’s done. What now? Her brother is the same way — born to own a large farm on the North Dakota prairie, but he missed his moment, so he trains every child he meets for the Winter Olympics. She goes to her therapist.” He was talking pretty well now, he thought.

There was a silence; then Minnie said, “Maybe that’s not working.”

He pivoted toward her. “Well, damn me, Min, it’s not working. The shrink is a creep who puts it to her every time she decides maybe she needs some other form of treatment.”

“Puts it to her?”

“Fucks her.”

Minnie looked shocked.

Frank said, “I believe he’s calling it Kama therapy. It’s not very common in New Jersey. What are they reading these days? Oh, Nature, Man and Woman. They finished The Psychedelic Experience.”

“She took LSD?”