It was an odd experience for Teddy. He’d been intending to keep Graciella away from the males of the family, so as not to scare her off. But she seemed charmed by Buddy’s shyness, and laughed at Matty’s hesitant jokes. In retrospect, that made sense: Graciella was raising three boys, and Buddy was as much a kid as any of them. Fortunately, he was a kid with a hobby. In the basement he’d been building deep shelving units out of spare lumber. The file boxes fit perfectly into place, like they were meant to be there.
Graciella said nothing about the metal window shades, but she asked about the large structure taking shape at the other end of the basement.
Buddy ducked his head and went upstairs.
“I think they’re bunk beds,” Matty said.
“Best not to ask questions,” Irene said. She’d pulled on the polyester Aldi’s smock. “I’ve got to go. Graciella, I’ll get back to the ledgers tomorrow.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” Graciella said. She went to Irene and took her hand in hers. “I mean it. I can’t. But I’ll try to make it up to you someday.”
Teddy thought: They’re having a moment! My girls are having a moment!
Graciella said that she should be going, too, because her mother was probably getting tired of watching the boys. Teddy said, “You can’t go, I need your help with something. I have entirely too much gin in the freezer, an oversupply of tonic, and an abundance of cucumbers.”
“Not limes?”
“It’s Hendrick’s, my dear. Cucumber slices, always.”
“I suppose I can do my part during this difficult time,” she said.
They took their drinks outside, into the August sunlight, and Graciella said, “You have hammocks!”
“We do?” They did. Two Mexican hammocks, slung in the shade between the three oaks. Another Buddy project, Teddy thought, financed by yours truly.
“I love hammocks,” Graciella said. She skirted the dirt patch—Buddy had provided as much explanation for filling the hole as he had for digging it—and eased into one of the hammocks, laughing while trying to keep her drink from spilling.
Teddy carried over one of the lawn chairs. “Aw, what are you doing with that?” she asked. “Take the other one.”
“I’m not a hammock person,” he said. He set up the chair across from her, removed his jacket, and draped it across the back. The white envelope slid out onto the seat of the chair. He’d forgotten about it. He picked it up nonchalantly and slipped it into the jacket side pocket. Graciella noticed but didn’t remark on it.
He sat across from her and they sipped their drinks while Graciella said pleasant things about Matty, the house, the yard. Perhaps some were lies but he didn’t care. The moment was as fine as any he could remember. A warm day at the end of summer, a beautiful woman in orange and green like a tropical flower blooming in his own backyard, a cold glass in his hand. It made him want to say philosophical things to her. He tried to construct a sentence about old age, bitter gin, and sweet tonic—the sweet tonic of youth!—but then lost concentration when Graciella kicked off one shoe, then the other.
“Did I ever tell you the story about how my act was stolen by the king of late-night?”
She laughed. “I think I would have remembered.”
“At last! A fresh audience,” he said. “It was 1953, and me, a high school pal who did magic, and L. Ron Hubbard were all sitting in a watering hole in L.A.”
“The Scientology guy?”
“The very same. We were discussing how easy it was to separate a mark from his money—especially one who was a true believer. I began to demonstrate my abilities as a billet reader—”
“The three wishes thing?”
“Again, spot-on, my dear. I dazzled the barflies in attendance, and afterward, a kid from Nebraska introduces himself, buys me a drink, and tells me he works on the radio but got his start as a magician. Tough to do magic on the radio, I say. He asks me to show him the billet gag, out of professional courtesy. Now, I’m not one to show some fresh-faced mook how I make my living, but he keeps after me, keeps buying me drinks, so I figure, why not, he’s bought himself one trick. I walk him through the gag, and you know what he asks me?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why the hat? That’s the question. Why the
“I have to agree,” Graciella said.
“And the kid says, Maybe it could be bigger. I coulda punched him. He walks out of the bar, and ten years later, I turn on the TV, and what do I see? That kid, with his own talk show. And what does he do for laughs? He does my act, wearing a God damn turban!”
“Johnny Carson stole your act?”
“Carnac the Magnificent my ass,” he said.
He loved the way she laughed. “How much of that is true?” she asked.
“As much as you’d like,” he said. “As much as you’d like.”
Graciella began to swing toward him, then away from him. Her toenails were pink.
“Ever hear of a guy named Bert Schmidt?” she asked. “They called him Bert the German.”