🎧 1043: “I’d like . . .”

“I’d like you to take care of this house for a while,” she said. I felt a great disappointment, as you might expect. Arrivederci, Roma. So long to Germany. Farewell to France.
“Are you interested?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, honestly. It wasn’t nearly as attractive an offer as traveling through Europe, kissing and cuddling our way across the Continent in first-class railway compartments.
“Well, let’s discuss the duties and responsibilities and the remuneration, and then we’ll see whether you’re interested.”
I liked “remuneration.” It sounded much classier than “pay,” and it sounded like more money.
“Uh-huh,” I said, and at that point I think that I had already decided to take the job. I think I had decided that I would take any job that involved remuneration, whatever the responsibilities might be.
“Peter,” she said, “what’s happened to you?”
“Happened to me?”
“You don’t seem to have anything to say. You’ve become awkward and hesitant, as if you were dull-witted, but I know you’re not a dull boy. You — ahhhh — I see.”
“See what?”
“You’ve reached the awkward age, haven’t you?”
“I guess so,” I said. It was true. I often seemed to get in my own way, and I mean that both literally, since I sometimes tripped over my own feet as if some prankster had tied my shoes together, and figuratively, since my thoughts sometimes tripped over one another and tied my tongue.
“Well,” she said with a knowing smile, “it doesn’t last forever.” She got up, keeping her glass, and said, “Come on — let’s walk through the house and I’ll show you what I want you to do.”
“I’ll try not to break anything,” I said.
“Good,” she said, and she tousled my hair.
My duties as she outlined them wouldn’t be many. I would have to check the house daily, water some plants, dust and vacuum regularly, run the water and flush the toilet so that rust wouldn’t accumulate in the pipes, fix or have fixed anything that broke, keep the windows open a bit so that the place wouldn’t get musty, but close them if rain was predicted, then open them again when the skies cleared, and keep the lawn mowed and the weeds down. She would remunerate me handsomely; since yesterday’s pay scales seem quaint today, and today’s are likely to seem quaint tomorrow, I’ll put my remuneration in terms of purchasing power: the amount that she was willing to pay me each week would be equivalent to the price of dinner for two with drinks, tax, and tip at a modest restaurant in Manhattan. Not bad for a kid of thirteen. With that much money coming in each week, I could take Patti out on dates, if I could persuade her to go on dates with me.
“The key to the back door is under the mat,” she said. She paused and looked me over. Then she decided to add something.
“You can snoop around. I know that you’re going to snoop around, so I’ll tell you that you can snoop around, but don’t break anything, and please put everything back just as you found it.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t do anything that will ruin my reputation, okay?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“You know — no parties, no seducing teenage girls, no plying them with drink, no playing the bachelor playboy just because you have the run of the house.”
“Oh.”
“Or if you do, no getting caught at it.”
She winked at me, and I winked back.
“Okay,” I said. Parties; there was an idea. Seducing teenage girls; there was an even better idea. Bachelor playboy. Not getting caught. These were all good ideas.
“And if people should ask — not that I think they will, but if they should — tell them that I had to get away for a while because I couldn’t endure all the sympathy.”
“Okay.” The most attractive idea of all was the thought that with the run of the house and license to snoop I could look for evidence of Dudley’s role in my conception.

[to be continued]

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