1052: So it was . . .
Inflating a Dog, Chapter 10
Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1
SO IT WAS THAT, a few nights later, I waited for Patti in front of Dudley Beaker’s house on No Bridge Road. I saw her turn the corner, walking through the circle of streetlamp light. She had dressed in the style of my mother’s high-school days, with saddle shoes, bobby socks, a flippy skirt, and a sweater over a white blouse.
“How did you do this?” I asked her when she was beside me, indicating with a sweep of my hand the head-to-toe verisimilitude she had achieved.
“Research and rummaging,” she said. “The attics of Babbington are full of relics.”
She turned and looked at the house. “So this is the place,” she said. “Does anybody live here now?”
“Eliza,” I said. “Eliza Foote.”
“Who’s that?”
“I guess you’d say she was Dudley’s girlfriend,” I said, and in a whisper I added, “I don’t think they ever got married.”
“This Dudley was quite a guy.”
“You mean because of Eliza?”
“Eliza . . . your mother . . . were there others?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll bet he was filling the idle hours of women all over town.”
“Do you think so?”
“I just said it, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said, “you did.”
“Where’s Eliza now? The house looks dark.”
“She’s abroad — ”
“I’ll bet she is.”
“No. Overseas. In Europe. ‘Abroad.’ That’s the way she put it. She said, ‘I’m going abroad for a few weeks so that I don’t have to endure all this sympathy.’”
I took the key from my pocket and started toward the door.
Patti put her hand on my arm and said, “Uh-uh. Let’s do this right. You go in. Get into the mood. See if you can find any of Dudley’s clothes to put on. Get into the part. I’m going to walk around the block, and then when I come back and knock at the door it’s going to be a winter night about thirteen years ago, and you’re going to be Dudley and I’m going to be — what’s your mother’s name?”
“Ella.”
“I’m going to be Ella.”
I LET MYSELF IN and went directly to Dudley’s bedroom. I rummaged through his closet and chose a jacket. I put it on and went downstairs and sat in his chair in front of the fireplace and waited. Time passed, more time than I had expected to have to wait, and I began to wonder what had happened to Patti. I went to the front door and looked out through the window beside it. Patti was at the curb, playing the coquette, flirting with a couple of guys in a car. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the way Patti leaned against the car and wiggled her bottom as she spoke, I could guess. I drew a deep breath. I felt jealous. I wished that she would send the boys on their way and come into the house to see me. She looked so adorable in her flippy skirt, with her smooth calves showing above her bobby socks and saddle shoes. I wished that there might be some reason for her to come to see me rather than going off in that car. “Come here,” I whispered. “Please come here. Make some excuse and come here.” She hugged herself and made the gesture of an exaggerated shiver, and then she flung her arm backward in my direction, and I had the thought that she might be indicating that she was coming to see me. I felt pleased and a little surprised. I had really come to expect her to go off in that car.
When the car went off without her and she turned and opened the gate and started up the walk, I felt the loneliness begin to lift from me. I felt thrilled, nervous, eager. If I had been Dudley Beaker, I would have felt rejuvenated.
[to be continued]
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