When Eugene leaned close to take a peek at Pam’s hand, she jerked the cards to her overalls.“I can do it, Daddy,” she whispered.
“You know how?”he whispered back.
“Yes.”Taking a two of clubs and a three of diamonds from her hand, she laid them delicately on the table and took the two cards that Eugene handed her.A nine of hearts and a three of spades—they didn’t do a thing for her hand; still she widened her eyes just a little bit in mock excitement before composing herself and looking serenely at Dwayne.
He’d been watching her closely, which was just what she wanted.She knew Dwayne.He was the most easily fooled of the three, simply because he didn’t have any children of his own who pretended.He knew that children liked candy, and he always had a barley pop in thepocket of his faded flannel shirt to give Pam before she left for home.
While he gravely studied his hand, Rufus leaned close.“I got a good one for you, Pammy.It’s a traveling salesman joke.”
“Okay,” Pam said.Rufus sometimes tried to distract her with his jokes, but since Dwayne was the one concentrating at the moment, she wanted to hear.“Tell me.”
“Y’see, once there was this traveling salesman, and he has this horse.Now, the two of them was down in Rumford when the old horse up and died.”
“Hush,” Dwayne grumbled.“I can’t think.”
Rufus talked softer.“Now, th’ old horse died on Piscatawogue Street, y’see, and there’s a whole crowd gatherin’ round, and pretty soon a policeman comes up to make out a report.So he asks how to spell Piscatawogue, and everybody looks around.No one knows how to spell it, y’see.”
“Rufus,” Dwayne complained.
“So because no one knows how to spell Piscatawogue, the policeman closes his book and says to the crowd, ‘Okay, you guys, gimme a hand and we’ll carry this horse over to the next street.’”
Pam was silent, looking first to her father, then to Dwayne for help.Guarding his cards against his chest, Dwayne muttered, “No, no, no.You done it wrong.That ain’t how it goes.You’re s’posed to say, ‘Okay, you guys, gimme a hand and we’ll carry this horse over to Main Street.’”
Pam did laugh then, because even she could spell Mainand because Eugene laughed, which was always a treat for her.He didn’t laugh much in Boston.
Then Dwayne made his move.Tossing three cards face down on the table, he took three new ones from Eugene and slipped them into his hand.His expression instantly grew more grim.Aiming a look of disgust at Rufus, he folded, snapping a pair of sevens, a queen of hearts, a king of clubs, and a two of diamonds onto the table.
Fanning out her cards near his, Pam let the others look at her pair of fours while she gathered in the pennies with both small hands.
Eugene gave an even heartier laugh this time.“You’re a wonder, Pammy girl!”he said as he collected the deck and shuffled before dealing another round.
Pam glowed.She loved her father.He was a man to please, a man whose voice could thunder through the house when something wasn’t right, but he never thundered at her.He might yell at her mother, and he certainly yelled at John, but never at her.She was his special gem, he told her, and though she was too big now to ride on his shoulders the way she used to when he took her to the gem pits, he still said the words.Holding a newly unearthed piece of tourmaline in his hand, admiring its beauty in one breath, in the next he would say, “But you’re my special gem, Pammy girl.”
Through her mother’s eyes, she saw him as a man.“Your father is the most handsome of all the handsome men in the world,” Patricia told Pam when she was no more than three or four.“I’ll never forget that first day he walked into the bank and I saw him.So broad-shoulderedand sure of himself.He took my breath away.”
“Your mother was barely nineteen at the time,” Eugene teased.“Most anything would take her breath away.She was a beauty then, as she’s a beauty now, but she sure did look pretty with those cheeks of hers all pink.”
“How old were you, Daddy?”
“I was an old man.”
“He was not,” Patricia argued, taking the insult personally.“He was forty-seven and younger of body and heart than many a twenty-five-year-old.When he walked into that bank, I knew he was the one I wanted, even if I didn’t think I had a chance in the world of getting him.”
“She loved my house,” Eugene injected, mischief in his eyes, and Patricia was quick to say that it hadn’t only been that, though even Pam knew how much she adored Beacon Hill.Patricia’s pleasure was evident each time she returned home and walked up the stone steps while envious onlookers passed by.
It was a fairy-tale life, Pam thought, particularly when she watched her parents dress up for a ball.Her mother was as beautiful as her father said, small and willowy, with delicate features and blond hair that was long and flowing, as straight as Pam’s, though Pam’s was dark.Perhaps because of that color difference, Pam didn’t make the usual kinds of comparisons between her looks and her mother’s.She assumed that she was different but just as pretty, because her father always told her so, and she always believed what he said.
Her father was her hero.He was taller than most men she’d seen, had more hair than most—thick, silvery hair—andredder cheeks.Her mother used to say he was ruddy and robust, as he eyed himself in the mirrored door of the armoire.And when his bow tie was neatly knotted and his tuxedo jacket spread smoothly across his shoulders, Pam could see it for herself.He looked grand, like Wendy Darling’s father inPeter Pan.
Pam knew her mother liked him best when he was all dressed up and they were going out.“To see and be seen,” Patricia used to tell Pam.“It’s very important.Your father’s name is just becoming known.One day he’ll be a very important man in this town.”
“What do you mean?”Pam would ask, a little unsure because the look in her mother’s eyes suggested that things might change, and Pam didn’t want that.She liked her life the way it was.She couldn’t imagine how things could get better.
“He’ll be wealthy, for one thing.”
“Isn’t he now?”
“Now we’re comfortable.”
