Inflating a Dog (The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy) by Eric Kraft (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📗

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.

I RETURNED TO MY CHAIR, and when Patti rang the bell I got up as if I hadn’t been expecting her, went to the door, and opened it. She was standing there, smiling and hugging a notebook to her breast.

“Ella!” I said.

“Hi, Dud. I wondered if you could help me with my homework.”

“Well,” I said, packing tobacco into my pipe and trying to hide a tremor of desire, “it has been quite a long time since I did any homework, but of course I’ll help you. Come in.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“What homework do you have to do?” I asked when I had closed the door behind her.

“I — ” She shrugged and pouted, and there formed in my mind the thrilling thought that it wasn’t homework that had brought her to see me, that she now had to make up some sort of homework to hide the truth.

“Do you — um — have to — ah — write an essay?” I asked, patting the pockets of my jacket in search of matches.

“Yep,” she said, rocking on the balls of her feet. “That’s it. Gotta write an essay.”

“Well!” I said. “An essay. I think I can help you with that.”

Impulsively, she reached out and grasped my hands, which held pipe and matches.

“I knew you could,” she said, and I thought that I could see in her eyes the sort of starry-eyed admiration that young girls so often feel for men of accomplishment.

“I’m flattered that you came to me,” I said. “I do know quite a bit about writing essays, what with my having gone to college and all, and also my work in advertising, of course, where I do quite a bit of writing, as you might expect.”

“Do you have anything to drink?” she asked.

“To drink?” I asked, taken aback by such a question so abruptly posed by such a slip of a girl.

“I’m a little nervous,” she said. I could understand that; I was, of a sudden, feeling a little nervous myself.

“I have — I have a liquor cabinet.” I led her to the dining room. “It’s right there.” I pointed toward it.

“Solid, Jackson!” she said when she opened the cabinet and saw the booze. “Make us a couple of sidecars, okay, Dud?”

“Sidecars?”

She got girlish and playful. “I’ve never had one,” she said, “but I know they’re really popular now. I read that they were the most popular drink of 1944.”

“Do you know how to make one?” I asked.

“Of course not!” she said, giggling as if she ought to be shocked by the suggestion. “They don’t teach us that at Babbington High!”

“Heh-heh-heh,” I chuckled urbanely. “Of course they don’t, you sweet young thing. I was just wondering how much experience you’ve had with — sidecars — and that sort of thing.”

“Oh, not much. There’s always a boy with a