From the Corner of His Eye

Chapter 8

HAVING COMPLETED HER English lesson, Maria Elena Gonzalez went home with a plastic shopping bag full of precisely damaged clothes and a smaller, paper bag containing cherry muffins for her two girls.

When she closed the front door and turned away from it, Agnes bumped her swollen belly into Joey. His eyebrows shot up, and he put his hands on her distended abdomen, as if she were more fragile than a robin's egg and more valuable than one by Faberge.

“Now?” he asked.

“I'd like to tidy up the kitchen first."

Pleadingly: “Aggie, no."

He reminded her of the Worry Bear from a book she'd already IL bought for her baby's collection.

The Worry Bear carries worries in his pockets. Under his Panama hat and in two gold lockets. Carries worries on his back and under his arms. Nevertheless, dear old Worry Bear has his charms.

Agnes's contractions were getting more frequent and slightly more severe, so she said, “All right, but let me go tell Edom and Jacob that we're leaving."

Edom and Jacob Isaacson were her older brothers, who lived in two small apartments above the four-car garage at the back of the property.

“I've already told them,” Joey said, wheeling away from her and yanking open the door of the foyer closet with such force that she thought he would tear it off its hinges.

He produced her coat as if by legerdemain. Magically, she found her arms in the sleeves and the collar around her neck, though given her size lately, putting on anything other than a hat usually required strategy and persistence.

When she turned to him again, he had already slipped into his jacket and snatched the car keys off the foyer table. He put his left hand under her right arm, as though Agnes were feeble and in need of support, and he swept her through the door, onto the front porch.

He didn't pause to lock the house behind them. Bright Beach, in 1965, was as free of criminals as it was untroubled by lumbering brontosaurs.

The afternoon was winding down, and the lowering sky seemed to be drawn steadily toward the earth by threads of gray light that reeled westward, ever faster, over the horizon's spool. The air smelled like rain waiting to happen.

The beetle-green Pontiac waited in the driveway, with a shine that tempted nature to throw around some bad weather. Joey always kept a spotless car, and he probably wouldn't have had time to earn a living if he had resided in some shine-spoiling climate rather than in southern California.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he opened the passenger's door and helped her into the car.

“Right as rain."

You're sure”

“Good as gold."

The inside of the Pontiac smelled pleasantly of lemons, though the rearview mirror was not hung with one of those tacky decorative deodorizers. The seats, regularly treated with leather soap, were softer and more supple than they had been when the car had shipped out of Detroit, and the instrument panel sparkled.

As Joey opened the driver's door and got in behind the steering wheel, he said, “Okay?"

“Fine as silk."

“You look pale."

“Fit as a fiddle."

“You're mocking me, aren't you?"

“You beg so sweetly to be mocked, how could I possibly withhold it from you?"

Just as Joey pulled his door shut, a contraction gripped Agnes. She grimaced, sucking air sharply between her clenched teeth.

“Oh, no,” said the Worry Bear. “Oh, no."

“Good heavens, sweetie, relax. This isn't ordinary pain. This is happy pain. Our little girl's going to be with us before the day is done."

“Little boy."

“Trust a mother's intuition."

“A father's got some, too.” He was so nervous that the key rattled interminably against the ignition plate before, at last, he was able to insert it. “Should be a boy, because then you'll always have a man around the house."

“You planning to run off with some blonde?"

He couldn't get the car started, because he repeatedly tried to turn the key in the wrong direction. “You know what I mean. I'm going to be around a long time yet, but women outlive men by several years. Actuarial tables aren't wrong."

“Always the insurance agent."

“Well, it's true,” he said, finally turning the key in the proper direction and firing up the engine.

“Gonna sell me a policy?"

“I didn't sell anyone else today. Gotta make a living. You all right?"

“Scared,” she said.

Instead of shifting the car into drive, he placed one of his bearish hands over both of her hands. “Something feel wrong?"

“I'm afraid you'll drive us straight into a tree."

He looked hurt. “I'm the safest driver in Bright Beach. My auto rates prove it."

“Not today. If it takes you as long to get the car in gear as it did to slip that key in the ignition, our little girl will be sitting up and saying 'dada' by the time we get to the hospital."

“Little boy."

“Just calm down."

“I am calm,” he assured her.

He released the hand brake, shifted the car into reverse instead of into drive, and backed away from the street, along the side of the house.

Startled, he braked to a halt. Agnes didn't say anything until Joey had taken three or four deep, slow breaths, and then she pointed at the windshield. “The hospital's that way."

He regarded her sheepishly. “You all right?"

“Our little girl's going to walk backward her whole life if you drive in reverse all the way to the hospital."

“If it is a little girl, she's going to be exactly don't think I could handle two of you.” he said.

“We'll keep you young."

With great deliberation, Joey shifted gears and followed the drive way to the street, where he peered left and then right with the squint-eyed suspicion of a Marine commando scouting dangerous territory. He turned right.

“Make sure Edom delivers the pies in the morning,” Agnes reminded him.

“Jacob said he wouldn't mind doing it for once."

“Jacob scares people,” Agnes said. “No one would eat a pie that Jacob delivered without having it tested at a lab."

Needles of rain knitted the air and quickly embroidered silvery patterns on the blacktop.

Switching on the windshield wipers, Joey said, “That's the first time I've ever heard you admit that either of your brothers is odd."

Not odd, dear. They're just a little eccentric."

“Like water is a little wet."

Frowning at him, she said, “You don't mind them around, do you, Joey? They're eccentric, but I love them very much.

“So do I,” he admitted. He smiled and shook his head. “Those two make a worrywart life-insurance salesman like me seem just as light hearted as a schoolgirl."

“Your turning into an excellent driver, after all,” she said, winking him.

He was, in fact, a first-rate driver, with an impeccable record at the age of thirty: no traffic citations, no accidents.

His skill behind the wheel and his inborn caution didn't help him, However, when a Ford pickup ran a red traffic light, braked too late, and slid at high speed into the driver's door of the Pontiac.