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I could recognize old Couth through the porch door, coming to let us in: that floppy bathrobe he wears which is cut from a patchwork quilt; the way he squinted through the screen at us. It must have given him a shock to see that hairy brute chauffeur in a doorman's uniform swatting at the mosquitoes as if they were carnivorous birds, but it must have been even more of a shock to see me.
I could tell as soon as you let us in, Couth, that you'd been dallying with a lady when we interrupted you. You wore her many perfumes like a bathrobe under the bathrobe you wore;
and from the way you stepped back from the chill of the open door, I could tell you were coming from some place warm.
But what's it matter among friends. Couth? I hugged you, picked you right up off your feet, you scrawny bugger! You sure smelled good, Couth.
Trumper lugged Couth into the kitchen, waltzing him around until they collided with a shiny new vinyl kiddie raft moored by the sink. Bogus didn't remember the Pillsburys having any small children. He sat Couth down on the butcher's block, kissed him on the forehead and left him gawking while he boomed affectionately, 'Couth, I can't tell you how glad I am to see you ... Here you are saving my life again ... You're the one fixed star in the heavens, Couth! Look - my beard's nearly as big as yours, Couth ... How are you? I've been awful, Couth, you probably know ...'
And Couth just kept staring at him, and then looking at Dante Calicchio, a squat monster in uniform trying to keep politely out of the way in a corner of the kitchen and holding his driver's cap in his big-knuckled hands. While Trumper skipped around the kitchen, opening the refrigerator door, peering into the dining room, poking into the laundry alcove - where to his mischievous delight, he saw a wooden clothes rack with some lady's silky bras and panties hung up to dry.
Plucking up the nearest bra, he waved it with a leer at Couth.
'Who is she, you sly bugger?' he crackled, and once more he couldn't resist tickling his fingers playfully in the chin of Couth's long beard.
But all Couth said was, 'Where have you been, Bogus? Where in hell have you been?'
Trumper was quick to catch the accusing tone and knew that Couth had heard from Biggie. 'You've seen her, huh?' he asked. 'How is she, Couth?' But Couth looked away from him, as if he were going to cry, and Trumper quickly added, quickly scared, 'Couth, I've behaved rather badly, I know ...'
He was twisting the bra in his hands and Couth took it away from him. Then, when he saw the bra in Couth's hands, Trumper suddenly thought, That's a mauve bra, and he remembered buying a bra so purple - a bra so big. He stopped talking; he watched Couth slip down from the butcher's block like some slow-moving meat which had been de-boned there; Couth went into the laundry alcove and put Biggie's bra back on the clothes rack.
'You were gone a long time, Bogus,' Couth said.
'But I'm back now, Couth,' Bogus said, which sounded pretty stupid. 'Couth? I'm sorry, but I am back, Couth ...'
Some bare feet were slap-slapping down the stairs and a voice said, 'Please keep the noise down or you'll wake up Colm.'
The feet came toward the kitchen. Crammed in the corner by the spice rack, Dante Calicchio was attempting the impossible by trying to make himself small and inconspicuous.
'Bogus, I'm sorry,' Couth said gently, and touched his arm.
Then Biggie walked in, gave Dante a look as if he were a storm trooper who had arrived by U-boat and turned a remarkably unflinching and unsurprised stare on Bogus.
'It's Bogus,' Couth whispered to her, as if she might not have recognized him with a beard. 'It's Bogus,' he repeated a little louder. 'Home from the war ...'
'I wouldn't say home,' Biggie said. 'I wouldn't say that at all.'
And I listened hard for the humor in your tone, Big; I was really straining to hear it. But I missed it, Big. It was absent. And the only thing I could think to say - because of the way both you and Couth seemed so nervous about the hulking wop in uniform crouched under the spices - the only thing I could do, Big, was introduce you both to my driver. There was nothing else I could begin with.
'Uh,' Trumper said, as if backing away from a punch. 'This is Dante. He's my driver.'
Neither Biggie nor Couth could look at Dante; they kept right on staring alternately at Bogus and at the floor. And Bogus could only notice Biggie's robe, a new one - in orange, her favorite color; in velour, her favorite material. Her hair had grown out some, and she wore earrings, which she'd never done before; she looked sort of tousled and blowzy, a look he remembered her carrying well. You just wanted to rumple yourself up with her when she looked like that.
Then Dante Calicchio, under the strain of being introduced, tried to shoulder himself out of the corner where he'd crammed himself and hit the spice rack with his shoulder, propelling it with him into the center of the kitchen where he made a hopeless grab at it; Biggie and Couth and Bogus all rushed toward him and made things worse. Little spice jars shattered all over the kitchen, and Dante's last lurch for the empty rack splintered it against the unyielding refrigerator.
'Oh, God, I'm sorry,' Dante said.
Biggie prodded a little spice jar with her foot and looked straight at Bogus. 'A lot of people are sorry,' she said.
Trumper heard Colm call out upstairs.
'Excuse me,' Biggie said, and walked out of the kitchen.
Trumper followed her up the stairs. 'Colm,' he said. 'That's Colm, isn't it?' He was right behind her when she stopped, turned and gave him a look he'd never had from her before - as if she were a strange woman he'd just goosed in some vile, surprising way.
'I'll be back in a minute,' she said coolly, and he let her go on upstairs alone. He lingered on his way back to the kitchen, hearing her soft voice reassuring Colm about the crash of the spice rack; from the kitchen, he could hear Couth's equally reassuring tone to Dante Calicchio. Not all the spice jars had been broken, Couth was saying, and he could build a new rack in no time.
Dante Calicchio made some remark in Italian; to Trumper, it sounded like a prayer.
