American Boy - Larry Watson [43]
I drove up the Knurrs’ long driveway and pulled the car into the garage alongside a powder blue Ford Falcon, the Lincoln’s smaller mate and no doubt the car that Mrs. Knurr usually drove, like Mrs. Dunbar’s Valiant.
Together we hauled Mr. Knurr from the backseat, but by now his wheels barely rolled. His eyes were still open, but he couldn’t support his own weight. Mrs. Knurr and I half-carried, half-dragged him through the house, and when we finally got him into the bedroom we were both out of breath.
We laid him faceup on the bed, and I slipped off his wing tips while Mrs. Knurr loosened her husband’s tie. I made a move to take off his suit coat, thinking I would proceed to his trousers, but Mrs. Knurr said, “Let’s leave him. If I have to transport him to the doctor I don’t want to have to dress him again.”
“Dr. Dunbar makes house calls,” I said defensively.
She smiled. “With all due respect to your Dr. Dunbar, I meant a back specialist. At a hospital.” She motioned for us to leave the room. “But right now Norbert needs to sleep.”
Throughout this conversation, Norbert said nothing and gave no sign that he comprehended any of what was happening. But his eyes, his tiny dark eyes, sunk deep in his piggy face, remained open. For the first time, I considered the possibility that it truly was his back and not bourbon that had him incapacitated.
On our way out of the room, I said, “Sciatica?”
Mrs. Knurr looked at me, puzzled. “Beg pardon?”
I was only trying to demonstrate my willingness to go along with the pretense. “Is that his back problem? Sciatica?”
“You’ve certainly been paying attention in class.”
“Dr. Dunbar has been treating George Ginn for sciatica.”
“You’re not supposed to reveal that, are you? Isn’t that part of the physician’s oath?”
I felt myself blush.
“I’m only teasing you,” said Mrs. Knurr. We were in the living room now, and she asked, “Do you mind staying for just a bit? If Norbert gets worse, I’ll need your help moving him.”
“Okay.”
She switched on a lamp beside a brocade couch that was longer than any I’d ever seen. She tossed her fur coat on one end of the couch, and I sat on the other. She was also wearing a short wool jacket, and she took that off as well.
“Can I get you something?” Mrs. Knurr asked. “A Coke? Or I could make some cocoa? For this cold winter night?”
“No, thanks.”
For a long moment, Mrs. Knurr stood silently before me. In only slight ways was she dressed any differently from the other women at the banquet, but those differences were significant. Her strapless cocktail dress, a deep burgundy with a faintly iridescent sheen, was cut lower and tighter than any other woman’s. And Mrs. Knurr had the kind of voluptuous figure very much in vogue at that time—the shape men mimed by carving an hourglass in the air. I couldn’t imagine any other woman in Willow Falls displaying as much cleavage as Mrs. Knurr. In addition to her curvy body, she had a wide mouth, full lips, large dark eyes, and high cheekbones. She stood there before me, almost as if she were encouraging me to stare at her without interruption.
But I was a teenager, and she was in her forties. She had shoulder-length hair so black it had to be dyed. Her makeup was thickly applied—especially her lipstick, which was a bright crimson, while the girls my age were painting their lips pale that year. Her flesh, tanned even in winter, had begun to take on a leathery look. Her features were oddly flattened and misshapen, and her smile only put things further off-kilter. If the word “blowsy” had been part of my seventeen-year-old vocabulary, I would have attached it to Beverly Knurr.
Mrs. Knurr finally broke her pose, and if she’d stood perfectly still while allowing me to look her over, now her steps were unsteady as she retrieved her purse from on top of a stereo housed in a coffin-sized mahogany cabinet. She lit another Marlboro, then held the pack out to me. “Cigarette?”
“No, thanks.”
“Would you like a drink?”
“No.”
She smiled.