Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [4]
“I am a grown-up. I’m using it for Gregory. He needs it.”
The noise Mrs. Schultz made could have been throat-clearing, laughter, or a cough. Burrage decided that he would not ask which one it was. “In that case,” she said, “I won’t stay. I’m going home, and you don’t have to help me this time. I’ll find my way by myself, without a horoscope. What’s that music I hear? Glenn Miller. Well, that puts me back into the bloom of youth.” She did not shuffle out but picked up her feet ostentatiously. Burrage watched her disappear down the hall and go out the front door, which she left open. He went back to work.
Burrage’s composite horoscope for Gregory presented his nephew as a rather shaky and split character with extraordinary requirements for domestic stability. The planetary signs, however, were somewhat obtuse when they were not contradictory, so Burrage decided to change them, to revise the sky. Where there was weakness, Burrage inserted strength. Where he found indecision or calamity, he substituted resolve and good fortune. In place of trauma and loss he wrote down words like “luck” and “intelligence.” This, he thought at first, would invalidate the horoscope, but he decided that if the planets had real influence, then they were influencing him now to alter Gregory’s life-plan. It was their wish.
He put up Gregory’s planetary wheel on the refrigerator door. Above the wheel he wrote down Gregory’s virtue-words in blue and yellow crayon. For the next week, he explained the chart to Gregory and told him what the planets said he would be like. He explained what all the words were and what they meant. At first Gregory was silent about all this, but one morning he asked Burrage if he could take his horoscope to school. Given permission, he put the chart in his Lone Ranger lunchbox. That afternoon, when he got into the car, he said that most of the other kids wanted Burrage to make up their horoscopes but that the only one he really had to do was Magda Brodsky’s.
“Who’s Magda Brodsky?” Burrage asked.
“Somebody,” Gregory said. “She’s in the class.”
“Is she your friend?”
“I guess so.”
“What does she look like?”
“She’s nice.”
“I mean, what does she look like?”
“I told you. She’s nice.”
“Is she your friend?”
“I guess. She doesn’t say a whole lot.”
“When’s her birthday?”
“I asked her. She said the fourth of July.”
“Is she as old as you are?”
“Yeah.”
This time, Burrage did not consult the book, although he pretended to do so whenever Gregory was in the room. He drew the wheel, wrote out the symbols for the signs in the quadrants, and then wrote down Magda Brodsky’s virtues in green and orange crayon. It was like making up a calendar that had no relation to real dates or days of the week. Burrage decided that Magda was courageous, businesslike, and articulate. In addition, she was affectionate, physically agile, sensible, and generous. The adjectives came to him easily. Burrage drew a picture of Saturn at the top of the chart, along with several five-pointed stars. He told Gregory to give the chart to Magda, and he explained what all the words were, and what they meant. Gregory took the chart to school the next day.
In the evening, after dinner, Magda’s mother called him. Being the assistant manager of a branch bank, Burrage had expected this call and thought he knew how to handle it.
“Hello, Mr. Birmingham? This is Amelia Brodsky.” She had a pleasant but resolute voice. “Look, I don’t want to disturb you, but Magda brought this sheet of paper home from school today, which she says she got from your boy. I want you to understand that I’m not objecting to it. In fact, it’s made a distinct difference in her behavior this afternoon. She’s been quite an angel. I just want to know what this thing is. Did you do it? Can you explain it to me?”
“I thought you’d be calling,” Burrage said. “Actually, it’s her horoscope, but it’s not accurate. By that I mean that I made up a horoscope to give my boy some confidence, and he took it to school. When he came home he said his friend