JUST ADD ONE HAMSTER
My former neighbors thought of the Penfields as the “Immaculate Couple,” since those lucky enough to have received an overview of their house, grounds, habits, and physiognomies had spread the word. When we glimpsed them at work in their front yard or in transit from their front door to one of their two cars parked on the street, both young people always looked perfectly groomed, behaved irreproachably. The skeptics could never find fault with them; the gossips could never find the grist to make up stories about them; the parents could never find anything in common with them. We tried, but there wasn’t much to sink our teeth into. Two years went by without incident, and lack of rumor turned gradually into lack of fact.
Then the domestic half of the neighborhood honed its senses — aural, visual, olfactory, and cynical. A delivery truck stood one day in front of the Penfield home. Out of it Mr. Penfield and another man carried a folded crib, in excellent condition, a chest of drawers, painted pink, a wooden high chair of antique vintage, and several large packing boxes with colorful pictures on them of babies in various attitudes of infant activity.
“Now things are going to change a little,” said my neighbors eagerly. The skeptics knew now that it was only a matter of time. The gossips, bright-eyed, hovered cheerfully. The parents enjoyed friendly stirrings and conjured up many overtures to interrogation of the expectant couple. But all their neighborly spirits were soon dampened. The self-sufficient Penfields saw no need to cultivate friendships. They were pleasant people enough; they answered all questions willingly; they seemed very happy about the expected addition to their family. But they possessed an annoying economy of words. They spoke only when spoken to, never asked questions, never sought to elaborate on a point or continue a chat.
I had lived next door to them until my divorce, four years after the delivery truck. Then, because of an amicable arrangement that satisfied all my neighbors’ dominant instincts, I kept coming back to the house during the week to take care of the kids so that their father could go to work. This went on for three years, even after he had found another mate, I had remarried, he had remarried, and I had moved to another town. It continued, in fact, until I started a day care operation in the new town and could not leave it during the day. Then my kids visited me on the weekends and during school holidays and vacations.
Until those three years were up, it wasn’t so bad, really. The daytime domestic routine had its advantages. I didn’t slog through the morning in a stupor the way I used to do before I left. I arrived at the house dressed and ready to pack the kids off to school. When I picked them up, I usually had something interesting planned for the afternoon. I drove them to their lessons and medical appointments. I joined the PTA at their school and went to parent-teacher conferences. I had their dinner prepared before I ducked out for the night (that is, until their father hooked up with his future wife, who happened to be a marvelous chef). My ex had it made, as did the kids, in a way. There were drawbacks to the plan, but I at least became a functional human being, an important step to a meaningful job. While I knew motherhood was the best thing that had ever happened to me (and I still know that), it was humiliating telling people that I was “just a mother.” I knew I had to be something more than that to feel good about myself, and yet I still had to keep up the old appearances.
So it was a revelation to discover a new neighbor who made motherhood and domesticity look respectable in a community of career women. Mrs. Penfield had a night job, but it was not a career. She was thoroughly content being a homemaker. Married again and still trapped into being domestic myself, I was delighted to discover her within reach early one morning, just as the sun was rising. It was still damp from an overnight drizzle, but Charlotte Penfield was on her knees in her Monet-like front garden, crawling around among the broad-leafed plants, carefully placing snails in a food container filled with fresh lettuce.
I called over to her. “I hear you’re expecting.”
“Yes. That’s right,” said Charlotte Penfield with a gracious smile, sitting upright on her heels.
“It can’t be too soon. You’re not filling out at all.”
“December third.”
“That’s only four months away. You look great.”
“Well, thank you.”
“What do you want, a little boy or a little girl?”
“Just a little baby.”
I rushed over eagerly, throwing my apron onto my front railing. Charlotte Penfield continued to gather garden snails, turning each slimy monoped over to examine it with care before placing it in the glass container.
It seemed imperative that I get a rise out of her. I told her that Ihad breastfed my boys until they were twenty-one months old, that it was advisable to drink beer while breast-feeding, that my boys had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the TV and we had carried them to bed, but they were in our waterbed by morning. I generalized a lot. I made some half-truthful observations about how I had wanted only boys because I did not like any of the girls’ names that my husband had favored. I said that my husband found it amusing to teach our babies obscenities with which to shock old ladies in supermarkets, and that we wanted all the boys to have long hair. I told her things that would have got a horrified reaction out of any other neighbor but got only a twinkle and a couple of blinks out of her.
“That’s an unusual system of pest control,” I finally remarked.
“Yes. I read about it in a book on organic gardening.”
“Blame the French. I hear they introduced those things to the area.”
“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?”
I laughed, delighted that Charlotte Penfield had a humorous side to her character. I watched her activities for a while longer in bemused silence. The pale young woman looked brittle-boned, exquisitely fragile, yet her energy was boundless.
“But isn’t that a waste of good lettuce?” I blurted at last, annoyed at having to wait so long to satisfy my curiosity.
“No. I don’t give them too much. Just enough to clean out their little systems.”
“You mean you don’t kill the snails? You keep them as pets?”
“It’s better to wait a few days until their digestive systems are clean. That way they taste better.”
“You mean you actually eat them?” I gasped before I could conceal my ignorance.
“Oh yes. With a bit of herbed butter and garlic they make a delicious appetizer. Nutritious, too, but be sure to clean out their little systems. We scoop them out, prepare them, and serve them in the shell.”
“Well, of course, if you like snails . . .”
Mrs. Penfield continued her work in rapt silence, diving under bushes and turning over leaves, but it occurred to me that I was finally getting somewhere with our neighbor. “Come to think of it, I read about that method once in the Home Ec column of the Guardian, but I didn’t take it seriously. There’s so much freaky survivalism going on these days. So I guess you don’t have to be desperate to like garden snails. That’s good to know.”
Mrs. Penfield did not appear to consider an answer necessary. After all my effort at conversation, any other neighbor might have invited me to feast on snails, but she kept on foraging under her nasturtiums. I made an observation that we all had to cut corners, that I even reused my coffee grounds every other day, though I thought my husband cheated on the re-use days and bought a coffee at Peet’s on the way to work.
Finally, I gave up trying to interest her. I said goodbye. “If I find any, I’ll save them for you,” I offered. “It’ll be nice not having to poison them for a change. That always makes me feel like a big polluter, even though I detest snails. I’ll tell my friends, too.”
She flashed a perfect dentist’s office smile. “Tell them that night time is the best for collecting snails. I go out every evening with a flashlight, except last night I went to work early, so I didn’t have a chance.”
“I guess you’ll quit your job when the baby comes.”
“Quit? Oh no, no. The hospital is giving me a month’s leave of absence. They’re letting me train an aide to take my place at the desk for a month.”
“Only a month? But what happens after that?”
“Everything is taken care of. I work nights and Malcolm works days. And we’ll have our evenings free.”
That’s what she thinks, I told myself with a private chuckle. I spread the word among the parents and we all made plans to help the new mother.
On the first day of December I paid my reclusive neighbor a visit and found that the little girl had already been in residence ten days. She was small, having been born a bit prematurely, but she was pretty and very healthy. I was allowed to peep at the fidgeting little creature, stranded in the middle of a barren crib mattress in a darkened room.
“We’ve named her Charlotte, after me,” she whispered, leading me back through the kitchen. There was not the slightest indication, in any of the rooms, of an effort to accommodate a baby. Those glass and porcelain miniatures will have to go, I thought. Hawk them on EBay, start a knick-knack business, I thought. There are actually people who would pay good money for that insipid junk.
“She’s a wiry little thing,” I observed hopefully. “Bound to be a handful. She probably won’t sleep a whole lot. If you need any help, I’ll be glad to cooperate. I can watch her in the daytime if you need to go out or grab some shuteye.”
“Thank you very much,” the new mother said, with pleasing sincerity, as she uncovered two pans of risen bread and slid them into the oven.
“You bake your own bread? How do you find the time?”
“I have a machine, so it was easy once I worked out a schedule. Malcolm won’t eat any other kind, and I want to please him since he’s the main breadwinner in our family.”
“He’ll change,” I assured her, noticing the unintentional irony of her words. Charlotte did not crack a smile as she ushered me out through the front door.
But things never changed with the Penfields, except that two years later one more child was born. Malcolm Junior.
Charlotte and Malcolm needed no assistance in bringing up either of their Juniors, who grew up quiet, self-sufficient, polite, obedient, exemplary. They played gaily together in their backyard. Sometimes other children played with them, but these were not allowed in the house. I found that the Penfields discouraged their children from visiting other homes. I offered to look after them while Charlotte went shopping and ran errands, but she never asked. I would have felt snubbed, just because my domestic style was so different from hers, if I had not discovered that our other neighbors had no more success than I.
Charlotte and Malcolm Junior welcomed the company of neighborhood kids but did not seek them out. When they were school age, they went to a private school on a special bus that picked them up and set them down in front of their home.
Slowly, as the years went by and the Penfield kids remained as straight and bright as they were born to be, my neighbors developed the disappointed conviction that it was all true: the Penfields led an irreproachable existence. Every day we saw them in the same attitudes, hurrying off to work or school, dressed in neatly pressed suits and uniforms, carrying attaché cases and backpacks, violin cases and lunch boxes, sports equipment, swimwear, martial arts paraphernalia, leotards and tutus. The Juniors quickly learned, of course, to read, bake bread, and collect snails at night with a flashlight in their own little gardens. At Christmas time, those who brought gifts to the Penfield door found that their good will was amply rewarded with a basket of baked goods and homemade fudge, bestowed over the front threshold by a quaintly smiling cherub all done up in festive holiday knitwear handmade by their mother at home.
Charlotte was about seven years old when I spotted her mother one day trying to carry a large box and several bags up her front steps in single trip from the car. I dropped my loppers and rushed over to help her. I was then in the last stages of my gradual sepaationfrom my children's home. My children were having social and emotional problems at school. For the first time I was really depressed about not being a proper mother and badly in need of some distraction. There was usually what felt like a burning stake driven right through my heart and bowels because I knew joint custody was the answer, but it was a separation of sorts from my beautiful boys.
“Thank you, but it isn’t heavy, just a bit bulky.” Charlotte Penfield seemed agitated by my intrusion. “Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be needing any help.”
I took the keys that were dangling from her hand and opened her front door for her. “There you go. I don’t mean to pry, but what’s in the box?”
“Just a cage.”
“A bird cage?”
“No. Hamster.” She wore a shamefaced smirk. “The kids have been wanting a pet, so I finally broke down and got them one.”
“Wonderful. Hamsters make great pets. My kids have gone through five of them already. In fact, we have a lot of leftover hamster pellets and toys you could have. Hamsters are loads of fun.”
“No, I . . .” Her eyes had widened a bit at the word “five,” but she seemed to check an uncharacteristically sudden outburst, settled her tone of voice as she set her purchases on the hall table. “I thought a dog or cat would be too much trouble. They’re too dirty, always needing a bath. Though they do get to be like one of the family sometimes.” She spoke apologetically, as if in need of verbal support for what she had done.
“Oh, hamsters can be good friends for children, as long as they don’t catch cold or get handled excessively,” I assured her. “Some of them get really attached. Gary had one once that would wake up at the sound of his voice and make a U-turn whenever Gary told him to. But nobody else could ever get him to do that.”
“Really? I hope I chose the right one. There were so many,” Charlotte said dubiously.
“You can usually tell right away if they’re good ones. Where is he?”
“In the car. I’ll have to get the cage set up before I bring him in. It’s one of those new-fangled types that you have to assemble yourself. Complicated contraption with wheels and tunnels. I ought to get it done before the kids come home. Not much time.”
“Can I be of any use?”
“No, no.” Charlotte Senior looked almost annoyed, in spite of her apparent helplessness where pets were concerned. “I should learn to do this myself,” she said. “Thank you anyway, but this is really a one-person job.”
I felt snubbed, but I was very sensitive at that time. The whole neighborhood was feasting on my predicament, giving me advice I did not need, so I retreated into my own problems, scarcely able to stand my frustration at having failed once again to strike up a friendship. A perfect opportunity ruined. To hell with that paragon of perfection. That’s the last time I try to befriend Mrs. Do-It-All-By-Myself. Good riddance!
Anyway, I was about to leave the neighborhood to start my business elsewhere. Tom had made the down payment on my house. That was the agreement. So, still cursing Charlotte under my breath, I tried to focus on my own complicated job.
Ten minutes later, I’m not kidding, self-sufficient Charlotte was making frantic jabs at my doorbell. Panic had possessed her features, made her look older, almost skeletal.
“Something must be wrong,” I said slowly, fascinated by the change in her, wondering whether my long-delayed cursing had worked telepathically.
“This is terrible. The hamster cage isn’t complete, so I have to take it back and exchange it, but I can’t find my keys. You had my keys, didn’t you? I need my car key.”
“I opened you front door with them, but I handed them back to you. I remember hanging them on your middle finger.”
“If only I could be sure of that.”
“But it’s the truth. Cross my heart. You probably misplaced them when you set the packages down. Want me to help you look?”
“No, no. Why do I ever let people interfere?” she muttered to herself, but audibly, as she ran back to her house. Once on her own front porch, she cried out and collapsed on the top step, burying her head between her knees.
I was instantly at her side. “Lock yourself out?”
“What’ll I ever do? This would never have happened if you hadn’t been here. I should never have bought that thing. What will Malcolm say? I knew he wouldn’t approve. He’s allergic to animal dander. He’s getting back at me already before he even knows about it.”
“Get a hold of yourself, Charlotte.” I never thought I’d be uttering those words! “You can use my phone to telephone him. It isn’t a far drive from his job, is it? Doesn’t he work on campus?”
“No, no. I don’t want him to know. I just want to get rid of the thing before he finds out what happened.”
“Can’t we climb in a window?”
“The windows are all locked, and we have a very good alarm system.”
“Good. Then let’s call your alarm company. They’ll help. It’s part of the service.”
“I don’t have their number on me.”
“What’s their name? It must be on some sticker in your window. Or I can look it up. Come up to my place while we wait.”
“Oooh.” Charlotte’s hands went to her head of hair, which she began pulling like an ancient Greek tragedian. “What time is it? The kids’ll be home soon. I have to do something.”
I left her fretting on the doorstep and found the name of her burglar alarm company, one of the best, on a sign near the foot of her stairs. I called their number.
“My neighbor, Charlotte Penfield, is having a meltdown because she’s locked herself out of her house. She’s one of your clients. Can you help her?”
I handed the mobile unit to Charlotte, who got through the rest of the message, not without giving her maiden name and then the incorrect address before making sense.
“You sure you don’t want to call your husband, too?” I asked. She was sure, and she waved me away. I thought I should brew her some relaxing chamomile tea, and went back to my ex's house. At this point, I needed some, too.
The water in the kettle had just come to a boil when I heard strange, high-pitched yelling in the street. I ran outside and beheld my unfortunate neighbor shrieking into the rear window of her car through cupped hands. “Stop that! Stop that at once! Have you no respect?”
I joined her at the car, peeped in. “Oh, Christ!”
The hamster, a golden-hued, chubby-cheeked cute little thing, had chewed through the cardboard carton that had been its temporary home and was now busy defecating onto and nibbling its way into the fabric upholstery of the back seat. Charlotte Senior began to rock the car with her thin arms, at which the hamster stopped his frenetic chewing just long enough to ogle her with his beady black questioning gaze. Then he wiggled his whiskers, and dived back into the mushrooming fibrous white nest he was making.
“Do you see that? Do you see what it’s doing? Why did I ever think it was cute?” Charlotte said, breathlessly.
By this time a few other neighbors had gathered, an older woman in housecoat and curlers, and a young man in jogging shorts, who told her that her insurance company would pay for the damage to her upholstery.
“You know you can call your auto club to open your car,” added Mrs. Thomas, the curler-headed neighbor, who was probably enjoying Charlotte’s distress. She lived in the house on the other side, and used to have access to their backyard before they moved in, so she could come and visit me by the back way, catching me in various stages of undress. She harbored a grudge against the Penfields because they had put locks on their back gates, making these casual neighborly drop-ins impossible.
“In any event, your alarm company will be here soon,” I said. “Don’t worry, Charlotte. You have lots of outs. Pretty soon, it will all be like new, and your kids will have a nice pet. Just think how much better you have it than people without all your cutting-edge protection.”
“But it all takes so long, and meanwhile Malcolm will come home and see this mess. I WANT IT ALL FIXED NOW! It’s all you fault, Madge. You had my keys.”
“You mean, if I hadn’t helped you open the front door, none of this would ever have happened?” I said, to clarify things before the witnesses. “But I did give the keys back to you, and you left them in the house with the self-locking door.”
“See? And Malcolm’s going to blame me, too, but it isn’t my fault, either.”
“Look, how about if I drive you to your husband’s office, and you can bring his keys home with you? That way he won’t have to budge an inch, and then you can get everything squared away before he comes home tonight.”
“I can’t leave now. The children will be home any minute.”
“Good. They must have a key.”
“But I want the hamster to be in its cage first.”
Suddenly I saw Charlotte differently, as she would be in ten years, a middle-aged scolding woman with curlers in her hair that nobody wanted to be around and nobody envied. This glance into the future took my breath away.
“When life gives you lemons . . .” Mrs. Thomas began.
“You suck it up,” concluded the young man helpfully.
“Ha ha!” I was rude enough to laugh.
“We can’t just stand here hoping for a miracle,” said Mrs. Thomas.
As we stood there hoping for a miracle, a burning smell drifted into the air. Charlotte sniffed for a moment in a vague, preoccupied way. Then, “MY BREAD! I forgot about my bread. Four whole loaves this time.”
“Tell you what, Charlotte. I’ll call the fire department. They’ll know the best way of getting in.”
“Do you really think it’s that serious?”
“No, but you are.” I went back into my house to make the emergency call and pour my tea. The kettle had reached its highest pitched whistle. As I was giving my name and particulars according to the calm, step-by-step protocol required of normal, law-abiding citizens, Charlotte burst through the doorway, panicked and panting. “It’s a real fire! It’s a real fire!”
She grabbed the phone and began shouting instructions into it, not giving her name, but repeating herself over and over, without listening to the voice on the other end.
I ran down to the street to watch for the appearance of emergency vehicles and was surprised not to see any smoke curling up out of the Penfield house. The alarm company’s truck had just arrived, and Mrs. Thomas was explaining things to its driver. Then a police car arrived. The helpgul young jogger talked to the cop, who just sat calmly in his car with the engine running while his light bar whirled and flashed. The first fire engine screamed into place as the alarm man entered the house and took the burnt bread out of the oven. Then, as he came down the stairs to consult with the emergency team, the school bus dropped off the two Juniors, who were thrilled with all the excitement around their house.
Two police cars had stationed themselves in the center of the road. Static crackling of official radios accompanied the excited jabbering of daytime neighbors, who now filled the street. Ruth Kelley’s retired husband was helping to unfold the huge fire hoses and connect them together. He had once been the town’s fire chief.
By the time the burglar alarm man was able to get his point across, an ambulance and another truck had arrived. A cop and several firemen decided to enter the house and check to make sure of the false alarm. Charlotte cowered on my front porch, chewing her nails, until her children spied her at last and ran up the stairs to join us. Then our neighbors pointed up at us, and the first policeman finally left his vehicle to ask a few questions. Charlotte was completely incoherent, so I explained as briefly as I could.
“Should I send an ambulance?” he asked uncertainly. “It looks like that’s maybe what she really needs. Lady, I’m calling for a medical team to look you over.”
Ruth’s husband helped to fold the hoses. The trucks roared off angrily. The crowd broke up and straggled home, making disjointed, disappointed noises. The children helped their mother down my stairs and up hers, all three bemoaning the fate of the bread. We opened all the windows to air out the house before Malcolm came home.
While Charlotte, in tears, turned her burnt bread out on the pastry board and cleaned the loaf pans, I had time to look around the kitchen. Almost immediately I spotted the keys on the breakfast table next to a partially assembled hamster playground. I remembered that the set was incomplete.
From my own basement storage, I dragged out a dirty wire cage that had served in its time as a home for sundry tiny rodents. Knowing my neighbor’s immaculate habits, I washed it and sterilized it with disinfectant spray. Then I unlocked her car and caught the squealing, jibbering, hyperactive miniature housekeeper, who instantly blessed my palm with a profusion of warm droppings. I popped him into his new transitional home and took him right up into that rabid house.
Next I successfully distracted the attention of the two youngsters away from their suffering mother by showing them the new member of their family, and while they watched him in amazement, I proceeded to the more difficult and unpleasant task of comforting a victim of hysteria.
Charlotte Senior was not in shock exactly, but she would not listen to reason. The damage was done, she said. Nothing would undo it. “Malky” would never forgive her. She might as well drop dead.
“You are covered for the upholstery in the car, aren’t you?”
Charlotte focused her attention for a second and then groaned. “Malcolm has insurance on everything.”
“Wonderful. Then what’s to worry about? Is Malcolm really such a monster? He looks like a sweet, mild-mannered person to me. Wish Tom were as sweet and mild-mannered as your hubby is.”
Charlotte shuddered. Her sobbing became louder, quicker.
“Really, Charlotte, can’t you pull yourself together? I thought nothing could ever bother you. There are some things we can do before Malc . . . before your husband gets home. You can exchange the hamster set. At least you can make the kids happy. Look at them. Look at their faces. They’re happy already. I’ll stay here and babysit them while you go exchange the set.”
The hamster, whom the Juniors promptly dubbed Jimmy, was babysitter enough, so I lost no time in making myself cozy in the Penfield living room with the Penfield flatscreen TV and a pot of their excellent coffee. When my three kids got home from school, I called them over to see the hamster and give its new owners some advice on caring for it. They all obligingly crowded into the Penfield kitchen and kept up a lively, instructive chatter, while the shiny bamboo flooring disappeared under a layer of misdirected shavings and shredded newspaper, kibble, mud off my boys’ shoes, and hamster droppings. My children tended to come home from school with ravenous appetites, and so they lit into the bread after resourcefully scraping the blackened crust on to the tabletop and floor. It broke up in their hands as they slathered on the butter and jam, and, as they nibbled at it like rodents, they sprinkled much of it over the layered mess at their feet. In an effort to do his part with the bread, Malky Junior upset a binful of lettuce and snails, which my kids helped him pick up, but they were not completely successful as a few of the snails were discovered later at the end of their gluey silver tracks. From what I could overhear from my position of comfort, the children became curious about whether Jimmy would like burnt bread and lettuce, and then about whether Jimmy would play with snails. I felt that the children were engaged in fruitful experimentation and decided not to organize a clean-up until my soap was over.
An hour passed, and the two elder Penfields came home. Something urgent was underway on my favorite program, so at first I had trouble giving them my full attention. Malcolm Penfield had time to glance about and assess the kitchen situation before I became aware that his skin was covered with irritable patches of pink and red, which pulsated hectically on and off in staggered timing like Christmas tree lights. His intense blue eyes behind thick-framed glasses, wide and wounded, were rimmed with the moisture of personal hurt. He faced me and his mouth worked, but he said nothing.
Astonished, feeling a bit ashamed even, I looked quickly from him to her, who cowered behind him, clutching his arm for protection and looking at me as if I were a time bomb that needed dismantling. When I stood up to greet them, they both took a hasty step backward. Malcolm Penfield Senior put up a cautionary hand.
“Be careful,” he said with a quaking voice. “I could call the police.”
“Excuse me? The police have been here once already today for a false alarm.”
Instead of responding to my information, he cleared his throat. “You are aware, of course, that you and your brood are not only trespassing on private property, but you are partaking of private food without invitation and committing certain acts of vandalism.”
“I don’t believe this.” I put my coffee cup down with a bang on top of the television, splattering brownish droplets over the screen and carpet. ”Since when is a babysitter trespassing?” I looked sharply at the disheveled head that kept retreating behind Mr. Penfield’s high-strung back.
“Babysitter? Were you hired as a babysitter?” Malcolm Senior swiveled to shoot a questioning glance at his wife, who shook her head mutely and stumbled backward, knocking against a showcase full of glass miniatures, and collapsed in a hard-bottomed antique chair.
“Not hired. Volunteered,” I said, as icily as possible. I did not feel sorry about the broken miniatures. Malcolm was covered for everything. “I’ve been trying to help your poor, beleaguered wife. A lot of thanks I get for it, too. I bet she didn’t even manage to exchange the cage.”
“What cage? Charlotte, is there something you haven’t told me?”
A thin whimper arose from somewhere deep inside the shattered creature on the unrelenting chair, although the doll-like mouth did not open, the staring eyes did not blink. I rounded up my three kids and went home in a daze, muttering to myself all the way about tending one's own garden.
That evening I could not resist telling my ex, Tom, and his fiancée all about it. Less charitable than I, he commented that he did not understand why I kept insisting on getting involved with people who so obviously lacked the ability to be sociable. In a way, he said, everything was indeed my fault because my presence had made Mrs. Penfield nervous enough to misplace her keys. The sweet little woman was doing a courageous thing in bringing a totally unfamiliar pet into her house solely for her children’s entertainment, and I had to be there to throw a monkey wrench into the delicate operation, but that was just what he might have expected of someone like me.
“It’s kind of you to view it in that light, Tom,” I said. “You ought to go over there right now and try to make her feel better. Tell her what I busybody I am. But from the way I see it, it was a lucky thing I was around to take the blame for a disastrous day.”
“Oh, come on. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.”
“I’m serious. You ought to go talk to her, if Deirdre will let you, that is. It isn’t everyone who can soothe a sorehead like Charlotte Penfield. I know I’ve done my best. And I’m sure Malky is incapable. Tom, I swear I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll have nothing more to do with them in the future. But it is strange they should have such a hard time with me, since they both have jobs that require a high degree of PR.”
“Well, I don’t know that it’s strange. People act different in their jobs. But I sure am glad to hear that you aren’t going to fuss over them any longer. I get sick of hearing about the non-events that go on around here all day long.”
“Mom!” yelled Gary from the front room. “Charlotte and Malcolm are here. They brought us the hamster.”
Tom, Deirdre, and I scuttled to the front door and stared over the heads of our sons at the two tearful faces and the busy hamster, Jimmy, in his wire cage, obliviously housekeeping in mid-air. Nothing ever bothered Jimmy, who was now happily stuffing his cheek pouches with cedar shavings.
Tom took me aside. “Look,” he said. “I know you’d bend over backwards for these people, but you aren’t going to be here much longer. Deirdre will, and she doesn’t want any more pets right now. In fact, she’d like to unload the cats on you. Unless you’re willing to take the hamster home with you tonight, we’ll just have to refuse it. Don’t be a bleeding heart. Let her live up to her mistakes.
“It’s none of our business,” he reasoned as I wavered. It’s all right with me if she wants to hide from her husband, so long as it doesn’t involve us. You don’t need to be saddled with more responsibilities. You have enough of them already without these.”
Tom’s eyes had that familiar stubborn glint in them. To continue with the whim would be uncomfortable. I told the children to take the hamster back home for the night. I would have a chat with their mother in the morning.
Charlotte and Malcolm Junior promptly accepted the change of plans and thanked us. I closed the door slowly, watching to see that they got home in safety. Then I noticed a tall, dark figure waiting by the hedge on the sidewalk. “There’s Mr. Penfield!” I flung open the door, ran down the stairs.
“Oh, Mr. Penfield. I’m glad you came along. I’m going to have to explain something.”
The shadowy figure jumped visibly. “Hm. Didn’t see you there.”
“How about coming in for a little coffee, Mr. Penfield?”
He made a move to check his watch. “No. No, can’t do that, hm thank you. It’s late for coffee, and . . . have to get back to my hm wife. Not feeling well tonight, you know. Had to call in sick.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that. Some other time, then?”
“Tell him the truth, Madge!” boomed Tom from the top of the stairs, where he still stood with Deirdre. “Haven’t you meddled enough for one day? Let them take their goddamn hamster back home. The truth should out.”
“What? Truth? Me?” Malcolm Penfield looked about to cry.
“Mr. Penfield . . .” I hesitated, trying to size him up. He certainly did not appear to be the kind of man who would verbally abuse his wife, much less beat her. “Mr. Penfield, we don’t have room for a hamster now. We would like to take him, but we have too many pets already.”
Mr. Penfield began to whine. “If you don’t have room, how do you expect us to have room? Our house is smaller, our yard is smaller, we don’t have money to throw away. When you give away pets, you ought to consider such things. It’s absolutely impossible for us to keep an animal. Absolutely.”
“So you do think I gave your children this hamster. I have news for you. Charlotte bought it for them this morning. She bought a brand-new cage, food, the whole works. I think she must have returned the cage, but I’m sorry about that because I thought it was a wonderful thing to do for your kids, and they were really happy about it. But if you really can’t afford to keep Jimmy, you should take him back to the pet store and get your money refunded.”
I’ll have to say this for Tom: he stood behind me and looked at Malcolm directly, and that was all it took. Malcolm grabbed the hamster cage from his kids and stared at it as if seeing it for the first time. Even in the dark, it was apparent that his skin was breaking out again.
“Come inside for coffee?” I offered a second time. “We can explain to you about this wonderful animal. Your wife chose a very lively one, by the way. Did you know you can really get attached to them? They’re so neat and tidy. They have the greatest housekeeping habits. No matter how you arrange their cages, they always come up with their own ideas about where they want things to be. Aren’t you coming in, Mr. Penfield?”
Malcolm Penfield grunted something and started homewards, holding the cage before him at the end of his outstretched arms, and his two kids followed quietly behind. It was clear that a change was in store for the unimpeachable Penfields, but I failed to discover what it would be, exactly. I know they moved soon after the hamster experience, but I had also moved, and my life became so involved that I never had time to say goodbye. So if the various cynical urges of my erstwhile neighbors met with any satisfaction on their account, I never heard about it, and I am not likely to.