“Just the photograph of Ruth’s mother,” Eddie said aloud. “She’s in bed in a hotel room, in Paris . . .”
“Yes, I know the picture—of course you can have it!” Penny Pierce said.
“That’s it, then,” Eddie said. He wrote: “I just thought that the child would probably really need to have something to put near her bed tonight. There won’t be any other pictures—all those pictures she’s been used to. I thought that if there was one of her mother, especially . . .”
“But it’s not a good picture of the boys—only their feet, ” Mrs. Pierce interrupted.
“Yes, I know,” Eddie said. “Ruth particularly likes the feet.”
“Are the feet ready?” the four-year-old asked.
“Yes, they are, dear,” Penny Pierce said solicitously to Ruth.
“Do you want to see my stitches?” the child asked the manager. “And . . . my scab?”
“The envelope is in the car, Ruth—it’s in the glove compartment,” Eddie explained.
“Oh,” Ruth said. “What’s a glove department?”
“I’ll go check to be sure that the photograph is ready,” Penny Pierce announced. “It’s almost ready, I’m sure.” Nervously, she scooped up the pages of stationery from the countertop, although Eddie still held the pen. Before she could leave his side, Eddie caught her by the arm.
“Excuse me,” he said, handing her the pen. “The pen is yours, but could I please have my writing back?”
“Yes, of course!” the manager replied. She handed him all the paper, even the blank sheets.
“What did you did?” Ruth asked Eddie.
“I told the lady a story,” the sixteen-year-old explained.
“Tell me the story,” the child said.
“I’ll tell you another story, in the car,” Eddie promised her. “After we get the picture of your mommy.”
“And the feet !” the four-year-old insisted.
“The feet, too,” Eddie promised.
“What story are you going to tell me?” Ruth asked him.
“I don’t know,” the boy admitted. He would have to think of one; surprisingly, he wasn’t in the least bit worried about it. One would come, he was sure. Nor was he worried anymore about what he had to say to Ted. He would tell Ted everything that Marion had told him to say—and anything else that came into his mind. I can do it, he believed. He had the authority.
Penny Pierce knew he had it, too. When the manager re-emerged from the back rooms of the frame shop, she brought more than the rematted, reframed photograph with her. Although Mrs. Pierce had not changed her clothes, she had somehow transformed herself; she brought with her a substantially revised presence —not merely a fresh scent (a new perfume), but a change in attitude that made her almost alluring. To Eddie, she was borderline seductive—he’d not really noticed her as a woman before.
Her hair, which had been up, was down. There’d been some alterations in her makeup, too. Exactly what Mrs. Pierce had done to herself was not hard for Eddie to pinpoint. Her eyes were darker and more pronounced; her lipstick was darker, too. Her face, if not more youthful, was more flushed. And she’d opened her suit jacket, and pushed up the sleeves—and the top two buttons of her blouse were unbuttoned. (Only the topmost button had been unbuttoned before.)
In bending down to show Ruth the photograph, Mrs. Pierce revealed a depth of cleavage that Eddie would never have guessed at; when she stood up, she whispered to Eddie: “There’s no charge for the photograph, of course.”
Eddie nodded and smiled, but Penny Pierce was not through with him. She showed him a page of stationery; she had a question for him—in writing, because it wasn’t a question that Mrs. Pierce would ever have asked out loud in front of the child.
“Is Marion Cole leaving you, too?” Penny Pierce had written.
“Yes,” Eddie told her. Mrs. Pierce gave his wrist a comforting little squeeze.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Eddie didn’t know what to say.
“Did the blood get all gone?” Ruth asked. It was a miracle to the four-year-old that the photograph had been so completely restored. As a result of the accident, she herself bore a scar.
“Yes, dear—it’s as good as new!” Mrs. Pierce told the child. “Young man,” the manager added, as Eddie took Ruth by the hand, “if you’re ever interested in a job . . .” Since Eddie had the photograph in one hand, and Ruth’s hand in his other hand, he had no hand free to take the business card that Penny Pierce held out to him. In a move that reminded Eddie of Marion putting the ten-dollar bill in his right rear pocket, Mrs. Pierce deftly inserted the card into the left front pocket of the boy’s jeans. “Perhaps next summer, or the summer after that—I’m always looking for help in the summer,” the manager said.