Merrick didn’t bother responding to that. “If I could just get away from Trey for a couple of measly hours,” she said. “If there was a beauty parlor in the hotel and it opened at five in the morning—”
The chainsaw roared up again, drowning out the rest of her words. Landis walked over to a dogwood tree and bent for a hoop of rope. Dane started up the hill toward where he’d left his axe.
Before the men came in for lunch they ducked their heads under the faucet at the side of the house, and so they walked in dripping wet, squeegeeing their faces with their hands. Earl actually shook himself all over, like a dog, as he took his seat.
Mr. Whitshank sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Whitshank at the foot. Abby sat between Dane and Landis. She and Dane were a good eighteen inches apart, but he slid his foot over so that it was touching hers. He kept his eyes on his plate, though, as if he and she had nothing to do with each other.
Mr. Whitshank was holding forth on Billie Holiday. She had died a couple of days before and Mr. Whitshank couldn’t see why people were so cut up about it. “Always sounded to me like she couldn’t hold on to a note,” he said. “Her voice would go slippy-slidey and sometimes she’d mislay the tune.” He had a way of rotating his face slowly from one side of the table to the other as he spoke, so as to include all his listeners. Abby felt like some sort of disciple hanging on her master’s every word, which she suspected was his purpose. Then she altered her vision—she was good at that—and imagined she was sitting at a table of threshers or corn pickers or such, one of those old-time harvest gatherings, and this cheered her up. When she had a home of her own, she wanted it to be just as expansive and welcoming as the Whitshanks’, with strays dropping by for meals and young people talking on the porch. Her parents’ house felt so closed; the Whitshanks’ house felt open. No thanks to Mr. Whitshank. But wasn’t that always the way? It was the woman who set the tone.
“Now, the kind of music I favor myself,” Mr. Whitshank was saying, “is more on the order of John Philip Sousa. I assume you all know who I’m talking about. Redcliffe, who am I talking about?”
“The March King,” Red said with his mouth full. He was deep in a leg of fried chicken.
“March King,” Mr. Whitshank agreed. “Any of you recall The Cities Service Band of America?”
No one did, apparently. They hunkered lower over their plates.
“Program on the radio,” Mr. Whitshank said. “No kind of music but marches. ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ and ‘The Washington Post’ march, my favorite. I like to had a fit when they took it off the air.”
Abby searched for any trace in him of the wild boy from Yancey County. She could see why some might call him good-looking, with that straight-edged face of his and not a sign of a paunch even in his fifties or maybe sixties. But his clothes were so proper, almost a caricature of properness (he had corrected the wayward lapel by now), and his eyes had a disenchanted droop at the outside corners. There were gnarly purple veins on the backs of his hands and distinct black dots of whiskers stippling his chin. Oh, let Abby not ever get old! She pressed her left ankle against Dane’s ankle and passed the biscuits on to Landis.
“My father thinks Billie Holiday’s the greatest,” Dane offered. He took a swig of his iced tea and then leaned back, clearly at ease. “He says Baltimore’s biggest claim to fame is, Billie Holiday used to scrub front stoops downtown for a quarter apiece.”
“Well, I and your father will have to agree to disagree,” Mr. Whitshank said. Then he gave a quick frown. “Who is your father?”
“Dick Quinn,” Dane said.
“Quinn as in Quinn Marketing?”
“None other.”
“Will you be going into the family business?”
“Nope,” Dane said.
Mr. Whitshank waited. Dane stared back at him pleasantly.
“I would think that would be a fine opportunity,” Mr. Whitshank said after a moment.
“Me and Pop tend not to see eye to eye,” Dane told him. “Besides, he’s ticked off because I got fired from my job.”
He seemed perfectly comfortable volunteering the information. Mr. Whitshank frowned again. “What’d they fire you for?” he asked.
“Just didn’t work out, I guess,” Dane said.
“Well, I tell Redcliffe, I say, ‘Whatever you do in life, do your best. I don’t care if it’s hauling trash, you do it the best it’s ever been done,’ I say. ‘Take pride in it.’ Getting fired? It’s a black mark on your record forever. It’ll hang around to haunt you.”
“This was at a savings and loan,” Dane said. “I have no plans to make my career in savings and loans, believe me.”