Chapter Twelve

THE MOUNT BLANCS

Wilbur still replayed Deborah Canosa's tragedy in his head several times a day. It happened during his sophomore year at the University of Urban Failures. Despite Wilbur's lingering remorse over the death of the lovely, young woman with long, curly black hair and dark eyes, he covered it up and functioned adequately enough to finish college and to set up waterbeds for Dave Hamilton.

"Here's where we're going," Dave Hamilton said while showing Wilbur the invoice. "They live over on Davis Island. You know, this guy, Mr. Mount Blanc, ol' Charley and Mrs. Mount Blanc came in here last week. Bam. Bam. Bam. They want this. They want that. He bought that dining room hutch that I've been trying to get rid of since Moby Dick was a minnow. He bought an expensive bureau with a mirror. End tables. And a waterbed with the whole shmear. Twenty-five hundred bucks worth of merchandise and this guy's new in town. I've seen guys like this before do that, and they have no money, and their credit is no good either, see? But I tell him to fill out the credit application, and his darn credit is as good as gold. It was approved without a hitch. He was willing to pay cash if there was any problem with his credit. It just goes to show you, you can never tell about some people. You know, he called the other day to tell me he wanted enough water in the bed so they wouldn't hit bottom. Him and Mrs. Mount Blanc!! They must really go at it, them two. So I tell ol' Charley not to worry about it. We'll fix him up! We'd even fill it with Perrier water if he wanted!"

Dave stretched in his easy chair at the back of the store. Margo was standing at the desk examining the accounting book. Dave's feet extended over the end of the easy chair. He was dressed in an olive green sports shirt and brown slacks. He puffed on his pipe and blew the smoke out the left side of his mouth.

"I finally fixed the toilet in there," Wilbur said proudly, pointing to the bathroom in the back of the storeroom.

"Is that so?" Dave answered absently, adjusting his position in the easy chair.

"It was the flush handle. You know where it meets with the plunger there?"

"Well, not really...um...".

"The connection was rusted through and it just busted off. So you know what I fixed it with?" Wilbur asked excitedly.

"I give up," Dave replied with a yawn.

"A paper clip."

"Is that so. Isn't that interesting, mm."

"Yup. They come in handy. I don't know what I'd do without them. I fixed my TV with a paper clip too."

"Is that so?" Dave said vacantly while admiring his copy of the twenty-five hundred dollar invoice.

"It's a black and white portable with rabbit ears, and it wasn't getting good reception so I rigged a paper clip at the bottom of the antenna and attached it to some wire and screws. It didn't smoke, and it gets good reception again, so I guess it's fixed," Wilbur said enthusiastically.

"Yeah? Is that so? Say, I wish you could stop the pet store next door from plugging up the toilet. We're on the same sewer line, and every time they give one of their dead birds a naval burial, the john backs up. They're too goddam lazy to walk to the dumpster outside."

On the wall in front of Margo were several color photographs of the immediate Hamilton family and the Lebanese in-laws. Next to that was a large black and white portrait of her that was gray and shadowy. A plastic label on the frame said, "Head Hauncho." She had a scowl on her face in the portrait that matched the one she currently wore.

"Jesus Christ!" she yelled at Dave.

"What's the matter, honey?" he asked in a sing-song voice.

"Jesus Christ! How many times do I have to tell Penelope how to do these goddam books!!!!? If somebody returns something, she can't refund their money out of petty cash! Jesus Christ! Our accountant says she's gonna cost us big bucks. I showed her how to do it. Why does this keep happening?! Do I have to do everything? Jesus Christ!!!" she bellowed.

Wilbur walked over to the nearby supply shelves. Dave glanced toward him.

"You know, Wilbur, if I had my way, I wouldn't have any of this stuff. The accountant, the books, the cash register, the petty cash, the government breathing down my throat, all that horseshit. I'd just sit out there with a cigar box. The accounts receivable, the accounts payable, it would all be there in that little ol' cigar box...he,he,he."

Dave laughed while smoke exploded out both sides of his mouth.

"That's real smart!" Margo snapped. "What about the IRS?"

"That's what I pay an accountant for. Let her worry about it."

"Well, Penelope can't keep screwing the books up like this. I don't know what's wrong with that girl. She's not dumb. You tell her not to mess around with it anymore. I'll do it. And I have another full-time job besides. What are we paying her for? All she does is sit in there all day long and watch soap operas."

"I can do the books," Wilbur offered.

Dave and Margo didn't hear the offer. It was eerie. He said it loud enough, but he felt himself looking in and not being seen. It made him feel strange. He wanted to yell but couldn't. He felt immobilized. He waited for his invisibility to pass.

"I'm going to do the books from now on," Margo emphasized. "Remember when I used to do the books at that fancy yacht club until I got sick of listening to all the John Birchers. I hated those bastards. I was out marching for peace in the Sixties and had to listen to those goddam hawks all day long. Jesus Christ! They drove me up a wall. I started donating to every liberal cause I could."

She reached for the wallet inside her purse, opened it and a stream of plastic cards as long as Rapunzel's hair fell to the floor. She brandished it in front of Wilbur. On top was an American Express card followed by a Diner's Club card, Master Charge and Visa, then at least ten cards for the environmental groups and various causes that she supported.

"I donate to all these groups. I can write it off on my taxes, even the interest charges on the credit card," Margo said.

"Let's go visit Mr. and Mrs. Mount Blanc, Wilbur. I have to help you carry the stuff in," Dave broke in.

Dave reluctantly got up from his easy chair. The chair was as much an incubator for his executive plans as a resting place for his executive plans.

In a little while Dave and Wilbur crossed the bridge leading to Davis Island. Dave drove the van, and Wilbur drove his 1961 light blue Volkswagen bug. Deborah Canosa, Wilbur’s girlfriend, loved "The Great Vehicle," despite the stick shift they had to clumsily contend with in their amorous moments.

On the left side of the road were medical buildings with personalized parking spaces. Then came several one-story duplexes, lawyers' offices, and a huge, white apartment building called the Palace of Florence. It had a steel ribbed dome on top. The dome covering was gone but the rusty, naked supporting ribs were still exposed. Farther along the road was a New York pizza parlor. "We deliver" was lettered on the side of a maroon Jaguar.

The road curved past a small private airport and yacht basin. On the way small bridges arched over the canals which oozed with brackish, brown water. Water hyacinths covered sections of the water's surface with thick, green carpeting.

The Mount Blancs' home was Spanish in design. It was white with high walls. The roof had only a slight pitch to it and was covered with orange tiles.

"Don't mind the mess in the living room and the rest of the house," Mr. Mount Blanc stated when Dave and Wilbur knocked on the front door. "We're still remodeling."

He held the front door for Dave and Wilbur as they carried in a new bureau. He pointed to some antique, bronze lamps attached to the walls. Wilbur immediately thought how attractive they were.

"I'm gonna get rid of those too. I want to modernize the entire interior."

Once Dave and Wilbur got inside they put the bureau down. Dave was winded by the exertion so he rested for a short time. Mrs. Mount Blanc sat on a white couch off to one side. She had on black slacks and a turquoise blouse.

"I'm so glad you're putting in the waterbed today. We've finally finished the bedroom. I'm tired of sleeping here in the living room. Charley made this bed. Show them, honey. It's rather cute," she said in an abrupt, flippant manner.

"Yeah, I'm a designer. I've got another one of my projects over there, but let me show you this one first."

He walked across the room to the designer bed. Wilbur noticed one of Mr. Mount Blanc's shoes had a built-up heel. His hair was unusually dark black and glossy like he was trying to modernize himself for Mrs. Mount Blanc. His blue pin-striped shirt came to an apex above his midsection, revealing a tuft of white and brown hair.

The living room bed was on a mirrored pedestal raised up much like an altar. Ostrich and peacock feathers crisscrossed above the bed on the wall. Mr. Mount Blanc adjusted a switch on the wall. The underside of the bed lit up. The individual bulbs reflected off the mirror and gave the impression of many more lights.

"It's on a dimmer switch. See, I can soften it or make it more intense," Mr. Mount Blanc stated.

"That's wild," Wilbur said, admiring Mr. Mount Blanc's ingenuity.

"That's something," Dave Hamilton commented, wiping his brow and rolling his eyes. "Where do you want this bureau to go?"

"That's going back in the bedroom," Mrs. Mount Blanc answered. "I'll show you."

"Wait a minute, honey," Mr. Mount Blanc interjected.

Mr. Mount Blanc closed the curtains and then turned off all the lights in the room. He flicked another switch. Several strobe lights started swirling and casting snowflake-like images on the ceiling and walls. The snowflakes rotated faster and faster.

"Wow! That's amazing!" Wilbur marveled as the lights swirled around the high plaster ceiling. "What's that over there?" he asked.

He pointed to a plastic, scale model of a forest. The model was landscaped with plastic palms, other trees, ferns, evergreens and flowers. It looked very unusual.

"It's for a job I'm bidding on. A tourist attraction in the state lost some of its foliage last year in the freeze and they want to re-landscape."

"What's a job like that cost?" Dave asked.

"My bid on that is around seventy-five thousand dollars," he said.

"Seventy-five thousand dollars for landscaping? I didn't know trees and plants cost that much," Wilbur replied.

"They don't, but my forest is going to be made of plastic. That's the trick. In the long run, they'll save money. You don't have to water plastic grass, you know what I mean?"

"I'm gonna help ol' Wilbur here carry in the stuff, then I've got to get back to the store," Dave inserted, getting impatient and bored with his customers and the chitchat.

"Okay, down the hall and to the right," directed Mr. Mount Blanc.

Dave and Wilbur brought in a dining room hutch, end tables, a bureau with a mirror and then the Dream Mechanic waterbed complete with heater, bureau drawers, bookcase headboard and vibrator.

A short time later after Dave said his good-byes, he sped away in Wilbur's Volkswagen.

It was no problem for Wilbur to assemble the waterbed on top of the bureau drawers. However, when he went to test the vibrator which was attached under the center piece of plywood, it rattled slightly against the plywood instead of vibrating. Dave, who was in a tempest to leave, had not fastened the vibrator securely.

"Dammit, it's loose," Wilbur muttered.

After removing one of the bureau drawers, Wilbur blindly reached under the center piece of plywood as far as he could. He strained with a wrench in his hand but couldn't reach his quarry. The vibrator was barely out of his reach, but it might as well have been in the empyrean. Wilbur's panic attack started slowly. He felt this panic before. He felt trapped under the plywood. It was almost like he was buried alive.

"Deborah."

He saw her image in his mind. She was gone forever though.

xxx

While the mattress filled with water Wilbur sat at the kitchen table with Mrs. Mount Blanc.

"I love redecorating," she said.

Mrs. Mount Blanc stood next to her husband in the kitchen. She was several inches taller than him.

"The kids will be so surprised when they see the waterbed and the new bedroom furniture," she said to Wilbur. "I have two children from a previous marriage. I guess Charley told you, we just got married."

Charley hadn't said anything to Wilbur, but she continued anyway.

"My first marriage ended in a disaster. Who would have known, huh, Charley?" she asked. "We both had bad first marriages. Charley has helped me so much. He's such a dear. Is that man who came with you, your father?" she asked Wilbur.

Wilbur laughed. The question surprised him.

"No mam. I just work for him."

"Oh, you looked alike."

"We do?"

Wilbur failed to see the resemblance.

"My father is in New Jersey. He's president of a company."

This intrigued Mrs. Mount Blanc.

"What company?"

A puzzled look covered Wilbur's face.

"I don't know. I never asked him. He's getting ready to retire though. I haven't spoken much to him. He and my mother are divorced," he added.

"I was just wondering. I thought Mr. Hamilton was your father. Would you like a beer?"

"Yeah, sure."

"My first husband graduated from Columbia University," she continued. "He was brilliant, handsome, and debonair. He could have had any woman he wanted. We had the best of everything. Everything was name brand. I'm used to the very best. He was very athletic. Why he chose me, I'll never know," she stated.

"You're not so bad," Wilbur said awkwardly.

"Well, Charley and I are happy and that's all that matters now. I was tired of living a lie. Steve, my first husband, how can I say it? Well, he was a crook, plain and simple. He'll do anything to get the kids back too. That's why Charley is so protective of the kids and me. I didn't figure Steve out until after I had bailed him out of jail several times."

She paused.

"Charley, honey, we're out of beer. Will you go to the store and get some beer?"

"You don't have to go on my account," Wilbur protested.

"No, we need some beer anyway," she stated. "It's okay. That's our only vice now. I guess we should cut back but...".

Mr. Mount Blanc limped to the refrigerator to scout for more beer.

"I'll go to the store," he said moments later while giving Wilbur a long, hard look.

Wilbur felt the razor sharp stare piercing through him. Mr. Mount Blanc's face was drawn and troubled.

Mrs. Mount Blanc noticed her husband.

"It's okay. You'll have to excuse Charley. He gets very jealous when I'm around another man and he's not there."

"Don't worry about me. I'm still getting over my last girlfriend. She died in a car accident a few years ago. I still think about her. I don't know what to do about it," he admitted.

xxx