Mr. Mason's Coming

“Mr. Mason’s coming!” Jimmy yelled down from the perch on the roof where he spent most of the summer when he wasn’t sleeping or fishing. It was a mystery why he liked being on the roof so much but everyone had pretty much given up trying to talk him down. Even Mama, who used to worry out loud that he would somehow fall and break his neck, now handed him up pieces of pie through the upstairs back bedroom window just as if she was serving him from the sideboard.

Emma was outside with a dishtowel in her hands when Jimmy made the announcement and she glanced reflexively at the end of the driveway even though she wouldn’t be able to see Mr. Mason’s car until he was actually pulling in. The road to the top of the mountain was a series of switchbacks; only Jimmy could chart an arrival fifteen minutes in advance.

When she looked the other way she saw Logan. She could feel his eyes crawling over her, as if they were scanning a map for place and detail. He was leaning against the Buick smoking, but at the sound of Jimmy’s voice he had made a face, spit and slowly but vehemently ground the butt under one dust covered boot.

It was hot. So hot that Emma’s ponytail lay on the back of her neck like a damp rag. Wisps of hairs that had escaped stuck to her face and did not let go when she shook her head. It was even hotter inside, where she had been parked for more than half an hour washing dishes, scrubbing pans, polishing countertops. Mama never did the housework when Mr. Mason was coming, for fear she’d chip a nail or scratch her hands somehow. Mr. Mason was very particular about Mama’s hands.

“Jimmy!” Logan called up to the roof. “Come on down! Let’s go fishing …”

“No,” Emma said. Jimmy was conspicuously silent, invisible to Logan and her, somewhere on the other side of the eaves.

“What the hell do you mean no—girl?!

Emma kneaded the dish towel with her fingers, slowly wrapping it around two fingers and then unwinding it the other way.

She pressed her lips together, conscious she was doing that even as she did it. Mama once said she looked like her father when she put her lips like that, and right now she wanted to look like her father, even if she really didn’t know how he looked when he did that.

“Mama said you shouldn’t take Jimmy fishing when Mr. Mason comes today.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, her eyes focused on the web of cracks in the driveway macadam so she wouldn’t have to look at Logan.

But all of a sudden he was upon her, his fierce dark blue eyes glaring at her, just inches from her face. Most people who met them for the first time assumed she was Logan’s daughter, because she resembled him so much more than her mother. They both shared blonde hair, light skin, and blue eyes—though hers were lighter and some said had a kind of shine to them that made them seem unusual, especially around these parts. Mama was smaller, darker, less angular. Emma was only sixteen but she was only an inch or two shorter than Logan, who stood just over six feet even without the boots on. He was bigger, and stronger and older than her, of course. She looked up at him, afraid, but not showing it. She didn’t think he’d actually hurt her, but it hurt her just having to look at him this way right now.

“Mama said you shouldn’t take Jimmy when Mr. Mason comes,” she repeated. “Mama said you go and drink took much when Mr. Mason visits and it’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous!” Logan yelled in her face. Emma held her ground, without flinching. It was only seconds but it seemed like forever.

“Whore!” he shrieked. But he broke the glare and stomped off, and Emma felt safe again, even if only for now, for a while.

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“You don’t much like him, do you?” Jimmy called out from somewhere behind her. Emma was up on the roof with him, the night before Mr. Mason’s visit.

“He puts food on the table,” Emma said. She had her back pressed against the eave and her heels dug in, but she couldn’t ever really relax up here.

“Food,” Jimmy snorted. “He hasn’t had a real job in almost two years.”

“I thought you meant Mr. Mason.”

“Hell no. I mean I don’t really know Mr. Mason …”

“You shouldn’t speak disrespectfully about your father.”

“Emma …”

“Yeah …”

“What do you s’pose they do in there for so long when he’s here?”

Emma felt her face burn. He was quiet for so long she thought he might have climbed down. She was afraid to be up here alone, although it was cooler and her clothes didn’t stick to her and she didn’t have to be inside where—

“You want a smoke?”

She was relieved he was still there, but she scolded: “You’re only eleven years old.”

“I’ll be twelve in a couple of months. You want a smoke or what?”

“Where did you get cigarettes from?”

“I stole ‘em off of him when he was piss-ass drunk.” His words were packaged with gleeful satisfaction, and she smiled wickedly. She imagined that Jimmy was looking at the same thought balloon she was, like in the cartoons; in hers Logan was laying half off the bed with his trousers around his ankles and a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth, making a wet snoring sound. He smelled like old socks and bad whiskey. Emma wrinkled her lips in disgust.

“Get ready and I’ll toss the pack over.”

“No! Don’t. You know I’m scared up here. Bring it to me, would you?”

“Stop being such a girl.”

“I am a girl!”

There was a scrambling on the shingles and then something was tickling her ear. “Wait.” She heard the lighter strike and he passed a lit one down to her. Then he was gone again. She tried to recollect when was the last time she had actually seen Jimmy’s face.

Emma tried to inhale without coughing and failed, suppressing the sound as best she could but not Jimmy’s stage-whispered snicker from behind the eave.

“Who’s twelve here?”

“Shut up! Neither of us … both of us,” then she laughed in spite of herself.

“What’s so funny?” Logan yelled from somewhere below them.

“Nothing, Pa.”

Emma stifled another cough. Her mouth was bitter, her eyes burning.

“Are you guys smoking up there?”

“We don’t smoke,” Emma said, exhaling the words. “Jimmy’s only eleven, for heaven’s sake!”

“Well good,” Logan said. There was a lightness to his voice. He wasn’t drunk yet, but well on the way. “Cuz this house can’t afford another cigarette habit …”

“We can’t afford you,” Jimmy said quietly.

“Don’t hate him,” Emma said after awhile.

“You do.”

“No I don’t.” It was an easy lie to tell. “ But it’s my business if I did . . . You worshiped him last summer.”

“Last summer I was ten ….”

She saw the red ember of Jimmy’s cigarette as it sailed over her head and plummeted to the driveway. It bounced twice, sent off angry sparks, then extinguished itself. It was like the crash landing of a miniature rocket, Emma mused, sent to the earth with some kind of message for them. But what was the message?

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Emma had often thought that Mr. Mason had the most singular appearance of anyone she had ever met. She had never seen anyone who looked like him, except that she knew that she somehow had. It was a puzzle. Then one day it struck her that he looked like the men in the old black and white photographs in the centennial exhibit hanging in the library. These men were immigrants from central Europe just after the turn of the century. In these vintage prints, they are lined up in front of the old mill that was torn down before Emma was born. Some have unusual caps on, others are hatless. Most appear short by modern standards, but they are solidly built, with serious, dignified faces. Their arms are large and powerful, their legs truncated. They appear to have little or no necks, as if their heads were propped directly on strong torsos with barreled chests. Many have thick dark mustaches above unsmiling lips. It occurred to Emma that Mr. Mason could be one of these men, plucked from the picture, showered, dressed in modern clothes, and set down in the front seat of his red Mercedes headed up the mountain, on the way to see Mama.

Mama kept to herself on the days Mr. Mason visited, shutting herself up in the back bedroom for most of the morning. That room had its own bathroom, installed by Mama’s grandfather for his ailing wife. The story was that she lingered on in there till she was ninety-six, more than thirty years after they buried the old man. Mama once said the room gave her the creeps, but it was private, and Mama seemed to need plenty of privacy before and during Mr. Mason’s appearances.

Emma heard Logan’s tires screech. She was glad he was gone. She was always glad when he wasn’t there. Emma often wondered what her own father was like. Whether he was still alive out there somewhere. Whether she’d ever meet up with him. Her vision blurred with her thoughts until she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. It was Lucas, grinning up at her. Lucas was seventeen, with mischievous brown eyes and thick curly hair. She liked him sometimes, other times not so much. He must have been spying on them, knew Mr. Mason was coming, knew Logan would be gone, probably Jimmy too, and she’d have some time on her hands.

“Jimmy didn’t go with Logan today,” she said instead of hello.

Lucas shrugged. “I didn’t come here to see Jimmy.”

She smiled then, against her will. She knew he just wanted to kiss her and feel her up, and she wasn’t even sure she liked him. But a part of her liked the attention—no, needed it, like an empty stomach needed something to fill it.

“I got to check on Jimmy,” she said, trying to seem as disinterested as she wanted him to believe she was.

Lucas smiled smugly. “I’ll wait.”

Later they went together to the same clearing in the woods they always went. There was a blanket there and two cans of beer.

“How spontaneous …”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He popped a can open and passed it to her but she waved her hand at him. “I don’t like beer.”

“Suit yourself. More for me.” She turned down the joint he offered her, as well, but then relented, taking long slow pulls and exhaling leisurely. He talked a lot for a few minutes, but she didn’t hear him. She was in her own place, alone. Like Mama, in some ways, she pondered. Although Mama was so pretty, so put-together, so perfect. Emma knew she could never be like that, no matter how hard she tried. Neither of them mentioned Mr. Mason. Lucas had brought it up once, months before, and she had slapped him, so hard a tear formed in the corner of one eye. It was her way of telling him it was none of his business.

His tongue in her mouth was insistent, and his hand under her shirt felt rough. She pulled away. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Emma, would you—“

“No.”

“But you did once before …” There was a pleading in his voice that reminded her of Logan. A part of her had been aroused a little. Not anymore.

“That was ‘once’ and ‘before.’”

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When she heard Mr. Mason drive away, Emma went back in the house. Jimmy had gone fishing on his own and Lucas had reluctantly gone home. He let her know he was pissed off, but he only went so far with it. She leaned into his mouth with a deep kiss just as he turned to leave, confusing him but ensuring he’d be back another day. She thought about what it felt like to have his hands on her. If Logan ever tried that, she knew how and where she would kick him so that he would bend over and howl. But what if it was Mr. Mason? What would she do then?

Emma was making a sandwich when she heard Mama in the back bedroom. She put the knife down, crept over to the partly opened door and peered in. Mama was sitting on the bed, naked above the waist, sobbing into her hands. Mama’s dark hair spilled over her fingertips. Emma stared at the bright red nails, the tiny slice of white scalp that peeked through on her hairline. There was an easel set up with no picture on it, and jars of different color paints were on the dressing table.

Mr. Mason is a painter? Emma was stunned.

Emma tried to pull away from the scene before Mama looked up, but it was too late. Mama didn’t seem surprised to see her there. She was embarrassed to see her mother’s breasts and tried to turn away, but she was frozen.

“I told him he couldn’t come anymore.” Mama’s face was lined with tears that had cut sharp tracks through her makeup, and it was black around her nose where the eyeliner had run. Emma wondered how it was that the anguish made her seem even more beautiful. “I told him I was scared of what Logan would do.”

Emma didn’t know what to say. Mama looked so helpless. Finally, she went in and sat next to her on the bed. Mama pulled the edge of the counterpane up to cover herself. It had belonged to her grandmother. The colors were faded but you could still make out the outlines of country people doing chores on a winter landscape. Emma put her arms around her, and Mama put her head on Emma’s shoulder, as if she was the child.

“What are we going to do?” Mama asked miserably. “How are we going to live?”

Emma hugged her tighter and rocked her like a baby on the edge of the bed. Emma felt herself smiling. She wondered if Mr. Mason might like to paint her instead.