Read Online America America by Ethan Canin - Free Book Online Page B

diplomat,” said Mr. Metarey.
    “Didn’t I, Corey?” Clara said, and she turned and fixed me in her stare, a stare that I had no power in those days to resist, nor even to comprehend.
    “You fell in,” I finally said.
    “Corey Sifter!”
    “You’re boring all of us, Clara,” said Mrs. Metarey finally, starting for the cabin again. She leaned her head back out the door. “Except, obviously, for our guest.”

    “L ORD KNOWS you probably do enough around here already, Corey,” Mr. Metarey said one afternoon not long after, “but I wonder if I could ask just one more thing.”
    “Yes, sir.” I rose from the walk where I’d been having an iced tea with Christian after work.
    “We’re having a little affair Tuesday night,” he said. “God knows why—” He picked up a few pebbles from the walk and tossed them into the bushes. “You’ll have to ask my wife about that one. In any case, just a little party. A gathering. One of the bar-backs just called in sick and Mrs. Metarey thinks we could use another hand.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “It starts at eight. If you could come by six-thirty, I’ll pay you till eleven.” He looked down his glasses at me. “But you can leave at ten.” He gathered another handful of pebbles and tossed them into the bushes. “Because it’s a school night.”
    “You don’t have to do that, Mr. Metarey.”
    He laughed. “What would your dad say if he heard you asking for a lower wage?”
    “It’s my mom who wouldn’t like it.”
    “That’s right. And you should heed your mom. And on top of that,” he said, “you can tell her I’m paying you double.” He smiled. “For the short notice.”
    He looked out at the far end of the fly pool, where in the distance the casting targets bobbed in the wind. “Tell you what—if I hit one first try, that’s what I’ll pay.” He picked up a stone from the drive and weighed it in his hand. “If it takes me two tries, I’ll pay triple.”
    “You’ll break it if you hit it, Mr. Metarey.” A set of the targets hung in the work shed where I parked the Ferguson. They were the diameter of basketball rims and carved from thin flats of cork with an aluminum cup that held the flag.
    “Three tries, quadruple,” he said.
    “Daddy was a star pitcher in high school,” said Christian.
    “I didn’t know that, sir.”
    “I wasn’t a star pitcher,” he said. “I wasn’t even a very good one.” He shook out his shoulder. “Not much of a curve.”
    The targets were twenty yards away. Three of them, like floating golf holes with their short flags. He was left-handed. “This is for double,” he said. He brought the stone behind his ear and took a short step. A splash jumped in one of the rings.
    “Looks like that’s what it’ll be,” he said, “Double. Sorry about that.”
    “Nice shot, Mr. Metarey. That’s more than generous. And I won’t tell my mom.”
    “I appreciate that. We need her on our good side.”
    After he’d left, Christian said, “He really was a star pitcher, you know. He’s always modest like that. His team went to the league championship.”
    “I like your dad,” I said. “He’s never asked me to work in the house before.”
    She looked at me. A drift of wind touched us. She leaned forward. This was another of those moments: I thought she might have wanted me to kiss her. Above us a door slammed, and she leaned back again. “Join the club,” she said. She looked toward the house. “I mean, about liking my father.”
    Later, as we were walking back toward the patio, she said, “You want to know who the party’s for, Corey?”
    “Sure.”
    She stopped and looked at me. “Morlin Chase.”
    I looked back at her.
    “I guess you’re the wrong person to try to impress with that, aren’t you?” She laughed. “He was most of the brains behind Kennedy,” she said. “A lot of people thought
he
was the one who should have run for president, Daddy included. And now he’s thinking of running for