Negative Space XXII

By Myra Love

May 21, 2002

 Chapter XXII

"I don't care what you say. I still think Lore Harnisch is creepy," I said to Andy the next day at noon shortly after he came to pick me up and drive me back to Miss Carswell's house. I hadn't gotten a very restful night's sleep and I felt argumentative.
When he had dropped me off at home, I'd expected my parents to be asleep, but they were wide awake and arguing. My mother was furious at my father. "How could you just turn our baby over to the court like that?" she demanded over and over. "Donald is our son."
He tried to reason with her, but she wasn't listening. I knew better than to get between them, so I just played spectator for a while and then went to bed. However it was impossible to sleep because they kept going until close to sunrise.
"I didn't say she wasn't creepy," Andy replied, "just that it's probably a good idea to understand where she's coming from."
"I don't care where she's coming from. She's rude and mean."
He laughed at me. "She's a bitter and disappointed woman. Her life didn't turn out the way she planned. She thought she was moving into what passes for high society in this town by marrying Jason's grandfather. And she thought she'd be rich. But he wasn't ambitious enough for her."
I looked over at Andy sitting in the driver's seat. "How do you know all that?" I demanded.
"Miss Carswell told me," he said. "She was very close to Jason's grandfather before he got married."
I shrugged. "Well, he must have been stupid to marry that kind of woman."
He shook his head. "He was just doing what was expected and what his family required. Surely you, of all people, can understand that."
"What do you mean by that?" I grumbled at him. "If I always did what my family wanted, I'd be engaged to Mike McLaren by now."
"Well, I'm glad you're not," he said. "But you have sacrificed a lot to satisfy your parents."
I didn't want to talk about my parents at the moment, and I had nothing to say in response to that anyhow, so we drove the rest of the way to Miss Carswell's house in silence. When we got there, most of the pen club people had already arrived. Diana was there too, of course, looking much more relaxed than I'd ever seen her. I wished I felt as good as she looked. She was sitting at the kitchen table, getting a demonstration from Mr. Harmon on how to resac a lever-filling fountain pen. I couldn't tell for sure how interested she was, but she seemed to be paying attention.
I looked around for Jason, but I didn't see him. Miss Carswell came up and told me that Jason would be late. He had an errand to run first. She seemed less tired than she had the night before, but she was still not like her usual self.
"I don't mean this to be an insult," I said to her, "but you don't look so good. Are you coming down with something?"
She shook her head. "I'm still tired. I spent so much time at the police station last night and then Diana, Andy, you and I stayed up talking 'til all hours. I enjoyed that part, of course, but it was still tiring. I'm not as young as I used to be, but I'm sure I'll be fine with another night's rest."
"We probably should have cancelled this," I said softly, waving my hand at the small group assembling around her kitchen table.
"What? And miss the pen exchange?" she replied with a short laugh. "I'm hoping I can get my hands on the PFM Wally Marsden has been complaining about. Do you think he'll throw it into the exchange in the hope of getting something he doesn't have to repair?"
I shrugged. "He'd be a fool to," I said, "but then no one ever accused him of being bright."
"Or exonerated him from being lazy," she added.
"Well, today at least he's not the only one holding things up. I'm curious what Jason will bring for the exchange."
Miss Carswell smiled. "Probably another Parker 45. I don't know where he finds them or why, since he doesn't like them at all."
I looked up to see Andy staring at close range at the small pile of fountain pens with and without boxes on the sideboard near the refrigerator.
"Fountain pens, Andy," I called out. "People write with them."
He blushed slightly and picked one up. "What's this thing called?" he asked.
"That," Bob Harmon replied, "is the pen I am sacrificing to the exchange this year. It is a Parker 51 Special with an oblique nib."
"No," Andy replied. "It doesn't have one."
"Doesn't have what?" Mr. Harmon asked.
"A nib," Andy replied. It has a plastic blob on the end with a little dot of crooked metal sticking out of it."
Bob Harmon sighed and looked over at me. "Help me, Lisa," he exclaimed.
I grinned at him. "That little dot of metal is the very end of the nib, Andy. The rest is hidden under the hood, which is the name for what you described as that plastic blob."
"Oh," Andy replied. "I didn't know. How come the nib is all hidden like that?"
"To keep it from drying out," Fred Lewis replied.
"So pens with their, whatchamacallems, nibs exposed dry out?" Andy asked.
"Not necessarily," Mr. Harmon replied.
Andy shook his head. "Mystifying! It's all totally mystifying and doesn't make a bit of sense."
Miss Carswell laughed. "Look at this, Andy," she said, pulling a modern pen, a Namiki Vanishing Point, out of the large tote bag she had at her feet.. "See? The point can be retracted."
Andy brightened. "Hey, I like that," he said, carefully taking the pen that she handed him and examining it as if it were an exotic animal. "It looks like a fancy ballpoint. Can I write with it?"
"It's not inked right now," Miss Carswell replied. "Let me pop a cartridge in it." She quickly pulled the pen apart, removed the small converter, and replaced it with a cartridge and cartridge cover. As soon as the pen was back together, she scribbled briefly to make sure it would write and then she closed it and handed it to Andy. "Just press the top to expose the point," she said kindly, giving him a clean sheet of paper.
Andy wrote his name. "This feels really nice," he said. "If fountain pens write like this, I can see why you folks might like them." He scribbled some more. "Do you know where I can get one of these?" he asked.
Miss Carswell's grin became very broad. "You can keep that one," she said. "A former student sent it to me, and I don't use modern pens very much. Consider it a Christmas present. I never know what to get you."
"Thanks," Andy said and removed himself to an unoccupied corner of the room with another sheet of paper to continue playing with his new toy.
Miss Carswell winked at me. "One down. One more to go," she said softly, nodding briefly in the direction of Diana who was observing all of us with a slightly condescending expression.
"See anything you like, Diana?" Miss Carswell inquired.
Diana smirked. "Oh no, you don't! I'd sooner use a quill."
"That can be arranged," Mr. Harmon interjected. "In fact, Arthur here has a number of freshly sharpened quills. He'd sell you one, I'm sure."
Diana snorted loudly. "I can find myself a feather and sharpen it," she said. "I don't need to buy a quill."
"Resistant, isn't she?" I heard a familiar voice say and looked up to find Jason grinning at all of us. "Here," he announced. "I have this turquoise Parker 45 for the pen exchange."
Miss Carswell raised her fist in the air and shouted, "Yes! Got it on the first try."
I had to laugh. She seemed too triumphant, as if anyone had expected anything else of Jason.
Jason stood leaning against the refrigerator, not far from where Mr. Harmon sat. I noticed that he studiously avoided looking at or speaking to Diana after that initial comment. She seemed not to care at all.
"I thought Stew was coming with you," Mr. Harmon said to Jason.
Jason shook his head. "He and mom are having brunch together."
I made eye contact with Diana who just shrugged her shoulders. "No accounting for taste," she said under her breath.
Jason glared at her. Trouble in paradise, I thought, and looked at Miss Carswell whose expression of triumph had not faded.
"Well," she said, "as soon as Wally gets here, we can begin the pen exchange. Arnold said he probably wouldn't make it, so we don't have to deal with, er, wait for him."
"Wait," I said. "I forgot to add mine to the pile." I pulled out a Sheaffer Tuckaway I'd found the last time I'd helped out at the farmers' market. Miss Carswell eyed it with a slightly covetous look. "Well," she said again, "if Wally doesn't offer up that PFM, I know which pen I'm going to try for."
The pen exchange began with us all picking chits out of a hat. The person who picked the one marked with a star got to go first. Going first meant digging one's offering out of the pile, talking about it, and seeing if anyone wanted to trade for it. If not, the chits were returned to the hat and the process commenced again. It took hours and was lots of fun. Sometimes we got into trading wars, and people offered additional money or other pens than the ones they'd earmarked for the exchange. Once the pen exchange went on so long that we never got around to drinking our holiday toasts.
"Hi," we all looked up at Wally Marsden, who came stomping through the door. "Sorry I'm late. My truck broke down."
"Last year your teeth broke down!" Jason called out. Wally had missed the pen exchange last year because he needed emergency dental surgery.
"Okay, okay, let's get started," Mr. Harmon called out over the laughter.
As Diana looked on and Andy scribbled away in his corner, Miss Carswell pulled out a hat and scraps of paper. Everyone hooted because the hat was the fedora she'd worn for sixteen years until the pen club got together and bought her a new one last Christmas.
"All right," she said cheerfully, "let's pick our chits." She held the hat out to everyone in the room, even Diana. "But I didn't contribute a pen to the exchange," she protested. "It wouldn't be fair."
Miss Carswell just waved away her objection. "I put an extra one in for you. You can give me what you end up with if you don't like it."
Diana shook her head but took a chit.
"I've got the star!" Arthur called out. "I brought a Waterman 3v with a fine nib. It's a tiny pen, but the nib flexes nicely. The plastic isn't too exciting, I admit, but it's a good writer, and that's the main thing."
He started going through the pile of pens on the sideboard. "Whoo-wee!" he called. I'd love to have this one." He pulled out a slightly faded black hard rubber eyedropper. "I don't see an imprint. Whose pen is it?"
"Mine," Miss Carswell called out. "It's an old Waterman 12. The imprint is worn away. It writes and holds ink without leaking. Pretty nice nib too."
"Well, I think it's worth about what the 3v is worth, don't you?" Art asked.
"Fine with me," Miss Carswell replied. "Anyone have an objection?"
No one did, so she was next. She went through the pens slowly and carefully. "You didn't contribute the PFM with the cracked nib and the leaky section joint, did you, Wally?" she asked, sounding disappointed.
"That messed up thing?" he replied, looking surprised. "No, I'd have been embarrassed to try to pass that off on anyone."
"If you ever decide you want to sell it, I'm interested," she replied and continued examining the pens up for grabs.
"I'll get around to fixing it someday," Wally insisted to no one in particular. "Then I'll decide what to do with it."
"You've been saying that for three months, Marsden," a rather hoarse male voice called out, and I looked up to see my and just about everyone else's least favorite member of the pen club, Arnold Steiner. He smirked at Miss Carswell and said, "I have a couple of PFMs, Anita, that you've shown no interest in acquiring. Is there something about Marsden's pen we should know?"
Miss Carswell stared at him. "Hello, Arnold. Have you brought a pen for the exchange?" she asked, ignoring his question.
"Whattaya need a PFM for, Anita?" he said with a sneer. "Your other pens not manly enough for you?" He laughed raucously at his own humor and pulled an envelope out of his pocket. "Here's what I brought," he announced, holding up a very dirty, lever-filling flattop. I don't know the brand or if it writes, but it's a nice big pen and the warranted nib is 14k with plenty of iridium." He deposited the pen on the sideboard and then sat down across from me. "You didn't answer my question, Anita," he persisted. "What's so special about Marsden's pen?"
Wally Marsden reached into his pocket and pulled out the pen in question. It was black and looked like a PFM III. "I don't think there's anything special about it," he observed.
"Here, gimme that," Arnold barked and grabbed the pen from his hand, pulling out his loupe. He inspected it carefully while Miss Carswell returned to examining the pens on the sideboard.
"I believe I'll take Lisa's Tuckaway," she said with a slight smile in my direction.
I smiled back at her and wished Arnold, who was breathing noisily, would just go away.
"Nothing about this pen that's special, far as I can see," he announced, tossing it at Wally Marsden who grabbed it out of mid-air. "Cracked nib on the damned thing, like you said, Anita. And some engraving in funny-looking letters, to boot. I wouldn't give you a used Bic Stic for it."
Wally looked dismayed, but Bob Harmon intervened. "May I see the pen, please, Wally?" he asked.
Wally handed it to him, and he looked at it briefly, then flashed a smile at Anita. "The engraving is in what the Germans call Fraktur," he said.
She nodded. "Gothic script. Odd on a PFM, don't you think?"
He nodded back. "Very. It does look professional though. Could have been done by a jeweler, I suppose.
She smiled. "I'd be willing to bet on it." She turned to me. "Lisa, it's your turn to pick."
I was too curious about the PFM to have much attention for the diminishing pile of pens, but I went through them, carefully not touching Arnold Steiner's offering, and found a ringtop in a pretty lapis plastic. It looked almost like a Conklin, but it wasn't. It was a no name. I almost returned it to the pile, but Miss Carswell said, "Here's a bottle of Skrip. Why don't you dip it, Lisa?"
I did and the nib was a smooth, slightly flexible broad. I nodded and looked up at her from the sheet of paper I'd been scribbling on. "Thanks. This must be the pen you put in for Diana."
Miss Carswell smiled. "Yes, it is. I hoped you would find it before anyone else did."
"Diana?" Arnold asked. "Who's Diana?"
He looked around the room and finally noticed Diana sitting with a slightly abstracted expression, observing all of us. She had moved from our table to the corner where Andy was scribbling away.
"The Chinese girl?" he asked, "What's she doing here?"
I could see a muscle in Andy's face twitch, but he continued to write without looking up.
"Diana is Jason's guest," Bob Harmon replied. "She's a student with him at the University of Michigan."
"Hmmph!" Arnold replied. "Another good American school turning into Hong Kong U. Any of you ever been back east to Boston? You should see MIT. Looks like Shanghai."
Miss Carswell glared at him. "I know you were in Vietnam in the sixties, Arnold," she said, "but to the best of my knowledge, you've never been to Shanghai. So please keep your uninformed comments to yourself."
"You know what I mean, Anita," he objected. "I was just…"
"I know exactly what you mean," she cut him off. "Diana is an invited guest in my house. So if you can't be civil, you can leave."
He glared at her, removed his pen from the sideboard without another word, and stomped out the door.
"Diana," Miss Carswell said, "it's your turn to select a pen."
The pen exchange finally ended when Jason picked out a no name pen too. He seemed happy with it though because it had a very fine nib. "Good for taking notes," he said as he pocketed it.
"Please excuse me if I'm being nosey," Wally interjected, "but I wanted to get back to my PFM. What is so special about it?"
Miss Carswell smiled gently. "It has the first initial and last name of a friend engraved on it in a script he learned to write when he was a boy. I'd like to restore it, put a new nib on it, and send it to him as a gift. He's getting married."
"Anita!" Bob Harmon called out. "Morris and Miranda are tying the knot?"
She nodded. "Yes, they are. An unlikely couple but devoted to each other, don't you think?
Bob Harmon smiled broadly. "I think it's time to drink our holiday toast," he announced.

The party went on for another hour before Andy's cell phone rang, and he had to leave. "Can you get a ride back with someone else?" he asked me. "Or do you want me to drop you at home now?"
"I'll drive Lisa home, "Jason offered.
Andy frowned, but when I smiled at him, he just shrugged. "I'll phone you tomorrow evening," he said, "after your psych exam."
He left after saying good-bye to everyone and thanking Miss Carswell for his pen. Then he came back in to drop off my psych notes, sketchbook, and Diana's manuscript and had to say good-bye all over again.
"So what do you think, Diana?" Miss Carswell asked as soon as he'd walked out the door for the second time. "Are Andy and Lisa a good match?"
I blushed and Jason frowned, but Diana smiled. "I approve," she said solemnly. Then in front of the entire pen club, she walked over to Miss Carswell and hugged her. "Thanks," she said. "Thanks for everything."
I'd never seen anyone hug Miss Carswell before, and from the hush that fell on the group, I gathered that no one else had either.
Miss Carswell returned Diana's hug. "You'll keep in touch, Diana," she said. It wasn't a question or a request but a command. "You have a fountain pen now, so I expect letters."
Diana looked at the little, red marbled, Conway Stewart she held in her hand as if regarding a space alien. "I don't think I'll ever get the hang of using it, but I'll try.
"It really is easy, "Jason piped up. "Here, let me show you how to fill it. You just pop the lever, stick it in ink, release the lever, count to ten. Then you wipe the excess ink off and write. Nothing to it!" He handed her the pen and she wrote with it.
"Well," she said, "that does write differently filled than it did when I dipped it." She nodded and looked at Miss Carswell. "I shall write to you as soon as I get to my parents' home." She was leaving the next morning to spend Christmas with her family. I wondered if she and Jason would still be a couple when they returned to Michigan, but I noticed to my surprise that I didn't care all that much. I would stay in touch with Diana no matter what.
"You know what I'd like," Bob Harmon announced. "I'd like us all to take a moment to be reflect on how lucky we are to have this pen club."
Wally and the other men looked at him as if he were crazy. "Whattaya mean lucky?" Ben asked. "We make this pen club happen. Luck has nothing to do with it." Soon an argument was going about the role of luck in human affairs, and I knew that it was time for me to go home. Jason made eye contact with me and smiled, then looked over at Diana, who was watching the guys argue with a look of interest.
"Something to write about?" Jason asked her gently.
She nodded. "Perhaps," she replied. Then she smiled at him, and I thought maybe they had a chance after all. "Ready to head back?" And we were on our way.

"So tell me," Diana asked Jason before he had a chance to turn the key in the ignition, "what was all that stuff about Morris and Miranda. Sounds like two cats to me." She giggled.
I watched them from the back seat of the car. Jason shrugged. "Beats me. I haven't a clue. I guess they're people Miss Carswell and Mr. Harmon know."
I cleared my throat, and Diana looked at me in the rearview mirror. "Lisa?"
"Well," I began, "a few months ago Miss Carswell and Mr. Harmon headed for the Chicago Pen Show, but they never got there. Instead they ended up enmeshed in the lives of these people in a small town on the way. That all happened because Miss Carswell decided to rescue a kitten…"
Diana was grinning at me, but Jason was rolling his eyes. "Would you get to the point, please, Lisa?" he demanded, starting the car. Diana turned and glared at him. "Jason, I want to hear the story."
He snorted and pulled out onto the road. "All right," he agreed grudgingly. "Sorry, Lisa. Go on."
I told them the whole story as I'd pieced it together from what I'd heard Miss Carswell and Mr. Harmon tell at pen club meetings. Jason just shook his head. "That is the weirdest yarn I ever heard," he grumbled. "I can hardly believe it really happened that way. A little girl named Needles left to fend for herself in an antique store? Give me a break!"
"Well, that's how Miss Carswell and Mr. Harmon told it," I replied, "and they ought to know."
"It's a great story, Lisa," Diana interjected. Then she turned to Jason. "You're just irked because you didn't know. Admit it, Jason!"
He waved his hand. "Irked? Irked? It's a stupid story." Then he looked in the rearview mirror at me and blushed. "All right, all right. I don't like not knowing what's going on with my friends. Is that a crime?"
"You're out of the loop here, Jason," I found myself saying without having intended it. "Your loss!"
His expression got serious. "Yeah, well I'm glad I left to go to Michigan, Lisa," he said. "I'm getting a great education and meeting really interesting people."
Diana and I made eye contact in the mirror. "I met some interesting people right here, Jason," she said. She reached back and handed me a three by five card with her address, phone number, and email address written on it. I couldn't help it. I checked to see if she'd written it with her fountain pen, but she hadn't.
"I'll send you my contact info," I said to her. "Or I'll call you tonight before I go to bed. I don't have email though, except at work."
"I already have all that," she said. "From Amanda. But you can call anyway. I'd like to talk to you again before I leave."
Jason pulled up to my house. In the near distance I could see my father standing next to the barn. He seemed to be fixing something. Suddenly I couldn't wait to talk to him about Donald and everything that had happened. I opened the door before Jason could open it for me and hopped out of the car. "Thanks for the ride, Jason," I said.
"I'll be around for another week, Lisa," he replied. "Maybe we could have lunch together?"
I shrugged. "I'll be working, but perhaps I can find the time. Give me a call, and I'll see what I can do."
It felt good to say that, but not as good as it would have a few weeks earlier. I heard Diana laugh as I closed the car door. Then dad waved at me and I walked towards him without looking back.

THE END