Nobody's Fool

remained in the car with Hattie until her daughter came flying out the back to fetch her. Then he gave Cass a hand as far as the door, for which Clive Jr. was rewarded by a torrent of abuse from the old woman, who thought he was Sully and who called him, among other things, a fart blossom. Then he went back to the car and waited, glancing at his watch every thirty seconds or so with increasing irritation. He didn’t mind being pressed into service, but it was just like Sully to disappear, to leave him sitting next to the foul-smelling Dumpster in the alley behind Hattie’s Lunch. Also, he’d discovered the use to which his cashmere sweater had been put.
    Now that he had the leisure to consider it, he was also miffed at his mother, who had instinctively summoned Sully when she saw the old woman in distress, as if Clive Jr. himself were not to be trusted with so delicate a task. Secretly, he doubted he would have performed as well as Sully. He had little experience in trying to talk ninety-year-old runaways into returning home, and he probably would have messed everything up. In his mind’s eye he could see himself struggling with the old woman in the middle of the street like a mugger or purse snatcher, being clawed and cursed at until he finally gave up. What annoyed him was that his mother apparently had imagined a similar outcome and had turned to Sully, a man who would know what to do.
    Was it his mother’s implied opinion of him or Sully’s ability to assume command that made a boy of Clive Jr. again? He couldn’t be sure, but as he sat in the car, obediently following Sully’s instructions, the irony of the situation did not escape him. After all, he, Clive Jr., was arguably the most important man in Bath, and once when they broke ground on The Ultimate Escape, there’d be no arguing the issue. Then everyone would be forced to admit that Bath’s renaissance was attributable to Clive Jr., who’d made it happen by bringing in the big boys from downstate, from as far away as Texas, making them see the area’s potential through Clive Jr.’s own eyes, making them all believers.
    Well, almost all. For Clive Jr. had come to realize that there would always be at least two skeptics in Bath, at least as long as his mother and Sully were on the scene. The two of them seemed not to notice that it wasa new Clive Jr. who’d returned to Bath to rescue the savings and loan and give the town a future. They seemed to see the boy he had once been, not the man he’d made of himself. How odd that these two skeptics lived in the same house,
his
house, the house of his childhood on Upper Main. His own mother and Sully, who’d been an intruder in that house for almost as long as Clive Jr. could remember. Living there together in the house that Clive Jr. had come to think of as his opponents’ campaign headquarters.
    Clive Jr. knew he was lucky to have two such opponents, neither of whom would act against him, both of whom would be surprised to discover he considered them in this role. Especially his mother, whom he’d work so hard to convert. He’d done everything he could think of to earn her trust. He’d borrowed large sums of money he didn’t need and paid her back when he said he would, even offering interest. He’d given her excellent investment advice that would have made her money, advice that to his knowledge she had never, not one single time, followed. Any more than she had even once in the last twenty years asked his advice on any subject. Most of the time he was able to console himself that his mother just happened to be the most independent, free-thinking woman in all of Schuyler County. Maybe she didn’t require his counsel, but then she didn’t require anyone else’s either. She jokingly claimed to get all the advice she needed from Clive Sr., long dead, and, even more spookily, from the African spirit mask hanging on the living room wall. Which would have been tolerable, except for those rare occasions like this morning, when she discovered there were limits to her self-sufficiency and then turned not to Clive Jr., but rather to Sully, arguably the least trustworthy man in Bath. And even that, which would have been bad enough, wasn’t the worst of it. No sooner did his mother turn to Sully than Sully enlisted Clive Jr. in a subordinate role. It was worse than ridiculous. The most important man in Bath taking orders