The first thing he saw when he entered the store was a tray of the vegetables that Honor had taken from his garden the day before—cucumbers, squash, radishes, carrots, and even a few beets.
“I think I’ve seen those vegetables before,” he told Jody, who was peering intently at his computer screen.
“Yep, the girls just brought me all that rabbit food,” Jody said. “They say you’ve replanted the Garden of Eden, over here in Thalia.”
“It’s not the Garden of Eden but it’s a pretty good garden,” Duane said. “I hope they’ll feel free to come back.”
“They might, but it won’t be anytime soon,” Jody informed him. “They’re leaving for China next week on a big vacation.”
Duane got a sinking feeling. Honor Carmichael was going away, leaving him with nothing but an unreadable book and the vague promise of seeing him in a year. His impulse was to call and try to get an appointment with her before she left. He didn’t think he would be able to stand the wait.
“They wanted to take me with ’em but I can’t stay away from my betting that long,” Jody said. “This computer betting gets in your blood. They were just lecturing me about it this morning. Angie thinks I ought to get out more.”
“What’s the story on Angie?” Duane asked. He felt that Jody’s comment had given him an opening to ask.
“Angie Cohen is richer than God,” Jody said. “She’s a princess of the city. Her grandpa worked with old man Rockefeller. Her family owns most of Maryland and a lot of Pennsylvania. I think her grandpa helped invent the drilling bit. If it hadn’t been for Angie’s grandpa there wouldn’t be much of an oil business and this part of the country would still be all just cowboys.”
“I don’t think she likes Texas much,” Duane said. “She wasn’t too happy when they were over in Thalia, but she did brag on Maryland cucumbers.”
He paused—Jody had turned back to his computer screen.
“I guess your daughter’s been friends with her a long time,” Duane said.
Jody immediately gave Duane a funny look. Duane had supposed he was being subtle when he asked the question, but he had not been subtle enough to fool the old gambling man.
“Oh, they’re not friends—it’s more than that,” Jody said. “Angie is Honor’s husband—if you know what I mean.”
11
LATER, DUANE HAD A HARD TIME remembering the rest of that day. He could not recall exactly what he had said to Jody Carmichael when Jody told him that Angie Cohen was Honor’s husband. To cover his shock he had got himself a bean burrito and put it in the microwave. Jody now stocked a whole line of vegetarian burritos that Duane could not remember seeing in the store before. Perhaps they too were the work of “the girls,” as Jody called them.
Mainly, when that bombshell burst, Duane just wanted to get out of the store as quickly as possible. He needed to be away, to be alone. Whether Jody realized he had exploded a bomb in Duane’s consciousness was not clear.
“Honor’s mother left me for a woman,” Jody informed him, as he was paying for the burrito. “Honor’s mother wasn’t as rich as Angie—I doubt the Hunts or the Basses are as rich as Angie. But Grace was rich and so was the woman she left me for.”
“Are they still together?”
“No, the woman Grace took up with died,” Jody said. “They lived in Upperville, Virginia. She was a Mellon.”
“I see,” Duane said, although he had only vaguely heard the name.
“Rich women don’t have to put up with us old hairy men and all our spitting and farting,” Jody said. “They can do without us and plenty of them do do without us. It’s hard on the ego, though, to be left for a woman. I’d probably still be fretting about Grace if I didn’t have this computer betting to occupy my mind.”
I’m a big boy, I oughtn’t to be shocked, Duane told himself, as he pedaled home. He kept telling himself that all day, and for most of the next day. He was a big boy; he knew that some men and women were homosexual in orientation, by inclination or whatever. At some point he and Karla had wondered if Jack might be gay; the notion crossed their minds because Jack seemed so much more interested in trapping pigs than he did in women.
Besides that, there had been times, twenty or thirty years back in their marriage, when Karla had formed such intense friendships with women that Duane, on a few occasions, wondered exactly what went on between Karla and her girlfriends. It had crossed his mind once or twice that Karla might even leave him for a woman.
But those episodes were far in the past, and the anxieties they bred had subsided decades ago. Neither he nor Karla had had much in the way of outside interests for the last fifteen years—he had all but forgotten that sometimes girls preferred girls.
If, in those past years, he had discovered that Karla was having a love affair with a woman, he didn’t believe it would have shocked him half as much as the discovery that Honor Carmichael and Angie Cohen were lovers. Jody had come right out and said that Angie was Honor’s husband. Honor was tall and graceful and lovely, Angie short, bossy, and rude: if Honor did prefer women, why would she choose a disagreeable little person such as Angie for a mate?
Of course, he did not have to think long to realize that plenty of attractive and appealing women married males who were every bit as ill featured as Angie. Beautiful women often took up with ugly men; he didn’t know why it should seem peculiar that a beautiful woman would take up with an ugly woman, but it did.
For the next day and a half Duane went around in a daze, so distracted that he did a poor job of watering his garden. He almost drowned some plants, while leaving others to burn up. He tried to tell himself it was probably for the best—what business did he have, getting the hots for his doctor, anyway? But the fact was he still had the hots. He wanted Honor Carmichael more than ever.
Although he told himself he should do exactly what she had asked him to do—read the French book, wait a year, then call for an appointment—in the end he couldn’t check his impulse to try and see Honor before she left for China. To the astonishment of everyone he suddenly appeared in the offices of his oil company and sent a fax to Dr. Carmichael:
Dear Dr. Carmichael:
I saw your father and he said you were going to China. I don’t think I can read those books you wanted me to read. I’m not educated enough. Would it be possible for me to have an appointment with you before you leave on the trip? I believe I need it.
Duane Moore
He scribbled the office fax number on the note and went outside to await a reply. One came within twenty minutes.
Dear Duane:
I’m sorry but I’m completely booked until I leave for the Orient.
In any case I think it’s best that we leave it where we left it. I’ll see you when you’ve taken your prescription: that is, when you’ve read Proust.
It’s nonsense that you’re not educated enough to read it. I’m only asking for ten pages a day. Pretend it’s exercise, which it is, in a way. Give it an hour or so a day and call me when you’re through.
Thanks again for the vegetables. I’m afraid we’ve gorged ourselves.
Honor Carmichael
Duane folded the fax and pedaled over to Ruth Popper’s. He stopped by his garden on the way and picked her a little sack of okra and a few radishes. Ruth loved okra. When he came in she was watching a baseball game on her ancient black-and-white television. The television set produced only a faint picture, the players moving like ghosts across the surface of the screen. Duane had to look closely even to discern that a ball game was in progress. The picture being projected was as faint as Ruth’s vision. Yet Ruth sat placidly on the couch, watching something she couldn’t see.
“I brought you some okra,” Duane said. “Okra and some radishes.”
“Radishes make me belch but thanks for the okra,” Ruth said. “When I was growing up they thought okra kept you from having rickets. I guess it does, because I’ve never had rickets.”
Duane put the vegetables in her
kitchen and came back and sat in the rocking chair.
“Why are you discouraged?” Ruth asked.
“Who said I was?”
“Nobody, but I can tell by your demeanor,” she said.
“I’m discouraged because I’ve done something stupid,” he admitted.
“Well, we all knew it was just a matter of time before you fell in love,” Ruth said. “I hope it’s not some little slut who just wants your money.”
“Nope, it’s my doctor,” he said.
“That’s nice,” Ruth said. “If she’s a doctor she’s probably got plenty of her own money. I would hate to see you get taken for a cleaning this late in life. You don’t have much judgment when it comes to women.”
“I won’t get taken for a cleaning,” Duane said. “As a matter of fact I don’t think I’m likely to get anything at all.”
“Well, if there’s not going to be any sex, what’s the point?”
“There doesn’t have to be a point,” Duane said. “The point is I’m in love with my doctor and she’s gay.”
Ruth absorbed that information in silence for a few minutes.
“Good lord,” she said finally. “The things we get ourselves into. How’s your prostate?”
“My prostate’s fine—what’s that got to do with anything?” he asked.
“All men get prostate cancer sooner or later,” Ruth told him. “You just need to have regular checkups. What kind of doctor is your doctor?”
“A psychiatrist,” Duane said. “She’s Jody Carmichael’s daughter. She lives with a woman who’s richer than the Hunts and the Basses.”
“Well, then there’s that much less likelihood she’ll skin you out of your money,” Ruth said.
“Ruth, you’re missing the point,” Duane said. “She’s gay and I’m in love with her—and she’s my doctor besides. What am I going to do?”
“Suffer, I guess. Love’s mostly suffering anyway,” Ruth replied.
“You’re no help,” he said.
Ruth shrugged. “If you do something stupid, like falling in love with your gay doctor, what am I supposed to do about it?
“Does she know you’re in love with her?” she asked, after peering at the ghostly baseball game for a moment.
“She’s a psychiatrist, she might have figured it out,” he said. “I’m not sure. Anyway she’s going to China next week and doesn’t want to give me another appointment for a long time. I’m supposed to read this long French book before I see her again.”
“That’s interesting,” Ruth said. “We all ought to read more.”
“Ruth, I can’t read that book—it’s thirty-five hundred pages long.”
“Oh, sure you can,” Ruth said. “I zoomed right through Gone with the Wind and it was pretty long.”
“It’s all about France,” Duane said. “I’ve never even been to France.”
“So what? I’ve never been to Atlanta but I read Gone with the Wind,” Ruth said. “Maybe you could hire a tutor to help you get started.”
“I’m sixty-two,” he reminded her. “I’d feel silly hiring a tutor.”
“Karla would have hired one in a minute, if she was in love with her doctor and he told her to read some old book before he’d sleep with her,” Ruth pointed out.
“But my doctor won’t sleep with me anyway—she’s gay, I told you that,” he said.
“I know, but sometimes people slip,” Ruth said.
“Did you ever slip?” he asked.
“Almost,” Ruth said. “I had my best friend, Naomi. It was the Depression. We had no money and we were both married to jerks. We used to go to movies together.”
“That’s all—just movies?” Duane asked.
Ruth hesitated a moment, staring out the window across the plains of the past.
“There was more,” she said, finally. “I’m not telling you how much more.”
Then she sighed.
“I don’t think I would have made it without my friend Naomi,” she said.
“What happened to her?” Duane asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Ruth said. “She moved to Odessa. Her husband got killed. She married again and that one got killed too. After that we lost touch.”
“I guess life’s always more complicated than people think it’s going to be,” Duane said.
“Just while you’re young and still after sex,” Ruth said. “Now that I’m not after sex my life is perfectly simple—you bring me little sacks of okra and I sit here watching ball games. But that’s no consolation to you, because you’re not at that stage yet.”
“I wish it hadn’t happened,” Duane said. “I wish it had just stayed simple.”
“Shut up; that’s foolish,” Ruth said. “It’s always foolish to wish for less. Even if you don’t get to sleep with her the two of you might touch one another in some way. It might be good, even if it isn’t everything you want it to be right now.”
Later, sitting in his lawn chair under the white moonlight, Duane decided Ruth might be right. He didn’t want to totally lose Honor Carmichael. Something good might happen, even if it wasn’t what he was hoping for, exactly. He knew he did need to slow down his wanting, not an easy thing to do.
The next morning he pedaled in before dawn and watered his garden. An old couple from a neighboring town, early risers who had been there several times before, were making a modest selection: green beans, some squash, an eggplant.
“Is that all you can find in this whole garden?” Duane asked. He liked the old couple and persuaded them to take a little fresh spinach before they left.
“We don’t really eat much,” the old lady said. “It’s just a pleasure to be in a fine garden early in the morning. We’re retired. Coming here gives us something to get up for.”
Duane had left the first volume of the French book in the trailer house. He found the keys to the big house, went in, turned on a few lights, and after a good deal of searching, found the dictionary the kids had used when they were in high school and had themes to write. The cover was almost torn off, from rough use, but the dictionary seemed to be all there.
He decided he ought to make a new start with the Proust books and thought the dictionary might help him with many words he did not understand. He had reconsidered the whole matter during the night and decided he ought to at least try to do what Honor Carmichael wanted him to do. Honor was probably the best-educated person he had ever had to deal with. If she thought the three books could help him understand why he felt that his life’s effort had been futile, then, if he could just read them, perhaps they would. After all, he could read pretty well, and the books were made of words. He had read and reread the doctor’s fax several times. She wanted an hour a day of his attention and wanted it to be applied to the three Proust books. There was no real cause for panic, on his part. Even if he didn’t enjoy a single page of what he read—and he didn’t expect to—still, now that he had his dictionary he ought to be able to read them through. Also, by doing what Honor asked—or at least trying to do it—he could still feel a little bit connected with his doctor.
Perhaps he overestimated the difficulty when he first looked into the books. Perhaps it wouldn’t take a year, quite. Anyway, he couldn’t work in his garden all day long—the reading could be a kind of break in his routine. It might be that after he had read a few hundred pages he would begin to enjoy the book, or at least to understand why Honor wanted him to read it. Besides, she was right that it wouldn’t hurt him to exercise his brain. If he came to enjoy the books he might even want to stop in France, on his way back from Egypt, though Egypt was still where he wanted to go first, when he finally did go away—far away, to where the pyramids were.
12
THOUGH DUANE WAS DETERMINED TO TRY to read the book by the man named Marcel Proust, he had a very hard time actually sitting down and addressing himself to the task. He had rigged up a little irrigation system for part of the garden, and now some of the nozzles were plugged up. Replacing them took two hours. By
then it was close to lunchtime—he decided he might as well go eat. Usually at lunchtime he just had a fresh tomato, with an onion or two and perhaps a radish, but this time he rode to the Dairy Queen and ate a chicken-fried steak and some mashed potatoes.
“Duane, you’re feeding yourself up like you’re going to do some heavy work,” Billie, the waitress, said. “I thought you had about given up on the heavy work.”
“Nope, I’m just about to start some real heavy work,” he said, but he didn’t enlighten Billie as to what the heavy work was.
By midafternoon he had finally run out of chores to distract himself with, so he was forced to sit down with the book, and also with his dictionary and a pad and pencil. He had decided to keep a list of all the words he had to look up—once he learned what they meant he thought he might try to dazzle Ruth and Bobby Lee by dropping them casually into some conversation.
At least it was something to make the proceedings a little more interesting.
The first ten pages took him almost two hours. The first word he had to look up was “vetiver”—he looked it up and discovered that it was the fragrant root of a grass he had never heard of. That seemed like a word that might dumbfound Bobby Lee—he could ask him if he’d sniffed any vetiver lately. Duane thought that if he kept his cool he might succeed in starting the rumor that a new strain of marijuana had just arrived in the county.
Despite that fantasy, the two hours were hard going. Some of the sentences were so long that even after reading them five or six times he still could not retain the sense of them. Also, he found that reading even the comparatively simple passages required extreme concentration. If a fly buzzed in the kitchen window, or a horn honked somewhere down the street, these slight sounds threw him off entirely. The only way he could regain his focus was to go back to the top of the page and start over. Sometimes he would get nearly to the end of a page only to have his mind drift off into a daydream having nothing to do with the task at hand. But, for the time, at least, he was determined not to cheat. When he lost his grip on the narrative he went back to the top of the page and started over.
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