by Anne Tyler
Bonny smoothed a lashing of Brindle’s hair back under the white scarf. Morgan said, “Oh, but surely this will pass.”
“It will never pass,” said Brindle, sitting up and glaring at him. “If it hasn’t passed in two years, how can you think it ever will? I tell you, there’s nothing worse than two people with the same daydream getting together, finally. This morning I woke up and found he hadn’t come to bed. I went down to the TV room and there he was, sound asleep with my photo in the crook of his arm. So I picked up my keys from the counter and left. I didn’t even bother dressing. Oh, I was like someone half-crazy, demented. I drove all the way to your house and parked and got out before I remembered you were in Bethany. Do you know that idiot paper-boy is still delivering your papers? They were everywhere, clear across the lawn. Sunday’s was so old and yellow, you’d think it was urine-stained—and maybe it was. Listen, Morgan, if you’re burglarized while you’re gone, you have every right to sue that paper-boy. You remember what I said. It’s an open invitation to any passing criminal.”
“But things started off so well,” Morgan said. “I had so much hope when Robert Roberts first came calling. Ringing the doorbell, bringing you roses—”
“What roses? He never brought roses.”
“Of course he did.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I remember he did.”
“Morgan, please,” said Bonny. “Can’t you let this be?”
“Oh, very well. But sweeping you into his arms … remember?”
“It was all an act,” said Brindle.
“An act?”
“If he’d been halfway truthful,” she said, “he’d have swept my graduation photo into his arms. And kissed it on the lips. And given it a sports car.”
Her chin crumpled in again, and she pressed the damp knot of Kleenex to her mouth. Bonny gazed over Brindle’s head at Morgan, as if expecting him to take some action. But what action would that be? He had never felt very close to Brindle; he had never understood her, although of course he loved her. They were so far apart in age that they were hardly brother and sister. At the time of her birth he already had his school life, and his street life, and his friends. And their father’s death had not drawn them together but had merely shown how separate they were. They had mourned in such different ways, Brindle clinging fiercely to her mother while Morgan trudged, withdrawn and stubborn, through the outside world. You could almost say that they had mourned entirely different people.
He sat forward slowly, and scratched the crown of his sombrero. “You know,” he said, “I was certain he brought roses.”
“He never brought roses,” Brindle said.
“I could swear he did: red ones. Armloads.”
“You made those roses up,” said Brindle. She tucked the Kleenex into her bathrobe pocket.
“What a pity,” Morgan said sadly. “That was the part I liked best of all.”
6
For lunch he made spaghetti, which was Brindle’s favorite dish. He put on his short-order-cook’s clothes—a dirty white apron and a sailor cap—and took over the kitchen, while Bonny and Brindle sat at the table drinking coffee. “Spaghetti à la Morgan!” he said, brandishing a sheaf of noodles. The women merely stared at him, blank-faced, with their minds on something else. “I had hints from the very beginning,” said Brindle, “but I wouldn’t let myself see them. You know how it is. Almost the first thing he said to me, that first day he showed up, was … he pulled back from me and took both my hands and stared at me and, ‘I can’t understand it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I’ve kept thinking of you. It’s not as if you’re a beauty, or ever were,’ he said. ‘Also I’m getting older,’ I told him, ‘and my dentist says my teeth are growing more crooked every year.’ Oh, I never held anything back from him. I never tried to be what I wasn’t.”
Bonny clicked her tongue. “He doesn’t properly appreciate you,” she said. “He’s one of those people who’s got to see from a distance before he knows how to feel about it—from the past or out of other people’s eyes or in a frame kind of thing like a book or a photo. You did right to leave him, Brindle.”
Morgan felt a little itch of anxiety starting in his temples. “But she didn’t leave him; she’s just taking a little holiday from him,” he told Bonny.
Bonny and Brindle gazed into space. Probably they hadn’t even heard what he said.
Last spring Bonny’s old college roommate had divorced her husband of twenty-seven years. And of course there were those wives of Billy’s (every one of whom had left him, some without so much as a note) and Morgan’s own daughter Carol, who just one week after her wedding had returned, in very good spirits, to settle back into the apartment she’d been sharing with her twin sister. Also, Morgan knew for a fact that two of Bonny’s closest friends were considering separations, and one had actually spoken with a lawyer. He worried that it was contagious. He feared that Bonny might catch the illness; or it was more like catching a piece of news, catching on; she would come to her senses and leave him. She would take with her … what? Something specific hung just at the edge of his mind. She would take with her the combination to a lock, it felt like—a secret he needed to know that Bonny knew all along without trying. When Bonny came back from lunch with a friend, Morgan was always quick to point out the friend’s faults and ulterior motives. “She’s discontented by nature; any fool can see that. How that poor lunk of a husband ever fell for her … Don’t believe a word she tells you,” he would say. Oh, it was women friends you had to watch out for, not men at all but women.
He rattled a spatula on a frying pan, trying to claim Bonny’s attention. He did a little short-order-cook’s dance. “Cackles on a raft for Number Four!” he called. “BLT, hold the mayo!”
Bonny and Brindle gave him identical flat, bemused stares, unblinking, like cats.
“Bonny, I don’t see any garlic cloves,” he said, switching tactics.
“Use dehydrated.”
“Dehydrated! Dried-out garlic chips? Unthinkable.”
“No one will know the difference.”
“I wish you’d learn to make grocery lists,” he said. “You want to get organized, Bonny. Keep a list on the door of the fridge and write down whatever item you finish off.”
Bonny ran her fingers through her hair. She made it look like some kind of weaving—searching out a strand, lacing it into other strands behind her ear.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he told her. “Next week, when we get back to Baltimore, I’m going to take a pad of paper to the supermarket. I’m going to map out all the aisles. Aisle one: olives, pickles, mustard. Aisle two: coffee, tea … nothing will be omitted. Then you can get it Xeroxed two hundred and sixty times.”
Her fingers paused. “How many?”
“Five times fifty-two. Five years’ worth.”
She looked into his face.
“After five years I’ll make you a new one,” Morgan said. “Things may have changed in the store by then.”
“Yes, they very well may have,” Bonny said.
She threw Brindle a quick, tucked glance, and they smiled at each other. It was a smile so sunny and bland, and so obviously collusive, that all of Morgan’s uneasiness returned. It occurred to him that often they must discuss him behind his back. “Oh, you know Morgan,” they must say, rolling their eyes. “You know how he is.”
“Well, anyway,” he said, “all I intended was … See, if we check items off on this list, shopping would be so simple. Everything would go the way it ought to. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Should I be the one to get it Xeroxed?”
“No, dear, I’ll do it,” Bonny said. Then she sighed and laughed, in that way she had, and drank the last of her coffee. “For now,” she told Brindle, “let’s you and me go into town and buy the garlic.”
“Never mind; I’ll use dehydrated,” Morgan said hastily.
But she said, “Oh, the walk will do us good. We�
�ll take your mother, too.” She rose and looked under a stack of magazines. Then she looked in the oven, and finally in the refrigerator. She took out her purse and kissed Morgan. “Anything else you want?” she asked him.
“You could get cream.”
“We have cream.”
“Yes, but with more people coming tomorrow, and they might be as early as breakfast time—”
“Who might?”
“The Merediths.”
“Merediths?”
“At least, I think they might,” he said. “I just dropped them this note, you see, because Brindle wasn’t here and I hadn’t known Billy was staying through the weekend. I’d thought there’d be enough room. And there will be. Why, of course there will be! Where’d we put those sleeping bags?”
“Morgan, I wish you would check with me before you do these things,” Bonny said.
“But you like them! You always say you like them.”
“Like who?” Brindle asked. “Who’re we talking about, here?”
Bonny said, “Oh, the … you remember them, Brindle: the Merediths. You’ve seen them at the house, several times. Leon and Emily Meredith. Well, certainly I like them. I’m very fond of both of them, you know that, but still—”
“I found them a little dry, personally,” Brindle said. “Her, at least. No, I don’t think she’d be a barrel of fun at the beach.”
“Oh, Emily’s not dry at all, just—”
“And anyhow,” Morgan told Brindle, “I don’t remember asking what you thought. For that matter, I don’t remember asking you to Bethany, so you’re in a fine position to criticize my guest list.”
“Now, Morgan,” Bonny said.
“Oh, well,” said Brindle, “they won’t come. Don’t worry, Bonny. Emily won’t like sand. She won’t like mess. She won’t want to go into that messy, sticky ocean. I know the type; they can’t come to the banquet,” she said.
Then she set out with Bonny, so cheered by her own perceptiveness that her face looked peaky and alight with pleasure, and Robert Roberts might never have existed.
7
But they did come. They arrived the next day in mid-morning, driving the little black VW that Leon had picked up secondhand. Morgan was not quite adjusted yet to the thought of their owning a car. (Though if it had to happen, he supposed that this tiny, bell-shaped machine was the most appropriate. And black; that was a nice touch. Yes, and, after all, what was wrong with itinerants possessing some form of transportation? Maybe they should buy a trailer, as well.) Morgan stood in the yard, rocking from heel to toe, watching as they parked. Emily got out first, and pulled the front seat forward for Gina. Emily had the wrong kind of shoes on—Docksiders. Morgan could hardly believe his eyes. With her black leotard and her flowing black skirt, there was something almost shocking about those cloddy, stiff brown loafers with the white rubber soles. And Gina, when she emerged, wore the squinty, grudging expression of someone yanked from sleep. Leon’s face had a clenched look and there was a shaving cut in the cleft of his chin, plastered with a tiny square of toilet paper. No, they were definitely not at their best. It seemed Morgan had only to leave town and they fell apart, rushed ahead without him, tossed aside all their old charm, and invested in unsuitable clothing. (Leon’s new polo shirt was electric blue, almost painful to the sight.) Still, Morgan stepped forward, putting on a smile of welcome. “Why! How nice to see you,” he said, and he kissed Emily’s cheek. Then he hugged Gina and shook hands with Leon. “Have a good trip? Much traffic? Bad on the Bridge?” he asked. Leon muttered something about senior-citizen drivers and jerked the trunk lid open.
“It was an easy trip, but I don’t know what the scenery was like because Leon drove so fast it blurred together,” Emily said.
“Emily thinks I’m speeding if she can’t read all the small print on every billboard,” Leon said, “every road sign and circus poster. If she can’t count all the fruit in all the fruit stands.”
“Well, I didn’t notice that patrolman disagreeing with me.”
“The fellow’s speedometer was way off base,” Leon said, “and I’m going to tell them so when it comes to court.” He took out a small suitcase and slammed the trunk lid shut. “These people just have a quota to fill. They’ll pick up anyone, if they haven’t passed out enough tickets that day.”
“Ah, well,” Morgan said soothingly. “You got here safely; that’s what’s important.” He took the suitcase from Leon. It weighed more than he’d expected. “Come on in the house,” he said. “Bonny! The Merediths are here!”
He led them up the front steps into the living room. The house’s smell—mildew and kerosene—struck him for the first time as unfriendly. He noticed that the cushions in the rattan chairs were flat as pancakes, soggy-looking, and the rattan itself was coming loose in spirals from the arms. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. Emily and Leon stared around uncertainly. Gina slouched near the door and peeled a thumbnail. This was her summer to thin out, it seemed. Her halter top sagged pathetically around her flat little chest. Morgan felt he was suddenly viewing everyone, himself included, in terms of geometry: an ill-assorted collection of knobs and bulges parked in meaningless locations. Then Emily said, “I brought a camera.”
“Eh?” said Morgan. “Oh, a camera!”
“Just a Kodak.”
“But that’s wonderful!” he said. “I left mine at home this year. Oh, it’s wonderful that you thought of it!” And just then Bonny emerged from the kitchen, smiling, wiping her palms on her skirts. He saw that things would be fine after all. (Life was full of these damp little moments of gloom that came and went; they meant nothing.) He beamed and watched as Bonny hugged everyone. Behind her came his mother, also smiling. “Mother,” he said, “you remember the Merediths.”
“Of course,” she said. She held out a hand, first to Leon and then to Emily. “You brought me that fruitcake last Christmas,” she told Emily.
“Oh, yes.”
“It had the most marvelous glaze on the top.”
“Why, thank you,” Emily said.
“And did your husband ever recover from his stroke?”
“Excuse me?”
Morgan saw in a flash what must have happened. His mother had Emily confused with Natalie Czernov, a next-door neighbor from Morgan’s childhood. Mrs. Czernov had also made fruitcake at Christmas. He was so fascinated by this slippage in time (as if the fruitcake were a kind of key that opened several doors at once, from several levels of history) that he forgot to come to Emily’s rescue. Emily said, “This is my husband right here, Mrs. Gower.”
“Oh, good, he’s better, then,” Louisa said.
Emily looked at Morgan.
“Maybe I should show you where you’re staying,” he said.
He picked up their suitcase again and led them down the hall to Kate’s room. The bed had been freshly made and there was a sleeping bag on the floor for Gina. “The bathroom is next door,” he said. “There are towels above the sink. If you need anything else …”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Emily said. She opened the suitcase. Morgan glimpsed several new-looking squares of folded clothing. Leon, meanwhile, crossed the room abruptly and looked out the window. (All he would see was a row of dented trashcans.) Then he moved on to the picture that hung over the bed: a dim blue sea, flat as glass, on which rode a boat made of real shells. “We shouldn’t have come,” he said, peering at a clamshell sail.
“Oh, Leon, we need a rest,” Emily told him.
“We have to give a puppet show on Monday morning. That means either we fight the Sunday traffic on the Bridge, or we go back at the crack of dawn on Monday, driving like hell to meet the schedule, and Lord help us if we have a flat or any little tie-up on the way.”
“It’s nice to get out of the city,” Emily told Morgan. She removed a camera from the suitcase and closed the lid again. “Leon thought we couldn’t take the time, but I said, ‘Leon, I’m tired. I want to go. I’m tired of puppets.’ ”
“Well, there’s no good reason we can’t leave them for a weekend, Leon.”
“She thinks we can just leave whenever we like,” Leon told Morgan.
Morgan passed a hand across his forehead. He said, “Please. I’m sure this will all work out. Don’t you want to come see the ocean now?”
Neither Leon nor Emily answered him. They stood facing each other across the bed, their backs very straight, as if braced for something serious. They didn’t even seem to notice when Morgan left the room.
8
No, it hadn’t been such a good idea to ask them here. The weekend passed so slowly, it didn’t so much pass as chafe along. It ground to a stop and started up again. It rasped on Morgan’s nerves. Actually, this was not entirely the Merediths’ fault. It was more the fault of Brindle, who faded into tears a dozen times a day; or Bonny, who overdid her sunbathing and developed a fever and chills; or Kate, who was arrested in Ocean City on charges of possessing half an ounce of marijuana. But Morgan blamed the Merediths anyhow. He couldn’t help but feel that Leon’s sulkiness had cast some kind of evil spell, and he was irritated by the way Emily hung around Bonny all the time. (Who had befriended Emily first, after all? Who had first discovered her?) She had changed; just wearing different shoes on her feet had somehow altered her. He began to avoid her. He devoted himself to Gina—a sad, sprouty child at an awkward age, just the age to tear at his heart. He made her a kite from a Hefty bag, and she thanked him earnestly, but when he looked into her face he saw that she was really watching her parents, who were arguing in low voices at the other end of the porch.
