Me and My Baby View the Eclipse

by Lee Smith

  But in the meantime she was going to have to go back to work, because even though David had simplified his life so much and even though Netta had a pension and they got some money all along from the rent of Daddy’s coal land, anyway, things were getting tight all around. Luckily Johnnie Sue was pregnant again, so Cheryl could fill in for her over at Fabric World while she thought about her options. One thing she was considering was starting up her own slipcover business. Slipcovers had come back in style, slipcovers were big now. Cheryl wished her mother would go out and get a job too. Her mother was driving Angela crazy. “Don’t make any big decisions,” said Inez Pate. Poor Inez was aging so fast, she put a blue rinse on her hair now, it looked just awful. Cheryl held on to the clothesline and wept. But she didn’t have to make any real big decisions, because of course he’d come back. It was just the male menopause, he’d come back. How could a man leave so many children?

  And Cheryl thought of them now, of Angela too grown-up for her age, too big-breasted and smart-mouthed, smoking, suddenly too much like Lisa; of Louis, who’d always been edgy, getting in fights at school; of Mary Duke, only six, and whiny, who didn’t really understand; and of Sandy, who was most like his father, so sober and quiet his nick-name had always been too sporty for him.

  Right after David left, Sandy had run away for four or five hours, and when Purcell finally found him down by the river he said he was sorry he was so bad, he knew his daddy had left because he was so bad. Purcell had brought him home in the rain coughing, and Sandy was still coughing, although Dr. Banks couldn’t find any reason for it. Dr. Banks said the cough was just nerves.

  Suddenly Cheryl heard a funny, scraping noise. And speaking of Sandy, here he came up the driveway, dragging a box along the gravel, walking backward, coming slow.

  “Mama?” he said.

  Then suddenly Cheryl felt like she hadn’t actually seen Sandy, or any of her other children, for years and years, even though they had been right here. She had been too wrought up to pay them any mind. “What are you doing, honey?” she said.

  Sandy pulled the box more easily across the grass and stopped when he reached her. “Lookie here,” he said, leaning over, reaching down. Netta opened the back door just then and hollered, “Cheryl?” Cheryl looked down in the darkness, down in the box. Sandy coughed. His hair caught the light for a minute, a blur of gold. Netta slammed the door. Sandy straightened up with something in his arms that made a snuffling, slurping noise.

  “Mama, this is Bob,” he said.

  * * *

  There’s been something wrong with that dog from the word go,” Netta said later. “You never should have said yes in the first place. Yes was always your big mistake.”

  But by then, by the time Netta got around to “I told you so,” it was way too late. Sandy just loved Bob to death. The first thing Sandy did after school every day was throw down his books on the hall floor and run into the TV room to see how Bob was doing. Every day Bob was doing the same. He lay between the sofa and the wall, hiding. When he heard Sandy coming, he thumped his tail. But he refused to stay outside. When they put him outside, he sank against the wall of the house and wailed, the longest wail, the most pitiful thing you ever heard. He sounded like Cheryl felt.

  The kids thought that this was because he had been abused, and abandoned—Sandy had found him in the weeds along the interstate, near the overpass. Lisa said Bob wouldn’t go out because he was stupid. She said he’d never learn anything and said they should take him straight to the pound before they got too attached to him.

  But by then it was clear that the kids, especially Sandy, were already too attached.

  And if they took Bob to the pound, he’d never find another home. People want a watchdog, a hunting dog. Nobody wants a dog that won’t even go outside. Especially not one of this size. Because Bob was growing. It was clear he was getting big. Everybody had an opinion about what kind of dog he was, and although nobody knew for sure, Purcell felt certain he was at least half hound. He had that pretty red freckling, those long ears, and that kind of head. But he hung his head and walked sideways, getting behind the couch. He put his tail down between his legs. Bob looked ashamed, like he didn’t have any pride. And the TV room smelled awful, as Netta pointed out.

  “It’s him or me,” she said.

  “It’s him, then,” said Angela, who was tired of having her grandmother at home all the time.

  But then Lisa offered Netta a job at La Coiffure, making appointments and keeping the books, so she was gone nine to five anyway. Bob had the TV room to himself. He used a newspaper, but he wouldn’t go outside. As he got older, his messes got bigger. This was supposed to be the children’s job, cleaning up after Bob, but before long Cheryl noticed she was doing it all by herself. She did it in the mornings before she left and again when she came back home from Fabric World. She sprayed the den with Pine-Sol all the time. She got a stakeout chain so the kids could put Bob out in the yard in the afternoon, so they could get in the den to watch TV. It was clear then that Purcell was right, that Bob had some hound in him for sure, because of the way he howled.

  The neighbors, who had been nice about Louis’s shooting out all the streetlights and nice about Angela’s new boyfriend’s motorcycle, complained.

  “He’ll get used to it,” Cheryl told them. “He’ll quit.”

  But she didn’t believe it either. One problem was that Bob was so dumb he kept tangling himself in his stakeout chain. He’d tangle his chain around the lawn chair, or the barbecue grill, or the snowball bush.

  “I guess I need to build him a pen,” Cheryl said.

  “I think you need to get rid of him,” said Marie.

  “Well . . .” Cheryl said in that slow, thinking way she had. She stared off into the purple dusk beyond the backyard, beyond Bob on his chain and Marie in a lawn chair, drinking a gin and tonic. Somehow it had gotten to be June. Now Marie was having dates with Len Fogle, a local Realtor. She came by every day after work for a gin and tonic and described these dates in detail: where they went, what she wore. When Cheryl sat back in the lawn chair and closed her eyes, listening, it was almost like she was the one on the date, and she could imagine herself back with David again. “Then he kissed me in the car,” Marie said. “He’s got this little Honda? Then he asked if he could come up for a nightcap and I said yes.” Nightcap was a dating word, a word Cheryl hadn’t heard for years and years. She imagined herself and David having a nightcap in Marie’s apartment, she imagined David putting his hand on her knee. “I was so glad I’d changed the sheets,” said Marie. Cheryl sighed.

  The real David was dating somebody else, a frizzy-headed math teacher at the community college who didn’t even wear any makeup or shave her legs. Her name was Margaret Fine-Manning. She had been married before. But she was young. Last weekend her yellow Datsun had been parked at David’s Swiss Chalet apartment from eleven in the morning until nine or ten that night; Cheryl just happened to know this because she had formed the habit of driving past the Swiss Chalets on her way to work, and then maybe if she ran out to the highway to pick up a burger or what she usually got, a fish sandwich, on her lunch hour, and then maybe also on her way home.

  David was growing a beard. He looked skinny and picturesque, like a scientist in a documentary, like Jacques Cousteau. He was getting a tan, from sitting by the apartment pool with Margaret Fine-Manning.

  And furthermore, David, who used to be so quiet and considerate, was turning mean. He asked Cheryl not to drive by so much, for instance, and he was sarcastic about her making slipcovers. “That’s a perfect job for you,” David said. “Just making pretty new covers to cover up old rotten furniture. Just covering it all up, that’s all. Avoiding the issue.”

  Cheryl had stared at him—this conversation took place in broad daylight in the parking lot of the Swiss Chalet Apartments, in early June. “You must be thinking about upholstery,” Cheryl had said
. “I don’t do that.”

  “Now listen to me,” said Marie. “I’m trying to tell you something.” She stood up and got more gin. “It’s so satisfying to have a relationship with all the cards out on the table. You don’t have to be in love, Cheryl, is what I’m trying to tell you. It’s much better to have a relationship based on give-and-take, on honesty. No big promises, no big regrets. Pay as you go, cash ’n’ carry, as Lenny says.”

  “I think that’s awful,” Cheryl said.

  “Just think about it,” insisted Marie. “His needs are met, your needs are met. A mature, adult relationship. You’ve got to shed this high school attitude and get out in the real world, Cheryl.”

  Cheryl sighed, stirring her drink with her fingers. She smiled to herself in the dark.

  Because, speaking of high school, there was something that even Marie didn’t know. Cheryl’s mind went back to three days earlier at the hardware store, where she had gone to buy a new stakeout chain for Bob, he’d torn the old one up completely, you couldn’t even imagine how. Anyway, Cheryl had stepped up to the counter with Mary Duke in tow, and who should just happen to be there but Jerry Jarvis, the owner. Jerry Jarvis owned four stores now, he traveled from place to place. You rarely ever ran into him in town anymore.

  “Hel-lo there!” Jerry had said. He ran his eyes over Cheryl and then slowly back over her again. Cheryl was feeling spacy and insubstantial—she wore shorts, that day.

  “You’re looking wonderful as always,” Jerry Jarvis said. He probably hadn’t realized how fat she’d been. Cheryl hadn’t realized this either. “So how are things going?” he asked.

  “Just fine,” Cheryl said.

  “Daddy left us and went to live in the Swiss Chalets,” said Mary Duke.

  Later, Cheryl could not figure out what had possessed the child. Normally Mary Duke was too quiet, and held too tight to your hand.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Jerry Jarvis. But it was plain as day from the way his eyes lit up that he wasn’t sorry at all. He’d always loved her—so he was glad! In fact, that very night he had called on the phone and asked Cheryl if she’d meet him at the bar at the Ramada Inn on Wednesday for a cocktail, he’d like to help her out in any way he could.

  “Thanks but no thanks,” Cheryl said then. “You’re married.”

  While this was of course true, Jerry Jarvis admitted, there were a lot of factors involved. He’d like to talk to her sometime, he’d like to explain these factors, that was all, he’d always thought so highly of Cheryl’s opinion. Finally Cheryl had agreed to meet him at the Deli Box for lunch, sometime when she felt up to it. The Deli Box was right in the middle of town, it proved his good intentions, Cheryl guessed. She couldn’t decide if she’d go or not.

  Meanwhile a big truck had arrived the next day, from Jarvis Hardware and Building Supply, bringing a four-by-four wood frame and a load of sand to go in it. “For Mary Duke,” he had written on his business card. “See you soon? Your Friend, Jerry Jarvis,” as if she didn’t know his last name! Cheryl had told the men to unload it in the corner of the backyard, where it sat right now, in fact, looming up whitely at them from the darkness beyond Bob on his stakeout chain.

  “You need to meet some men,” Marie was saying. “You ought to sign up for a course.”

  “Listen—” Cheryl said suddenly. “Listen here—” and she started at the beginning and told Marie all about Jerry Jarvis and the Deli Box and his sending the sand. “Isn’t that something?” she asked at the end.

  “Why, no,” Marie said. “I think it’s romantic.”

  “But he’s married,” Cheryl said.

  “So what?” asked Marie. “He might be on the verge of a divorce, you never know. We call those ‘men in transition’ in my group,” she said. “Anyway, you don’t have to be in love with him. You can’t marry anybody anyway, you haven’t even got a divorce. Plus you’ve got all these children. It sounds to me like he’s a real safe bet for you right now. I think you ought to go out with him.”

  “What?” Cheryl couldn’t believe it.

  “You know that old song?” said Marie.

  “What old song?”

  “Oh, you know the one I mean. It goes something about if you can’t have the one you love, then love the one you’re with.”

  “I think that’s awful,” said Cheryl. But she sat out in the lawn chair for a while longer, thinking about it and missing David, after Marie left in her Buick, bound for romance. Lenny was coming by later for a nightcap, so she said. Cheryl wondered what David was doing right now.

  And then, in that way he had of anticipating you, of knowing just how you felt, Bob started to howl, low at first like a howl in her own head, and then louder until she took him off the chain and put him in the TV room.

  This made Netta furious. “I work all day and what thanks do I get?” Netta said. “I can’t even watch my program.” Netta’s program was Dynasty, which was on now. Netta had gotten bitchier and bitchier since she had started working for Lisa, who was real hard to work for. Cheryl sighed. She knew her mother was difficult too. Lisa said Netta insisted on sweeping up hair all the time instead of waiting until the girls were through for the day. It made both the girls and the customers nervous. But Netta said she couldn’t stand to see that hair just laying all over the floor, she had to get it up. Then Lisa would yell at her, and then Netta would cry. It was really bad for business, Lisa had told Marie, to have your own mother in your shop crying and sweeping up hair. Now Netta was crying again. “Don’t bring that dog in here,” Netta begged. “Just let me watch my program in peace.”

  “I can’t leave him out on the chain anymore, Mama,” Cheryl said. “You can hear how he’s started that howling. I guess I’ll have to go ahead and hire Billy Majors to build him a pen.”

  Bob hung his head and scuttled sideways toward the sofa, panting.

  “Well,” Netta said. “Just do what you want to, then, you always do anyway, both you and your sister, Lisa.”

  “Mama,” Cheryl said. It wasn’t fair. They were driving her crazy. All of them: her mother and Lisa and Bob and the kids too, oh especially the kids, summer was awful with them out of school. Except for Louis, who had flunked ninth-grade math and Spanish—he’d almost flunked everything—and now had to take summer school. Meanwhile David just sat by the pool at the Swiss Chalet Apartments getting browner and younger-looking, with Margaret Fine-Manning. Cheryl didn’t see how Margaret could get any sun at all on her legs, she had so much hair on them. It wasn’t fair. Joan Collins got out of a car on TV, Bob thumped his tail on the floor. “Good night, Mother,” Cheryl said.

  * * *

  July was a busy month with a lot of things happening. The first one was that Louis passed math but flunked Spanish, and had to take it again in the second semester of summer school. The second thing was that Mr. and Mrs. Wright across the street, who had always acted so nice, showed their true colors at last. They started calling up on the telephone every time Bob howled and then they started calling the police. They swore out a warrant calling Bob a pernicious nuisance, which wasn’t true at all, and enjoined him from howling. But Bob refused to be enjoined. If he stayed inside too long, he messed on the floor, but if he stayed outside on the chain too long, he howled. Cheryl was at her wits’ end. So she called Billy Majors and asked him to build her a dog pen, and Billy Majors said okay, but she’d have to go to Jarvis Supply and sign for the materials.

  As soon as Cheryl walked in the door she saw him, Jerry Jarvis, behind a big computer. He stood up right away and stared at Cheryl, hard, across the store. Their eyes locked. Then he came hurrying over and asked her what he could do for her today. Somehow what he said sounded dirty, and Cheryl blushed. “Oh, I didn’t mean anything like that, honest, swear to God,” Jerry said. Jerry had thinning red hair and beautiful big brown eyes.

  Cheryl believed him. She believed that the reason he was
still so crazy about her was that in all their years of dating they’d never actually done it. Cheryl had been so religious in high school, plus they all wore panty girdles in those days.

  Now, Jerry was trying hard to make conversation. He asked her about playing tennis and Cheryl told him that no, she did not play tennis, and she needed to sign a note for whatever Billy Majors might require to build a pen for Bob.

  “Billy Majors?” Jerry Jarvis acted amazed. He said he’d come over and build the pen himself, how about that?

  Cheryl looked at his seersucker suit, his nice white shirt, his bright red tie. “No, Jerry, I don’t think so,” was all she said.

  But later that same week, when the stuff from Jarvis Supply arrived, there was a new ornamental gate with wrought-iron flowers on it, and his business card saying “Pastrami on rye? Chicken on white? Your Friend, Jerry Jarvis.”

  Then Billy Majors, a high school dropout about Cheryl’s age, came by and started Bob’s pen. Luckily this kept Mary Duke and Bob both happy, someone in the backyard to talk to them. Cheryl was having trouble getting Angela to stay at home and babysit with Mary Duke—Angela kept hanging out at the mall where her boyfriend worked. Sandy was at day camp at the Y, thank God, but Louis was flunking Spanish in summer school.

  Finally Cheryl, who didn’t know any Spanish at all, went to see Louis’s teacher in late July, to ask him if there was any way she could help Louis, anything they could do at home to improve his grade. His teacher turned out to be a short, stocky man with big liquid eyes and so much hair on his body that it curled out over his shirt collar. His name was Amerigo Ramirez, which sounded just like a country. Cheryl met him in his office at five P.M. on July 21, before a whirring fan. For a while they talked about Louis and Louis’s attitude, which was a problem, Cheryl had to admit. Cheryl felt so hot she felt like she was bursting through her clothes. The fan went on and on. Mr. Ramirez gave her a list of verbs for Louis to learn. He gave her a record for Louis to listen to. Cheryl was hot, hot. It was hard to pay attention at all in this heat, surprising that the school had no air-conditioning. “Are there any problems at home?” asked Mr. Ramirez. Cheryl started crying. “Mrs. Stone, you are very attractive woman in my view,” said Mr. Ramirez. His eyes were large and moist, he took off his shirt, Cheryl had never seen so much hair. Mr. Ramirez locked the door and redirected the fan to blow toward the green chenille-covered cot in his office. Cheryl went to bed with him there, that afternoon, while the football team drilled out on the field in the terrible heat. Cheryl could hear them grunting—“Ooh! Oof! Aah!”—like figures in a cartoon. She could hear the coach shout numbers at them through the hot, still air.