Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

by Lee Smith

  “Good riddance, I say,” said Netta, lighting up. David had made no bones about how much he hated cigarettes. If they hadn’t been living in Netta’s own house, he’d have made her go out in the yard to smoke.

  “It might just be the male menopause,” Marie offered. Marie was thin and pretty, with long pale legs and a brand-new perm, which Lisa had just given her. Marie and Cheryl had been best friends since grade school. “He might turn right around and try to come back,” said Marie.

  “Ha!” said Netta. “Never!”

  But Cheryl seized on this, thinking, He might come back.

  Marie’s other insight, seconded by their cousin Purcell, was that David’s sister’s dying of cancer so recently had a lot to do with this whole thing. Louise had died that January, before he left. She was forty-seven, a sweet shadowy English teacher who had never married. She was so shy. Yet it was surprising how many people had showed up at her funeral, ex-students, friends, people from their neighborhood in Baltimore. Cheryl, who never could find much to say to Louise, had been amazed. Louise had lived with David’s mother, and now David’s mother lived alone. David used to call them up every Sunday night. Now he probably called his mother. Cheryl bit her lip. David leaving was like him dying, was exactly like a death.

  The first week, for instance, everybody in the neighborhood brought food. Mrs. Tindall brought her famous homemade vegetable soup, and Mr. and Mrs. Wright, across the street, sent a twenty-six-dollar platter of cold cuts from the Piggly Wiggly, where he was the manager. Helen Brown brought chicken and biscuits, Betsy Curry brought enough chili to feed a crowd. Other people brought other things. Then Johnnie Sue Elderberry came in bringing a carrot cake, and Cheryl sat right down on the floor and burst into tears.

  “Mama, get up,” Angela said. Since her daddy left, Angela had gone off her diet and started smoking, and nobody had the heart to tell her to quit. Angela was sixteen.

  “Sometimes God provides us with these hidden opportunities for growth and change,” remarked Mr. Dodson Black, their minister. But Purcell, their cousin the evangelist, disagreed. “I’d like to get ahold of him,” Purcell said. “I’d like to wring his neck.” Purcell was a big blond man with a bright green tie. Lisa and Marie were putting all the extra food they couldn’t eat right then into white plastic containers and freezing it. They put labels on the tops of the containers. Finally Cheryl got up from the floor. “Don’t make any big decisions for the first year,” warned their cousin Inez Pate, who had come on the bus from Raleigh to see how they were holding up. “Try some of this meat loaf,” said Marie. “You’ve got to keep up your strength.”

  But Cheryl couldn’t eat a thing. She was losing weight fast. She was wearing some nice gray pants that hadn’t fit her for the last two years. She pushed the meat loaf away and said something to Marie and something to Purcell and went out the back door, under the porch light which wasn’t working because Louis had shot it out with his BB gun. He was shooting everything these days. Cheryl couldn’t keep up with him. “It’s okay. He’s expressing his anger,” Marie had said. But Cheryl wouldn’t have a light fixture or a breakable thing left in the whole house, at this rate.

  She sighed and wiped her forehead. It was hot. Every summer, her whole family had rented the same beach house out from Morehead City for two weeks. This year what would they do? What would they ever do? It was almost dark. Shadows crept up from the base of the trees, from the hedge, from the snowball bush, from the nandina alongside the house. Cheryl had grown up in this very house, she’d played in this backyard. Her daddy used to bring her packing boxes from the store and help her cut windows and doors in them for playhouses.

  Cheryl walked out in the yard and stood by the clothesline, looking back at the house which was black now against the paling sky, all its windows lighted, for all the world like one of those packing-box playhouses that she hadn’t thought about in years. It was her family, her house, she had opened all these doors and windows for David, had given it all to him like a present. It was crazy that he had left. He’ll come back, she thought.

  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,” Inez Pate had said. 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 mouth, 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 nickname 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 sniffling, 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 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 nobo
dy 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 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 barbeque 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 on 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 also 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 slip-covers. “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 spacey 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 her 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 weird?” 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 said, 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 Gary Majors to build him a pen.”