She dismissed the entire business with a shake of her head, aware that she was being thin-skinned, and moved on to her next job, cleaning out the fridge to make room for the groceries she would buy this afternoon. With the last of the sharp cheddar, she made herself a grilled cheese for lunch, and killed off a jar of pickles that was past its expiration date, and still, sitting there chewing, thinking she should refill the feeders, she couldn’t stop seeing herself bent double, defenseless, the SUV flashing by, and her hand shooting up too eagerly.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” her mother once said, apropos of a playground scrape at school, “but not everyone in the world is your friend.” Emily thought she’d learned her lesson. Hadn’t she tried to teach her children to be more cautious, or did one’s sense of trust come from somewhere deeper? For most of her life she just expected things would work out, that people would be kind. Now she recognized her good fortune for what it was. She’d been lucky in so much, it had left her woefully unprepared for old age.
She was contemplating this when, behind her, from the front of the house, the lid of the mailbox squeaked open and then clanked shut, an always promising combination of notes. She stalled, rinsing and racking her dishes, then crossed the living room to the bay window and leaned over the radiator, holding her breath as she peeked through the curtains. The mailman was well past the Coles’ and headed off down the block. She checked the street for cars before opening the front door, grabbed the mail, gently closed the lid and slipped back inside before anyone could see her.
THE VIRTUAL TOUR
They came early one morning, like gypsies, in a noisy caravan—an aged stake truck and a humongous new pickup towing a trailer loaded with mowers. There was no name painted on the doors, which suggested to Emily that the motley army of young men gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Millers’ was being paid under the table. They all had tall coffees they balanced on a bumper or a tailgate, and she wondered how many of the cups would find their way into her bushes.
They deployed without orders, as if they’d done this before. A pair strapped on leaf blowers, clamped earphones over their baseball caps and racketed away. A second pair gassed up the mowers and followed behind them, standing like charioteers to guide their machines across the lawn. The grass was still wet, but apparently that didn’t matter. A third pair attacked the hedges, sweeping the chattering blades of their trimmers in long arcs, planing the faces, squaring the corners.
While Emily was pleased that someone was finally taking care of the place, their sudden entrance and the noise they gave off felt like an assault, landscaping as mechanized warfare. She’d been working away peacefully, enjoying the sun and the call-and-response of birdsong. Even Rufus had seen fit to join her, snoring on the warm slab of the back porch.
She refused to let them ruin her morning, and retreated to her garden, plucking up weeds, moving her stool a couple of feet at a time, doing her best to ignore the roaring, and then, as she was eating lunch, it stopped. She thought they might be taking a break as well, but no, they were rolling the mowers onto the trailer and tying them down, and by one o’clock they were gone.
The Millers’ yard, she had to admit, looked much better. The hedges, naturally impressive, were perfect. They’d pruned back the rhododendrons by the porch, edged the beds and mulched them with red cedar chips, creating a pleasing contrast. Later, walking Rufus, she saw that they’d aerated and fertilized the lawn, and wondered how much it all cost.
The painters came next, in a white van with ladders on top and a rainbow on the side. They occupied the house for a few days, only to give way to a plumber, then an electrician. One afternoon, two deliverymen with a fancy hand truck wrestled several monstrous boxes up the front stairs; twenty minutes later they rolled out Kay’s old stove and refrigerator and hauled them away.
The reason for all this became clear when a man in a station wagon uprooted the RE/MAX sign and planted one from Howard Hanna. The children had switched realtors, hoping to move the house.
The sign listed the agent’s website. Emily felt strange punching in the Millers’ address when it was right across the street. PRICE REDUCED! the header said. The pictures showed the neat yard and bare, newly painted rooms, alien without their furniture. The stove and fridge were buffed stainless steel. There was no trace of Kay and Dick—the slumber parties and Sunday brunches, the hot toddies by the fire after sledding. They’d even replaced the chandelier in the dining room. They were asking $385,000, $20,000 less than before.
At once the number excited and dismayed her. Since it had been for sale, she’d imagined what her own house might be worth—pointless, since she’d sacrificed the Chautauqua cottage for the sole purpose of staying where she was. Why was the idea of money so enticing? There was nothing she wanted. And still, the drop in price bothered her, as if the difference were coming out of her pocket. At some point Margaret and Kenneth would have to sell her place, and she wanted them to do well. There was solace in knowing the grandchildren would profit from their dearest investment. That was all Jamie and Terry were trying to do. It was unfair to hold it against them.
“I don’t think they’ll get anything close to that,” she told Arlene. “Not with the way the market is.”
“The kitchen’s beautiful. I’d kill for that island.”
“It’s still a three-bedroom.”
“You should see what they’re getting for three bedrooms over here—little ones. It’s crazy.”
“I don’t get it,” Emily said. “But I don’t get why those condos on Beechwood are going for half a million, if they’re actually selling. Meanwhile, the city can’t afford to pay the firemen.”
“And yet they’re going ahead with the Bore to the Shore.”
“Another boondoggle.”
“I’m just glad I have a place,” Arlene said. “If I wanted to buy something on my block now? I couldn’t afford it.”
“And this is a buyer’s market.”
She mentioned the website to Margaret, as if she might immediately log on and corroborate Emily’s thoughts, but Margaret was upset. Sarah had lost her job and was talking about moving back home. Out of reflex, Emily said if there was anything she could do, she’d be glad to. As always, Margaret brushed her off, as if she could handle her own problems.
Less comfortable talking about himself, Kenneth was more apt to humor her. He thought the price was right for a house that size, in that neighborhood. In suburban Boston, with that lot, it could run upward of a million.
“This isn’t Boston,” Emily said. “You know what I find surprising?
They only have one-hundred-amp service. You’d think they would have upgraded at some point. The furnace and hot water heater look like they’ve seen better days. It’s hard to tell from the pictures.”
“Mom, are you thinking of making an offer?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
He apologized, lightly, which made her feel as if she’d been touchy, and she decided they were done with the subject. Why did she think anyone would care?
The week before the primary, the website said there would be an open house that Sunday. The agent came by and hung another sign. At all hours of the day now, cars stopped and people hopped out to take pictures. The most brazen walked right onto the front porch and snapped away at the living room window. Emily tried to see the place through their eyes, as if she could imagine a new future there. A professional couple with young children. They’d covet the pocket doors and built-in bookcases while appreciating the half bath off the kitchen and the finished basement. She’d always thought it was charming, and had no doubt it would sell, maybe not at the asking price but eventually, and that was good. As much as she missed Kay, and those days, it had sat empty for too long.
Betty said she was sure it was a nice house, but it was way out of her range. “I guess some people have that kind of money. I don’t.”
“You know how much we paid for this place?” Emily said. “Sixteen tho
usand. And we thought that was a king’s ransom.”
“I bet it was at the time.”
“It was! I remember the day we paid it off. Henry wrote the check and we opened a bottle of champagne.”
“That must have felt good.”
“Oh, no kidding,” Emily said. Then why, after she and Betty cleaned up and got back to work, did it make her feel worse?
That world was gone, as sure as the Kersey of her girlhood, though she could recall her neighbors’ faces—and their children’s—as clearly as her mother’s. The sale of the Millers’ would make official her status as its sole survivor. She supposed the alternative was worse, though occasionally, stricken with self-pity after a lonely dinner and a glass of wine, she wavered. This was her world. As her mother forever counseled, she would just have to make the best of it.
Saturday, when Jim Cole came over to help take down the storm windows and put up the screens, she solicited his opinion. He’d kept an eye on the place over the winter, and confirmed that the furnace was older—but it was a Lennox, a reliable brand, and heated the place well enough, even on those cold, cold days they’d had in January, though to be fair, with the house empty then, the thermostat was only calling for sixty degrees. He didn’t remember anything special about the hot water heater and thought it was probably all right. He took her word about the electrical service, and wouldn’t speculate on the wiring. Anyone who was serious would have an engineer do a complete inspection, but he didn’t notice anything too alarming, just the usual wear and tear for a place that age. Like the professor he was, he tended to qualify his answers, hedging until he seemed to have no opinion of his own. When she pressed him on the state of the foundation, he suggested she go over tomorrow and see for herself.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t feel right. I know it’s silly, but …”
He didn’t contradict her. She was sure he thought she was fishing for permission, that, despite her protests, she wouldn’t be able to resist. Though he’d been her neighbor for more than ten years, and was unfailingly kind, Jim Cole didn’t know her very well. If it were their house for sale, she’d feel no compunction about snooping through their rooms. At the same time, she couldn’t explain to him that her curiosity was strictly financial, because he wouldn’t believe her, and so she handed him the next clean screen and let the matter drop.
It was this insult as much as her own resolve, the next day, that kept her from crossing Grafton and joining the parade of couples whose cars lined both sides of the street. She took it as a good sign that several came out and tramped around the house, taking pictures. They talked animatedly as they walked to their cars, and she wished she had a copy of the brochure they all came away with. She watched her prospective neighbors closely, paying special attention to the way they were dressed and how they held themselves, as if she were judging a pageant. Being a patient of Dr. Sayid, she wasn’t surprised that several of the families were Indian. None, she noticed, was black. Her favorite was a couple that appeared to have come straight from church with two blond toddlers who scampered across the yard as if they lived there.
The open house ended at four, though the agent didn’t leave till almost five. By then Emily had turned her chair around so it faced the living room again. Her desire to be inside Dick and Kay’s place one last time hadn’t lessened—had, in fact, only grown. All day she’d been dying to go over and introduce herself as a neighbor and old friend of the Millers’, and while it meant nothing to anyone else, she was proud she’d held out, and congratulated herself, now that the opportunity had passed, for respecting their privacy.
THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
Normally their presidential primary meant nothing, coming so late. Now, because Hillary Clinton refused to quit, Pennsylvania had suddenly become the focus of the campaign, the breaks in the evening news a battle of ads. Friday, Barack Obama, who Emily considered an opportunist and a lightweight on foreign policy, held a rally downtown which snarled traffic for hours. Monday Hillary was flying in for a lastminute whistle-stop.
As a lifelong Republican, Emily felt left out and vaguely jealous. She was not a fan of John McCain, and, really, there was no other choice. As she admitted to anyone who would listen, for the first time in her adult life she was thinking of not voting at all.
“If you had to vote for Obama or Hillary,” Kenneth asked, “who would you vote for?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“If you had to. At gunpoint.”
“I didn’t know it was that kind of election.”
“Every election is that kind of election.”
“I would not vote for Mrs. Clinton at gunpoint. How’s that?”
“I’m a little surprised.”
“She already had her chance, and if you recall—how should I put this—let’s just say it was messy.”
“Compared to the last eight years?”
Knowing she regretted it, he would never let her forget that she’d voted for George W. Bush not once but twice. Not that it made a bit of difference in the greater scheme of things. She’d also voted twice for the original George Bush, and for Ronald Reagan, and Eisenhower, and three times for Richard Nixon. She’d voted for Goldwater and Gerald Ford and Bob Dole, knowing, in each case, that it was probably a hopeless cause.
She’d come to her beliefs honestly. Like most everyone in Elk County, her parents were Republicans, and were relieved to discover that Henry’s family was active in the Pittsburgh arm of the party—the city, like so many at the time, being notorious for its Democratic machine. Coming from people who’d worked hard for everything they had, she prized, above all, self-reliance. Over the years she’d heard her notions of frugality and responsibility echoed by the GOP and only the GOP, and she’d been faithful. No one could accuse her of being a frontrunner. While Vietnam had obviously been a mistake, and Mr. Nixon a bad apple, the principles she subscribed to were inviolable. She still believed that, but the ongoing debacle of the last eight years had convinced her, and many of her club friends, that Mr. Bush and his cronies had betrayed the tenets of conservatism, and that the party had let them, sentencing moderates like herself who once made up the base to a kind of exile. An advocate for solidarity, Emily was more puzzled than angry at being cut adrift. What was the object of snubbing the old guard?
Kenneth, who grew up watching the Watergate hearings after school, welcomed her newfound disillusion. Their discussions were less heated now, as if they shared some common ground. Like her, he couldn’t see Hillary winning. Neither did he see her minions shifting to McCain. California and New York were entrenched, as were Texas and the West. The election would come down to whether Obama could carry Florida and Ohio—the same states, Emily noted, where the more experienced Gore and Kerry had failed. As disgusted as she was with Mr. Bush, she liked reminding Kenneth that the country was necessarily conservative, concerned with family and faith and paying the bills. As always, they sparred to a draw, but now they ended their bull sessions with the skeptical hope that things had to get better, since they couldn’t get any worse.
Margaret was of the opinion that Dick Cheney was a war criminal and anyone who voted for McCain was an idiot—views which she would have been surprised to find were not so far from Emily’s, yet she broadcast them with such blithe self-righteousness that Emily couldn’t take her seriously. Obama should win, Margaret said, but probably wouldn’t because large parts of the country were racist. As a teenager she’d had a penchant for dramatic overstatement, making the dinner table her stage, hoping to provoke Henry, and then, when he wisely didn’t take the bait, accusing them of being sheep. Four decades later, she hadn’t changed. She was just as emotional and absolute, just as dismissive and shrill. Worse, she seemed incapable of drawing lessons from her own experience, as if her personal politics weren’t in some way to blame for her current situation. Knowing how sensitive she was, when Margaret went off about the Republicans running up the deficit
, Emily refrained from pointing out that a Republican was paying her mortgage.
Early on, Arlene had made it plain she was voting for Hillary, and, as a woman, was thrilled to have the opportunity. Emily, who saw the Clintons’ marriage as the very worst kind of compromise, regarded Hillary as the opposite of a role model. She understood Arlene’s excitement in finally having a viable woman candidate. Too bad she happened to be Lady Macbeth.
Judging by the lawn signs up and down the street, her neighbors were solidly for Obama. CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN, read the bumper sticker on Marcia Cole’s hybrid. Emily thought Marcia was too old to buy such a grandiose slogan, but Marcia did a lot of things Emily considered her too old for. Maybe it was generational, the aging children of the sixties inflicting their revenge with the ultimate affirmative action. He’d been a senator for less than two years, and all Emily heard out of his mouth were platitudes. What maddened her was how the media compared him to Jack Kennedy, as if that were a good thing.
She would have been happier voting for John McCain if he wasn’t so gung ho about the war. And if he hadn’t been one of the Keating Five. And if he hadn’t run out on his first wife after her accident.
It wasn’t that she would have preferred Mitt Romney, who seemed too slick to her, or Mike Huckabee, who, like Hillary, didn’t have the common sense or decency to give up. She would have preferred Bob Dole to any of them, or the original George Bush, who could still serve another term. Was it too much to ask for someone she could believe in?
She repeated her threat to not vote all the way up until Election Day. Far from a convert, more out of duty than anything else, she drove to Fulton Elementary School (now the Fulton Academy), where a chain of fluorescent-vested cops waved cars through the busy lot. She’d waited till midmorning to avoid the crowd, yet inside the echoing gym, dozens of people stood in line—most of them black, all of them Democrats. The Republican table was empty. She showed her license to Hazel Sayers from church, pulled the handle that closed the privacy curtains and with a grimace voted for John McCain. As she left the gym, a volunteer handed her a familiar sticker that said I VOTED TODAY. Emily pressed it to her bosom and wore it out into the world with pride.
Emily, Alone Page 21
