Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking

by Aoibheann Sweeney

  Evidently someone had published an article about Nate’s voyage, which he said he’d show me. He’d gone with a group of rowing friends from college, and a few of them had stayed behind to work on the project, funded by the Greek Ministry of Tourism. “Did you study classics in college?” he asked, noodles in thick red sauce swinging from his chopsticks. “Robert said you were helping your dad with his translation.”

  “Well, typing it,” I said, skipping lightly over the first question. “I didn’t really have to understand what he was saying.”

  He smiled. “Well, you certainly catch on fast with the chopsticks.”

  I laughed, and he brightened. All he really wanted to do was make me laugh, I thought, as the waiter put our main dishes in front of us. It wasn’t much to ask. Both the dishes Nate had ordered involved barbecuing, and he set to work, laying strips of meat and seafood on the grill. It sizzled excitingly.

  “It looks delicious,” I said, trying to relax.

  We drank some beer, and we cooked and ate everything that was given us; by the end of the meal I had begun to lose my grip on the chopsticks, and Nate was getting better at making me smile. “That girl we met at Liz’s gallery is having a party next weekend,” he said, as the table was cleared. “Liz says it’s the last one she’ll go to before her wedding.”

  “When’s her wedding?”

  “October,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe how much work it takes to plan. There are all these ridiculous rules. Like, there are three different bouquets: one to walk down the aisle with, one to throw to the bridesmaids, and then one to leave the wedding with. She has to pick them all out separately.”

  “What happens if she just doesn’t buy them?”

  “She turns into a pumpkin, I guess.”

  “That doesn’t sound so serious,” I said, laughing.

  “You should come to the party,” he said, smiling again.

  It was warm and summery when we left, though I hadn’t remembered it being that way when we went in, and we decided to walk back downtown. Nate walked as if he were still ushering me, the way he had in the subway and in the restaurant. There was a giddy air of expectancy between us, and when we got to the institute we both paused before the steps. I said goodnight quickly and went up the steps without turning around, but my heart was beating fast as I unlocked the door and let myself in.

  Walter was awake in the kitchen, and I went down the hall to say hello. “I’m using the glasses you found,” he said, holding up a wineglass with drunken triumph. “And where have you been?”

  “With Nate,” I said, a little flushed. “We went to a Korean restaurant.”

  “How terribly unromantic. I hope he was a perfect gentleman in spite of it.”

  “He invited me to a party next weekend,” I said before I knew it.

  “Did he? We’ll have to get you all dressed up.”

  “I don’t think it’s formal or anything,” I said, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.

  “Not that kind of dressed up,” he said. “Just—” he glanced at my jeans—“something pretty.”

  “Well, I won’t wear these,” I said, starting to feel impatient. He was drunk. I was about to make my escape when we both heard the front door open, and Robert came down the hall. I saw Walter glance at the bottle on the table, as if he was thinking of hiding it.

  Robert was wearing a suit and had tossed the jacket over his shoulder; he put it carefully on a chair, taking in the wine, Walter’s slumped posture, and the sea of drying glasses. He looked extraordinarily handsome—a cutout model of a man, like my father in the picture with Arthur, I thought suddenly.

  “Guess who invited Miranda to a party?” Walter said.

  “Someone who doesn’t have any glasses?” he said, wandering over to examine them.

  “Your beloved Nathaniel,” Walter said, watching him. “I think you ought to take Miranda shopping for a new outfit.”

  “Where did you find all these?”

  “Miranda found them. She’s cleaned them all.”

  “I see that,” Robert said, picking one up and walking over to the sink to fill it with water.

  “Don’t you think she needs to buy a New York outfit?”

  “I don’t mind what she wears, Walter. It’s not my business.”

  “Look who’s snippy.”

  Robert sighed, still standing by the sink with his water. “You’re the one who’s snippy.”

  “If you were to judge between the two of us, Miranda, whom would you say was snippier?”

  “I would say I’m going to bed,” I answered.

  Robert raised his glass. “Well said!”

  15

  After a week or more had passed Robert was not quite as hostile to me as he had been at the start, but he continued to disagree with Walter at every opportunity. No matter how late Walter had been out the night before, he was always cheerful in the morning, and seemed to look forward to pouring me a weak cup of coffee as soon as I came into the kitchen. But as soon as he heard Robert on the stairs he got quieter, as if he was bracing himself. They would greet each other politely, but even as they spoke, they were constantly turning away from each other, furiously giving signals of disregard—reading the paper, getting up from the table just as a joke was being told.

  “Is that library project keeping you busy, Miranda?” Walter would say, his manner suddenly stilted, while Robert pretended not to listen. It didn’t matter what I answered; I knew Walter was not speaking to me but to him. Not that he expected an answer from Robert either. Both of them were making a show of not needing answers. Robert was most convincing in this regard—at times I felt certain that he didn’t really care, and Walter’s glum disappointment would cut through me as keenly as if it were my own.

  In a misguided effort to please Robert, I determined to get the kitchen working. It wasn’t hard to find a set of pots and pans in one of the discount stores that lined Fourteenth Street, but I had to go to various hardware stores to find the right replacements for the burners and an oven thermometer that I could suspend from the top rack. I had started wearing Julie’s dress again, the unstained one, which at least was cool; the sun had been beating down for days, and there wasn’t a breath of air to relieve it.

  It was in this frame of mind, weary and pleasantly blank, that I finally stopped by the coffee cart for the second time. The woman inside had taken her hat off to fan herself, and her hair underneath was black and shiny. “Bet it doesn’t get this hot in Maine,” she said, pulling it back on with a tug.

  “No,” I said, blushing before I knew it. She smiled, knowing she’d caught me off guard, as if it was an old trick.

  “Where are you from?” I asked, rallying.

  “Washington Heights,” she said, amused. “But I was born in the Dominican Republic, if that’s what you mean. You like it regular?”

  “Black, please.”

  I saw her glancing at my dress before she filled the cup and put it on the sill. “Sixty cents,” she said.

  I gave her my change and she watched me lift the lid and take a sip.

  “You can peel that little tab back you know,” she said.

  I looked at my cup, not sure what she meant.

  “On the lid,” she said, pointing, when I still didn’t see it, and then suddenly she had stepped out the back and was coming toward me.

  “It’s made so you can drink it with the lid on,” she said, replacing the lid as soon as I handed it over. “And then you just tear this tab back—it’s supposed to stick.” She pushed at the plastic tab with her forefinger, trying to anchor it.

  Up close she was not as tall as I had expected, but more compact, her body thickly set. Her cotton T-shirt smelled sweetly of fabric detergent. “It’s supposed to work,” she was saying, her brow furrowed, as the tab popped up again, and then I noticed she was blushing too.

  “At least now you can drink it without pouring it all over yourself,” she said when it finally worked, handing it back,
nervous.

  “Thanks,” I said, looking at her.

  “Too bad the coffee sucks,” she said, putting her hands in her pockets and backing up a little. “What I need is a good espresso machine.”

  “Can’t you put one in there?”

  “Nah,” she said, looking through the window at the big metal tank. “You need a generator. That thing runs on propane. Even when you put good coffee in there it tastes like shit—it’s just sitting on top of a flame all day.” She smiled, calmer. “Bet you’re looking forward to that now,” she said with a nod at the coffee in my hand.

  “I’m not that particular,” I lied, looking down at the coffee, wondering why everything we said seemed to matter so much.

  But she was looking away already, at a young man coming toward us in green hospital scrubs. He shouted something in Spanish and she laughed, turning to go back into the cart, as if she’d been chastised.

  “You can’t just stand around talking to all the pretty girls,” he said, scolding her prissily in English when he got closer, smiling at me. “There’s coffee to make.”

  “I was telling her why I can’t make espresso in here,” she said, pouring his coffee as if she was used to him.

  He rolled his eyes. “I wish,” he said. “You’d have a line around the block.”

  I excused myself, feeling their eyes at my back as I hurried away with my coffee, wishing I hadn’t stayed. For some reason I was sure they were making fun of me, and the feeling only got worse as I got closer to the institute. It turned out that the coffee did in fact taste terrible, and as soon as I got back, I put down my packages and set the machine for a fresh pot.

  I cleared away the few newspapers that had accumulated since I’d cleaned up, and decided the stove needed a good clean. I soon discovered that the lid on top of the range had not been opened in years, and it was clear that, aside from the grime, the coils needed to be replaced. I had a few hours until Robert and Nate’s classes started and I would have to hide myself in the library—time enough, I decided impulsively, to get the stove working.

  I had always prided myself on being able to concentrate with equal intensity upon the various tasks I set myself, or that my father required of me. At home I could split firewood all day until each log broke open with a snap; I could bake a pie with perfect crusts; I could shuck a bucket of clams, all without, for one minute, thinking of anything else. But as I propped open the top of the range like the hood of a car, I kept returning to the woman stepping out of her cart, and that rush of shame as I walked away. Later in the library, I found myself listening in a kind of panic for Nate, hoping he might come in before his classes, and when he didn’t, and I heard the voices of boys come and go and the institute got quiet, I started to dread another evening alone. I missed my father. I missed the way it felt to have him in the house. I missed his hunched shoulders, his quiet glances; I missed him knowing, whether he cared or not, that I was there.

  The next morning I got up early and made breakfast for Walter and Robert. Walter was ecstatic over the smell of the bacon and sat down happily in front of his omelette and home fries, thrilled that the stove was working, but Robert looked at the clean surfaces with suspicion, and sat down with a scowl.

  “I only had to replace the burners,” I said to Walter after he expressed his amazement for the third time. “I’m not sure the inside of the oven will work as well.”

  He looked at me with surprise. “What would you put in there?”

  I smiled. “I don’t know, a pie?”

  “A pie!” He looked over at Robert, trying to coax him into astonishment.

  Robert reached for the salt to shake it on his omelette. “You haven’t been telling your father what a mess this place is, have you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, stop it,” said Walter.

  “Well, I don’t want Peter thinking he’s got dibs on anything else besides that island of his.”

  “Don’t be childish, dear. His daughter has just made us a fabulous breakfast.”

  “His daughter is not our housemaid,” Robert said, “no matter how convenient it is for him.”

  Walter rolled his eyes. “I don’t see anyone else getting up to make breakfast,” he said. “And if you’re interested in having it again I suggest you be more polite to our guest.”

  Robert took a swallow of his coffee and picked up his newspaper. For a minute it occurred to me that Robert was like my father, but my father was never angry unless he was drunk, and he had never been angry with me.

  “Don’t mind him, Miranda, he’s just in some mood.”

  “I’m not in some mood.”

  Walter sighed. “Well. I guess we’ll just have to talk amongst ourselves.”

  I knew it wasn’t personal, but it still wasn’t nice. I thought as I typed in the library later that my father had never been that mean—but then, he had been, I realized—with Mr. Blackwell. It was a petty kind of meanness, a meanness that was meant not so much to be hurtful as simply to be disrespectful, a meanness—like the night he brought the lobster home—meant only for those who understood exactly how important the hurt really was.

  When I got to the coffee cart that afternoon the woman who ran it was throwing empty boxes into the back of her van. She slammed the doors shut and took out a cigarette and lit it, staring absently at the pavement. I thought of the way Mr. Blackwell used to look after a day on the water, his coveralls still on, staring at the clean decks as if the whole day were written there—the sloshing waves, the ropes and hauling chains, the blood and tangled nets.

  “You already closed?” I asked.

  She looked up and smiled. “I have to go to the garage,” she said. “Did you want some coffee?”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “It’s probably pretty nasty by now anyway.”

  “I was thinking you could put an espresso machine in there,” I said, not wanting to walk away. “You could just run it off a generator in the back of your van.”

  “I’ve thought of that, actually—but I think the cords would be illegal. You’re not allowed to have them just hanging in the street.”

  “How long would it have to run for?” I asked.

  “I get here at five,” she said, taking a drag on her cigarette, looking at me.

  “And you leave at one—so, eight hours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Couldn’t you just put a small battery-operated one inside the cart and recharge it in the middle of the day?”

  “I still don’t think it’d be legal,” she said, shaking her head. “They fine you for everything. They fine me if I’m not wearing my hat.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, they come around with thermometers, and if your milk’s not the right temperature, they fine you for that too.” She looked down the street, as if to check for them, and then back at me. “Are you in school?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “You already go to college?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah?” She looked at me curiously. “You going to?”

  I shrugged. “Are you?”

  “I’ve already done two years in business administration,” she said. She smiled wearily. “I guess you just sound like you’re in college,” she said, as if she was sorry to have brought it up. She stood up, stretching her back in a show of boredom, and then took one last drag on her cigarette and threw the butt into the street. “I should go up to the garage,” she said with a sigh.

  Neither of us moved. It seemed like something had happened, a kind of halfhearted rejection, and both of us regretted it. She got out another cigarette, and offered one silently to me.

  I took one. She smiled and had her lighter out the instant I put it in my mouth. “You don’t look like you smoke,” she said, watching me inhale.

  I coughed a little, but not as badly as I had with Julie. “What do you mean?” I said, wiping my eyes.

  She lit hers before she answered. “You just seem
nice,” she said.

  “Nice?” I laughed, coughing again.

  “Yeah, like a nice girl.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can just tell.”

  “Are you nice?” I said, exhaling.

  “Yeah,” she smiled, a little sadly, to herself. “I’m not really a nice girl, though.”

  I glanced at her taking another puff of her cigarette, her dark eyes narrowing for a second as she inhaled. She had her other hand in her pocket, and her arm looked thick and muscular. I was suddenly conscious of the shirt I was wearing, a cotton blouse, and my long hair, tied back in a neat braid.

  “Sometimes I guess I’m too nice,” I said.

  “Yeah, that happens,” she said, “but sometimes people just expect a lot, and you think you have to give them what they ask for, so it’s not really your fault.”

  “Whose fault is it?”

  “Theirs,” she said.

  “For expecting too much?”

  “Sure.” She could see that I wasn’t convinced. “Lots of people walk around expecting too much. I see it all the time. They walk up and they’re in a rush and they act like whatever they’re asking for is already theirs. Like, I’ll have a donut. No please, no thank you.” She looked down the street, let out a stream of smoke. “That’s why it’s good to be nice,” she said, turning back to me.

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  “Ana,” she said, putting her cigarette in her mouth in order to extend her right hand.

  “I’m Miranda,” I said.

  “Encantada,” she said, smiling again.

  16

  On my way home that afternoon I stopped to look at the buckets of flowers crowding the entrance of the deli on the corner by the institute. They were impossibly bright and magically out of season: tulips and roses, orchids and carnations, dahlias and zinnias. I had managed to encourage a field of lupine on the island, but the perennials I had planted near our porch had never come out in the splash of life and color that I had hoped. Certainly anything I had ever encouraged to grow on the island had always been hatched in a healthy bed of leaves, whereas these flowers, stripped of their surroundings, looked as bright as candy. Even the lilies—white, big, and open—stared audaciously back at me.