When Macon had caught his breath again, he told Muriel she was a fool. “He might have had a gun, for all you knew,” he said. “Anything might have happened! Kids show less mercy than grownups; you can see that any day in the papers.”
“Well, it turned out fine, didn’t it?” Muriel asked. “What are you so mad at?”
He wasn’t sure. He supposed he might be mad at himself. He had done nothing to protect her, nothing strong or chivalrous. He hadn’t thought as fast as she had or thought at all, in fact. While Muriel . . . why, Muriel hadn’t even seemed surprised. She might have strolled down that street expecting a neighbor here, a stray dog there, a holdup just beyond—all equally part of life. He felt awed by her, and diminished. Muriel just walked on, humming “Great Speckled Bird” as if nothing particular had happened.
“I don’t think Alexander’s getting a proper education,” he said to her one evening.
“Oh, he’s okay.”
“I asked him to figure what change they’d give back when we bought the milk today, and he didn’t have the faintest idea. He didn’t even know he’d have to subtract.”
“Well, he’s only in second grade,” Muriel said.
“I think he ought to switch to a private school.”
“Private schools cost money.”
“So? I’ll pay.”
She stopped flipping the bacon and looked over at him. “What are you saying?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“What are you saying, Macon? Are you saying you’re committed?”
Macon cleared his throat. He said, “Committed.”
“Alexander’s got ten more years of school ahead of him. Are you saying you’ll be around for all ten years?”
“Um . . .”
“I can’t just put him in a school and take him out again with every passing whim of yours.”
He was silent.
“Just tell me this much,” she said. “Do you picture us getting married sometime? I mean when your divorce comes through?”
He said, “Oh, well, marriage, Muriel . . .”
“You don’t, do you. You don’t know what you want. One minute you like me and the next you don’t. One minute you’re ashamed to be seen with me and the next you think I’m the best thing that ever happened to you.”
He stared at her. He had never guessed that she read him so clearly.
“You think you can just drift along like this, day by day, no plans,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll be here, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll just go on back to Sarah. Oh yes! I saw you at Rose’s wedding. Don’t think I didn’t see how you and Sarah looked at each other.”
Macon said, “All I’m saying is—”
“All I’m saying,” Muriel told him, “is take care what you promise my son. Don’t go making him promises you don’t intend to keep.”
“But I just want him to learn to subtract!” he said.
She didn’t answer, and so the last word rang in the air for moments afterward. Subtract. A flat, sharp, empty sound that dampened Macon’s spirits.
At supper she was too quiet; even Alexander was quiet, and excused himself the minute he’d finished his BLT. Macon, though, hung around the kitchen. Muriel was running a sinkful of water. He said, “Shall I dry?” Without any sort of warning, she whirled and flung a wet sponge in his face. Macon said, “Muriel?”
“Just get out!” she shouted, tears spiking her lashes, and she turned away again and plunged her hands into water so hot that it steamed. Macon retreated. He went into the living room where Alexander was watching TV, and Alexander moved over on the couch to give him space. He didn’t say anything, but Macon could tell he’d heard from the way he tensed at each clatter in the kitchen. After a while the clatters died down. Macon and Alexander looked at each other. There was a silence; a single murmuring voice. Macon rose and returned to the kitchen, walking more quietly than usual and keeping a weather eye out, the way a cat creeps back after it’s been dumped from someone’s lap.
Muriel was talking on the phone with her mother. Her voice was gay and chirpy but just a shade thicker than usual, as if she were recovering from a cold. “So anyhow,” she said, “I asked what kind of trouble her dog is giving her and the lady’s like, ‘Oh, no trouble,’ so I ask her, ‘Well, what’s his problem, then?’ and the lady’s like, ‘No real problem.’ I say, ‘Ma’am. You must have called me here for some reason.’ She says, ‘Oh. Well. That.’ She says, ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘I was wondering about when he makes.’ I say, ‘Makes?’ She says, ‘Yes, when he makes number one. He makes like little girl dogs do, he doesn’t lift his leg.’ I say to her, ‘Now let me see if I’ve got this straight. You have called me here to teach your dog to lift his leg when he tinkles.’ ”
Her free hand kept flying out while she talked, as if she imagined her mother could see her. Macon came up behind her and put his arms around her, and she leaned back against him. “Oh, there’s never a dull moment, I tell you,” she said into the phone.
That night he dreamed he was traveling in a foreign country, only it seemed to be a medley of all the countries he’d ever been to and even some he hadn’t. The sterile vast spaces of Charles de Gaulle airport chittered with those tiny birds he’d seen inside the terminal at Brussels; and when he stepped outdoors he was in Julian’s green map of Hawaii with native dancers, oversized, swaying near the dots that marked various tourist attractions. Meanwhile his own voice, neutral and monotonous, murmured steadily: In Germanythe commercial traveler must be punctual for all appointments,in Switzerland he should be five minutes early, in Italy delays of several hours are not uncommon . . .
He woke. It was pitch dark, but through the open window he heard distant laughter, a strain of music, faint cheers as if some sort of game were going on. He squinted at the clock radio: three thirty. Who would be playing a game at this hour? And on this street—this worn, sad street where nothing went right for anyone, where the men had dead-end jobs or none at all and the women were running to fat and the children were turning out badly. But another cheer went up, and someone sang a line from a song. Macon found himself smiling. He turned toward Muriel and closed his eyes; he slept dreamlessly the rest of the night.
The mailman rang the doorbell and presented a long, tube-shaped package addressed to Macon. “What’s this?” Macon asked. He returned to the living room, frowning down at the label. Muriel was reading a paperback book called Beauty Tips from the Stars. She glanced up and said, “Why not open it and find out.”
“Oh? Is this some of your doing?”
She only turned a page.
Another plea for the France trip, he supposed. He pulled off the tape on one end and shook the package till a cylinder of glossy paper slid out. When he unrolled it, he found a full-color photo of two puppies in a basket, with DR. MACK’S PETVITES above it and a calendar for January below it.
“I don’t understand,” he said to Muriel.
She turned another page.
“Why would you send me a calendar for a year that’s half gone?”
“Maybe there’s something written on it,” she told him.
He flipped through February, March, April. Nothing there. May. Then June: a scribble of red ink across a Saturday, “Wedding,” he read out. “Wedding? Whose wedding?”
“Ours?” she asked him.
“Oh, Muriel . . .”
“You’ll be separated a year then, Macon. You’ll be able to get your divorce.”
“But, Muriel—”
“I always did want to have a June wedding.”
“Muriel, please, I’m not ready for this! I don’t think I ever will be. I mean I don’t think marriage ought to be as common as it is; I really believe it ought to be the exception to the rule; oh, perfect couples could marry, maybe, but who’s a perfect couple?”
“You and Sarah, I suppose,” Muriel said.
The name brought Sarah’s calm face, round as a daisy.
“No, no . . .” he said weakl
y.
“You’re so selfish!” Muriel shouted. “You’re so self-centered! You’ve got all these fancy reasons for never doing a single thing I want!”
Then she flung down her book and ran upstairs.
Macon heard the cautious, mouselike sounds of Alexander as he tiptoed around the kitchen fixing himself a snack.
Muriel’s sister Claire arrived on the doorstep with a suitcase spilling clothes and her eyes pink with tears. “I’m never speaking to Ma again,” she told them. She pushed past them into the house. “You want to know what happened? Well, I’ve been dating this guy, see: Claude McEwen. Only I didn’t let on to Ma, you know how she’s scared I’ll turn out like Muriel did, and so last night when he came for me I jumped into his car and she happened to catch sight of me from the window, noticed he had a bumper sticker reading EDGEWOOD. That’s because he used to go to a high school called Edgewood Prep in Delaware, but Ma thought it was Edgewood Arsenal and therefore he must be an Army man. So anyhow, this morning I get up and there she is fit to be tied, says, ‘I know what you’ve been up to! Out all hours last night with the General!’ and I say, ‘Who? The what?’ but there’s never any stopping her once she gets started. She tells me I’m grounded for life and can’t ever see the General again or she’ll have him hauled up for court-martial and all his stars ripped off his uniform, so quick as a wink I packed up my clothes . . .”
Macon, listening absently while Edward sighed at his feet, had a sudden view of his life as rich and full and astonishing. He would have liked to show it off to someone. He wanted to sweep out an arm and say, “See?”
But the person he would have liked to show it to was Sarah.
Rose and Julian were back from their honeymoon; they were giving a family supper and Macon and Muriel were invited. Macon bought a bottle of very good wine as a hostess gift. He set the bottle on the counter, and Muriel came along and said, “What’s this?”
“It’s wine for Rose and Julian.”
“Thirty-six dollars and ninety-nine cents!” she said, examining the sticker.
“Yes, well, it’s French.”
“I didn’t know a wine could cost thirty-six ninety-nine.”
“I figured since, you know, this’ll be our first visit to their apartment . . .”
“You sure do think a lot of your family,” Muriel said.
“Yes, of course.”
“You never bought me any wine.”
“I didn’t know you wanted any; you told me it makes your teeth feel rough.”
She didn’t argue with that.
Later that day he happened to notice that the bottle had been moved. And was opened. And was half emptied. The cork lay beside it, still impaled on the corkscrew. A cloudy little juice glass gave off the smell of grapes. Macon called, “Muriel?”
“What,” she answered from the living room.
He went to the living room doorway. She was watching a ball game with Alexander. He said, “Muriel, have you been drinking that wine I bought?”
“Yes.”
He said, “Why, Muriel?”
“Oh, I just had this irresistible urge to try it out,” she said.
Then she looked at him with slitted eyes, tilting her chin. He felt she was challenging him to take some action, but he said nothing. He picked up his car keys and went out to buy another bottle.
Macon felt shy about attending this dinner, as if Rose had turned into a stranger. He took longer than usual dressing, unable to decide between two shirts, and Muriel seemed to be having some trouble too. She kept putting on outfits and taking them off; brightly colored fabrics began to mount on the bed and on the floor all around it. “Oh, Lord, I wish I was just a totally nother person,” she sighed. Macon, concentrating on tying his tie, said nothing. Her baby photo grinned out at him from the frame of the mirror. He happened to notice the date on the border: AUG 60. Nineteen sixty.
When Muriel was two years old, Macon and Sarah were already engaged to be married.
Downstairs, Dominick Saddler was sitting on the couch with Alexander. “Now this here is your paste wax,” he was saying. He held up a can. “You never want to polish a car with anything but paste wax. And here we have a diaper. Diapers make real good rags because they don’t shed hardly no lint. I generally buy a dozen at a time from Sears and Roebuck. And chamois skins: well, you know chamois skins. So what you do is, you get yourself these here supplies and a case of good beer and a girl, and you head on out to Loch Raven. Then you park in the sun and you take off your shirt and you and the girl start to polishing. Ain’t no sweeter way that I know of to use up a spring afternoon.”
Dominick’s version of a bedtime story, Macon supposed. He was baby-sitting tonight. (The Butler twins had dates, and Claire was out with the General. As everybody referred to him now.) In payment, Muriel’s car would be Dominick’s to use for a week; mere money would never have persuaded him. He slouched next to Alexander with the diaper spread over one knee, muscles bulging under a T-shirt that read WEEKEND WARRIOR. A Greek sailor cap was tipped back on his head with a Judas Priest button pinned above the visor. Alexander looked enthralled.
Muriel came tapping down the stairs; she arrived craning her neck to see if her slip showed. “Is this outfit okay?” she asked Macon.
“It’s very nice,” he said, which was true, although it was also totally unlike her. Evidently, she had decided to take Rose for her model. She had pulled her hair back in a low bun and she wore a slim gray dress with shoulder pads. Only her spike-heeled sandals seemed her own; probably she didn’t possess any shoes so sensible as Rose’s schoolgirl flats. “I want you to tell me if there’s anything not right,” she said to Macon. “Anything you think is tacky.”
“Not a thing,” Macon assured her.
She kissed Alexander, leaving a dark red mark on his cheek. She made one last survey in the mirror beside the front door, meanwhile calling, “Don’t let him stay up too late now, Dommie; don’t let him watch anything scary on T V—”
Macon said, “Muriel.”
“I look like the wrath of God.”
The Leary children had been raised to believe that when an invitation involved a meal, the guests should arrive exactly on time. Never mind that they often caught their hostess in curlers; they went on doing what they were taught. So Macon pressed the buzzer in the lobby at precisely six twenty-seven, and Porter and Charles joined them in front of the elevator. They both told Muriel it was nice to see her. Then they rode upward in a gloomy silence, eyes fixed on the numbers over the door. Charles carried a potted jade tree, Porter another bottle of wine.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Muriel said. “We’re their first invited guests.”
“At home now we’d be watching the CBS Evening News,” Charles told her.
Muriel couldn’t seem to think of any answer to that.
By six thirty sharp they were ringing the doorbell, standing in a hushed corridor carpeted in off-white. Rose opened the door and called, “They’re here!” and set her face lightly against each of theirs. She wore Grandmother Leary’s lace-trimmed company apron and she smelled of lavender soap, the same as always.
But there was a strip of peeling sunburn across the bridge of her nose.
Julian, natty and casual in a navy turtleneck and white slacks (when it wasn’t yet Memorial Day), fixed the drinks while Rose retreated to the kitchen. This was one of those ultra-modern apartments where the rooms all swam into each other, so they could see her flitting back and forth. Julian passed around snapshots of Hawaii. Either he had used inferior film or else Hawaii was a very different place from Baltimore, because some of the colors were wrong. The trees appeared to be blue. In most of the photos Rose stood in front of flower beds or flowering shrubs, wearing a white sleeveless dress Macon had never seen before, hugging her arms and smiling too broadly so that she looked older than she was. “I tell Rose you’d think she went on our honeymoon by herself,” Julian said. “I’m the one who took the pictures because Rose never
did learn how to work my camera.”
“She didn’t?” Macon asked.
“It was one of those German models with all the buttons.”
“She couldn’t figure out the buttons?”
“I tell her, ‘People will think I wasn’t even there.’ ”
“Why, Rose could have taken that camera apart and put it together twice over,” Macon said.
“No, this was one of those German models with—”
“It wasn’t very logically constructed,” Rose called from the kitchen.
“Ah,” Macon said, sitting back.
She entered the room with a tray and placed it on the glass coffee table. Then she knelt and began to spread pâté on little crackers. There was some change in the way she moved, Macon noticed. She was more graceful, but also more self-conscious. She offered the pâté first to Muriel, then to each of her brothers, last to Julian. “In Hawaii I started learning to sail,” she said. She pronounced the two i’s in “Hawaii” separately; Macon thought it sounded affected. “Now I’m going to practice out on the Bay.”
“She’s trying to find her sea legs,” Julian said. “She tends to feel motion-sick.”
Macon bit into his cracker. The pâté was something familiar. It was rough in texture but delicate in taste; there was a kind of melting flavor that he believed came from adding a great amount of butter. The recipe was Sarah’s. He sat very still, not chewing. He was flooded by a subtle blend of tarragon and cream and home.
“Oh, I know just what you’re going through,” Muriel said to Rose. “All I have to do is look at a boat and I get nauseous.”
Macon swallowed and gazed down at the carpet between his feet. He waited for someone to correct her, but nobody did. That was even worse.
In bed she said, “You wouldn’t ever leave me, would you? Would you ever think of leaving me? You won’t be like the others, will you? Will you promise not to leave me?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, floating in and out of dreams.
“You do take me seriously, don’t you? Don’t you?”