He looked at the red smear of ketchup on his plate. He had wolfed down the rest of his hamburger as Cheryl wrote. Now all he needed was … thank you, Myrtis … the last drink of the evening, which he meant to hold on to tightly so Cheryl couldn’t get the glass away from him, and maybe a glass of water … thank you, Myrtis … to swallow aspirin with. He asked Cheryl if she had aspirin, knowing that if she didn’t, he could buy some at the cash register. But she did have them, and she produced them from her fanny pack, unzipping it and taking out a small bottle of Bayer, even opening the top and shaking two into the palm of his hand. He thanked her and washed them down with the last inch of her beer.
“So does a little part of you think that people my age invite trouble?” she said.
“I think what happened was horrible, if that’s what you mean.”
“Marshall, you’ve never been anything like a prick with me, and I appreciate it,” she said.
He tried not to reveal his surprise that she had called him Marshall. But why not, for heaven’s sake? He’d been in the restaurant with her for more than an hour, drinking and listening to the troubling story she’d needed to tell. He’d held her hand in the car. Who should he be, if not Marshall?
“Don’t give her Valium if she’s been drinking,” he said. “Promise?”
“Okay,” she said.
“And don’t take it yourself, either.”
“It didn’t do anything,” she said.
“Just don’t do it,” he said.
She nodded.
Myrtis gave them the check, her name and the word “Thanx” written on the back, three horizontal lines under “Thanx.”
“Thanks,” Cheryl said, as he reached for his wallet. “I have five dollars, but I don’t suppose you’d take it.”
He shook his head no.
“I’ll hold your hand when we get to the car,” she said.
He looked at her, embarrassed. He’d hoped what happened before wouldn’t be directly addressed. He’d counted on it. “Ms. Lanier,” he said, speaking quickly to cover his surprise. “Can I truly count on such an exceptional pleasure?”
“But that’s all, Mr. Lockard,” she said. “First date, and all that.”
He could feel himself blush.
“See what it’s like to be mocked?” she said. “You don’t have to do that so much. Really. I advise you to tone it down.”
She slipped her hand into his as he reached above her one-handed to open the restaurant door. That way, ducking their heads against the wind, they hurried to the car in the lightly falling snow.
Dearest Martine:
It seems we are always days and weeks away from seeing you. Every time I count the days, Alice reminds me that what I am really counting is weeks: 16 days should not be considered days, but more than two weeks, properly speaking, and then I realize I must write.
The trip to New York has been quite wonderful, and of course we have eaten wonderfully well. We thought of you when we had chicken stuffed with roasted peppers and porcini. Have two creative chefs coincidentally invented that, or did you sneak a look at a cookbook?
There is a slight chance Ethan Bedell will stop by quite soon after our arrival. If he should call before we arrive, please try to put him off as I’ll need time to lay in the port he always expects (and appreciates, dear soul!), and to try to encourage sympathy toward him from Alice. We must all three join hands and recite together that we will not be drawn into his unhappiness when he arrives. When people are united in their intolerance of his gloominess, he quickly snaps to and becomes a much happier fellow.
Martine. We speak of you so many times a day. Alice said last night she hoped you were planting carrots so the rabbits would be attracted to the garden. What a feeling: to so love seeing them, yet they devour the garden greens as if our hand-clapping was only musical accompaniment to their munching.
Please plant lemon verbena.
Don’t work too hard. We both mean this. Alice looks over my shoulder. She says to tell you she is living vicariously, through you, enjoying the beautiful spring.
With affection,
M.
2
SONJA AWAKENED EARLY to see Marshall, wrapped in a bathrobe, an afghan draped over his shoulders, his sleep-crushed hair sticking up in an Ed Grimley, sitting on a chair he’d pulled close to the window, hands on his knees in the gesture of a small boy being told a story. What story might Marshall be imagining? The familiar story of Old Mister Whiteflakes taunting everyone because he could snow all winter, whenever he wanted, however much he liked? Or perhaps he was hearing more personal stories. Internal stories. A moment in his mother’s life, as previously recounted by his father. Something about her knitting, constantly knitting, as if she could make ordinary things, such as scarves and mittens, become magical because, unlike life, they would not unravel. Who had she been, really, that woman dead so many years, whom Evie, her successor, still talked about so adoringly, that young woman kissing her children’s gloves with her lipsticked blessing and embroidering the wristbands with forget-me-nots?
Marshall’s head was tilted back enough so that his eyes could connect with the moon, yet from across the room, from the bed, from which she could see only the tipped-back crown of his head, she felt sure his eyes were closed, that he had brought his chair close to the window not to look at the sky but to bask in the presence of darkness, the glimmer of starlight, the opacity of the moon. And then, in her sleepy reverie, she contradicted her thinking: one could describe, to a blind man, what the starbursts and showers of light were like. Oh really? How could one do that? With an illuminating analogy? Through the charm of synesthesia? She had been watching her husband, thinking, Thank God he’s not blind, certain that she would be a terrible guide for anyone who could not see exactly what she saw. Yet what foolishness that was: objectivity. Even little children knew that a thrice-whispered word metamorphosed to another, that no tadpole restrained itself from transformation to a frog, to say nothing of individual perceptions, which made a puddle a pond and a lake an ocean.
Marshall shifted in the chair, the afghan slid to the floor, she put her fingers to her lips as if she feared something. Then, in startled confusion, he rose from the chair, disoriented — there: she knew he had been asleep — and, in a kind of sleepwalk, started toward the bed.
Marshall curled on his side, on top of the covers, his face window-pane cold. She tried to tug the sheet and blanket from underneath to cover him, but it was no use. He stayed the way he had first fallen on the bed, the twist of afghan a half chrysalis binding his torso, his lips open, robe bunched around his chest. She touched his shoulder. If there had not been enough light in the room for her to see that this provoked a frown, even in sleep, she would have persisted, but it was too cruel — and where, exactly, would she begin explaining to him her irrational thoughts? Oh, darling, wake up: I’ve been thinking about tadpoles and puddles and lakes, and I’m very happy you aren’t blind. They were so bizarre that she tried to forget them herself, nestling against him, pulling covers up from behind to warm her back, then trying to catch the rhythm of his suddenly quieter breathing, as if, even in sleep, he had made a bargain with her: If I don’t have to listen to you, you don’t have to listen to me.