“Yeah. What is it?”
“The television and radio. She’s got them both going … stays right with them.”
“Wouldn’t the doctor give her sleeping pills?”
“She won’t take them.” Marshall hesitates. “What Edna told you about.”
*
Mrs. Anna Wright. She signs her name to a note she has written Mary’s homeroom teacher — an excuse for Mary’s absence from school on Monday and Tuesday. She writes so many notes. She feels obliged to offer details now. In this note she mentions a specific drug given to Mary by the doctor: penicillin. Rainy, cold weather, a sore throat, a tendency toward strep, penicillin. Her husband has told her to stop writing notes, but what is she supposed to do? Mary is overweight and embarrassed to go to school. The only place she socializes with boys is at Sam’s … they never ask her out. It is the week of the dance. If Mary isn’t in school, she can say that’s why she wasn’t invited. On Tuesday she made Mary dress for school. But she was crying; she couldn’t send her out of the house crying.
Now it is Wednesday. She didn’t think Mary would go to school, but she is dressed, sitting at the breakfast table. She cooks Mary a big breakfast — she doesn’t want to spoil her mood. George tells her to serve Mary only small portions, but he isn’t home when Mary eats, he doesn’t have to hear her complaints or watch the way she stalks out of the house, deliberately leaving her books behind on the hall table. Last week she had a big scene with Mary — not about breakfast or school, about the Parents’ Association. Mary said the Association was no good, that they spent their time thinking about parties and dances and that the guidance counselor was no good. Why couldn’t they do something about the guidance counselor? She had been surprised — what did Mary want to talk to a guidance counselor about? Mary had argued with her, saying that she didn’t understand anything, that it wasn’t only her — they all needed a good guidance counselor so they’d be able to get into college.
“Did you write a note?” Mary says.
“I left it on the table for you.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you had a sore throat.”
“She always has something to say about your notes.”
“What do you mean? What has she said?”
“When I put it on her desk she reads it right away.”
“That’s her job, Mary.”
“As soon as she reads it she says something to me. The last time she came over to my desk and asked me if my cold was gone.”
Mrs. Wright is turning eggs. What Mary says must be true. Once she forgot to write a note when Mary had been sick, and the homeroom teacher had called at home that night. Another time the guidance counselor called to say that he was disturbed by the number of absences. What is she supposed to say to these people? She tells them that it was her mistake not to have sent a note promptly, that it’s better to nip things in the bud so Mary doesn’t miss a whole week of school, that Mary has a good academic average.
Mary is eating her breakfast. But it is late — eight-thirty — and she should hurry. It makes people sick to hurry, it gives them indigestion. She sits down across from Mary.
“You uncle Marshall called last night. Grandma isn’t feeling well, and your father wants us to visit her tonight.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She had a cold … she has trouble sleeping.”
“She just wants to stay up late and watch television.”
“No, she doesn’t,” she says angrily. “Edna took her to a doctor and he had to give her medication.”
Mary does not look up.
“Do you think you’re dressed warmly enough?”
Mary will not continue the conversation. Eventually she gets up, her napkin carefully folded beside her plate. It is eight forty-five. Mary will be late to school, and there is no excuse for tardiness in the note.
“I’ll drive you,” she says.
Mrs. Wright looks at the car through the frosty window.
*
It is cold in the house. She is making soup and baking a roast for dinner. The dog barks and jumps. Marshall is home from work. He and Edna are talking in the living room. Soon they will go out to ride their snowmobiles; she’ll hear them making a circle around the house, will look out the window, cupping her hands so she can see clearly the tracks in the snow. She had been for a ride on the snowmobile with Marshall. She wore scarves on her head, afraid to put on the helmet. There is talk about outlawing snowmobiles. Edna and Marshall are always upset about it. On the television they said people died on snowmobiles, riding them through barbed-wire fences. She rubs her throat, thinking about barbed wire piercing the skin.
“Are you all right, Mom? Sore throat hasn’t come back?”
“No, Marshall.”
“We’re going to take a ride for a few minutes. I’m looking for some bread to feed the birds.”
Marshall has opened the breadbox. Marshall explains everything. The other night when he was fixing a kitchen cabinet she came in for a drink of water and he explained to her how an electric drill worked. He wanted her to hold it. Edna came in. She told Marshall it was too heavy, it vibrated too much. She got the drink of water and left.
One of the women in town, Beverly Brent, helped her husband build a house. She knew Beverly when she was young. The Brents built a big house. But when the house was built she lost twenty pounds and went to New York to become a model. Beverly got sick in New York — she had an appendectomy and returned to the house. She gained weight. Not long ago she came into the store and asked if they needed any saleswomen. Most of the women in town disliked Beverly — the men too. Beverly was never very popular. People liked her sister Miriam. She can remember when they were little girls, fighting on the sidewalk outside the drugstore. Girls fighting! No matter what flavor ice-cream cone Miriam got, Beverly wanted it. Beverly would throw her own ice cream on the sidewalk. Marshall buys her little white bottles of niacin to improve her memory. But she could remember all the things before she took the pills. Edna doesn’t think she needs to take the pills either, but she does it to please Marshall. Marshall takes vitamins every day. He never has a cold. Edna gets sick and can’t go to work. She herself feels pains in her chest and can’t sleep at night because she hears her heart beat and stop, beat and stop.
She is a little surprised that Marshall doesn’t say that he is shutting the door when he shuts the door. She stops stirring the soup and looks at them on their snowmobiles. Marshall looks up and sees her. He points to the snowmobile and smiles. Just as he said, he is going to take a ride on the snowmobile. It is snowing lightly outside. She watches until the snowmobiles are out of sight. She fears they can’t see in the snow, that they’ll run into barbed wire. She goes to the closet and looks on the top shelf. Their goggles are there. She takes them down and puts them on; everything turns bright yellow. She goes back and pours a bag of alphabet letters into the soup. She forgets that she has the goggles on until they begin to steam up. She quickly puts them back on the top shelf so Edna and Marshall won’t see her in them. She goes into the bedroom and empties the niacin pills in the trash and replaces them with aspirin from the medicine cabinet. But she takes too long. She hears Marshall and Edna in the kitchen, realizes that they are calling her. The dog is barking. The soup is boiling over.
*
“What a mess.”
“Your mother’ll kill you.”
It is summer. Mary and Kathy are fifteen. They are in Sam’s, with several boys, and Mary has pizza down her shirt. The boy who caused the accident has spilled his beer on her too. He is twenty-one, the oldest one at the table. Sam saw what happened and is coming over. Mary stands and screams at the boy; he stands too. He is drunk. Mary swings at him — to push, really, not to hit. Sam grabs the boy’s arms.