A Patchwork Planet
by Anne Tyler
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0449003981
Publisher: Fawcett
Chapter 1
I am a man
you can trust, is how my customers view me. Or at least, I'm guessing it
is. Why else would they hand me their house keys before they leave for vacation?
Why else would they depend on me to clear their attics for them, heave their
air conditioners into their windows every spring, lug their excess furniture
to their basements? "Mind your step, young fellow; that's Hepplewhite,"
Mrs. Rodney says, and then she goes into her kitchen to brew a pot of tea.
I could get up to anything in that basement. I could unlock the outside
door so as to slip back in overnight and rummage through all she owns--her
Hepplewhite desk and her Japanese lacquer jewelry box and the six potbellied
drawers of her dining-room buffet. Not that I would. But she doesn't know
that. She just assumes it. She takes it for granted that I'm a good person.
Come to think of it, I am
the one who doesn't take it for granted.
On the very last day of a bad old year, I was leaning against a pillar
in the Baltimore railroad station, waiting to catch the 10:10 a.m. to
Philadelphia. Philadelphia's where my little girl lives. Her mother married
a lawyer there after we split up.
Ordinarily I'd have driven,
but my car was in the shop and so I'd had to fork over the money for a
train ticket. Scads of money. Not to mention being some appointed place
at some appointed time, which I hate. Plus, there were a lot more people
waiting than I had expected. That airy, light, clean, varnished feeling
I generally got in Penn Station had been crowded out. Elderly couples
with matching luggage stuffed the benches, and swarms of college kids
littered the floor with their duffel bags. This gray-haired guy was walking
around speaking to different strangers one by one. Well-off guy, you could
tell: tan skin, nice turtleneck, soft beige car coat. He went up to a
woman sitting alone and asked her a question. Then he came over to a girl
in a miniskirt standing near me. I had been thinking I wouldn't mind talking
to her myself. She had long blond hair, longer than her skirt, which made
it seem she'd neglected to put on the bottom half of her outfit. The man
said, "Would you by any chance be traveling to Philadelphia?"
"Well, northbound, yes," she
said, in this shallow, breathless voice that came as a disappointment.
"But to Philadelphia?"
"No, New York, but I'll be--"
"Thanks anyway," he said,
and he moved toward the next bench.
Now he had my full attention.
"Ma'am," I heard him ask an old lady, "are you traveling to Philadelphia?"
The old lady answered something too mumbly for me to catch, and instantly
he turned to the woman beside her. "Philadelphia?" Notice how he was getting
more and more sparing of words. When the woman told him, "Wilmington,"
he didn't say a thing; just plunged on down the row to one of the matched-luggage
couples. I straightened up from my pillar and drifted closer, looking
toward Gate E as if I had my mind on my train. The wife was telling the
man about their New Year's plans. They were baby-sitting their grandchildren
who lived in New York City, she said, and the husband said, "Well, not
New York City proper, dear; White Plains," and the gray-haired man, almost
shouting, said, "But my daughter's counting on me!" And off he raced.
Well, I was going to Philadelphia.
He could have asked me. I understood why he didn't, of course. No doubt
I struck him as iffy, with my three-day growth of black stubble and my
ripped black leather jacket and my jeans all dust and cobwebs from Mrs.
Morey's garage. But still he could have given me a chance. Instead he
just flicked his eyes at me and then swerved off toward the bench at the
end of the room. By now he was looking seriously undermedicated. "Please!"
he said to a woman reading a book. "Tell me you're going to Philadelphia!"
She lowered her book. She
was thirtyish, maybe thirty-five--older than I was, anyhow. A schoolmarm
sort, in a wide brown coat with a pattern like feathers all over it. "Philadelphia?"
she said. "Why, yes, I am."
"Then could I ask you a favor?"
I stopped several feet away
and frowned down at my left wrist. (Never mind that I don't own a watch.)
Even without looking, I could sense how she went on guard. The man must
have sensed it too, because he said, "Nothing too difficult, I promise!"
They were announcing my train
now. ("The delayed 10:10," the loudspeaker called it. It's always "the
delayed" this or that.) People started moving toward Gate E, the older
couples hauling their wheeled bags behind them like big, meek pets on
leashes. If the woman in the feather coat said anything, I missed it.
Next I heard, the man was talking. "My daughter's flying out this afternoon
for a junior semester abroad," he was saying. "Leaving from Philadelphia;
the airline offers a bargain rate if you leave from Philadelphia. So I
put her on a train this morning, stopped for groceries afterward, and
came home to find my wife in a state. It seems our daughter'd forgotten
her passport. She'd telephoned from the station in Philly; didn't know
what to do next."
The woman clucked sympathetically.
I'd have kept quiet myself. Waited to find out where the guy was heading
with this.
"So I told her she should
stay put. Stay right there in the station, I said, and I would get somebody
here to carry up her passport."
A likely story! Why didn't
he go himself, if this was such an emergency?
"Why don't you go yourself?"
the woman asked him.
"I can't leave my wife alone
that long. She's in a wheelchair: Parkinson's."
This seemed like a pretty
flimsy excuse, if you want my honest opinion. Also, it exceeded what I
would consider the normal quota for misfortunes. Not only a lamebrain
daughter, but a wife with a major disease! I let my eyes wander toward
the two of them. The woman was gazing up into the man's face, pooching
her mouth out thoughtfully. The man was holding a packet. He must have
pulled it from his car coat: not a manila envelope, which would have been
the logical choice, but one of those padded mailers the size of a paperback
book. Aha! Padded! So you couldn't feel the contents! And from where I
stood, it looked to be stapled shut besides. Watch yourself, lady, I said
silently.
As if she'd heard me, she
told the man, "I hope this isn't some kind of contraband." Except she
pronounced it "counterband," which made me think she must not be a schoolmarm,
after all.
"No, no!" the man told her.
He gave a huff of a laugh. "No, I can assure you it's not counterband."
Was he repeating her mistake
on purpose? I couldn't tell. (Or maybe the word really was "counterband.")
Meanwhile, the loudspeaker came to life again. The delayed 10:10 was now
boarding. Train wheels squealed below me. "I'll do it," the woman decided.
"Oh, wonderful! That's wonderful!
Thanks!" the man told her, and he handed her the packet. She was already
rising. Instead of a suitcase, she had one of those tote things that could
have been just a large purse, and she fitted the strap over her shoulder
and lined up the packet with the book she'd been reading. "So let's see,"
the man was saying. "You've got light-colored hair, you're wearing a brown
print coat.... I'll call the pay phone where my daughter's waiting and
let her know who to watch for. She'll be standing at Information when
you get there. Esther Brimm, her name is--a redhead. You can't miss that
hair of hers. Wearing jeans and a blue-jean jacket. Ask if she's Esther
Brimm."
He followed the woman through
the double doors and down the stairs, although he wasn't supposed to.
I was close behind. The cold felt good after the packed waiting room.
"And you are?" the man was asking.
Affected way of putting it.
They arrived on the platform and stopped short, so that I just about ran
over them. The woman said, "I'm Sophia--" and then something like "Maiden"
that I couldn't exactly hear. (The train was in place but rumbling, and
passengers were clip-clopping by.) "In case we miss connections, though
...," she said, raising her voice.
In case they missed connections,
he should put his name and phone number on the mailer. Any fool would
know that much. But he seemed to have his mind elsewhere. He said, "Um
... now, do you live in Baltimore? I mean, are you coming back to Baltimore,
or is Philly your end destination?"
I almost laughed aloud at
that. So! Already he'd forgotten he was grateful; begun to question his
angel of mercy's reliability. But she didn't take offense. She said, "Oh,
I'm a long-time Baltimorean. This is just an overnight visit to my mother.
I do it every weekend: take the ten-ten Patriot Saturday morning and come
back sometime Sunday."
"Well, then!" he said. "Well.
I certainly do appreciate this."
"It's no trouble at all,"
she said, and she smiled and turned to board.
I had been hoping to sit next
to her. I was planning to start a conversation--mention I'd overheard
what the man had asked of her and then suggest the two of us check the
contents of his packet. But the car was nearly full, and she settled down
beside a lady in a fur hat. The closest I could manage was across the
aisle to her left and one row back, next to a black kid wearing earphones.
Only view I had was a schoolmarm's netted yellow bun and a curve of cheek.
Well, anyhow, why was I making
this out to be such a big deal? Just bored, I guess. I shucked my jacket
off and sat forward to peer in my seat-back pocket. A wrinkly McDonald's
bag, a napkin stained with ketchup, a newspaper section folded to the
crossword puzzle. The puzzle was only half done, but I didn't have a pen
on me. I looked over at the black kid. He probably didn't have a pen,
either, and anyhow he was deep in his music--long brown fingers tapping
time on his knees.
Then just beyond him, out
the window, I chanced to notice the passport man talking on the phone.
Talking on the phone? Down here beside the tracks? Sure enough: one of
those little cell phones you all the time see obnoxious businessmen showing
off in public. I leaned closer to the window. Something here was weird,
I thought. Maybe he smuggled drugs, or worked for the CIA. Maybe he was
a terrorist. I wished I knew how to read lips. But already he was closing
his phone, slipping it into his pocket, turning to go back upstairs. And
our train was sliding out of the station.
I looked again at the woman.
At the packet, to be specific.
It was resting on top of her
book, which sat in her feather-print lap. (She would be the type who stayed
properly buttoned into her coat, however long the trip.) Where the mailer
was folded over, staples ran straight across in a nearly unbroken line.
But staples were no problem. She could pry them up with, say, a nail file
or a dime, and slip them out undetectably, and replace them when she was
finished. Do it, I told her in my head. She was gazing past her seatmate,
out the right-hand window. I couldn't even see her cheek now; just her
bun.
Back in the days when I was
a juvenile delinquent, I used to break into houses and read people's private
mail. Also photo albums. I had a real thing about photo albums. The other
kids who broke in along with me, they'd be hunting car keys and cigarettes
and booze. They'd be tearing through closets and cabinets all around me,
while I sat on the sofa poring over somebody's wedding pictures. And even
when I took stuff, it was always personal stuff. This little snow globe
once from a nightstand in a girl's bedroom. Another time, a brass egg
that stood on scaly claw feet and opened to show a snapshot of an old-fashioned
baby inside. I'm not proud of this. I'd sooner confess to jewel theft
than to pocketing six letters tied up with satin ribbon, which is what
I did when we jimmied the lock at the Empreys' place one night. But there
you are. What can I say.
So when this Sophia woman
let the packet stay untouched--didn't prod it, didn't shake it, didn't
tease apart the merest corner of the flap--I felt something like, oh,
almost envy. A huge wave of envy. I started wishing I could be like that.
Man, I'd have been tearing into that packet with my bare teeth, if I'd
had the chance.
The conductor came and went,
and the row houses slipping by turned into factory buildings and then
to matted woods and a sheet of gray water, but I was barely conscious
of anything beyond Sophia's packet. I saw how quietly her hands rested
on the brown paper; she was not a fidgeter. Smooth, oval nails, pale pink,
and plump white fingers like a woman's in a religious painting. Her book
was turned the wrong way for me to read the title, but I knew it was something
worthwhile and educational. Oh, these people who prepare ahead! Who think
to bring actual books, instead of dashing into a newsstand at the last
minute for a Sports Illustrated or--worse yet--making do with a crossword
puzzle that someone else has started!
It bothered me more than I
liked to admit that the passport man had avoided me.
We were getting close to Wilmington,
and the lady in the fur hat started collecting her things. After she left,
I planned to change seats. I would wait for Sophia to shift over to the
window, and then I'd sit down next to her. "Morning," I would say. "Interesting
packet you've got there."
"I see you're carrying some
kind of packet."
"Mind if I inquire what's
in that packet?"
Or whatever. Something would
come to me. But when the train stopped and the lady stood up, Sophia just
turned her knees to one side to let her out. She stayed seated where she
was, on the aisle, so I didn't see any natural-seeming way to make my
move.
We left Wilmington behind.
We traveled past miles of pipeline and smokestacks, some of them belching
flames. I could tell now that it was rap music the kid beside me was listening
to. He had the volume raised so high that I could hear it winding out
of his earphones--that chanting and insisting sound like the voices you
hear in your dreams.
"Philll-adelphia!" the conductor
called.
Of course Sophia got ready
too soon. We were barely in sight of the skyline--bluish buildings shining
in the pale winter sunlight, Liberty Towers scalloping their way up and
up and up--but she was already rising to wait in the aisle. The exit lay
to the rear, and so she had to face me. I could see the pad of flesh that
was developing under her chin. She leaned against her seat and teetered
gently with the swaying of the car. Critics are unanimous! the back of
her book said. The mailer was almost hidden between the book and her cushiony
bosom.
I put on my jacket, but I
didn't stand up yet. I waited till the train had come to a stop and she
had passed me. Then I swung out into the aisle lickety-split, cutting
in front of a fat guy with a briefcase. I followed Sophia so closely,
I could smell the dusty smell of her coat. It was velvet, or something
like velvet. Velvet always smells dusty, even when it's fresh from the
cleaners.
There was the usual scuffle
with that automatic door that likes to squash the passengers--Press the
button, dummies!--and the usual milling and nudging in the vestibule,
and then we stepped out into a rush of other people. It was obvious that
Sophia knew where she was going. She didn't so much as glance around her
but walked fast, coming down hard on her heels. Her heels were the short,
chunky kind, but they made her as tall as I was. I had noticed that while
we were standing on the train. Now she was slightly taller, because we'd
started up the stairs and she was a step above me.
Even once we'd reached the
waiting room, she didn't look around. Thirtieth Street Station is so enormous
and echoing and high-ceilinged--a jolt after cozy Baltimore--that most
people pause to take stock a moment, but not Sophia. She just went clicking
along, with me a few yards to the rear.
At the Information island,
only one person stood waiting. I spotted her from far across those acres
of marble flooring: a girl in a denim jacket and jeans, with a billow
of crinkly, electric red hair. It fanned straight out and stopped just
above her shoulders. It was amazing hair. I was awestruck. Sophia, though,
didn't let on she had noticed her. She was walking more slowly now, downright
sedately, placing her toes at a slight angle outward, the way women often
do when they want to look composed and genteel. Actually, she was starting
to get on my nerves. Didn't that bun of hers just sum her up, I thought--the
net that bound it in and the perfect, doughnut shape and the way it sat
so low on her head, so matronly and drab! And Esther Brimm, meanwhile,
stood burning like a candle on her stick-thin, blue-denim legs.
When we reached the island
I veered right, toward a display of schedules on the counter. I heard
Sophia's heels stop in front of Esther. "Esther Brimm?" she asked.
"Ms. Maynard?"
Husky, throaty voice, the
kind I like.
"Your father asked me to bring
you something...."
I took a schedule from the
rack and turned my face casually in their direction. Not till Esther said,
"Right; my passport," did Sophia slip the mailer from behind her book
and hold it out.
"Thanks a million," Esther
said, accepting it, and Sophia said, "My pleasure. Have a good trip."
Then she turned away and clicked toward the Twenty-ninth Street exit.
Just like that, I forgot her.
Now I was focused on Esther. Open it! I told her. Instead she picked up
the army duffel lying at her feet and moved off toward the phones. I meandered
after her, studying my schedule. I pretended I was hunting a train to
Princeton.
The phones were the unprivate
kind just out in the middle of everything, standing cheek to jowl. When
Esther lifted a receiver off its hook, I was right there beside her, lifting
a receiver of my own. I was so near I could have touched her duffel bag
with the toe of my sneaker. I heard every word she said. "Dad?" she said.
I clamped my phone to my ear
and held the schedule up between us so I could watch her. This close,
she was less attractive. She had that fragile, sore-looking skin you often
find on redheads. "Yes," she was saying, "it's here." And then, "Sure!
I guess so. I mean, it's still stapled shut and all. Huh? Well, hang on."
She put her receiver down
and started yanking at the mailer's top flap. When the staples tore loose,
rat-a-tat, she pulled the edges apart and peered inside--practically stuck
her little freckled nose inside. Then she picked up the phone again. "Yup,"
she said. "Good as new."
So I never got a chance to
see for myself. It could have been anything: loose diamonds, crack cocaine
... But somehow I didn't think so. The phone call was what convinced me.
She'd have had to be a criminal genius to fake that careless tone of voice,
the easy offhandedness of a person who knows for a fact that she's her
parents' pride and joy. "Well, listen," she was saying. "Tell Mom I'll
call again from the airport, okay?" And she made a kissing sound and hung
up. When she slung her duffel over her shoulder and started toward one
of the gates, I didn't even watch her go.
The drill for visiting my daughter was, I'd arrive about ten a.m. and
take her on an outing. Nothing fancy. Maybe a trip to the drug store,
or walking her little dog in the park. Then we'd grab a bite someplace,
and I'd return her and leave. This happened exactly once a month--the
last Saturday of the month. Her mother's idea. To hear her mother tell
it, Husband No. 2 was Superdad; but I had to stay in the picture to give
Opal a sense of whatchamacallit. Connection.
But due to one thing and another--my
car acting up, my alarm not going off--I was late as hell that day. It
was close to noon, I figure, before I even left the station, and I didn't
want to spring for a cab after paying for a train ticket. Instead I more
or less ran all the way to the apartment (they lived in one of those posh
old buildings just off Rittenhouse Square), and by the time I pressed
the buzzer, I was looking even scruffier than my usual self. I could tell
as much from Natalie's expression, the minute she opened the door. She
let her eyes sort of drift up and down me, and, "Barnaby," she said flatly.
Opal's little dog was dancing around my ankles--a dachshund, very quivery
and high-strung.
"Yo. Natalie," I said. I started
swatting at my clothes to settle them a bit. Natalie, of course, was Miss
Good Grooming. She wore a slim gray skirt-and-sweater set, and her hair
was all of a piece--smooth, shiny brown--dipping in and then out again
before it touched her shoulders. Oh, she had been a beauty for as long
as I had known her; except now that I recalled, there'd always been something
too placid about her. I should have picked it up from her dimples, which
made a little dent in each cheek whether or not she was smiling. They
gave her a look of self-satisfaction. What I'd thought when we first met
was, how could she not be self-satisfied? And her vague, dreamy slowness
used to seem sexy. Now it just made me impatient. I said, "Is Opal ready
to go?" and Natalie took a full minute, I swear, to consider every aspect
of the question. Then: "Opal is in her room," she said finally. "Crying
her eyes out."
"Crying!"
"She thought you'd stood her
up."
"Well, I know I'm a little
bit late--" I said.
She lifted an arm and contemplated
the tiny watch face on the inner surface of her wrist.
"Things just seemed to conspire
against me," I said. "Can I see her?"
After she'd thought that over
awhile, she turned and floated off, which I took to mean yes.
I made my own way to Opal's
bedroom, down a long hall lined with Oriental rugs. I waded through the
dachshund and knocked on her door. "Opal?" I called. "You in there?"
No answer. I turned the knob
and poked my head in.
You'd never guess this room
belonged to a nine-year-old. The bedspread was appliquéd with ducklings,
and the only posters were nursery-rhyme posters. By rights it should have
been a baby's room, or a toddler's.
The bed was where I looked
first, because that's where I figured she would be if she was crying.
But she was in the white rocker by the window. And she wasn't crying,
either. She was glaring at me reproachfully from underneath her eyebrows.
"Ope!" I said, all hearty.
Opal's chin stayed buried
inside her collar.
I knew I shouldn't think this,
but my daughter had never struck me as very appealing. She had all her
life been a few pounds overweight, with a dish-shaped face and colorless
hair and a soft, pink, half-open mouth, the upper lip short enough to
expose her top front teeth. (I used to call her "Bunnikins" till Natalie
asked me not to--and why would she have asked, if she herself hadn't noticed
Opal's close resemblance to a rabbit?) It didn't help that Natalie dressed
her in the kind of clothes you see in Dick and Jane books--fussy and pastel,
the smocked bodices bunching up on her chest and the puffed sleeves cutting
into her arms. Me, I would have chosen something less constricting. But
who was I to say? I hadn't been much of a father.
I did want the best for her,
though. I would never intentionally hurt her. I walked over to where she
was sitting and squatted down in front of her. "Opal-dopal," I said. "Sweetheart."
"What."
"Call off your dog. He's eating
my wallet."
She started to smile but held
it back. Her mother's two dimples deepened in her cheeks. The dog really
was nibbling at my wallet. George Farnsworth, his name was; heaven knows
why. "George Farnsworth," I said sternly, "if you're short of cash, just
ask straight out for a loan, okay?"
Now I heard a definite chuckle.
I took heart. "Hey, Ope, I'm sorry I'm late," I said. "First I had car
trouble, see--"
"You always have car trouble."
"Then my alarm clock didn't
go off--"
"It always doesn't go off."
"Well. Not always," I told
her. "Then once I got to Penn Station, you'll never guess what happened.
It was like a secret-agent movie. Guy is walking up to people, pulling
something out of his coat. 'Ma'am,'"--I made my voice sound menacing and
mysterious--"'would you please take this package to Philadelphia for me?'"
Opal didn't speak, but I could
tell she was listening. She watched me with her pinkish-gray eyes, the
lashes slightly damp.
"'Take it to my daughter in
Philly; all it is is her passport,' he said, and I thought to myself,
Ha! I just bet it's her passport! So when this one woman said she would
do it, I followed her at the other end of the trip."
"You followed her?"
"I wanted to see what would
happen. So I followed her to her rendezvous with the quote-unquote daughter,
and then I hung around the phones while the daughter placed a call to--"
"You hung around the phones?"
I was beginning to flounder.
(This story didn't have what you'd call a snappy ending.) I said, "Yes,
and then--um--"
"You were only dawdling in
the station all this time! It's not enough you don't look after your car
right and you forget to set your alarm; then you dawdle in the station
like you don't care when you see me!"
It was uncanny, how much she
sounded like her mother. Her mother in the old days, that is--the miserable
last days of our marriage. I said, "Now, hon. Now wait a sec, hon."
Which was also from those
days, word for word. Some kind of reflex, I guess.
"You promised you'd come at
ten," she said, "and instead you were just ... goofing around with a bunch
of secret agents! You totally lost track of where you were supposed to
be!"
"In the first place," I said,
"I take excellent care of my car, Opal. I treat it like a blood relative.
It's not my fault if my car is older than I am. And I did not forget to
set my alarm. I don't know why it didn't go off; sometimes it just doesn't,
okay? I don't know why. And I honestly thought you'd like hearing about
those people I was so-called goofing around with. I thought, Man, I wish
Opal could see this, and I followed them expressly so I could tell you
about it later over a burger and french fries. Wouldn't that be great?
A burger and fries at Little Pete's, Ope, while I tell you my big story."
It wasn't working, though.
Opal's eyes only got pinker, and for once she had her mouth tightly shut.
"Look at George Farnsworth!
He wants to go," I said.
In fact, George Farnsworth
had lost interest and was lying beside the rocker with his nose on his
paws. But I said, "First we'll take George for a walk in the Square, and
then we'll head over to--"
"It sounds to me," Natalie
said, "as if Opal prefers to stay in."
She was standing in the doorway.
Damn Oriental rugs had muffled her steps.
"Am I right, Opal?" she asked.
"Would you rather tell him goodbye?"
"Goodbye?" I said. "I just
got here! I just came all this way!"
"It's your decision, Opal."
Opal looked down at her lap.
After a long pause, she murmured something.
"We couldn't hear you," Natalie
said.
"Goodbye," Opal told her lap.
But I knew she didn't mean
it. All she wanted was a little coaxing. I said, "Hey now, Ope ..."
"Could I speak with you a
minute?" Natalie asked me.
I sighed and got to my feet.
Opal stayed where she was, but I caught her hidden glimmer of a glance
as I turned to follow Natalie down the hall. I knew I could have persuaded
her if I'd been given more time.
We didn't stop in the living
room. We went on through to the kitchen, at the other end of the apartment.
I guess Natalie figured my jeans might soil her precious upholstery. I
had never seen the kitchen before, and I spent a moment looking around
(old-fashioned tilework, towering cabinets) before it sank in on me what
Natalie was saying.
"I've been thinking," she
was saying. "Maybe it would be better if you didn't come anymore."
This should have been okay
with me. It's not as if I enjoyed these visits. But you know how it is
when somebody all at once announces you can't do something. I said, "What!
Just because one Saturday I happen to run a little behind?"
Her eyes seemed to be resting
slightly to the left of my left shoulder. Her face was as untroubled as
a statue's.
"I'm traveling from a whole
other city, for God's sake!" I told her. "A whole entirely other state!
No way can you expect me to arrive here on the dot!"
"It's funny," she said reflectively.
"I used to believe it was very important for Opal to keep in touch with
you. But now I wonder if it might be doing her more harm than good. All
those Saturdays you've come late, or left early, or canceled altogether--"
"It was only the once or twice
or three times or so that I canceled," I said.
"And even when you do show
up, I imagine it's started to dawn on her how you live."
"How I live! I live just fine!"
"A rented room," she mused,
"an unskilled job, a bunch of shiftless friends. No goals and no ambitions;
still not finished college at the age of thirty."
"Twenty-nine," I corrected
her. (The one charge I could argue with.)
"Thirty in three weeks," she
said.
"Oh."
There was a sudden silence,
like when the Muzak stops in a shopping mall and you haven't even been
hearing it but all at once you're aware of its absence. And just then
I noticed, on the windowsill behind her, our old china cookie jar. I hadn't
thought of that cookie jar in years! It was domed on top and painted with
bars like a birdcage, and it looked so dowdy and homely, against the diamond-shaped
panes. It made me lose my train of thought. The next thing I knew, Natalie
was gliding out of the kitchen, and I had no choice but to follow her.
Though, in the foyer, I did
say, "Well." And then, in the hall outside, I turned and said, "Well,
we'll see about this!"
The door made almost no sound
when she closed it.
My train home was completely filled, and stone cold to boot. Some problem
with the heating system. I sat next to a Spanish-type guy who must have
started his New Year's partying a tad bit early. His head kept nodding
forward, and he was breathing fumes that were practically flammable. Across
the aisle, this very young couple was trying to soothe a baby. The husband
said, "Maybe he's hungry," and the wife said, "I just fed him." The husband
said, "Maybe he's wet." I don't know why they made me so sad.
After that, it seemed all
around me I saw families. A toddler peeked over his seat back, and his
mother gave him a hug and pulled him down again. A father and a little
girl walked toward me from the club car, the little girl holding a paper
cup extremely carefully in both hands. The foreigner and I were the only
ones on our own, it seemed.
The father glanced at us as
he came close (at the foreigner's head bobbing and reeling, and me with
my jacket collar flipped up and a wad of cottony white stuff poking out
of a tear in one sleeve), and then he glanced away. It made me think of
the passport man, refusing to meet my eyes. And that made me think of
the woman in the feather coat. Sophia. So honorable, Sophia had been;
so principled. So well behaved even when she thought nobody was looking.
Oh, what makes some people
more virtuous than others? Is it something they know from birth? Don't
they ever feel that zingy, thrilling urge to smash the world to bits?
Isn't it possible, maybe,
that good people are just luckier people? Couldn't that be the explanation?
Use of this excerpt
from A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler may be made only for purposes
of promoting the book, with no changes, editing or additions whatsoever,
and must be accompanied by the following copyright notice: copyright ©1998
by Anne Tyler. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted from A Patchwork Planet © Copyright 2008 by Anne Tyler. Reprinted with permission by Fawcett. All rights reserved.
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