Suncatchers (2 page)

Shortly after his third book, he had been approached about coauthoring a textbook for college sociology and had, in fact, sat in on a preliminary meeting before he bowed out, unable to tolerate the thought of systematizing all that information. As the other sociologist—a small, intense, bespectacled woman in her late fifties named Natalie Reinhardt—had sat across the table from him excitedly laying out a chapter outline for the textbook, Perry had been overcome with boredom. Why would he want to spend two years of his life working on a book to introduce students to a field of study with which he himself was so thoroughly disenchanted?

He had let Natalie get all the way to chapter nine before he said anything. She was just saying, “And then that chapter will lead very naturally into the next one on ethnic relations, and I
do
feel it needs to be a separate chapter, not just an addendum to the one on social strata” when Perry had politely interrupted. “Excuse me,” he had said, “I don't believe I can do this,” and he had simply gotten up and left the room. Natalie had gone on to write the book alone, and he had heard that it was very good. He had even looked through it once—had felt almost ill scanning the glossary of terms:
anticipatory socialization, ethnocentrism, gemeinschaft, primary deviance, rate of natural increase, utilitarian authority
. On and on they went, all the way to
zero population growth
. He could have rattled off definitions for them all, would have even suggested rewording several of Natalie's had he stuck with the project, but all he felt as he closed the book was extreme relief that he had escaped.

His agent had tried to interest him in a new book about a highly respected adoption agency near Chicago, but Perry had declined, and eventually he had done what any weary researcher would do—simply quit. Trying his hand at fiction writing, he found he could do it, and for the past eight years he had been writing stories. At least he saw a purpose in what he was doing, even if it was the dubious one of entertainment. Most of his novels so far—dozens of short mysteries and adventures targeted mainly at adolescents—had been set in Indiana and Illinois, regions as familiar to him as the letters of the alphabet.

Then there were his more recent science-fiction fantasies set in outer space, which Dinah had begun saying was a place he knew well. It was sometime during this last series of books that Dinah had changed. One day she was leaning over him from behind with her arms clasped over his heart, her own heartbeat steady in his ear, reading and proclaiming what he had just written to be witty and imaginative, and the next day she was on the telephone in the adjacent room telling her newest friend in his hearing that “My husband, yes, Perry Warren—Ph.D., sociologist, and novelist—is as out of touch with life on the planet Earth as he is with how to make a woman happy.”

A few months ago—had it really been so recently?—Dinah had calmly announced to him one morning at breakfast that their marriage was choking the breath out of her and she wanted out, or rather she wanted him out. Dinah never was one to work up to something gradually. He had been so stunned he hadn't even replied, and she had left for work, taking Troy with her to drop off at school.

He had hoped she'd forget about it, but when she returned that afternoon, she came into his study and said briefly, “I meant it, Perry, every word of it.” He had stayed in the house another two months, avoiding her by holing up in his study and trying to pretend nothing had happened. He continued to look over Troy's homework papers and start the dishwasher when it was full and bring in the newspaper, but nothing worked. He couldn't ignore the chill in the house. Troy sensed it, too, and started waking them up with nightmares.

Dinah had known Perry wouldn't fight back, and she was right. He would rather die than go through what he had often heard referred to as a “messy divorce.” She had filed the papers, and he had signed them. And he had finally packed up his boxes and left. So now he was here, bag and baggage, as they said in the South. The divorce would be final after the required separation period, so all he had to do was wait for it to “go through,” as if it were a loan for some major purchase. And in the meantime, he had to try to figure out how he was going to make it through each day without Dinah and Troy, how he was going to bear the dull weight of his heart.

Things had happened fast once they got underway. His sister, Beth, had offered him her house for a year, and his agent and good friend, Cal, had contracted him for a new book, though one Perry still wasn't sure he wanted to do. In the wake of several widely publicized scandals among so-called fundamentalist Christian leaders, the publisher Cal had bargained with wanted a writer who would go to one of these churches for an extended period of time, become involved, observe the members, and then write a full-length book about his experience. The publisher particularly wanted an established professional writer, but one who could tell a good story, not just an academic. “So, see, you're perfect,” Cal had told him on the phone. “This guy's getting them both, a researcher and a storyteller. He's read your stuff. He knows what a deal he's got.”

It would be a good challenge, Cal kept telling Perry, something to take his mind off things. “You could look at it as lucky timing,” Cal had said. “I mean, I know the divorce is rotten and all that, but think about it. There's your sister's house sitting empty for a whole year, and where is it? Right in the heart of Bible Land. And what kind of job do I line up for you? A book about fire-and-brimstone fanatics, and you even said yourself that your sister lives right next door to a family of Bible thumpers. Think about it, Perry. You're a lucky man. This is the perfect thing to get you back on track. Your novels—well, they've done fine, don't get me wrong, but the research will be good for you.”

Perry looked down at the music box he was still holding and shook it a little. He was dismayed to see that during the move one of the little figures had somehow broken loose and was drifting around with the fake snow inside the globe. He curved his hand back over the glass dome and thought suddenly of the big glass doorknobs in old houses. You turned those knobs and walked into strange dark rooms with high ceilings. And you got the same kind of feeling he had now, of being alone in a cold, dark place and wishing you were back home. “A lucky man”—that's what Cal had called him. But lucky men didn't get turned out into the cold.

The woman outside was still sweeping steadily. He moved into the living room to see her better. It didn't seem to be the quickest way to sweep, going in only one direction, right to left. A lot of wasted motion.

But then he realized he had never really swept a driveway. Maybe you did it that way to direct the dirt so it didn't swirl up and around and sneak in behind you again. He'd always used a leaf blower. Well, okay, maybe Dinah had used it more than he had, but he was the one who had gone down to Sears to buy it. He didn't even know if they'd owned a broom, now that he thought about it. He couldn't remember having seen one around the house anywhere. Maybe there had been one, though, and Dinah had kept it for herself, which wasn't very fair considering she had also kept the leaf blower.

He heard somebody call—a full, resonating voice—and Jewel turned around and squinted toward the house. Maybe it was the old lady. The one Beth had called “a real case.” Or maybe the boy. He saw Jewel shake her head and smile a little at whoever it was. “In a minute,” she said. “When I'm done here,” and she turned back to her sweeping. She was working along the side of the driveway now, closer to him. Some of the dust and leaves flew over into his driveway, but she didn't seem to notice it. Thanks a lot, lady, he thought.

Why not go out and meet her now? He could pretend to be getting something from the car, and then he'd catch sight of her and say, “Oh, hi there. I was just getting something from my car.” Then she'd say something and they would introduce themselves and then that first awkward step would be over. Dinah had always fussed about that—what she called his overplanning everything and using little ploys to avoid being straightforward. He supposed he could just go out and say he'd seen her from the window and wanted to meet her and his name was Perry Warren and he was Beth's brother. Or maybe he should just wait till later. “You're like a little old woman,” Dinah had told him not too long ago. “You fret over the stupidest details. Just quit worrying and stalling and
do
something.” Grown men weren't supposed to worry, she had told him. “And sociologists are supposed to have all their hang-ups worked out.” Dinah was always getting sociology mixed up with psychology.

It was uncanny the way Dinah could read his mind. He'd be sitting in his recliner—just sitting there not doing a thing—and she'd walk by and say, “Oh, stop it! Stop thinking about that proposal! Writers get their ideas rejected all the time! Get on to something else!” Or “Who cares what my mother said about Troy? Get over it!” And the remarkable thing was that she was nearly always right. She always knew exactly what he was thinking. Only once could he recall her being wrong. He had been watching her dust the bookshelves in the den, stretching up to reach the top ones. He was noticing how slim her waist still was, how nicely curved her calves were, when she turned around suddenly. He glanced away immediately but didn't have time to readjust his expression. Passing him on her way to the living room, she had said, “Thinking up a new heroine for your next book, huh? Hope she's as beautiful as the last one—Asdrilla, wasn't that her name?” He hadn't answered. What could he have said? “No, I was just admiring your figure”? One didn't say things like that to his wife. At least
he
didn't.

Well, anyway, the driveways in this neighborhood weren't very long. The woman next door was going to be done with the sweeping soon, so he'd better get on with it if he was going to do it. What could be simpler than meeting a new neighbor? He hoped he could look her in the eye.

He opened the front door and stepped out into the yard. She was down near the curb now but stopped and looked back when she heard the door open. It was then that he realized he was still carrying the snow globe. Well, too late now with her standing there looking at him.

He began talking as he walked across the patchy grass in the front yard. Might as well get it over with. “Hi. You must be—Jewel, isn't it? I'm Perry Warren, and I'll be living here for . . . but I guess you already know that . . . or do you?” He should have thought this out better. He wasn't really looking right at her, more at the telephone pole across the street behind her. He could tell she was smiling at him, though.

“So you're Beth's brother. She told us you'd be moving in sometime this month.”

She put the broom behind her, holding it with both hands like a tap dancer's cane. He was glad she didn't offer to shake hands. There was something too personal about that—an expectancy of trust.

He saw her looking at the music box. “I've been unpacking,” he said.

“That's always a chore,” she said.

She lifted her head a little, and he looked at her eyes. A pale but startling blue, the color of those clear, ice blue candies wrapped in cellophane that looked so cool and fresh but turned out to make your mouth burn. Aquamarine, that was the color. It was the birthstone for some month, he thought, but he couldn't remember now which one. He focused again on the telephone pole.

“Beth told us you're a writer,” she said.

“I guess so. But not for a day or two right now. I haven't found my computer yet in all the boxes . . . it's a mess in there.” He motioned back toward the house.

She laughed. He couldn't remember seeing a woman her age with such pronounced dimples. Didn't dimples untuck as a person's skin aged?

He didn't look right into her eyes but rather in the corner where the skin bunched up into a little fan of pleats. Forty-five had sounded older than it looked. Or maybe he had gotten the age wrong.

“We saw your car and the U-Haul late last night when we got home,” she said. “Sorry we weren't here. Joe Leonard would've helped you carry things in.”

“That's okay. It didn't take all that long really. There wasn't anything too big. Beth left most of her stuff here for the year . . . and all.” He shifted the snow globe to the other hand and looked down at her feet. Navy blue Keds with white socks.

“I was going to see if you could come eat supper with us tonight,” she said. “But I wasn't sure you'd be awake yet on a Saturday.”

He hadn't expected this. He guessed Southern women still did this sort of thing, some of them anyway, but he hadn't thought about being invited over so soon.

“Well, sure . . . I guess so. I don't usually eat much supper, though, but thanks.”

She smiled. “I can tell you're not a big eater from looking at you,” she said. “But you just might be hungry after a day of unpacking.”

Perry found himself wondering why her eyes didn't shine more as she talked. They really should, being that color. Maybe she bore some personal burden that had taken the glow out of her life. He could identify with that.

“We eat around six,” she added, “so come on over anytime before then. It won't be fancy.” She took the broom from behind her and swung it with one hand at a few curled brown leaves along the curb.

“Sure. Okay, thanks,” he said and turned to go.

“I told Beth I'd watch out for you,” she called after him. “Let us know if you need anything.”

Back inside he set the music box down on a small end table and looked around the living room. Beth's sofa, Beth's old hi-fi, Beth's bookshelves, Beth's rugs, Beth's knick-knacks . . . and his boxes. But it could be a lot worse, he reminded himself. At least he didn't have to go to a motel to live the way he'd heard of some ousted husbands having to do. He had a whole house to live in for a whole year. Even if it was in a blue-collar neighborhood like this and in a state like South Carolina—that regularly scored forty-ninth in quality of education. He wasn't sending anybody to school here anyway, so what did he care?