The New Yorker Stories (70 page)

Nelson was forever indebted to Jerome for appearing on the scene when he was five years old, and staying until he was sixteen. Jerome had seen to it that Nelson was spared going to Groton, and had taught him to play every known sport—at least every ordinary sport. But would Nelson have wanted to learn, say, archery?

Nelson wanted to learn everything, though he didn’t want to do everything. He was happy to have quit teaching and wanted to do very little. He liked to know about things, though. That way, he could talk about them. Her cruel nickname for him was No-Firsthand-Knowledge Nelson. It got tedious sometimes: people writing down the names of books from which Nelson had gotten his often esoteric information. People calling after the party was over, having looked up some strange assertion of Nelson’s in their kid’s
Encyclopedia Britannica
and discovered that he was essentially right, but not entirely. They often left these quibbles and refutations on the answering machine: “Dick here. Listen, you weren’t exactly right about Mercury. It’s because Hermes means ‘mediator’ in Greek, so there
is
an element of logic to his taking the souls of the dead to the underworld”; “Nelson? This is Pauline. Listen, Rushdie did write the introduction to that Glen Baxter book. I can bring it next time and show you. He really does write introductions all the time. Well, thanks to you both for a great evening. My sister really appreciated Dale’s copying that recipe for her—though no one can make butterflied lamb like Dale, I told her. Anyway. Okay. Bye. Thanks again.”

Jerome and Brenda would be twenty or thirty minutes away, assuming the plane landed on time, which you could never assume if you knew anything about Logan. Still: Dale could manage a quick shower, if not a bath, and she should probably change into a dress because it seemed a little oblivious to have people over when you were wearing sweats, even if you did have a cashmere sweater pulled over them. Maybe a bra under the sweater. A pair of corduroys, instead of the supercomfortable sweats. And shoes . . . definitely some sort of shoes.

Nelson called from the cell phone. “Need anything?” he said. She could hear Terry Gross’s well-modulated, entirely reasonable voice on the radio. Only Nelson and Terry and her guest were talking in the car: the passengers were silent, in case Dale had forgotten some necessary ingredient. Yes, pink peppercorns. Try finding them on 95 North. And, of course, they weren’t really peppercorns; they were only called peppercorns because they looked like black peppercorns. Or: purple oregano. An entirely different flavor from green.

“Not a thing,” she said. She had changed into black corduroy pants and a white shirt. Keeping it clean would preoccupy her, give her some way to stay a little detached from everyone. She was shy, too. Though she wore bad-girl black boots.

“Brenda wants to see the Wedding Cake House. I thought we’d swing by. Would that mess up your timing?”

“I didn’t cook anything,” Dale said.

Silence, then. Unkind of her, to set his mind scrambling for alternatives.

“Kidding,” she said.

She had toured the Wedding Cake House soon after they moved to the area. It was in Kennebunkport, a huge yellow-and-white creation, with Gothic spires like pointed phalluses. Legend had it that it had been built by a sea captain for his bride, to remind her of their wedding night when he left for sea.

“We’ll be back around four.”

Someone else was talking to Terry Gross in a deep, earnest voice.

“See you soon,” Nelson said. “Hon?” he said.

“Bye,” Dale said. She picked up two bottles of red wine from the wine rack near the phone. A little too close to the heat grate, so no wine was kept on the last four shelves. Not a problem in summer, but a minor inconvenience come cold weather. She remembered that Brenda had been delighted with a Fumé Blanc she’d served last time, and bought the same bottle for her again. Jerome, of course, because of his years in Paris, would have the Saint-Émilion. Nelson had taken to sipping Jameson’s lately. Still, she’d chilled several bottles of white, because he was unpredictable. On the top rack lay the bottle of Opus One an appreciative student from the photography workshop she’d taught had given her. Two nights later, she planned to serve it to the doctor who had diagnosed both her hypoglycemia and her Ménière’s disease, which meant, ironically, that she could no longer drink. If she did, she’d risk more attacks of the sickening vertigo that had plagued her and gone misdiagnosed for years, leaving her sweaty and trembling and so weak she’d often have to stay in bed the day after the attack. “Like taking acid and getting swept up in a tidal wave,” she had said to the otolaryngologist. The woman had looked at her with surprise, as if she’d been gathering strawberries and suddenly come upon a watermelon. “Quite a vivid description,” the doctor had said. “My husband is a writer. He sometimes stops me dead in my tracks the same way.”

“Is he Brian McCambry?” Dale had asked.

“Yes,” the doctor said. Again, she seemed surprised.

Nelson had been the one who speculated that Dr. Anna McCambry might be the wife of Brian McCambry. Dale, herself, had read only a few pieces by McCambry, though Nelson—as she told the doctor—had read her many others.

“I’ll pass on the compliment,” the doctor said. “Now back to the real world.”

What a strange way to announce the transition, Dale had thought, though her symptoms sometimes were the real world for her, crowding out any other concerns. What was more real than telescoping vision, things blurring and swarming you, so that you had no depth perception, no ability to stand? The doctor talked to her about alterations in her diet. Prescribed diuretics. Said so many things so fast that Dale had to call the nurse later that afternoon, to be reminded what several of them had been. The doctor had overheard the call. “Bring your husband and come for drinks and I’ll go over this with you while they talk,” the doctor had said. “ ‘Drinks’ in your case means seltzer.”

“Thanks,” Dale said. No doctor had ever asked to see her out of the office.

She opened the Fumé Blanc but left the bottle of Saint-Émilion corked. How did she know? Maybe Jerome would decide to go directly to the white French burgundy. What hadn’t seemed fussy and precious before did now, a little: people and their wine preferences. Still, she indulged the vegetarians in their restrictions, knew better than to prepare veal for anyone, unless she was sure it wouldn’t result in a tirade. Her friend Andy liked still water, her photography student Nance preferred Perrier. Dale’s mind was full of people’s preferences and quirks, their mystical beliefs and food taboos, their ways of demonstrating their independence and their dependency at table. The little tests: would there happen to be sea salt? Was there a way to adjust the pepper grinder to grind a little more coarsely? A call for chutney. That one had really put her over the top. There was Stonewall Kitchen Roasted Onion and Garlic Jam already on the table. She had sent Nelson for the chutney, since Paul was more his friend than hers.

She went into the downstairs bathroom and brushed her hair, gathering it back in a ponytail. She took off the white shirt and changed back into her cashmere sweater, giving it a tug she knew she shouldn’t give it to make sure it fell just right. She looked at her boots and wished it was still summer; she’d be more comfortable barefoot, but it wasn’t summer, and her feet would freeze. She remembered that Julia Roberts had been barefoot when she married Lyle Lovett. Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett: not as strange as Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley.

Brenda came in first, shaking her thick mane of prematurely white hair. She was full of enthusiasm about the trip to the Wedding Cake House. It was
amazing, beautiful
, somehow sort of
weird
—a little creepy, some woman living inside her wedding cake like the old woman who lived in a shoe. Then Brenda began apologizing: she had insisted they drive down the longest dirt road in history, to get a basket of apples. Nelson put the basket down on the kitchen island, which Dale would soon need every inch of to do the final dinner preparations. She could no longer eat apples, or anything excessively sweet. She was sick of explaining to people what she couldn’t eat, and why. In fact, she had started to say she was diabetic, since everyone seemed to know that that meant you couldn’t eat sugar. There was also the possibility that the apples might be Brenda and Jerome’s, to take back to New York, so she said, “Nice,” rather than “Thank you.”

The real owners of the house obviously must have loved to cook. The kitchen was well laid out, with the exception of the dishwasher being to the left of the sink. Dale had become so adept at using her left hand to load the dishwasher that she thought it might be amusing to be both diabetic and left-handed. By the time she left the house, she might be an entirely different person.

“It’s great to see you. Did you get my note? You didn’t go to a lot of trouble, did you?” Jerome said, squeezing Dale, then letting go.

Brenda was still in a dither. “We didn’t mess you up, did we?” she said.

“Not at all,” Dale said.

“I shouldn’t ask, but I’ve been cooped up in the plane, and then in the car. Would there be time to take a walk? A quick walk?”

“Sure,” Dale said. She had just put the roast in the oven to bake. There was plenty of time.

“Would you mind if Nelson and I take a look at that wiring problem? I’m much better when there’s natural light,” Jerome said.

“Oh, he’s on his kick again about how he can’t see or hear!” Brenda said. She added, as if they didn’t know, “He’s
sixty-four
.”

“What wiring problem?” Dale said. She wanted to be barefoot. She wanted to be Julia Roberts, with a big, dazzling smile. Instead, she could feel the skin between her eyebrows tightening.
Wiring problem?
The way Brenda talked got into her brain; in her presence, she started thinking in concerned italics.

“I was trying to hook up speakers in the upstairs hallway. I can get one of them going but not the other. Might be a bad speaker,” Nelson said.

Nelson had spent a good portion of his book advance on new sound equipment. His compromise with Dale was: when guests arrived, there would be no music. So far, the day had consisted of bluegrass, Dylan’s first electric album, Japanese ceremonial music, an hour or so of
La Bohème
, and Astor Piazzolla. Dale had listened to the weather report and one cut from a Lou Reed CD that she imagined might be Jerome’s theme song. She was fond of Jerome, but he did think he was God’s gift to women.

“You’ll come on a walk with me, won’t you?” Brenda said. She was wearing shoes that would have been inappropriate for a walk, if she hadn’t been Brenda: brown pointy-toed boots with three-inch heels. This year’s hip look, while Dale’s had become the generic. Brenda had shrink-wrapped herself into a black leather skirt, worn over patterned pantyhose. On top was a sweater with a stretched-out turtleneck that Dale thought must be one of Jerome’s. He had kept his collection of French handknit sweaters for twenty-some years.

“Just down the road?” Dale said, gesturing to the dirt road that went past the collapsed greenhouse behind the garage. She liked the road. You could usually see deer this time of the evening. Also, because of the way the road dipped, it seemed like you were walking right into the sky, which had now turned Hudson River School radiant. Dale’s friend Janet Lebow was the only year-rounder at the end of the road. When the nasty summer people left, taking their Dobermans and their shiny four-wheel drives with them, Janet was happy not only to let Dale walk the No Trespassing/Danger/Posted/Keep Out road; Janet usually sent her dog, Tyrone (who was afraid of the summer dogs), out to exercise with Dale. Janet was divorced, fifty going on twenty-five, devoted to tabloids, late-night movies, astrological forecasts, and “fun” temporary tattoos of things like unicorns leaping over rainbows. She was not a stupid woman, only childish and a little too upbeat, traumatized by her ex-husband’s verbal abuse. Janet shuddered when she mentioned her ex-husband’s name and rarely talked about the marriage. Tyrone was a smart golden retriever–black lab mix. When he wasn’t in the tributary to the York River, he was wriggling in the field, trying to shed fleas. The dog and the kitchen were the two things Dale felt sure she would miss most when they had to vacate the house. They had it through the following summer, when the philosophy professor and his wife would return from their year in Munich. By then, Nelson’s book would supposedly be finished. Dale knew she was not going to enjoy the home stretch. Nelson had written other books, which inevitably made him morose because of the enormousness of the task. Then the music selections would really become eclectic.

Dale reached into the flour bin of the Hoosier cabinet and took out her secret stash of doughnut holes, which she bought on Saturdays at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market. She did not eat doughnut holes: they were exclusively for Tyrone, who thought Dale had invented the best game of fetch imaginable. He would race for the doughnut hole, sniff through the field for it, throw it in the air so Dale could see he’d gotten it, then gulp it down in one swallow. She had taken to applauding. Lately, she had started to add “Good dog, Tyrone” to the applause.

“Is that
cigarettes
?” Brenda whispered to Dale, though Nelson and Jerome were already walking up the stairs.

“Doughnut holes,” Dale whispered back. “You’ll see.” She plunged what remained of them, in their plastic bag, into the deep pocket of her coat.

“I keep peanut M&M’s in my lingerie drawer,” Brenda said. “And Jerome—you know, he doesn’t think I know he still drinks Pernod.”

“It’s for a dog,” Dale said.

“Pernod?” Brenda asked.

“No. Doughnut holes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on,” Dale said. “You’ll see.”

At dinner—during which Dale could sense Brenda’s respect for her, both as a cook and as a crazy woman (she’d sent three doughnut holes up in the air at the same time, like the last moments of the Fourth of July fireworks)—they discussed the brass sundial Dale had placed atop autumn leaves in the center of the table. Nelson informed everyone that the piece sticking up was called the gnomon.