Miriam Toews - A Boy of Good Breeding

Damn, thought Hosea. He still hadn’t installed one of those endless-tape answering machines. She should what? he thought. She always seemed to forget about the length of the tape. Sometimes she’d call back — sometimes two or three times — and just carry on with her monologue, entirely unruffled by the fact that she’d been abruptly cut off. This time she hadn’t called back to continue. Why not? Details like this could give Hosea chest pain. Did it mean she was angry at being cut off? Or if not angry, then (and this was worse), oh God, offended? Had she been suddenly incapacitated by an aneurism? Or was she simply in a hurry to get on the bus to see her sugarbaby, her man, Hosea? Hosea would just have to wait and see. But oh, how he hated to wait. Why hadn’t old Granny Funk stuck her bobby pin in the book of Job when they were naming him, instead of at Hosea? Hosea! Could Lorna really love a man she called Hose? He glanced at his watch, a Christmas present from Lorna before she knew him well enough to know that he was never late for anything, and in fact already owned five working watches. Okay, if she takes the 6:15 bus, thought Hosea, she’ll be here at 7:15. That gave him exactly half an hour to get things ready, maybe call the doctor and still make it to the bus depot to pick Lorna up. Hosea decided to make the call first.

“Dr. Bonsoir?”

“Hosea?”

“Yes, Doctor, Hosea Funk here. Yes, I know. Well then, okay. Any news over there?”

“News?” said the doctor.

“Yes, news. Has Mrs. Epp—”

“No, she has not. Hosea, I’m a busy man. I’m sure you understand.”

“Why yes, yes, indeed I do, but then, quickly, before I go, how’s, uh … Leander?”

“Do you mean Mr. Hamm?”

“Yes, yes, that’s the one. How’s he doing? Not good. I see. Any prognosis or—”

“No, I do not have a prognosis, nor would I be giving it out over the phone to … non-family members.”

“I see, but—”

“Hosea?”

“Yes?”

“I have to see to a patient.”

“Of course, well then, thank-you, Doctor.”

“Mmmmm,” said the doctor in reply.

“Au revoir, Doctor,” said Hosea cheerfully.

“Good-bye, Hosea.”

Well, of course he was busy, he was a doctor, thought Hosea. No problem. He’d go back to the hospital and see for himself how things were. Hosea checked his watch. Lorna would be pulling up in front of the pool hall, which doubled as a bus depot, in a few minutes. He grabbed two old tablecloths of Euphemia’s. One he threw over the dining room table and the other he draped over his shoulder. He lugged his exercise bike downstairs and put it into its usual hiding place, behind the furnace next to the hot water tank. He yanked the tablecloth that was on his shoulder and threw it over the bike. One time Lorna had said, “You know, Hosea, you’re in great shape for a man your age and you don’t even care. That’s what I like about you.”

Since then, Hosea had pedalled furiously every morning on his bicycle to nowhere — as Euphemia had called it — and had hid it in the basement each time Lorna came to visit.

Hosea checked his watch. Damn, he thought. The tape!

“You’re late,” said Lorna.

“I know. I’m sorry,” said Hosea. He couldn’t tell Lorna the real reason he was late, and he hadn’t had time to make one up, so he stood there, thumping his breast with his big green Thinsulate glove (because he couldn’t get a proper pincer grip to tug), and hoping her love for him would sweep this latest infraction right under the rug. It had taken Hosea twenty minutes to set his new Emmylou Harris tape to exactly the right song. Fast forward, oops too far — rewind. Too far, fast forward again. Darn! Too far again! He had planned to rush into the house ahead of Lorna and push play on his tape deck so that as she entered the house she would hear Emmylou singing “Two More Bottles of Wine,” at which point Hosea would produce two bottles of wine, red for the heart, one in each hand, and they would sit down and have a drink.

None of this happened. The tape hadn’t played when he’d pushed play because he had, in his haste, unplugged the tape deck to plug in his tri-light desk lamp to create more of a mood. He hadn’t been able to find his corkscrew for the wine and so, while Lorna roamed around the house switching lights on and wondering out loud why it was so dark in there, he had rammed the cork down the neck of one of the bottles with his ballpoint pen and then spilled the wine all over himself when it splurched out around the cork. He used the tea towel hanging on the fridge handle to wipe up the wine and then, pushing the cork way down with his pen, managed to pour two glasses without much spillage.

He brought the wine to Lorna and sat down beside her on the couch. “Oh thanks, Hose,” she said.

“Lorna?” said Hosea. “Are you mad at me?”

Lorna shifted around to look at him. “Why would I be mad at you?”

Hosea jerked his head towards the answering machine. “Well, because of your message. You didn’t call back to finish it. Usually you do.”

Lorna put her wine down and took Hosea’s hand in hers. She slung one of her legs over his and stroked the top of his hand with her thumb. “Hosea,” she said, “you really are something, you know that?”

Hosea used his remaining free hand to flatten her hand over his and stop her from stroking. He longed for his glass of wine, but now his hands were busy. He smiled at Lorna. “You’re something, too,” he said.

“I suppose I am,” said Lorna.

Hosea shifted slightly and smiled again. He stared at their hands, tangled together and resting on Lorna’s thigh. He noticed that the middle knuckles on Lorna’s fingers were wider than the other parts of her fingers, whereas his own fingers tapered to a point. He wished his fingers were more like Lorna’s.

“Hmmmm,” murmured Lorna.

“Lorna?” said Hosea.

“Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, Hosea, I am not mad at you. Look at me here. I’m trying to get closer to you. Jesus, Hose, can’t you figure it out?”

“But what about the message on the—”

“I was in a hurry, okay? I love you, I’m not mad at you. I love you.”

“Well, what were you going to say, I should what, you should what? You know, you were going to say you should do something and I …”

“I was going to say, ‘I should go if I’m gonna make the bus.’ That’s what I should do, go. Okay? Go so I could make the bus to get to you! ”

Lorna sighed, removed her hands from Hosea’s, and used one of them to reach for her glass of wine.

“Well, now you’re mad then, aren’t you?” asked Hosea.

“Hosea, what the hell is your problem? Why do you have to derail every romantic moment in our lives with your paranoid worrying? Do you do it on purpose? Maybe you don’t love me, maybe you’re mad at me and you don’t know how to tell me, and you turn it around to make it look like I’m mad at you and then you won’t feel so bad, and you’ll be the martyr. Great. Now I am mad at you.”

“I knew it,” said Hosea. “And I do love you.” He looked at his hands, at his tapered fingers. They were pudgy, he thought. Why? The rest of him wasn’t fat. Could he lose weight in his fingers? They looked childish to him. He slipped them under his thighs for a few seconds, then pulled them up and folded them behind his head. Just a minute ago Lorna had been stroking one of his hands and he had wanted her to quit. Now he wanted her to continue, more than anything. He reached for his glass of wine.

“No, you do not know it, Hose, I’m not really mad at you. Can’t we just have a normal time together?”

“That’s what I really want, Lorna.”