Anne Tyler - The Clock Winder

“I wouldn’t worry,” Elizabeth told him cheerfully. “I’ll find something. And school begins in September.”

“September!” her father said. “You’ll have rotted away by then.” He raised his head and stared at the photograph. Long deep lines pulled the corners of his mouth down. Was he thinking of when she had been twelve, when he still had some hope she might turn out differently? She suddenly felt sorry for him, and she leaned forward to pat his knee. “Look,” she said. “Maybe I could ask if they need help at the newspaper office.”

“I already did.”

“Oh. You did?”

“I even asked my secretary if she needed an envelope-stuffer. She doesn’t. There is something at the hospital, though — a sort of nurse’s aide, working on the children’s ward—”

“I wouldn’t like it,” Elizabeth said.

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, well, seeing all those children with leukemia and things—”

“There’s nobody in Ellington with leukemia.”

“And there’s so many things you could cause there, I mean, giving out the wrong paper pill cup—”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t do that.”

“Someone did it to me once,” Elizabeth said darkly. “When I was there having my wisdom teeth cut out.”

“That was only a vitamin, Liz.”

“If I did it, it would be cyanide.”

“Dear heart,” said her father, gathering himself together again, “I don’t know where you get all these thoughts, but if you keep on with them you’re going to render yourself immobile. Now, I gather something must have happened up there in Baltimore. All you say is there was a death in the family. Well, it must have been a mighty important death to make you come live here so suddenly, but if you don’t want to discuss it I surely won’t press you. You know, however, that my job has given me right much experience in—”

“No!” said Elizabeth, surprising both of them.

“Was the person who passed on very close to you?”

Passing on made her think of Matthew, not Timothy. She blinked at Matthew’s face, which used to be so warm against her cheek and now made her feel merely cold and shut away.

“Well, we won’t go into that if it bothers you,” her father said after a pause. “But do you know what I would tell you if you were a member of my church? ‘Young lady,’ I’d say, ‘you need to get outside yourself a little. Join a group. Do volunteer work. No man is an—’ ”

“Maybe I could be a garbage collector,” Elizabeth said.

“Please try to be serious a moment. Now, there is one opportunity I haven’t brought up yet. A sort of companion for old Mrs. Stimson’s father. I mention this as a last resort because, frankly, I consider the man beyond need of companionship. His mind is failing. Taking care of him would be a waste of your talents, and I recommend—”

“Would I have to give him pills?”

“Pills? No, I don’t—”

“I’ll take it,” Elizabeth said.

“Liz, honey—”

“Why not?” She rose and stubbed out her cigarette in a paper clip tray. “When do I start work?”

“Well, there is the matter of an interview,” her father said. “We’ll have to let you talk to Mrs. Stimson. But I wonder if you shouldn’t think this through a little more.”

“Didn’t you tell me to get a job? I’m ready to go any time you are.”

“All right,” her father said. He pulled a leather address book toward him and leafed through the pages. “I’ll just give her a ring. Meanwhile, could you change?”

“Change?” Elizabeth stared at him.

“Your clothes. Change your clothes , Liz. Put on a nice frilly dress.”

“Oh,” said Elizabeth. “Okay.”

When she left, her father was just reaching for the phone with that broad, sweeping gesture that meant he was back to being a minister again.

She went to her room and changed into the wrinkled beige dress that she had worn home. She slipped her bare feet into ballerina flats and pulled her hair off her face with a rubber band. Then she went out to the living room, where her parents were waiting. They sat side by side on the couch, like a wedding picture. Her mother looked unhappy. “Elizabeth,” she said immediately, “I don’t think this is the job for you at all.”

“Well, that’s what I’m going to find out,” Elizabeth said.

“Honey, Mr. Cunningham needs a practical nurse . That’s what you’d be doing. Why, they say they can’t make sense out of half he says, you’d go out of your mind in a week.”

“It’s only till September.”

“John?” Her mother looked at her father, waiting for him to help out — a rare thing for her to do. (“Don’t tell your father,” she had once said, “but it’s a fact that from the day they’re born till the day they die, men are being protected by women. Here at least. I don’t know about other parts of the world. If you breathe a word of this,” she said, “I’ll deny it.”) Her father only frowned and smoothed his forehead. “It’s better than wasting away at home,” he said.

“She’d be more wasted there. Here at least she could — oh, I don’t know—”

“Walk the dog,” Elizabeth suggested.

“Oh, Elizabeth.”

Her mother went back to her mending, shaking her head. Elizabeth and her father left. Behind them, Hilary yelped anxiously and flung herself at a picture window.

The Stimsons lived in town, in a narrow frame house whose sides were windowless. Wooden curlicues ran under the eaves of the porch. It was Mrs. Stimson who answered the door for them. “Oh, Elizabeth, honey,” she said, “isn’t it nice to see you again. Jerome, you remember—”

“Yes indeed, yes indeed,” said Mr. Stimson from behind her. “And how are you, Reverend?”

He stepped forward to shake hands. He and his wife could have been twins — both small and round, middle-aged. When he shook hands Elizabeth’s father laid his other hand on top of Mr. Stimson’s — a habit he had when greeting church members. “Good seeing you, Mr. Stimson,” he said. “How’s that lumbago doing?”

“Oh, can’t complain. Just a twinge now and then, don’t you know, when the—”

“Well, let them in, Jerome. Won’t you all come in?”

Mrs. Stimson led the way into a tiny living room, which had heavily veiled windows and plush furniture with carved legs. Everything wore a settled look, as if it had been there for centuries. Even the seashells and gilt-framed photographs seemed immovable. “Sit down, won’t you?” Mrs. Stimson said. “Elizabeth, I declare, are you still growing ? Why I remember when you were no bigger than a Coke bottle and now look. How tall are you, honey?”

“Five-nine,” Elizabeth said glumly.

“Hear that?” Mr. Stimson asked her father. “Kind of takes you by surprise, don’t it?”

“Oh, yes, yes it does. All you have to do is turn your back a minute and—”

“Now tell me about your boyfriends,” Mrs. Stimson said. “I just know you must have dozens.”

“What I really came for was to talk about the job,” Elizabeth said.

She had thrown the conversation out of rhythm. Everyone paused; then her father said, “Yes, honey, but first I just have to ask, I can’t believe my eyes. Mrs. Stimson, are those African violets? Why, you must have the greenest thumb in Ellington!”

Mrs. Stimson smiled into her lap and made tiny pleats in her print dress. “Oh, pshaw, that’s not anything,” she said. “Well, I do have this love of flowers, I guess you might call it—”

“Now, Ida, don’t go being modest,” Mr. Stimson said. “She could make an old stick bloom, Reverend, she’s got the damnedest — or, excuse me. But she does have a way with growing things.”