Anne Tyler - Saint Maybe

At dinner Mr. Kitt offered an account of his entire fifth-grade experience. “I do believe,” he said, “that everything that’s gone wrong in my life can be directly traced to fifth grade. Before that, I was a roaring success. I had a reputation for smartness. It was me most often who got to clean the erasers or monitor the lunchroom, so much so that it was whispered about by some that I was teacher’s pet. Then along comes fifth grade: Miss Pilchner. Lord, I can see her still. Brassy dyed hair curled real tight and short, and this great big squinty fake smile that didn’t fool a person under age twenty. First day of school she asks me, ‘Where’s your ruled paper?’ I tell her, ‘I like to use unruled.’ ‘Well!’ she says. Says, ‘In my class, we have no special individuals with their own fancy-shmancy way of doing things.’ Right then and there, I knew I’d hit hard times. And I never was a success after that, not then or ever again.”

“Oh, Mr. Kitt,” Miss Pennington said. “What a pity!”

“Well now, I, on the other hand,” their grandpa said from the head of the table, “I was crazy about fifth grade. I had a teacher who looked like a movie star. Looked exactly like Lillian Gish. I planned to marry her.”

This was a little too close for comfort; all three children shifted in their chairs. But Miss Pennington merely smiled and turned to Ian. She said, “Ian, I hope you have happy memories of fifth grade.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Ian said without interest. He didn’t look up from his plate; he was cutting his meat.

“Did you attend school here in Baltimore?” she asked him.

Her voice was so bendable; it curved toward him, cajoling, entwining. But Ian merely transferred his fork to his right hand, seeming to move farther from her in the process. “Yes,” he said shortly, and he took a bite of meat and started chewing. Why was he behaving this way? He was acting like … well, like a laborer, in fact.

Finally their grandma spoke up in his place. “Yes, indeedy! He went all twelve years!” she said brightly. “And you know, Miss Pennington—”

“Ariana.”

“Ariana, I was a teacher, back about a century ago.”

“Oh, Ian mentioned that.”

“I taught fourth grade in the dark, dark ages.”

“Me too,” Sister Harriet said suddenly.

Everyone looked at her.

“I taught seventh,” she said. “But I wasn’t very good at it.”

Ian said, “Now, Harriet. I bet you were excellent.”

“No,” she said. “It’s true. I just didn’t have the — I don’t know. The personality or something.”

Well, that was for sure. The three children traded amused sidelong glints.

Leaning forward so earnestly that her bolsterlike bosom almost grazed her plate, Sister Harriet said, “Every day I went in was such a struggle, and I had no idea why. Then one night I dreamed this dream. I dreamed I was standing in front of my class explaining conjunctions, but gibberish kept coming out of my mouth. I said, ‘ Burble -burble-burble.’ The students said, ‘Pardon?’ I tried again; I said, ‘ Burble -burble-burble.’ In the dream I couldn’t think what had happened, but when I woke up I knew right away. You see, the Lord was trying to tell me something. ‘Harriet,’ He was saying, ‘you don’t speak these children’s language. You ought to get out of teaching.’ And so I did.”

“Well, my goodness,” their grandma said, sitting back in her chair.

But Ian was regarding Sister Harriet seriously. “I think that was very brave of you,” he told her.

She flushed and said, “Oh, well …”

“No, really. To admit the whole course of your life was wrong and decide to change it completely.”

“That does take courage,” Miss Pennington said. “I agree with Ian.” And she sent him a radiant smile that he didn’t appear to notice.

Was he blind, or what?

This past Easter, one of the foreigners had dropped by with his younger sister who was visiting from her college. She might have stepped out of the Arabian Nights; she was dark and slim and beautiful, with a liquid, demure way of speaking. Twice her brother had made pointed references to her eligibility. “High time she find a husband and settle down, get herself a green card, develop some children,” he said, and he told them it was up to him to locate a suitable husband for her, since his family still believed in what he called organized marriage. But Ian hadn’t seemed to understand, and later when Daphne asked if he’d thought the sister was pretty he said, “Pretty? Who? Oh. No, I’ve never cared for women who wear seamed stockings.”

They should have known right then that no one would ever meet his qualifications.

“Seconds, anyone?” their grandpa was asking. “Mr. Kitt? Miss Pennington? Ian, more roast beef?”

“I wonder,” Ian said, “how many times we dream that kind of dream — something strange and illogical — and fail to realize God is trying to tell us something.”

Oh, perfect. Now he was turning all holy on them. “Ariana,” their grandma said hastily, “help yourself to the gravy.” But Miss Pennington was watching Ian, and her smile was glazing over the way people’s always did when the bald, uncomfortable sound of God’s name was uttered in social surroundings.

“It’s easier to claim it’s something else,” Ian said. “Our subconscious, or random brain waves. It’s easier to pretend we don’t know what God’s showing us.”

“That is so, so true,” Sister Harriet told him.

Miss Pennington’s smile seemed made of steel now.

“Damn,” Daphne said.

Everybody looked at her. Their grandma said, “Daphne?”

“Well, excuse me,” Daphne said, “but I just can’t—” And then she sat up straighter and said, “I just can’t help thinking about this dream I had a couple of nights ago.”

“Oh, tell us,” their grandma said, sounding relieved.

“I was standing on a mountaintop,” Daphne said. “God was speaking to me from a thundercloud.” She looked around at the others — their polite, attentive faces, all prepared to appreciate whatever she had to say. “ ‘Daphne,’ He said — He had this big, deep, rumbling voice. ‘Daphne Bedloe, beware of strangers!’ ”

“And quite right He was, too,” their grandma said briskly, but she seemed less interested now in hearing the rest of it. “Doug, could you send the salad bowl this way?”

“ ‘Daphne Bedloe, a stranger is going to start hanging around your uncle,’ ” Daphne bellowed. “ ‘Somebody fat, not from Baltimore, chasing after your uncle Ian.’ ”

“Why, Daphne! ” their grandma said, and she dropped a clump of lettuce on the tablecloth.

Later, Daphne argued that their grandma was the one who’d hurt Sister Harriet’s feelings. After all, what had Daphne said that was so terrible? Nothing. She had merely described a dream. It was their grandma who had connected the dream to Sister Harriet. All aghast she’d turned to Sister Harriet and said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what’s got into her.” Then Sister Harriet, white-lipped, said, “That’s okay,” and sipped shakily from her water glass, not looking at the others. But she wouldn’t have taken it personally if their grandma had not apologized, Daphne said; and Thomas and Agatha agreed. “She’s right,” Agatha told Ian. “It’s not Daphne’s fault if someone fat was in her dream.”

This was after their guests had departed. They had left at the earliest acceptable moment — Miss Pennington reflective, Mr. Kitt bluff and unaware, Sister Harriet declining with surprising firmness Ian’s offer to walk her home. As soon as they were gone, the grandparents had turned and climbed the stairs to their bedroom.