Anne Tyler - Saint Maybe

“But the silliest,” Reverend Emmett said, “is the Sugar Rule.”

“Oh, well …” Ian said.

It wasn’t as if this subject hadn’t come up before, here and there.

“I knew almost from the start I’d made a mistake on that one. I just didn’t know how to get out of it. And truthfully, I never felt sure that I wasn’t merely rationalizing, once I’d seen how hard the rule was to follow. But in the hospital I was reading this book Sister Nell brought me. This nutrition book. I was trying to learn how to eat more healthily. Although,” he said, waving a hand toward the potato chips, “I may not always act on what I’ve learned. Well, I came upon a discussion of sugar, and do you know what? It’s not a stimulant.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s a tranquilizer.”

“It can’t be,” Ian said.

“It’s a tranquilizer. Oh, it gives you energy, all right. Physical energy. But as far as the mental effect: it lulls you.”

“Well, uh …”

“Want to know what is a stimulant?”

“What?”

“Milk.”

Ian thought about that. He started grinning.

“See?” Reverend Emmett said. He was grinning too. “How could you give answers any more wrong than mine have been, Ian? Why, you could be a better minister with one hand tied behind you!”

“No one could be a better minister,” Ian said.

He meant it with all his heart. Reverend Emmett must have realized that, because he sobered and said, “Well, thank you.”

“But I’ll think about Bible School, um, Emmett.”

“Wonderful,” Reverend Emmett said. Then he reached for another potato chip. His eyes seemed no longer brown but amber. “Oh,” he said, “it would be so wonderful to have somebody working at my side and calling me Emmett!”

And he popped the entire chip into his mouth and chomped down happily.

Bert was telling the new man, Rafael, how Mr. Brant had discovered his wife had left him. “First he claims she’s kidnapped,” Bert said. “He shows Jeannie the closet: ‘See? All her clothes still hanging here. She can’t have left on purpose.’ ‘Uncle,’ Jeannie goes. She goes, ‘These clothes are her very least favorites. Where’s her silk blouse with the poppies on it? Where’s her turquoise skirt? These are just the extras,’ she goes.”

Rafael tut-tutted. He said, “Womens always got so many emergency backups.”

“Tell about the neighbor,” Greg said, nudging Bert in the ribs.

“Jeannie goes, ‘Uncle, your neighbor Mr. Hoffberg is missing too. His wife is just about frantic.’ Know what he says? Says, ‘Why!’ Says, ‘Why, it’s a rash of kidnaps!’ ”

The three men chuckled. Ian frowned at the bureau he was working on. He should have given Mr. Brant some warning. He wished he had it to do over again.

Unexpectedly, Gideon and the redhead strolled through his memory. Framed by the church’s doorway, they kissed, and Ian all at once straightened.

What if that was the sign he had prayed for inside the church?

But if it was, he had no idea what it meant.

The others went for their break and Ian drove off to pick up Daphne. It was a crisp, glittery day, and the leaves were at their brightest. He found the ride so pleasant that when he reached the school, it took him a moment to notice the place was deserted. Not a single car sat out front; not a single student loitered on the grounds. He got out of the car and went to try the main entrance, but it was locked. A janitor pushing a broom down the hall saw him through the glass and came over to open the door. “School’s closed,” he told Ian. “There’s a teachers’ meeting. Kids got out at noon.”

“Oh. Great,” Ian said. “Thanks.”

He walked around to the phone booth at one side of the building and called home. “Mom?” he said. “Is Daphne there?”

“Why, no, I thought she was at school.”

“They got out at noon today.”

“Well, you might try calling the Locklear girl,” she said. “Shall I look up her telephone number?”

“Never mind,” Ian said.

He wondered how his mother could stay so naive. She must work at it. She still thought the biggest issue confronting a teenaged girl was whether or not to kiss on the first date, and the answer (he’d heard her tell Daphne) was no, no, no. “You have years and years to do all that. You don’t want them saying you’re cheap.”

He drove to Gideon’s — a sagging, unpainted house on Greenmount — and parked sloppily and crossed the porch in two strides and rang the doorbell. No one answered, but he sensed a sudden freezing of movement somewhere inside the house. He opened the screen and knocked on the inner door. Shading his eyes, he peered through the windowpane. He saw a threadbare rug, part of a banister, and then Gideon lumbering down the stairs, tucking his shirt into his jeans. For a moment they faced each other through the glass. Gideon yawned. He opened the door and stuck his head out.

“I’d like to speak to Daphne,” Ian told him.

Gideon considered. “Okay,” he said finally.

He had a burnt, ashy smell, as if his skin were smoldering. And although his shirt was more or less tucked in now, it wasn’t buttoned. A slice of his bare chest showed through. “Daph!” he called. “Your uncle’s here.” He went on facing Ian. Up close, his hair was brittle as broom straw. The color must come from a bottle.

“Ian?” Daphne said. She came clomping down the stairs in her combat boots. Her face looked puckered, the way it did when she first woke up, and her eyes were slits. “What are you doing here?” she asked, arriving next to Gideon.

“I might ask you the same,” Ian told her.

“We had a half day. I forgot to mention.”

“Did you also forget the way home?”

She adjusted an earring.

“Let’s go,” Ian told her. “I’m running late.”

“Can Gideon come?”

“Not this time.”

She didn’t argue. She tossed Gideon a look, and Gideon gazed back at her expressionlessly. Then she unhooked her leather jacket from the newel post. She shrugged herself into it, slung her knapsack over her shoulder, and followed Ian out to the car.

When they’d been driving a while she said, “You didn’t have to be rude to him.”

“I wasn’t rude. I just want to talk to you alone.”

She clutched her knapsack to her chest. Now that she sat so close, he realized she too had that burnt smell. And her lips were swollen and blurry, and a red splotch stretched from her throat to the neckline of her Black Sabbath T-shirt.

“Daph,” he said.

She hugged her knapsack tighter.

“Daphne, some things are not what they seem,” he said.

“Watch out for that car,” she told him.

“I mean some people aren’t what they seem. People you imagine you’ll be with forever, say—”

“That car’s edging over the line, Ian.”

She meant the dark green Plymouth that was wavering a bit in the right-hand lane just ahead. “No doubt some teenager,” Ian grumbled.

“Prejudice, prejudice!” Daphne scolded him. “Nope, it’s an old man. See how low his head is? Some white-haired old man just barely peeking over the steering wheel and hanging on for dear life.”

Ian said, “What I’m trying to tell you—”

“He’s showing off for his girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend!”

“See the lady next to him? Probably this hot-and-heavy pickup from the Senior Citizens’ Center. He’s showing her how in-charge he is, and reliable and steady.”

Ian snorted. He applied his brakes and fell behind, allowing the Plymouth more room.

“You think I don’t know what I’m up to, don’t you,” Daphne said.

“Pardon?”