Anne Tyler - Saint Maybe

“It is to Ian,” Daphne told her. “Or it almost is.”

“Daphne,” Rita said, “you get to know folks when you rearrange their belongings. Ian’s belongings are so simple. They’re so plain. He owns six books on how to be a better person. The clothes in his closet smell of nutmeg. And have you ever honestly looked at him? He has this really fine face; it’s all straight lines. I thought at first his eyes were brown but then I saw they had a clear yellow light to them like some kind of drink; like cider. And when he talks he’s very serious but when he listens to what I say back he starts smiling. He acts so happy to hear me, even when all I’m talking about is drawer knobs. Okay: so he does that to everyone. I don’t kid myself! Probably it’s part of his religion or something.”

“Well, no,” Daphne said. She felt touched. She was seeing Ian, all at once, from an outsider’s angle. She said, “I didn’t mean to drag you down. I was just thinking of back in school when some of my friends had crushes on him. They used to end up so frustrated. They ended up mad at him, almost.”

“Well, I can understand that,” Rita said. She took a hearty swallow of beer and wiped the foam off her upper lip.

“And he is a good bit older than you,” Daphne pointed out.

“So? We’re both grownups, aren’t we? Anyhow, in some ways it’s me who’s older. Do you realize he’s only slept with two women in all his life?”

“What?” Daphne asked.

“First his high-school sweetheart before he joined the church and then this woman he dated a few years ago, but he felt terrible about that and vowed he wouldn’t do it again.”

Daphne didn’t know which shocked her more: the fact that he’d slept with someone or the fact that he and Rita had discussed it. “Well, how did … how did that come up?” she asked.

“It came up when I invited him to spend the night,” Rita said calmly.

“You didn’t!”

“I did,” Rita said. “Bartender? Same again.” She met Daphne’s eyes. “I invited him when he came about the bureau,” she said, “but he declined. He was extremely polite.”

“I can imagine,” Daphne said.

“Then all last weekend I waited to hear from him. I haven’t done that since junior high! But he didn’t call, and so here I sit, drinking away my sorrows.”

He wasn’t ever going to call, but Daphne didn’t want to be the one to tell her. “Gosh! Look at the time,” she said. She asked the bartender, “What do I owe?” and then she made a great to-do over paying, so that when she turned back to say goodbye, it would seem the subject of Ian had entirely slipped her mind.

Agatha and Stuart didn’t come home for Christmas. Stuart was on call that weekend. Thomas came, though, and they spent a quiet holiday together, rising late on Christmas morning to exchange their gifts. Ian gave Daphne a key chain that turned into a siren when you pressed a secret button. (He was always after her about the neighborhoods she hung out in.) Her grandfather gave her a ten-dollar bill, the same thing he gave the others. Thomas, the world’s most inspired shopper, gave her a special crystal guaranteed to grant steadiness of purpose, and Agatha and Stuart sent a dozen pairs of her favorite brand of black tights. Daphne herself gave everybody houseplants — an arrangement she’d made weeks ago when she still worked at Floral Fantasy.

For Christmas dinner they went to a restaurant. Daphne viewed this as getting away with something. If Agatha had been home, she never would have allowed it. But Agatha might have a point, Daphne thought as they entered the dining room. The owner kept his place open on holidays so that people without families had somewhere to go, and at nearly every table just a single, forlorn person sipped a solitary cocktail. Across the room they saw Mrs. Jordan, which made Daphne feel guilty because if Bee were still alive she would have remembered to invite her. But then Ian and the owner conferred and they added an extra place setting and brought her over to sit with them. Mrs. Jordan was as adventurous and game as ever, although she must be in her eighties by now, and once they’d said grace she livened things up considerably by describing a recent outing she’d taken with the foreigners. It seemed that during that peculiar warm spell back in November, she and three of the foreigners had driven to a marina someplace and rented a sailboat; only none of them had ever sailed before and when they found themselves on open water with a stiff breeze blowing up, the one named Manny had to jump over the side and swim for help. After they were rescued, Mrs. Jordan said, the marina owner had told them they could never take a boat out again. They couldn’t even stand on the dock. They couldn’t even park on the grounds to admire the view. By now she had them laughing, and she raised a speckled hand and ordered a bottle of champagne—“And you must join us, Ezra,” she told the owner — along with a fizzy apple juice for Ian. It turned out to be a very festive meal.

In the evening Claudia and her family telephoned from Pittsburgh, and Agatha from California. Agatha didn’t seem as distressed about the restaurant as she might have been. All she said to Daphne was, “Did Ian bring Clara?”

“Clara? No.”

Agatha sighed. She said, “Maybe we’ll just have to marry Grandpa off, instead.”

“Actually, that might be easier,” Daphne told her.

In January Daphne started working at the wood shop, performing various unskilled tasks like oiling and paste-waxing. She had done this several times before while she was between jobs, and although she would never choose it for a permanent career she found it agreeable enough. She liked the smell of sap and the golden light that the wood gave off, and she enjoyed the easy, stop-and-go conversation among the workmen. It reminded her of kindergarten — everyone absorbed in his own project but throwing forth a remark now and then. Ian didn’t join in, though, and whenever he said anything to Daphne she was conscious of the furtive alertness in the rest of the room. Clearly, he was considered an oddity here. It made her feel sorry for him, although he might not even notice.

The Friday before Martin Luther King Day, Agatha and Stuart flew in for the long weekend and Thomas came down from New York. Agatha toured the house from basement to attic, checking the results of the Clutter Counseling. She approved in general but pointed out to Daphne that a sort of overlayer was beginning to sprout on various counters and dressers. “Yes, Rita warned us that might happen,” Daphne said. “She offers a quarterly touch-up service but I swore I would do it myself.”

Agatha said, “Hmm,” and glanced at the cat’s flea collar, which for some reason sat on the breadboard. “I wonder how much one of these touch-ups would cost.”

“I could probably get a bargain rate,” Daphne told her. Shoot, she could probably get it for free, if Rita still had her crush on Ian. But maybe she had recovered by now. Daphne hadn’t seen her since that evening in the bar.

Saturday Agatha and Stuart attended an all-day conference on bone marrow transplants, and that night they had dinner with some of their colleagues. This may have been why, on Sunday, they agreed to go to church with the rest of the family. They had barely shown their faces, after all, and tomorrow they would be flying out again. Ian was thrilled, you could tell. He talked his father into coming along too, which ordinarily was next to impossible. Churches ought to look like churches, Doug always said. He was sorry, but that was just the way he felt.

It was coat weather, but sunny, and so they went on foot — Doug and Ian, then Thomas and Stuart, with Agatha and Daphne bringing up the rear. As they passed each house on Waverly Street, Agatha inquired about the occupants. “What do you see of the Crains these days? Does Miss Bitz still teach piano?” It wasn’t till that moment that Daphne realized how much had changed here. The Crains, no longer newlyweds, had moved to a bigger house after the birth of their third daughter. Miss Bitz had died. Others had gone on to condominiums or retirement communities once their children were grown, and the people who took their places — working couples, often, whose children attended day care — seemed harder to get to know. “All that’s left,” Daphne said, “are the foreigners and Mrs. Jordan.”