Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

"Ah, well," Morgan said soothingly. "You got here safely; that's what's important." He took the suitcase from Leon. It weighed more than he'd expected. "Come on in the house," he said. "Bonny! The Merediths are here!" He led them up the front steps and into the living room. The house's smell-mildew and kerosene-struck him for the first time as unfriendly. He noticed that the cushions in the rattan chairs were flat as pancakes, soggy-looking, and the rattan itself was coming loose in spirals from the arms. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. Emily and Leon stared around uncertainly. Gina slouched near the door and peeled a thumbnail. This was her summer to thin out, it seemed. Her halter top sagged pathetically around her flat little chest. Morgan felt he was suddenly viewing everyone, himself in eluded, in terms of geometry: an ill-assorted collection of knobs and bulges parked in meaningless locations. Then Emily said, "I brought a camera."

"Eh?" said Morgan. "Oh, a camera!"

"Just a Kodak."

"But that's wonderful!" he said. "I left mine at home this year. Oh, it's wonderful that you thought of it(" And just then Bonny emerged from the kitchen, smiling, wiping her palms on her skirt. He saw that things would be fine after all. (Life was full of these damp little moments of gloom that came and went; they meant nothing.) He beamed and watched as Bonny hugged everyone. Behind her came his mother, also smiling. "Mother," he said, "you remember the Merediths."

"Of course," she said. She held out a hand, first to Leon and then to Emily. "You brought me that fruitcake last Christmas," she told Emily.

"Oh, yes."

"It had the most marvelous glaze on the top."

"Why, thank you," Emily said.

"And did your husband ever recover from his stroke?"

"Excuse me?" Morgan saw in a flash what must have happened. His mother had Emily confused with Natalie Czernov, a next-door neighbor from Morgan's childhood. Mrs. Czernov had also made fruitcake at Christmas. He was so fascinated by this slippage in time (as if the fruitcake were a kind of key that opened several doors at once, from several levels of history) that he forgot to come" to Emily's rescue. Emily said, "This is my husband right here, Mrs. Gower."

"Oh, good, he's better, then," Louisa said.

Emily looked at Morgan.

"Maybe I should show you where you're staying," he said.

He picked up their suitcase again and led them down the hall to Kate's room. The bed had been freshly made and there was a sleeping bag on the floor for Gina. "The bathroom is next door," he said. "There, are towels above the sink. If you need anything else…"

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Emily said. She opened the suitcase. Morgan glimpsed several new-looking squares of folded clothing. Leon, meanwhile, crossed the room abruptly and looked out the window. (All he would see was a row of dented trashcans.) Then he moved on to the picture that hung over the bed: a dim blue sea, flat as glass, on which rode a boat made of real shells. "We shouldn't have come," he said, peering at a clamshell sail.

"Oh, Leon, we need a rest," Emily told him.

"We have to give a puppet show on Monday morning. That means either we fight the Sunday traffic on the Bridge, or we go back at crack of dawn on Monday, driving like hell to meet the schedule, and Lord help us if we have a flat or any little tie-up on the way. "

"It's nice to get out of the city," Emily told Morgan. She removed a camera from the suitcase and closed the lid again. "Leon thought we couldn't take the time, but I said, 'Leon, I'm tired. I want to go. I'm tired of puppets. '"

"She's tired of puppets," Leon said. "Whose idea were they, I'd like to know? Whose were they in. the first place? I'm only doing what you said to, Emily. You're the one who started this."

"Well, there's no good reason we can't leave them for a weekend, Leon."

"She thinks we can just leave whenever we like," Leon told Morgan.

Morgan passed a hand across his forehead. He said, "Please. I'm sure this will all work out. Don't you want to come see the ocean now?" Neither Leon nor Emily answered him. They stood facing each other across the bed, their backs very straight, as if braced for something serious. They didn't even seem to notice when Morgan left the room.

No, it hadn't been such a good idea to ask them here. The weekend passed so slowly, it didn't so much pass as chafe along. It ground to a stop and started up again. It rasped on Morgan's nerves. Actually, this was not entirely the Merediths' fault. It was more the fault of Brindle, who faded into tears a dozen times a day; or Bonny, who overdid her sunbathing and developed a fever and chills; or Kate, who was arrested in Ocean City on charges of possessing half an ounce of marijuana. But Morgan blamed the Merediths anyhow. He couldn't help but feel that Leon's sulkiness had cast some kind of evil spell, and he was irritated by the way Emily hung around Bonny all the time. (Who had befriended Emily first, after all? Who had first discovered her?) She had changed; just wearing different shoes on her feet had somehow altered her. He began to avoid her. He devoted himself to Gina-a sad, sprouty child at an awkward age, just the age to tear at his heart. He made her a kite from a Hefty bag, and she thanked him earnestly, but when he looked into her face he saw that she was really watching her parents, who were arguing in low voices at the other end of the porch.

He began reflecting on Joshua Bennett, a new neighbor back in Baltimore. This Bennett was an antique dealer. (Now, there was an occupation.) He looked like Henry the Eighth and he lived a gentlemanly life- eating small, expensive suppers, then reading leather-bound history books while twirling a snifter of brandy. Early last spring, when Bennett first moved in. Morgan had paid a call on him and found him in a maroon velvet smoking jacket with quilted satin lapels. (Where would one go to buy a smoking jacket?) Bennett had somehow received the impression that Morgan had descended from an ancient Baltimore shipping family and owned an atticful of antique bronzes, and he had been most cordial-offering Morgan some of his brandy and an ivory-tipped cigar. Morgan wondered if Bennett would have accepted an invitation to the beach. He began plotting his return to Baltimore: the friendship he would strike up, the conversations they would have. He could hardly wait to get back.

Meanwhile the weekend dragged on.

Kate had disgraced the family, Bonny said. Now she was on the police files, marked for life. Bonny seemed to take this very seriously. (Her sunburn gave her a hectic, intense look.) Because the cottage had no telephone, the Ocean City police had had to call the Bethany police and have them notify the Gowers. Naturally, therefore, the news would be everywhere now. Saturday, at breakfast, Bonny laid a blazing hand on Louisa's arm and asked Kate, "How do you think your grandma feels? Her late husband's name, which up till now has been unbesmirched." Morgan had never heard her use the word "unbesmirched" before, and he wasn't even sure that it existed. He took some time thinking it over. Louisa, meanwhile, went on calmly spooning grapefruit. "What do you say, Mother?" Bonny asked her.

Louisa peered out of her sunken eyes and said, "Well, I don't know what all the fuss is about. We used to give little babies marijuana any old time. It soothed their teething."

"No, no, Mother, that was belladonna," Bonny said.

Kate merely looked bored. Brindle blew her nose. The Merediths sat in a row and watched, like members of a jury.

And on the beach-where the ocean curled and flattened beneath a deep blue bowl of sky, and gulls floated overhead as slow as sails-this group was a motley scramble of blankets, thermoses, sandy towels, an umbrella that bared half its spokes every time the wind flapped past, a squawking radio, and scattered leaves of newspaper. Kate, who had been grounded for the rest of her vacation, flipped angrily through Seventeen. Bonny sweated and shivered in layers of protective garments. The white zinc oxide on her nose and lower lip, along with her huge black sunglasses, gave her the look of some insect creature from a science-fiction movie. Gina dug a hole in the sand and climbed into it. Billy and Priscilla made a spectacle of themselves, lying too close together on their blanket.