Anne Tyler - If Morning Ever Comes

“Now, Ben Joe,” she said, “I have to go put another dress on. I didn’t know I was about to have company. You wait in the living room, hear? I’ll be right—”

“But I’m just going to stay a minute,” Ben Joe said. “I only came to say hello.”

“Well, you just wait.”

She turned and darted up the curving stairs, and Ben Joe had to go into the living room alone. He chose a seat at the end of the sofa, nearest the unlit fireplace. The room seemed to him like the huge front room of a long-unused summer house; all the things that were not particularly liked and yet still too good to discard had been left here by the Domers when they moved South. Wicker armchairs and threadbare sofas sat on an absolutely bare wooden floor, and the few decorative items scattered around were worthless — a china spaniel with three puppies chained to her collar by tiny gold chains; a huge framed photograph of a long-ago baseball team; a rosebudded cracked china slipper with earth in it but no plant. Ben Joe shivered. This had been a cheerful room once, back when he was in high school.

He heard Shelley’s shoes on the stairs and a minute later she was in the living room, crossing in front of him with a company smile and a white skirt and sweater that fit better than the old ones. She had combed her hair, although he was sorry to see that it was still in a bun, and there was a little lipstick on her mouth.

“I’m going to get you some coffee,” she said.

“No, I don’t want any.”

“It’s already made, Ben Joe. You wait here and I’ll—”

“No, please . I don’t want any.”

“Well, all right.”

She sat down on the edge of a wicker armchair with her hands on her knees.

“Where’s Phoebe?” Ben Joe asked.

“Phoebe.”

“Phoebe your sister.”

“Oh,” she said. All the breath seemed to have left her; she gasped a little and said, “Phoebe and Mama and Daddy, all of them, they’re dead, you mustn’t have heard, it only happened a while—”

“Oh, no, I never—”

“They had a wreck.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben Joe said. He thought of the small white blur in the upstairs window, still almost realer than Shelley herself. He watched Shelley’s fingers twisting a pearl button on her sweater. “Nobody told me,” he said helplessly.

“I only been back a while now. Not many people know about it.”

“Was … How old was Phoebe?”

“Seventeen.”

“Oh.” He fell silent again, and tugged gently at one of the little cotton balls on the sofa upholstery.

“How are your sisters?” Shelley asked suddenly.

“They’re fine.” Almost immediately he felt guilty for that; he thought a minute and then offered: “Joanne’s left her husband, though.”

“Left him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I declare.”

“She’s back home now.”

“Well.”

“Her and her baby.”

“I’m going to get you some coffee,” Shelley said.

“No, wait. I’ve got to be—”

“It’s hot already.” She stood up and almost ran to the kitchen, still managing to make it slow motion. Behind her, Ben Joe shifted in his seat uneasily and crossed his legs.

“You’re hungry too, I bet,” she said when she entered the room again.

“No, I’m all right.”

“You look right thin to me, Ben Joe. I got this marble cake from the Piggly-Wiggly. Course it’s not real homemade, but anyway—”

“Shelley, I really don’t want it.”

“Well, all right, Ben Joe.”

She was carrying a chipped tin tray with two cups of coffee on it and a sugar bowl and cream pitcher that didn’t match. When she set it on the coffee table everything clinked like the too-loud clinking of tea sets in movies.

“You take yourself lots of sugar,” she said. “I declare, you are thin.” She hovered over him, shadowlike, while he took up his coffee cup. He could smell her perfume now — a light, pink-smelling perfume — and when she bent over the table to hand him the sugar bowl, he could even smell perfume in her hair. Then she moved back to her seat, and he relaxed against the sofa cushions.

“Seems like I have got to get used to you all over again, it’s been so long,” Shelley said. “Are you feeling talky?”

He had forgotten that. She always asked him that question, to give him a chance before she plunged into her own slow, circuitous small talk. This time he remained silent, choosing to have her carry on the conversation, and smiled at her above his coffee cup because he liked her suddenly for remembering. Shelley waited another minute, sitting back easily in her chair. Once the first awkward moments were over, Shelley could be as relaxed as anyone.

“I don’t know if I did right or not,” she said finally, “coming back here like this. But my family’s passing came so sudden. Left me strap-hanging in empty space, like. And I chose to come to Sandhill. I don’t know why, except I was helping to run this nursery school for working mothers’ children down in Georgia and so sick of it, you’ve got no idea, and saw no way out. I think I got something against Georgia. I really do. Seems like if there is one thing makes me ill, it’s those torn-up circus posters on old barns. You know? And Seven-up signs. Well, Georgia’s plumb full of those, though one time this girl I worked with told me she thought it was real snotty of me to say a thing like that. That’s what our trouble was down there — the trash thought we were snotty and the snotty thought we were trash. Now, my daddy had to work himself up the hard way, but you know how fine he was, and anyway his mama’s folks were Montagues, which should have some bearing. And there’s nothing wrong with Mama’s side of the family, either. But anyway I was lonely there. Didn’t seem like there was any group we could really say we belonged to. Back in Sandhill it was better. I always have remembered Sandhill. And I still carry your picture.”

She smiled happily at Ben Joe.

“That real goofy-looking one,” she said, “that we had taken of you in the Snap-Yourself Photo Booth. Mama used to tease me about keeping it — said I might as well throw it out now. Though she always did like you. When you wrote me that letter, after we’d moved, about you starting to date Gloria Herman I thought Mama would cry. She said Gloria was real fast and loud, though it was my opinion that you knew better than Mama who was good for you. And at least you were right honest, telling me. I said that to Mama, too. And then a month later Susan Harpton wrote to tell how Gloria had moved on to someone new and you’d started dating Pat Locker. It got so I couldn’t keep up with you any more. But I wasn’t mad. Things like that happen when people get separated from each other.”

“Well, it was a long time ago,” Ben Joe said.

“It was. I know. Well, don’t you worry, Ben Joe, I’m dating a real nice boy now. You’d like him. His name is John Horner and he’s starting up a construction firm in Sandhill. You know him?”

“Horner.” Ben Joe frowned. “Not offhand,” he said.

“Well. You’d like him, though. Course we aren’t too serious yet — I only been in town a month or so. But he is the kindest man. I don’t know if I could marry him, yet.”

“Has he asked you?”

“No. But I reckon he will one of these days.”

The idea of Shelley’s marrying someone else surprised him. He looked at her as a stranger suddenly, evaluating her. She smiled back at him.

“Course,” she said, “I was surprised he even wanted to date me. But I figured if maybe he could just endure through the first few dates, till I got easy with him and not so silly and tongue-tied any more, it’d be all right. And he did. He endured.”