Anne Tyler - Celestial Navigation

When she opened the door she was wearing a bathrobe and she carried a hairbrush. He noticed that the hairbrush was a wooden one with natural bristles, which gave him a sense of satisfaction. How fitting it was! He could have said from the beginning that she would never be the type to use a nylon hairbrush. But this thought was chosen at random, to take his mind off his embarrassment. He had expected to find her dressed. He had chosen the day and the hour so carefully, knowing that she would be in now and the other boarders out or upstairs; and here she stood in her bathrobe — a pink one, seersucker. Though at least her hair was up. He hadn’t wakened her. The brush was apparently meant for Darcy, who sat crosslegged on the bed in a pair of striped pajamas. “Hi, Mr. Pauling!” she called out. Jeremy couldn’t manage a smile. “These are for, I brought these for the room,” he said. He thrust the bouquet under Mary Tell’s chin. It was terrible to see how his hands were shaking; all the flowers nodded and whispered. “I found them by the trashcans.”

“Oh! Thank you,” she said. She looked at them a moment and then took them. Too late, he thought of the vase. Last night he had decided on his mother’s pewter pitcher from the corner cupboard in the dining room, but this morning it had slipped his mind. “Wait,” he said, “I’ll get a—” but she said, “Don’t bother, I’m sure we have something here. My, what a beautiful shade of blue.”

They’re your blue, Mary-blue, he wanted to tell her. The blue from a madonna’s robe. He had thought of that last night, but he had known all along that he would never dare to say it. Instead he looked over at Darcy, whose eyes — more chicory flowers — surveyed him steadily. “How come you brought them to us?” she asked.

“Why, just, I thought—”

“Never mind, Mr. Pauling,” said Mary Tell. “I know why you’re here.”

Jeremy stood very still, breathing raggedly.

“You just have to understand,” she said. “Financially, things are a little difficult right now. Very soon I should be able to pay you, but—”

“Pay me?” he said. Did she think she had to buy the flowers?

“Pay you your money. I know that Saturday has come and gone but you see, with Darcy not in school yet I have to find work I can do at home. Till then I was hoping you wouldn’t care if the rent was a little—”

“The rent, oh,” Jeremy said. “Oh, that’s all right.”

“It is?”

“Why, of course.”

He kept his eyes on the flowers. It was important to see them safely into the water. And then what? Was he supposed to leave? Yes, almost certainly, in view of the fact that she was wearing a bathrobe. Yet that would make the visit so short, and he wanted to be sure he did everything he was supposed to. He raised his eyes to hers, hoping for a clue. The brilliance of her smile took him by surprise. “Mr. Pauling, I just don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

“Oh, why—”

“You’ve really been very kind.”

“Well, but I believe they should be put in water,” he said.

Then she looked down at the flowers and gave a little laugh, and he laughed too. He had not expected that things would go so well the very first time. He watched her fetch a glass of stale water from the nightstand and set the bouquet in without disarranging a single flower, without upsetting his design. When she was finished she turned and smiled at him, apparently waiting for something. He drew in a deep breath. “Now I wish,” he said, “that you would call me Jeremy.”

“Oh!” she said. “Well, all right.”

He shifted his weight to the other foot.

“And you can call me Mary,” she said after a minute.

“You can call me Darcy,” Darcy said from the bed.

That gave them something new to laugh about, only he laughed hardest and had trouble stopping. Mary by then had returned to her smile. It became a little strained and started fading at the corners, and from that he understood that it must be time for him to go. He was glad that he had managed to catch the signal. He held out his hand and said, “Well, goodbye for now, Mrs. — Mary,” and she said, “Goodbye, Jeremy,” Her hand was harder than his, and surprisingly broad across the knuckles. While he was still holding it he said, “Um, may I come back sometime?”—the final hurdle of the visit. “Well, of course,” she said, and smiled again as she closed the door.

Although he had not had breakfast yet he returned to his studio, because it would have been awkward to run into her again in the kitchen. He went up the stairs on the balls of his feet, feeling weightless with relief. Not even the discovery that he still carried the chocolates — a warped cardboard heart plastered to his chest — could spoil his day. He only blushed, and then smiled too widely and sat down on his bed. He could always take them to her on another visit, couldn’t he? There were going to be lots of other visits. But while he was planning them he absently opened the box, and he took first one chocolate and then another and then a whole handful. They had begun to melt, and they stuck to the paper doily that covered them and left imprints on his palm, but they tasted wonderful and the sweetness seeped into every corner of him and soothed his stretched, strained nerves.

He knew how these things worked. First you set up the courtship; he had just done that. Then there were certain requirements to be met — holding hands, a kiss — before he could propose. On television there were a lot of frills as well, people running through meadows together and pretending to be children at zoos and fairs and amusement parks, but he knew better than to try for anything like that. He wasn’t the type. She wasn’t the type. And after all, he had done very well so far, hadn’t he? He had completed the first step without any problems, and now he felt more confident about what was left.

Only it turned out not to be so easy. For the next morning, when he had made a pot of percolated coffee and knocked at her room, she opened the door only halfway and it seemed as if some veil fell immediately across her face. “Yes?” she said.

Today she was dressed. (He had deliberately waited fifteen minutes later than yesterday.) Even Darcy was dressed. Then why did she seem so unwelcoming? “I just made some coffee I wondered if you’d like some,” he said all in a rush.

“No, thank you, I don’t drink coffee.”

That possibility had not occurred to him. “Tea, then?” he said.

“No, thank you.”

“Well, maybe you’d just like to have a glass of milk with me.”

“I don’t think so. I have a lot to do today.”

He couldn’t leave. He had promised himself he would see this through. “Please,” he said, “I don’t understand. Have I done something to offend you?”

Mary sighed and looked over her shoulder at Darcy, who was peacefully stacking dominoes on the rug. Then she stepped out of her room and shut the door behind her. She said, “Come into the parlor a minute, Mr. Pauling.”

Yesterday she had called him Jeremy. He felt like someone deaf or blind, prevented by some handicap from picking up clues that were no doubt clear to everybody else. “Is it something I’ve said?” he asked, stumbling after her. “You see, I just have no inkling …”

She led him to the couch, where he sat down while she remained standing. Then he realized his mistake and jumped up again. “Oh, excuse me,” he said.

“Mr. Pauling,” said Mary, “I realize that I’m behind on my rent.”

“Oh. Well, I thought we—”

“We had a talk about that yesterday. You said you wouldn’t pressure me for it. But I never suspected that there were strings attached.”