Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grownups

“Well, Katie flunked her chemistry course.”

Biddy shut the fridge door and gave Rebecca a look.

“Could we peel off the Congratulations ?” Rebecca asked. “Just leave Katie ?”

“Not without any traces, we couldn’t.”

“At least they didn’t cancel,” Rebecca said, lifting down the cake stand from an overhead shelf. “I had to talk mighty fast, as you can imagine. Where’s the cake?”

“In that tin by the stove.”

The tin was a rusty white metal box that had belonged to Mother Davitch. Rebecca took the lid off and peered inside. “Maybe we could cover it with another layer of chocolate,” she said.

“I don’t have any chocolate. Do you?”

“I have peanut butter.”

But all she got for that was another look.

Sometimes Rebecca wondered what Biddy really thought of her. What any of her stepdaughters thought of her, in fact. Of course there’d been a few of those you’re-not-my-mother scenes at the start. (“You cow!” Patch had shouted once. “You big old frumpy fat cow; just wait till my mama gets back!”) By now, though, all three seemed cordial and even affectionate, in an offhand sort of way. When Biddy went through that terrible time at age twenty — losing her fiancé to an asthma attack and discovering she was pregnant just two days later — she had come straightaway to Rebecca; not to her mother. She had told Rebecca the whole situation and asked for her advice. But then she had ignored it. Not only had she made up her mind to keep the baby; but the following week she’d returned to debate moving in with her fiancé’s homosexual brother and then she had ignored that advice as well. “Do what? ” Rebecca had said. “Um, Biddy, it’s awfully nice of Troy to make the offer, but please, think about this. It’s not fair to either one of you. You’ll want to meet a new man someday, whether or not you can picture that now, and it won’t be all that easy if you’re installed in another man’s house. And you know that Troy will eventually find someone of his own. This is a mistake, believe me!”

Biddy had not believed her. She’d promptly moved in with Troy.

Well, okay: Rebecca had no idea how they’d worked things out between them, but she had to admit they appeared to be a very contented couple. And Dixon could not have asked for a better father.

Still, wouldn’t you think that Biddy could have considered Rebecca’s words? Or pretended to, at least, for half a minute?

The doorbell rang, and Rebecca went to answer it. A stylish, small-boned woman in her forties stood on the stoop, dressed in a tailored beige pantsuit and tiny boots. “Mrs. Davitch?” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m Susan Arnette. Here to talk to your food person?”

“Oh. Right,” Rebecca said. She’d forgotten she’d set up the meeting. “Come on in, won’t you?”

She was conscious, all at once, of her own outfit. It was too loose and too wrinkled and cluttered, she realized.

On their way to the rear parlor, Mrs. Arnette hung back to ooh and ah. “Those cornices!” she said. “Look at that fretwork!”

“Yes, actually the place dates from… originally belonged to…” Rebecca recited for the thousandth time.

Just once she’d like to counter with, “Those rattly panes! Look at that dry rot!”

She seated Mrs. Arnette on the couch and went to call Biddy, who was bringing in the cake to set on the dining-room table. (“Yum,” Rick volunteered.) Biddy followed her to the parlor, wiping her palms on the seat of her scrubs. “This is Mrs. Arnette,” Rebecca told her. “She wants to discuss the food for her parents’ fiftieth anniversary. Mrs. Arnette, Biddy Davitch.”

Then she tactfully withdrew — returned to the dining room. “How’s it coming along?” she asked Rick, using her loudest, liveliest voice so that she wouldn’t seem to be eavesdropping. Although she was, of course. (Mrs. Arnette had mentioned that she might have her maid do the food, instead; so Biddy would need to scramble.) Rick said, “Oh, just finishing up.” Rebecca pulled out a chair and sat down to watch him work. There was something satisfying about the sweep of his trowel across the ceiling. All that was left of the hole was a patch of shinier white. White dust littered his hair, which was as woolly and thick as a Persian-lamb hat; but he had managed to confine most of his mess to his drop cloth. “See there?” he said. “Mr. Neatness.”

“Good for you, Rick.”

Mrs. Arnette seemed to be telling Biddy about her parents’ troubled marriage. “In fact it’s kind of a miracle that they are still together,” she said. “Twice that I can recollect, Mom has packed her belongings and gone off to live with her sister.”

“Do they have any allergies or aversions?” Biddy asked.

“What? Aversions?”

“Lots of times my older clients take against hot spices, for instance.”

Mrs. Arnette said, “No, not as far as I… Why, once Mom stayed away two years, back when I was in college. Which might mean this is not their fiftieth anniversary after all, come to think of it. Would you say it still counts as fifty years?”

“The baby artichokes, for example,” Biddy said. “I serve them with a very spicy curry sauce.”

Oh, Biddy just hid behind food. It was exasperating. Rick, however, was a whole different story: a shameless gossip, as so many workmen seemed to be. “Of course it counts,” he told Rebecca, wiping his trowel on a cloth. “Remember when me and Deena split for six months and got back together? We still considered that year a full year of marriage, though.” He shouted toward the parlor, “You would only subtract those two years if the separation was court-decreed!”

A slight pause followed, and then Mrs. Arnette lowered her voice and asked about prices.

* * *

Rebecca phoned the roofer; then the appliance man; then the exterminator. (This house would be the death of her.) Then a woman called to complain about the food at her husband’s business party. It had all been so foreign, she said. Rebecca said, “Foreign?”

“It was almost… vegetarian!”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Rebecca told her, “but my stepdaughter does attempt to keep up with the latest trends in…”

She didn’t have to think, even, as she spoke. She’d been fielding calls like this from the early days of her marriage, because the Davitches were notoriously mistrustful of the telephone. (Even Joe, to her amazement — Joe who had phoned so persistently while they were courting.) Whenever the phone rang, they spent an inordinate time debating: “Who can it be?” “It’s not for me.” “Well, I’m not expecting anyone.” “You get it.” “No, it’s your turn.” Often, the caller hung up before they got around to answering. They dreaded placing calls, as well, and would put them off for days. Monday, Phone liquor store, the kitchen calendar read; Tuesday, Phone liquor store; Wednesday, Phone liquor store; till on Thursday, maybe, or Friday Rebecca would step in — inexperienced though she was, a young and tentative bride with no management skills whatsoever — and phone the liquor store herself. She became, by default, the telephone person. By now it was automatic: “Needless to say, we are very concerned that our guests feel satisfied with our…”

She hung up just as Poppy was starting down the stairs from his nap. She heard the tap of his cane and went to help him. “Here,” he said when he saw her, and he paused to search his pockets. “Wait, now; wait, now, I know I put it…” He pulled out another folded square of paper. “Room rates,” he said.

Rebecca thought at first he’d said “roommates.” “For me?” she asked, puzzled.