Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grownups

Meanwhile, she was just standing there. It was Rebecca who located the strawberries. “Here,” she told Peter. “Fill in that place in the middle and put some more around the edges.”

Peter first wiped his palms on the seat of his jeans, and then he took the bowl from her and started gingerly, meticulously placing the berries just so.

“Not much of an appetite out there,” Dixon said, walking in with two plates that looked untouched. “Do you think that’s a good sign, or bad? I’m pretty sure he hasn’t proposed yet, because all they’re talking about is some movie they’ve both seen.”

“It’s my cooking,” Biddy said gloomily. “I knew I’d overseasoned that beef heart.”

Rebecca said, “We should have asked if he planned to give her a ring. Then we could have put it in the dessert or something and he’d be forced to propose.”

“A ring! Isn’t she too old for a ring?” Dixon asked.

“With my luck, she’d just eat it,” Biddy said.

Rebecca said, “Now, Biddy, you’re being silly. This is a lovely meal, the beef heart is lovely, and Peter is doing such a nice job with the berries!”

Her voice cracked on a high note, but nobody was paying any attention anyhow. Except, perhaps, for Peter, who took on a full-cheeked look of pride when she complimented his work. He stepped back from the counter and cocked his head, appraising the dessert with narrowed eyes. Then he stepped forward again and added one more berry precisely in the center.

“You should have seen your father propose,” Biddy told Dixon. “He really and truly got down on his knees.”

“I didn’t know that!” Rebecca said — more to encourage the change of subject than anything else. “And what did he say, exactly?”

“He said, ‘Well, I suppose you can guess what I want to ask you.’ And I said, ‘Well, and I suppose you can guess what I would answer, too.’”

Rebecca laughed, but Dixon stayed very sober and alert, his eyes fixed on his mother’s face. (He could never hear enough about his father.)

“It didn’t occur to me till this instant that he didn’t actually ask,” Biddy said. “And I didn’t actually answer, either.” She shook her head. “Bring a serving spoon with you when you carry in the dessert,” she told Dixon. “Let them dish it out themselves. The more privacy the better.”

Then she started bustling around, scraping plates and wiping counters.

Rebecca would have liked to know how Troy had proposed, if propose was the proper word. Did he say, “Biddy, Dixon Senior may be dead but Dixon Junior is on the way, and I’ve always wanted a child to raise”? Or had it been more romantic? (“I do prefer men in general, Biddy, but I prefer you in particular and now I’d like to take care of you.”) Well, at least the arrangement seemed a success, contrary to all predictions. Rebecca was everlastingly grateful to Troy for sticking by Biddy so loyally and providing Dixon with some warmth in his life. Who could say for sure that it didn’t work just as well as a regular marriage?

Barry came into the kitchen, jingling his keys in his pocket, and told Peter it was time to leave. “Any errands I can run in the morning, call me,” he told Rebecca.

“Well, thank you, Barry. Have a good night.”

She looked past him and saw NoNo just behind him, her purse clutched to her chest. “Sweetie?” Rebecca said.

NoNo didn’t answer, but she came to stand beside Barry. Her head barely reached his shoulder — her dark, shiny cap of hair resembling an upside-down flower. She was such a little elf. Ridiculously, Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, sweetie,” she said. “You’re getting married! You’re all grown up! Oh, I know—” and she gave a laugh. “I know you’ve been grown up for ages, but, oh, here you are! About to be a wife!”

She reached out her arms, and NoNo stepped into them. They stood there hugging for a moment with NoNo’s purse pressed bulkily between them. Rebecca heard a sniff as delicate as a cat’s sneeze. She patted NoNo’s sharp shoulder blades and drank in her familiar smell — the rainy, limp smell of fresh violets.

From the passageway, Dixon said, “ Hot dog!” He burst into the kitchen, and Rebecca and NoNo drew apart. “Well, he did it,” he said.

“Did what?” Rebecca asked.

“He proposed, Gram. Wake up!”

Then he described in detail how it had happened: the man taking hold of the serving spoon but setting it back down, swallowing so loudly that Dixon could hear it from where he stood. “I could tell that something was up,” he said, “so I got out of there. Walked out but then stopped just around the corner; so I heard him say, ‘Vivian, I know you must wonder why I asked you here all by yourself, and you probably think I’m a fool,’ he said. ‘Lord, I must look like such a fool, but I didn’t know how else to… Vivian,’ the guy said, ‘look. I really, really need you to marry me.’”

Biddy made a clucking sound, and Barry said, “Well, gee, he could have come up with something a little more romantic.”

“What did she say?” Rebecca asked. “Did you hear?”

“She said, ‘Steven, I’d be honored to marry you.’”

NoNo clapped her hands, and even Peter started grinning. Rebecca said, “Well, thank heaven. I’m so relieved.”

Although she also felt a little sad that her moment with NoNo had been cut short. Oh, nothing in this family ever flowed from start to finish without interruption. Their lives were a kind of crazy quilt of unrelated incidents — always some other family to consider, some strangers getting married or retired or promoted. (Even her own wedding had taken place at an earlier hour than she’d wanted because of an anniversary party scheduled for that night.)

When she was a girl, she had imagined her future as a single, harmonious picture. But what she had ended up with was more like the view in one of those multi-lensed optical toys that Lateesha was so fond of: dozens of tiny chips of pictures, each interfering with the others.

She saw Barry and Peter and NoNo out the back door, kissing Barry and Peter politely on the cheek and giving NoNo another hug. Biddy hugged NoNo too. Apparently she’d recovered from her hurt feelings. “Nighty-night, hon,” she said. “Get your beauty sleep, you hear?”

Then she and Rebecca set up the coffee tray.

“But don’t take it in quite yet,” Rebecca told Dixon. “Let them have a little time together on their own.”

It was some consolation, at least, to arrange that for somebody else.

* * *

She closed her bedroom door because Poppy and Tina were still up watching TV, and she sat down on the bed and drew the stick of paper from underneath the phone.

301, his area code was. She lifted the receiver and dialed it. Then she paused. Then she hung up.

It was nearly ten o’clock. Maybe he was asleep already. In the old days he’d been a night owl, but that could very well have changed.

Maybe his wife would answer. “Will, darling!” she would carol. “Some woman wanting to speak to you, darling!”

Or, “Dr. Allenby’s working late tonight,” in a forbidding tone. “Who’s calling, please?”

Rebecca lifted the receiver again, but this time she punched in his office number — the first three digits of it, at least, after which she paused so long that a voice came on the line saying her call could not go through as dialed. Even the recording — that impersonal, singsong “ We’re sorry”—caused her heart to race, and she slammed the receiver back down. “You’re an idiot,” she said out loud. She rose abruptly and left the bedroom. “Ninny,” she told the mirror in the bathroom. “Silly moron,” she said as she yanked her toothbrush from its holder.