Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grownups

“Well. That’s okay.”

He cleared his throat.

“Actually,” he said, “it occurred to me that you might have misinterpreted my question.”

“Your question?”

“What I asked on the phone last time. About why you broke up with me. See, it wasn’t a… reproach. It wasn’t meant rhetorically. I really did want you to tell me where it was I went wrong.”

Rebecca said, “Will—”

“No, no, never mind! I withdraw that. I realize I’m being tedious. Don’t hang up!”

She started to speak, but then stopped. Anything she could think of to say seemed a mistake. In fact, speech in general seemed a mistake. It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said finally. “Let’s start over.”

“Start over?”

She said, “Maybe you would like to come here for dinner some night.”

She heard a caught breath, a kind of exclamation point in the airwaves. Then he said, “I would love to come to dinner.”

“Are you free, um…” She cursed tomorrow’s engagement party — the first Open Arms event in over a week. “Are you free Wednesday?”

“Wednesday would be wonderful.”

“Fine, let’s say six p.m. Now, here’s how to get to my house.”

She gave the directions with such assurance that she probably took him aback, because he responded with a meek “All right… all right…” And after she had finished, there seemed nothing more to talk about. “Till Wednesday, then!” she told him.

“Yes, all right… goodbye,” he said.

She tried to remember, after she had hung up, whether in the old days he had said goodbye at the end of telephone calls. He surely couldn’t have avoided the word altogether, could he?

Then she went on to try and remember their first meeting, since recently, first meetings had begun to seem so significant. But it was lost in the mists of childhood. They had probably met in kindergarten, or perhaps some play group in the little park by the river. Really, Will had just always been there.

Which had its own significance, she thought.

Outside, a wind was blowing up, buckling the warped black screens and wafting the gauze curtains almost horizontal. The air smelled of rain and damp earth. The room took on an eerie, greenish glow. A door slammed somewhere downstairs, and Rebecca felt almost afloat with the sense of possibility.

You’ll never in a million years guess who I’ve asked to dinner,” Rebecca told her mother on the phone.

“Who’s that, dear?”

“Oh, nobody but Will Allenby.”

“Will Allenby! Are you serious? My stars! How did this come about?”

“We just happened to talk on the phone a little while ago.”

“My Lord in heaven! Tell me everything,” her mother ordered. “Every last detail.”

“There’s nothing to tell, really. I had supper with him a few weeks back, and tomorrow night he’s coming to my house. He’s living in Macadam. He’s head of the physics department.”

“Is he single? Or what.”

“He’s divorced.”

“Divorced! Poor Will; who’d have thought? Though divorced is much better than widowed, of course.”

“How do you figure that?” Rebecca asked.

“Well: if they’re divorced, they’re mad at their ex-wife and so they put her out of their minds. If they’re widowed, they go on mourning. They feel guilty about remarrying.”

“Who said anything about remarrying?” Rebecca asked. “We’re just having a meal together.”

“Yes, but, you never can tell. One thing leads to another, you know! And you and he have all that shared past. It’s not as if you’re strangers. Oh, I’d love it if you married Will!”

“Mother,” Rebecca said. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m sorry now I mentioned it.”

Why had she mentioned it, in fact? Almost the instant she woke up this morning, she’d had it in her mind to call her mother and tell her the news. It was like some kind of offering — a mouse she could lay at her mother’s feet. See there? I’m still the old Rebecca after all!

“What does he look like?” her mother was asking. “Is he as good-looking as he used to be?”

“Yes, but he’s older, of course. His hair is white.”

“That’s okay! What do you care! None of us is getting any younger. Oh. Rebecca. Do you want to hear an amazing coincidence? Would you believe I ran into his mother’s sister-in-law just last weekend at the Kmart? And this is not someone I see every day. Or every year, even! In fact, I’m surprised I recognized her. You must have known her. Katie, or Kathy; something like that. Was it Katie? No, Kathy. No, Katie. She was married to Will’s mother’s brother, Norman, before he died, and they used to live on Merchant Street in this darling little cottage that always made me think of a doll’s house. Do you remember that house?”

Rebecca sighed and said, “No.”

“Well, it was next door to the Saddlers’ place. You remember the Saddlers’ place, the one with all the chimneys.”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“You must! It had two chimneys in the middle, and one more at each—”

“I remember.”

“You just finished saying you didn’t.”

“Mother. What difference does it make?” Rebecca asked. “This is a house next to another house that I don’t remember either, where somebody I never met used to live before her husband died.”

“I’m sure you did meet her, dear. She must surely have been at the Allenbys’ many a time when you were visiting.”

“All right,” Rebecca said, “I met her. What did she say?”

“What did she say about what?”

“About anything. When you ran into her at the Kmart.”

“Oh, we didn’t actually speak. I was afraid she wouldn’t know me. I just swiveled my eyes in another direction and made like I didn’t see her.”

Rebecca began massaging her left temple.

“So who did he marry?” her mother asked.

“Who did who marry?” Rebecca asked, contrarily.

“Will, of course. My goodness! Who have we been talking about, here?”

“He married an ex-student of his.”

“Was the divorce his idea, or hers?”

“Hers, I believe,” Rebecca said.

“Oh, dear. Well, never mind. We’ll just hope for the best.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Rebecca asked.

“Never mind! What are you planning to wear, do you know?”

“I hadn’t thought,” Rebecca said.

“I was reading somewhere just the other day that the color brown is the most flattering to any type of figure.”

“I don’t own anything brown,” Rebecca said.

“You still have time to go shopping!”

“I have to hang up,” Rebecca said. “Talk to you later, Mother.”

* * *

It wasn’t true that she’d given no thought as to what she would wear. Throughout the night — even in her sleep, it seemed — she had mentally reviewed her wardrobe, and she had settled, finally, on the eggplant-colored caftan. By midafternoon Wednesday, she had already put it on. She had already set the table, placed candles around the dining room, and added the finishing touches to the food — everything cold, so that she wouldn’t have to be off in the kitchen for any length of time. In the front parlor, the cushions were plumped and more candles stood about in groups. She had opened all the windows, even those on the street side, to whisk away any trace of cooking smells.

Absurd to make such a to-do. Absurd.

Promptly at five-thirty, Zeb arrived to pick up Poppy. He had promised to keep him occupied for the evening. “I thought we’d try that new steakhouse,” he told Rebecca, “and then maybe go to a movie. That would put us back here at, oh, nine-thirty or ten. Is that okay with you?”