Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grownups

“Are you kidding? I watched him construct it, every wheel and gear of it.”

“I’m not sure whether it’s art, or science, or music,” Rebecca said. “Maybe all three. It’s astounding!”

“I was the one who had to ferry him to the back of beyond for his supplies,” NoNo told her. “Barry was away attending a conference, wouldn’t you know.”

“Oh, honey,” Rebecca said, “I realize it must be hard, but I wish you could enjoy this boy. He’s going to be grown and gone in a flash! And then you’ll discover you miss him.”

“Easy for you to say,” NoNo told her bitterly. “You don’t have the least idea what it’s like, being saddled with somebody else’s kid when you’re basically still on your honeymoon.”

Rebecca said, “Is that so.”

It was one of those moments when she really did, literally, have to bite her tongue in order not to say more.

* * *

Sunday morning, she called Will twice to ask what she should wear. The first time, he said, “Anything. Or maybe — but no, just anything.” Which was why she called the second time: that little hitch in his voice. She called back a minute later and said, “Will. You can tell me. Was there something special that you thought I ought to be wearing?”

“Oh, no.”

“Something I ought not to be wearing?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe just… something not too hippie,” he said.

“Hippie,” she said.

For a second, she felt hurt. She thought he was referring to the size of her hips. But he went on to say, “It’s only that a few of your clothes tend to be sort of… striking, and I would like Beatrice to focus on you more as a person.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, sure. In that case.”

So she wore her flight-attendant outfit — tailored white blouse and navy skirt. Actual stockings. Actual leather pumps. And she battened down the wings of her hair with two plain silver barrettes that one or another granddaughter had left in the third-floor bathroom.

This time the drive to Macadam was more familiar, and therefore it seemed shorter. The swimming pools’ vivid turquoise color reminded her of a type of hard candy she used to favor. Trust Jesus, she read. I Still Like Larry. The stop sign on the corner of Will’s street had a sticker that said EATING ANIMALS plastered underneath.

The house he lived in — the late Professor Flick’s house — was a white clapboard Colonial gone yellow around the edges. Hurricane Floyd had swept the state the week before, and evidently no one had bothered cleaning the front yard since. Rebecca had to thread her way through small branches and broken twigs and clumps of wet leaves on the walk. One branch was such a booby trap, lying in wait at ankle height, that she felt compelled to pick it up and heave it into the grass. So she arrived with damp, dirty hands, which she tried to scrub with a screw of tissue from her purse before she pressed the doorbell.

Once she had been buzzed in, she crossed a foyer crammed with antiques and climbed a carpeted staircase, rising into a steadily intensifying smell of lamb stew. It must have drifted up from Mrs. Flick’s kitchen, though, because when Will opened his door, just off the second-floor landing, nothing but the cold gray scent of newspapers floated out to her. Gazing past him, she saw newspapers everywhere — stacks of them on the chairs, the tables, the windowsills, the floor. “Come in! Come in! Have a seat,” Will said, but there was nowhere to sit. He said, “Oh,” as if he’d just realized. “Here, I’ll…” He tore around the room, scooping up armloads of papers and piling them in a corner. “I keep thinking I should hire a cleaning service,” he said. Rebecca didn’t tell him that a cleaning service wouldn’t have helped. She sat down and looked around her.

The walls were bare, marked with crumbling nail holes and the ghosts of old picture frames. The windows were curtainless, tall and narrow, letting in a bleached white light. She was sitting in one of those canvas butterfly slings from the sixties, and she would bet that the other pieces came from that era too. Will must have raided his garage or attic before he moved here, unearthing remnants of his student days — a cheap blond coffee table, a matted orange shag rug, a wheeled, adjustable chair meant for an office desk.

“Maybe you could give me some decorating tips,” he said, and he smiled at her hopefully, showing all his teeth.

Rebecca smiled back. “Is Beatrice not here yet?” she asked.

“No, but I expect her any — oh, I’m sorry! What can I bring you to drink?”

“What do you have?” she asked.

“Water, milk…”

“Water, please.”

He left the room. He was wearing slippers, she saw, folded down in back beneath his heels, although otherwise he was neatly dressed in khakis and a white shirt. She could glimpse no more than a sliver of the room adjoining this one — wallpapered with dark, ugly flowers — but she gathered it was a dining room. She heard a faucet running, and then he returned, holding a pink aluminum tumbler. “Here,” he said, giving it to her. When their hands accidentally touched, she was reminded that he hadn’t kissed her hello. He must be anxious. He started raking his fingers through his hair in that agitated way he had, and instead of sitting down himself, he remained standing in front of her. She took a swallow of water. It was room temperature, tasting of chlorine and something sharp, like mildew. She set the tumbler on the floor beside her chair and rose and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What—?” he said, stepping back, looking toward the door even though it was closed.

She didn’t let him go. She tightened her hold and said, “Don’t worry; everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

“Oh, you don’t know Beatrice,” he said, still eyeing the door.

“We’re going to have such fun!”

“I’m serving this nutritious grain dish because she’s vegetarian, and I think I might not have cooked it enough.”

The buzzer rang, making him start. Rebecca dropped her arms, and he went to press a button next to the light switch. “Oh, God,” he said. He raked his fingers through his hair some more. He turned back to her and said, “Also, I used chicken broth. Don’t tell Beatrice.”

“My lips are sealed,” Rebecca said.

“It was what the recipe called for, and I wasn’t sure I could omit it.”

“Next time, I’ll give you the name of a powder you can substitute,” she told him.

She felt peculiarly unconcerned, as if she were playing a part in a play — the part of somebody knowledgeable and efficient. While Will tucked his shirt more securely into his khakis, she just stood waiting, not so much as glancing down at her own clothes. (At least she knew she couldn’t be taken for a hippie.)

Slow footsteps climbed toward them. Will flung open the door. “Hi, there, Beatrice!” he said, in a sprightly voice that Rebecca had never heard him use before.

The person who walked in was small and tidily constructed, of no determinate gender, dressed entirely in black leather although it was a warm evening. Her skin was a stark, chalky white and her barbs of black hair had a dead look, as if they’d been dyed. She endured a brief clasp from Will — less a hug than a momentary spasm of his arm around her shoulders — and then she turned and surveyed Rebecca coolly. She had a gold stud in her nose and a thin gold ring in one eyebrow — the kind of thing that always made Rebecca feel she should diplomatically avert her gaze. Not one feature in this girl’s face brought Will to mind.

Rebecca said, “Hello, Beatrice. I’m Rebecca.”

Beatrice turned back to Will. “You told me to be here at six,” she said, “so here I am.”