Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grownups

“Yes, J.J. and his son are here. You remember J.J.,” she said hopefully.

He might or he might not. At any rate, he grunted and continued his descent.

“And Mother and Aunt Ida came while you were napping,” she said. “You should see what they brought you!”

“I intend to open my gifts as they arrive,” he told her. He reached the bottom of the stairs and started pegging into the parlor, passing her in a breeze of lavender cologne. “They won’t get the proper notice if I just pile them in a heap and open them all at once.”

“Fine, Poppy,” Rebecca said.

Not that her permission was needed. Already he was reaching out a hand for J.J.’s bottle, holding it at arm’s length to study the label. “Thanks,” he said finally. “It’ll make a nice nightcap.” He turned toward the two older women. “Ladies.”

“Happy birthday, Mr. Davitch,” they said practically in unison, and Aunt Ida added, “You don’t look a day over eighty!”

“Eighty?” Poppy asked. The corners of his mouth turned down.

“Yes, sir, it’s not often I’m asked to celebrate somebody’s hundredth birthday,” J.J. told him.

“ How often?” Poppy asked him.

“Well, now, I guess I would have to say never, in fact.”

“Here, Poppy,” Rebecca said. She took the wrapped package from the chest of drawers. “This is Mother and Aunt Ida’s gift.”

“Wait, just let me get comfy.”

He chose a wing chair and lowered himself by degrees, first setting the bourbon on the table beside him. Then Rebecca handed him the package. “Nice paper,” he said. He slid a trembling thumb beneath one taped flap. “Don’t want to tear it; might as well save it for later use.”

“Absolutely,” Rebecca’s mother told him, and she bit her lip and sat forward, concentrating, until he had lifted the flap without causing any damage.

William McKinley turned out to be a forthright-looking man in a high white collar and black bow tie nearly identical to Poppy’s. Rebecca had worried Poppy wouldn’t know who he was, but luckily a brass nameplate was tacked to the bottom of the frame. “William McKinley. Well, now,” Poppy said, slanting the picture on his knees to study it.

“He was President the year you were born,” Rebecca told him.

“Well, how about that.”

“Got himself assassinated,” J.J. offered out of the blue.

“How about that.”

“It was McKinley who was responsible for us taking over Cuba,” J.J. went on. “Also Hawaii, if I’m not very much mistaken.”

Poppy lowered the portrait and turned to frown at J.J. “ Who did you say you were?” he asked.

“J.J. is our electrician, Poppy,” Rebecca said. “He just this week fixed our thermostat.”

J.J. was nodding emphatically, as if urging Poppy to do the same, but Poppy kept his frown. Then suddenly his forehead cleared. “’All I Want for Christmas Is You,’” he said.

“What, Poppy?” Rebecca asked.

“That’s what they were playing on the radio his boy brought along. ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’”

“Whoa! Sorry if we disturbed you,” J.J. said.

“Oh, it’s better than some others I’ve heard.”

He held the portrait out to Rebecca, and she stepped forward to take it from him.

“So! Mr. Davitch!” Aunt Ida said. “Did you receive a birthday greeting from the President?”

Poppy sent another frown in the direction of the portrait, which Rebecca was propping now on the chest of drawers. Perhaps he thought McKinley was the President in question. Instead of answering, though, he said, “Mr., ah, J.J., I wonder if you could settle a little argument for me.”

“Be glad to if I can,” J.J. told him.

“Those instant-on kind of lights. What do you call them? You know the kind. The ones that light up without blinking first.”

“Incandescent,” J.J. said.

“Now, I maintain that folks should turn those off whenever they leave a room. Because switching them back on doesn’t require any particular burst of energy, does it? As opposed to a fluorescent. But Beck, here: oh, no, she has to leave a trail of lights lit anyplace she goes. A waste of money, I tell her.”

“Yes, sir, you’d be amazed,” J.J. said. “Why, a single hundred-watt bulb, left burning for an hour—”

“J.J.! Don’t encourage him!” Rebecca said. “Poppy’d have us sitting in the dark, if he could have his way. Even the tree lights upset him! If we were to leave this room right now, just to go to the dining room and get ourselves a bite, he would turn off the tree lights first!”

“Oh,” J.J. said. He looked unhappy. No doubt he felt he’d been put on the spot. “Well: tree lights. I mean, these dinky white things are not a major draw of power. And you have to figure the, like, decorative effect. They’re more of a decoration, for people to see from outside too and not just inside the house.”

“See there?” Rebecca asked Poppy. “Didn’t I tell you? Oh, lights have a tremendous effect!” she said, turning to the others. “Like when guests are walking up the front walk for a party: it makes such a difference in their mood if they see all the windows glowing. They get… anticipatory. Switch on every light you own, I always say. Let them blaze for all they’re worth! Let them set the house on fire!”

J.J. laughed, and his son grinned shyly. Aunt Ida said, “Yes, you would certainly want to give people a nice sense of welcome.” Poppy, though, only grunted, and Rebecca’s mother shrank back slightly in her seat.

“Well, anyhow,” Rebecca said after a moment. “Drinks, anyone?” And she was careful to keep her voice at a decorous pitch.

* * *

It was so predictable that non-Davitches would show up before Davitches. Precisely fifteen minutes past the designated hour — Baltimore’s idea of the proper arrival time — Alice Farmer rang the doorbell in a silver sharkskin suit and silver shoes and a black felt cartwheel hat, bearing a stunningly wrapped gift that turned out to be a prayer toaster. (A prayer on a bread-slice-shaped piece of cardboard popped out of the slot if you pressed the lever, one prayer for every day of the year.) The physical therapist, Miss Nancy, followed with a flock of Mylar balloons so numerous that they had to be nudged through the door in clusters. Next came Poppy’s two friends, Mr. Ames and Mr. Hardesty. Mr. Ames brought a cactus with a bulbous pink growth on top that Poppy said reminded him of a baboon’s behind. Mr. Hardesty brought nothing, which was understandable because he was in a walker for which he needed both hands, besides having to rely on a sullen niece for his shopping; so Poppy was gracious about it.

At a quarter till three the first Davitch arrived: Zeb, short of breath. “Sorry,” he told Rebecca. “There was an emergency call from the hospital, and I went off thinking I’d come straight here afterwards, but I forgot about the gift; so I had to go back home first and get it.”

He meant the gift that he and she were giving jointly: a framed reprint of Poppy and Aunt Joyce’s engagement photo. He had bundled it clumsily in wads of white tissue and masses of Scotch tape. “I wish you could have seen it before I wrapped it,” he told her. “They did a tremendous job with the restoration.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Rebecca said. She had been dubious when she first slipped it, stealthily, from the family album. Blooms of mold had destroyed most of the background, and a white fold line ran across one corner.

Poppy was getting rowdy, like an overstimulated child. “Well? What have we here?” he asked as Zeb entered the room. “Bring it on in! Let me at it!”

“Happy birthday,” Zeb told him, and he laid the package across Poppy’s knees. “This is from Rebecca and me.”