Anne Tyler: A Patchwork Planet

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Alford said. “Are you talking about the Gaitlin Foundation?”

“Right,” I said.

“Do you mean to say you’re one of those Gaitlins?”

“Well, when they claim me, I am.”

“I had no idea!”

“I’m the black sheep,” I told her.

“Oh, now,” Mrs. Alford said, “you could never be a black sheep.”

“Just try telling my family that,” I said. “My family would take it kindly if I changed my name to Smith.”

“They wouldn’t!”

The tree was finished, by now — all the ornaments in place, not counting a paper snowflake that Mrs. Alford was hanging on to in an absentminded way. She looked distressed but also pleased, and alert for further tidbits. (People always imagine that our family must be loaded, although if they put two and two together, they would realize the Foundation had siphoned off most of the loot.)

“He’s exaggerating,” Martine said. Probably she was afraid I’d bring up my criminal past, which our clients, of course, had no notion of. “Barnaby’s very close to his family! Seems every time I talk to him, he’s just back from seeing his grandparents.”

“Those are my Kazmerow grandparents,” I said. “Not Gaitlins.”

“Plug in the lights, Barnaby.”

“The Gaitlins I see only on major holidays,” I told Mrs. Alford. “Thanksgiving. Christmas. Ever notice how closely Christmas follows Thanksgiving? Seems I’ve barely digested my turkey when I’m back for the Christmas goose, sitting in the same eternal chair, telling the same eternal relatives that yes, I’m still a manual laborer; still haven’t found my true calling; still haven’t heard from my angel yet; maybe next year.”

“You have an angel too?” Mrs. Alford asked.

“All the Gaitlins have angels,” I said. “They’re required. My brother Jeff saw his when he was younger than I am now.”

“What’d she tell him?” Martine wanted to know.

“She told him to get out of the stock market, just before Black Monday.”

“Isn’t that kind of … money-minded for an angel?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve always had my doubts about her. Besides which, she was a brunette. I maintain angels are blond.”

Mrs. Alford was giving me this dazed look. I said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. A.; I’m not serious,” and I took the snowflake from her and hung it. (It was pancake-sized, slightly crumpled, snipped from gift wrap so old that the Santas were smoking cigarettes.) “I don’t think my family’s serious, either, when you get right down to it,” I said. “Shoot, they don’t even go to church! My dad’s an outright atheist! The angels are just one of those, like, insider things that help them imagine they’re special. You know? I bet your family has some of those.”

“Well …,” she said dubiously.

I bent to plug in the lights, and when I straightened up, the tree was sending out this dusty, faded glow and Mrs. Alford had her hands clasped under her chin. “Oh! How pretty!” she said.

Some of the branches were drooping — the ones where the modeling-clay animals hung. Some of the paper chains’ links had sprung open. The pine cones had lost quite a few of their scales, so that they had a snaggle-toothed look. But Mrs. Alford said, “Isn’t it perfect?”

I said, “It certainly is.”

By the time we got back to the truck it was dark, and a chilly drizzle was falling. Martine had to switch her windshield wipers on. While she drove, I filled in the time sheets, one for her and one for me, and I tore the carbon copy off hers and stuck it in her overhead visor. Then I sat back and said, “Ah, me.”

The lights from the oncoming traffic kept swinging across Martine’s face, turning her skin even yellower than usual.

We passed a city bus, empty except for the driver, its windows glowing foggily like the bulbs on Mrs. Alford’s tree. We passed a little strip mall, all closed for the night and eerily fluorescent, with swags of frowsy tinsel swinging in the wind.

I said, “This weather will mess up a lot of New Year’s plans.”

“It won’t mess up mine,” Martine said.

“I thought you didn’t have any.”

“Who told you that?”

“Didn’t you say Everett was sick?”

“Yes, but I’m going to this party at my brother’s. Him and his wife are throwing a party, and I said I’d help with the kids.”

Martine had a whole slew of nephews that she was forever amusing — taking them to the zoo or the circus or letting them spend the night in her apartment. I don’t know where she got the energy. I could never be like that. I could barely recall what my own one nephew’s name was.

I said, “Ah, me,” again, and this time Martine glanced over.

I said, “In Penn Station today, this guy was going around asking people to carry something to Philadelphia for him.”

“Whoa! A mad bomber.”

“He claimed it was a passport for his daughter,” I said.

“Yeah, right.”

And then … I don’t know why I said this next thing. I’d been planning to tell the story just the way it happened, I swear. But what I said was, “So when he asked me , I told him yes.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did too!” I said. (For a second, I thought she was doubting my word.) “He said I had an honest face,” I said. “How could I resist?”

“For all you knew, he was planning to blow up your train.”

“Well, obviously he didn’t succeed,” I said, “since I’m here to tell the tale. No, I’m pretty sure it was a genuine passport. Of course, I didn’t actually check it out. This lady next to me, blond lady, she kept saying, ‘Oh, just take a peek, why don’t you? Just take a little peek!’ But I wouldn’t do it.”

We slowed and turned into my driveway. Our headlamps lit the patio with two long spindles of mist.

“So anyway,” I said.

I felt this inward kind of slumping, all at once, like, What’s the point? What’s the point? “I carried his package to Philly and gave it to his daughter,” I said, “and that was that.”

Martine had put the truck in neutral now, and she was facing me. For someone so small, she had an awfully large nose — an imposing nose, casting a shadow — and her eyebrows were large, too, and fiercely black, above her sharp black eyes. She said, “Hey. Barn. You want to come to my brother’s?”

“Who, me?”

“You know they’d love to have you. You could help me with the treasure hunt.”

“Oh,” I said. “Nah. Thanks anyway.”

Then I clapped her on the shoulder (little blade of bone under yards of slippery black nylon) and hopped out of the truck.

This time when the patio lamps lit up, they just annoyed me. I crossed the flagstones and went down the basement steps without stopping; unlocked my door and walked in, peeling off my jacket and dropping it to the floor, flipping on the wall switch as I headed toward the kitchen. Actually, it was more of a wet bar than a kitchen. But it did have a little under-counter fridge, and I reached inside for a beer and popped the lid. Then I turned on the TV that was sitting on top of the bar. Perky guy in a bow tie was wondering what this rain would do to the New Year’s Eve fireworks. I settled on the couch to watch.

The couch was a sleeper couch, still folded out from last night, the blankets all twisted and strangled. The only other furniture was a platform rocker upholstered in slick red vinyl that stuck to me in the summer and turned clammy in the winter. I didn’t even have a bureau — just stored my clothes on the shelves beneath the bar. My stove was a two-burner hot plate, and my bathroom was a rust-stained sink and toilet partitioned off in one corner; shower privileges upstairs. Every Saturday morning, Mimi Hardesty came tiptoeing down to do the family’s laundry in the washing machine to the right of the furnace. Every evening, the Hardesty children roughhoused overhead, thumping and bumping around till the light fixture on my ceiling gave off little tingly whispers like a seashell.