Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread

“The unwitting femme fatale,” Denny murmured, and Amanda gave a little hiss of amusement.

“Is Elise having any fun?” Jeannie asked Amanda. “It doesn’t seem she’s joining in much this year.”

“I have no idea,” Amanda said. “I’m only her mother.”

“I guess ballet has kind of taken her away from things.”

Amanda didn’t answer. The three of them were silent a moment, their gazes fixed on a nearby toddler in a swim diaper who was pursuing a committee of gulls. The gulls strutted ahead of him at a dignified pace, gradually speeding up although they pretended not to notice him.

“How about Susan?” Jeannie asked Denny. “Is she having a good time?”

“She’s having a great time,” he said. “She really likes coming here. These are the only cousins she’s got.”

“Oh, does Carla not have any siblings?”

“Just an unmarried brother.”

Jeannie and Amanda raised their eyebrows at each other.

“How is Carla these days?” Amanda asked after a moment.

“Fine as far as I know.”

“Do you see much of her?”

“No.”

“Do you see anybody ?”

“Do I see anybody?”

“You know what I mean. Any women.”

“Not really,” Denny said. And then, just when it seemed the conversation was finished, he added, “Face it, I’m hardly a catch.”

“Why not?” Jeannie asked.

“Well, I kind of come across as a deadbeat. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve been blazing an impressive career path all these years.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous. Lots of women would fall for you.”

“No,” Denny said, “when you think about it, things haven’t changed much since the days when parents were trying to marry their daughters off to guys with titles and estates. Women still want to know what you do when they meet you. It’s the first question out of their mouths.”

“So? You’re a teacher! Or a substitute teacher, at least.”

“Right,” Denny said.

A little girl ran past them toward the water — the granddaughter of the next-door people. Reflexively, Denny and his sisters half turned to watch the next-door people threading from their house to the beach, carrying towels and folding chairs and a Styrofoam cooler. They arrived at a spot some twenty feet distant from the Whitshanks. The grown-ups unfolded their chairs and settled in a straight row facing the ocean, while the grandson and his friend went down to where the little girl was bounding into the surf.

“Have we ever found out for sure that they come for just the one week?” Amanda asked. “Maybe they’re here all summer.”

“No,” Jeannie said, “we saw them arrive that time, remember? With their suitcases and their beach equipment.”

“Maybe they stay on, then, after we leave.”

“Well, maybe. I guess they could. But I like to think that they go when we do. They have the same conversation we always have: next year, should they make it two weeks? But by the end of their vacation they say, ‘Oh, one week is enough, really.’ And so they come for the same week year after year, and fifty years from now we’ll be saying”—here Jeannie’s voice changed to an old-lady whine—“ ‘Oh, look, it’s the next-door people, and the grandson’s got a grandson now!’ ”

“They’ve brought their lunch today,” Denny said. “We could check out their menu.”

Jeannie said, “What if we marched over there, right this minute, and introduced ourselves?”

“It would be a disappointment,” Amanda said.

“How come?”

“They would turn out to have some boring name, like Smith or Brown. They’d work in, let’s say, advertising, or computer sales or consulting. Whatever they worked in, it would be a letdown. They’d say, ‘Oh, how nice to meet you; we’ve always wondered about you,’ and then we’d have to give our boring names, and our boring occupations.”

“You really think they wonder about us?”

“Well, of course they do.”

“You think they like us?”

“How could they not?” Amanda asked.

Her tone was jokey, but she wasn’t smiling. She was openly studying the next-door people with a serious, searching expression, as if she weren’t so sure after all. Did they find the Whitshanks attractive? Intriguing? Did they admire their large numbers and their closeness? Or had they noticed a hidden crack somewhere — a sharp exchange or an edgy silence or some sign of strain? Oh, what was their opinion ? What insights could they reveal, if the Whitshanks walked over to them that very instant and asked?

It was the custom for the men to do the dishes every evening while they were on vacation. They would shoo the women out—“Go on, now! Go! Yes, we know: put the leftovers in the fridge”—and then Denny would fill the sink with hot water and Stem would unfurl a towel. Meanwhile Jeannie’s Hugh, one of those thorough, conscientious types, reorganized the whole kitchen and scrubbed down every surface. Red might carry a few plates in from the dining room, but soon, at the others’ urging, he would settle at the kitchen table with a beer to watch them work.

Amanda’s Hugh wasn’t around for this. Her little family ate most of their suppers in town.

On their final evening, Thursday, the cleanup was more extensive. Every leftover had to be dumped, and the refrigerator shelves had to be emptied and wiped down. Jeannie’s Hugh was in his element. “Throw it out! Yes, that too,” he said when Stem held up a nearly full container of coleslaw. “No point hauling it all the way back to Baltimore.” The three of them slid a glance toward Red, who shared his sister’s horror of waste, but he was thumbing through one of the trashy magazines and he failed to notice.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Denny asked. “We leaving at crack of dawn?”

Hugh said, “Well, I should, at least. I’ve got half a dozen messages on my cell phone.” He meant messages from the college. “Lots of stuff to see to in the dorms.”

“So,” Denny told Stem, “that means fall is coming.”

“Pretty soon,” Stem said. He returned a not-quite-clean plate to the sink.

“You don’t want to wait too long to move back home,” Denny told him, “or the kids will have to switch schools.”

Stem was drying another plate. He stopped for a second, but then he went on drying. “They’ve already switched,” he said. “Nora registered both of the older boys last week.”

“But it makes more sense for you to move back, now that I’m staying on.”

Stem laid the plate on a stack of others.

“You’re not staying,” he said.

“What?”

“You’ll be leaving any time now.”

“What are you talking about?”

Denny had turned to look at him, but Stem went on wiping plates. He said, “You’ll pick a fight with one of us, or you’ll take offense at something. Or one of those calls will come in on your phone from some mysterious acquaintance with some mysterious emergency, and you’ll disappear again.”

“That’s bullshit,” Denny told him.

Jeannie’s Hugh said, “Oh, well now, guys …” and Red looked up from his magazine, one finger marking his place.

“You just say that because you wish I weren’t staying,” Denny told Stem. “I’m well aware you want me out of the way. It’s no surprise to me.”

“I don’t want you out of the way,” Stem said. They were facing each other squarely now. Stem was gripping a plate in one hand and the towel in the other, and he spoke a little more loudly than he needed to. “God! What do I have to do to convince you I’m not out to get you? I don’t want anything that’s yours. I never have! I’m just trying to be a help to Mom and Dad!”