Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread

After we …

She looked down at her skirt and smoothed it across her knees.

“How’s your job going?” Mrs. Whitshank asked her. “You still liking those little colored kids?”

“Oh, I’m loving them.”

“I hate to think of you going down into that neighborhood, though,” Mrs. Whitshank said.

“It’s not a bad neighborhood.”

“It’s a poor neighborhood, isn’t it? The people there are poor as dirt, and they’d as lief rob you as look at you. I swear, Abby, sometimes you don’t show good sense when it comes to knowing who to be scared of.”

“I could never be scared of those people!”

Mrs. Whitshank shook her head and dumped the colander of okra onto a cutting board.

“Oh, what a world, what a world,” Abby said.

“How’s that, honey?”

“That’s what the wicked witch says in The Wizard of Oz . Did you know that? They’re showing a revival downtown and I went to see it last night with Dane. The witch says, ‘I’m melting! Melting! Oh, what a world, what a world,’ she says.”

“I remember the part about ‘I’m melting,’ ” Mrs. Whitshank said. “I took Red and Merrick to see that movie when they were little bitty things.”

“Yes, well, and then she talks about ‘what a world.’ I told Dane afterward, I said, ‘I never heard that before! I had no idea she said that!’ ”

“Me neither,” Mrs. Whitshank said. “In a way, it sounds kind of pitiful.”

“Exactly,” Abby said. “All at once I started feeling sorry for her, you know? I really believe that most people who seem scary are just sad.”

“Oh, Abby, Lord preserve you,” Mrs. Whitshank said with a gentle laugh.

Loud, sharp heels clopped down the stairs and through the front hall. The clops crossed the dining room and Merrick appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing a red satin kimono and red mules topped with puffs of red feathers. Giant metal curlers encased her head like some sort of spaceman’s helmet. “Gawd, what time is it?” she asked. She pulled out a chair and sat down next to Abby and took a pack of Kents from her sleeve.

“Good morning, Merrick,” Abby said.

“Morning. Is that okra? Ick.”

“It’s for lunch,” Mrs. Whitshank told her. “We’ve got all those men out front who are going to need feeding.”

“Only Mom believes it’s impolite to make your workmen bring their own sandwiches,” Merrick told Abby. “Abby Dalton, are you wearing hose ? Aren’t you melting?”

“I’m melting!” Abby wailed in a wicked-witch voice, and Mrs. Whitshank laughed but Merrick just looked annoyed. She lit a cigarette and let out a long whoosh of smoke. “I had the most awful dream,” she said. “I dreamed I was driving a little too fast on this winding mountain road and I missed a curve. I thought, ‘Oh-oh, this is going to be bad.’ You know that moment when you realize it’s just got to, got to happen. I went sailing over the edge of a cliff, and I squeezed my eyes tight shut and braced for the shock. But the funny thing was, I kept sailing. I never landed.”

Abby said, “That’s a terrible dream!” but Mrs. Whitshank went on placidly slicing okra.

“I thought, ‘Oh, now I get it,’ ” Merrick said. “ ‘I must already be dead.’ And then I woke up.”

“Was the car a convertible?” Mrs. Whitshank asked.

Merrick paused, with her cigarette suspended halfway to her mouth. She said, “Pardon?”

“The car in your dream. Was it a convertible?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact.”

“If you dream you’re in a convertible it means you’re about to make a serious error in judgment,” Mrs. Whitshank said.

Merrick sent Abby a look of exaggerated astonishment. “I wonder what error you could possibly be thinking of,” she said.

“But if the car is not a convertible, it would signify you’re going to get some sort of promotion.”

“Well, what a coincidence, I dreamed about a convertible,” Merrick said. “And the whole world knows you’re dead set against this wedding, so don’t waste your breath, Linnie Mae.”

Merrick often addressed her mother as “Linnie Mae.” The twisted sound of the name in her mouth somehow managed to imply all of her mother’s shortcomings — her twangy voice, her feed-sack-looking dresses, her backwoods pronunciations like “supposably” and “eck cetera” and “desk-es.” Abby felt bad for Mrs. Whitshank, but Mrs. Whitshank herself didn’t appear to take offense. “I’m just saying,” she said mildly, and she slid a handful of okra spokes into the bowl of milk.

Merrick took a deep drag of her cigarette and blew smoke toward the ceiling.

“Anyhow!” Abby told Merrick. “I bet it was one of those dreams you were really glad to wake up from, wasn’t it?”

Merrick said, “Mm-hmm,” with her eyes on the fan blades spinning above her.

Then a girl’s voice called, “Mare? Hello?” and Merrick straightened and called, “In the kitchen.”

The screen door slammed, and a moment later Pixie Kincaid and Maddie Lane arrived in the kitchen, both wearing Bermuda shorts, Maddie carrying a powder-blue Samsonite vanity case. “Merrick Whitshank, you’re still in your bathrobe!” Pixie said.

“I didn’t get home from the party till after three in the morning.”

“Well, neither did we, but it’s almost ten! Did you forget we’re practicing your makeup today?”

“I remember,” Merrick said. She stubbed out her cigarette. “Come on upstairs and let’s do this.”

“Hi, Mrs. Whitshank,” Pixie said belatedly. “Hi, um, Abby. See you later.” Maddie just gave a little wave like a windshield wiper. Then the three of them walked out, Merrick’s heels clattering. A sudden quiet descended.

“I guess Merrick must be feeling kind of tense these days,” Abby said after a moment.

“Oh, no, that’s just how she is,” Mrs. Whitshank said cheerfully. She had finished slicing the okra. She stirred the slices around in the milk, using a slotted spoon. “She was a snippy little girl and now she’s a snippy big girl,” she said. “Nothing much I can do about it.” She began transferring the okra slices to the cornmeal mixture. “Sometimes,” she said, “it seems to me there’s just these certain types of people that come around and around in our lives, know what I mean? Easy types and hard types; we run into them over and over. Merrick’s always put me in mind of my granny Inman. Disapproving kind of woman; tongue like a rasp. She never did think much of me. You , now, you’re a sympathizer, same as my aunt Louise.”

“Oh,” Abby said. “Yes, I see what you’re saying. It’s kind of like reincarnation.”

Mrs. Whitshank said, “Well …”

“Except it’s within one single lifetime instead of spread out over different lifetimes.”

“Well, maybe,” Mrs. Whitshank said. Then she said, “Honey, you want to do something for me?”

“Anything,” Abby said.

“Fetch that pitcher of water from the icebox and those paper cups on the counter and take them out to the men, will you? I know they must be dying of thirst. And tell them lunch will be early; I’ll bet they’re wondering.”

Abby stood up and went to the refrigerator. Her stockings were sticking damply to the backs of her legs. It might not have been the best idea to wear them on a day like today.

As she was crossing the front hall, she overheard Mr. Whitshank talking on the phone in the sunroom. “This afternoon? What the hell?” he was saying. “Goddammit, Mitch, I’ve got five men out there waiting on you to tell them how to do that tree stump!” Abby made her footsteps lighter, thinking he might be embarrassed that she’d caught him using swear words.