Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.” And she sat up and drew back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. She was wearing a nightgown that would have worked better in the summer, a thin white cotton petticoat-thing that barely covered her knees. It was the first time he had seen her out of her winter wraps, and he realized she had changed more than he had first thought. She might still be too thin, but she had lost her coltish gawkiness. Her calves and her upper arms had more of a curve to them.

When she stood up he turned away from her so as not to see her dressing, and he went over to the bureau. A tin oatmeal canister sat on top; he opened it and took out the loaf of store bread that he kept shut away from the mice. Then he raised the window sash and reached for the milk. “Breakfast,” he told Linnie.

“That’s your breakfast? Doesn’t your landlady give you breakfast?”

“Not me. Some of the others, they can afford to get their three squares here but I can’t.”

He shut the window and uncapped the milk bottle and took a swig. (It was something of a pleasure to show off how handily he dealt with adversity.) Then he held the bottle toward Linnie, still carefully not looking at her, and he felt her lift it out of his grasp. “But what about in hot weather?” she asked. “How’ll we keep the milk from souring when it’s hot?”

We? He felt that organ-grinder panic again, but he answered levelly. “In hot weather I switch to buttermilk,” he said. “Can’t much go wrong with that.”

The milk bottle jogged his elbow and he took it and passed her a slice of bread in exchange, keeping his face set stubbornly toward the window where the smoke stood up from the chimneys outside as if it were too cold to drift. Tonight he should bring the milk in; he didn’t want it freezing solid.

Linnie Mae was unclasping her suitcase now, by the sound of it. Junior folded his own slice of bread into quarters to get it over with quicker, and he took a large bite and chewed doggedly, listening to the rustles behind him. Then he heard the click of the door lock and he wheeled around. She was grasping the doorknob to turn it; he lunged past her and threw himself in front of her. It startled her, he could tell. She drew back as if she thought he might hit her, which he wouldn’t have, but still, it was just as well she knew he meant business.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked her.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“You can’t. Someone’ll see you.”

“But I need to pee, Junior. Bad .”

“The café down the street has a bathroom,” he said. “Get your coat on; we’re leaving. I’ll show you where the café is.” She was wearing what looked like a summer dress, belted and short-sleeved. Didn’t they have winter back home anymore, or what? And on her feet were those same high-heeled shoes. “Put on warmer shoes, too,” he said.

“I didn’t bring any warmer shoes.”

How on earth did her mind work? “Come on the way you are, then,” he said. “It’s too risky to use the bathroom here; it’s six men deep in the mornings.”

She took her coat from the closet and put it on so painstakingly that it seemed she was bound and determined to irk him, and then she lifted her purse down from the closet shelf. Meanwhile, Junior set the milk back outside, and then he hunched himself into his jacket and went over to the bed. The suitcase lay there wide open, brazen as you please, and he closed it and bent to slide it underneath the bed, way back toward the wall. After one last look around the room, he said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

He peeked out the door first, making sure the hall was empty. He motioned her out ahead of him and locked the door behind them, and they walked the length of the hall and down the two flights of stairs without encountering anyone. They crossed the foyer, which was the most dangerous part, but the parlor door stayed shut. Junior heard the clink of china and he smelled coffee. He wasn’t one for coffee himself but the smell always made him long for some — or just for people eating breakfast together, a slant of morning sunlight across the tablecloth.

Out on the sidewalk, the cold air at first seemed a blessing. (The third floor always collected the heat.) Junior came to a stop and pointed toward the intersection with Dutch Street, where the sign for the café was plainly visible. “But what if it’s not open yet?” Linnie asked him. She was no longer bothering to keep her voice down, although they were standing right under Mrs. Davies’s parlor window.

“It’ll be open. This is a workingmen’s neighborhood.”

“And after that, what? Where will I go?”

“That’s your business,” he said.

“Can’t I come with you to where you work? I could help out, maybe. I know how to hammer and saw some.”

“That is a bad idea,” he said.

“Or just wait in your car, then! I can’t stay out in the cold all day.”

She was standing too close to him, lifting her face to him. He could actually feel her warm foggy breath and smell the sleepy smell of it. Her hair had a frowsy, uncombed look and her nose was pink.

“You should have thought of that before you came,” he said. “Go sit in the train station or something. Ride the streetcar up and down. I’ll meet you out front of the café a little after five.”

“Five!”

“Then we’ll talk about your plans.”

He could tell from the way her forehead cleared that she thought he meant their plans. He didn’t bother setting her straight.

The work he was doing that week was for an elderly couple in Homeland, flooring an unfinished attic and changing a louvered attic vent into a window. He had found it the way he found most work these days: driving out to one of the better-off neighborhoods and knocking on people’s doors. In his glove box he kept the letter of reference Mr. Ward had written for him when Ward Builders had had to shut down, but people generally took Junior’s word for it that he knew what he was doing. He made a point of wearing clean clothes and shaving daily and speaking respectfully and trying his best to watch his grammar. Then once he had a job lined up, he would drive off for whatever materials he needed; he had a credit arrangement with a builders’ supply in Locust Point. He would return with the Essex loaded down like an ant beneath an oversized breadcrumb. Best decision he’d ever made was buying that Essex. Lots of workmen had to transport their materials on the streetcar — pay the extra fare for their lengths of pipe or lumber and enlist the conductor’s help in roping them to the outside of the car — but not Junior.

This particular job wasn’t very interesting, but it was a good deal more useful than the hand-carved mantels and built-in knickknack shelves of his days with Mr. Ward. The couple’s grown daughter was moving back home with her four children and her husband, who had lost his job, and the attic was where the children would sleep. Besides, Junior knew that sooner or later, things were bound to get better. Folks in these parts would be wanting their mantels and their knickknack shelves once again, and then his would be the name that came to mind.

People in Homeland could often be clannish, but this couple acted friendlier and some days the wife called up from the bottom of the attic staircase to say that she was leaving a little something for his lunch. Today she left an egg sandwich cut on the diagonal, and he ate one half but he wrapped the other half in his handkerchief to take back to Linnie. Even though he was desperate to get shed of her, it wasn’t all bad knowing that somebody somewhere was waiting for him.

Junior hadn’t had much luck with girls in Baltimore, to tell the truth. Girls up north were just harder. Harder to figure out and harder-natured, both.