Z. Packer - Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Alice stared at Doris. “For the love of heaven, it’s just a word.”

Livia said, “But why use the word if it’s not accurate? It’s simply not the color of everyone’s flesh.”

“Well, how should I say it? What should I say when describing it? Say, ‘Oh, I bought a dress the color of everybody else’s skin except Doris’s’?”

“I’m not the only one.”

“I could say it was a flesh-colored dress and everyone would know what I was talking about. Everyone would know exactly what I was talking about.”

“I’m sure they would, Alice,” Livia said. She laughed, high and free. “ Everyone would.”

Alice pinched her fingers together, as though holding a grain of salt. “It’s those little things, Doris. Why do your people concentrate on all those little, itty-bitty things?”

WHY SHOULD she care about what Alice said? That phrase. “Your people.” Livia had kicked Alice out of the car right there on Newburg Road, where cabs didn’t come and buses were scarce. It was a hard thing to do — kick someone out of a car — and Livia had had to open the passenger side door, drag Alice out against her will, tug and tug until Alice, unwilling to make too much of a scene, finally stayed put on the sidewalk. Her face scrunched up mean and hateful, as if she was too proud to cry, though obviously she wanted to. Livia looked disappointed that Doris wouldn’t help kick Alice out, but Doris hopped into the front seat where Alice had sat just the same.

“That’s better, now, isn’t it,” Livia had said, as if she’d done it all for Doris, but Doris didn’t speak to her the whole way home. Alice had annoyed her, offended her, but she didn’t see any sense in doing anything about it. Acknowledging too much just made it hurt worse. Livia’s self-satisfaction and self-righteousness felt just as bad as Alice’s thoughtlessness. When Livia drove Doris to the West End part of town where Doris lived, she seemed to delight in seeing so many Negro faces.

During supper, Doris hardly said anything, and no one seemed to notice. Charleroy and Edgar talked excitedly about stickball, about grade-school gossip, about their teacher’s bosom until, finally, their mother told them to hush.

IT WAS the family’s habit to walk after supper, a leisurely stroll that made them feel wealthy. Once they got to Stutz’s Fine Appliances, they’d stop and survey the fifteen or so TVs on display as if they were finicky purchasers looking for the exact one that would suit their needs. In the beginning, Doris’s mother would make noises of approval or disapproval of the various models, and her father would crane his neck to examine the side finish and sturdiness of the cabinets. They had all played along when they’d started going to Stutz’s so long ago, though they all knew that they didn’t have the money and wouldn’t for a long time. As far as Doris knew, she had been the only one to actually go inside and talk to the old man.

They stood outside of Stutz’s swaddled in coats and watched Lucy and Ethel and Fred beg Ricky to let them on his show. Lucy, ridiculous in a ballerina costume, Ethel in a cha-cha dress, and pudgy Fred in the same dress but wearing a Shirley Temple wig.

Old man Stutz came outside, hobbling. “Hello, friends. Hello, Dorrie.”

They looked at Doris, and a chill went through her as if she didn’t have a coat on at all. Never before when she and her family visited at night had Stutz been there, only his son, the one he called Lazybones, who never made an effort to go out and greet window shoppers.

“Hello, Mr. Stutz. Mr. Stutz, this is my family.” She went through the introductions, and her parents fell silent. The boys pinched each other and tried not to laugh.

“All the answers,” Stutz said, wagging and pointing to Doris with a little too much exuberance. “She knows all the answers to all the game shows! You want to buy?” He gestured extravagantly at the television they’d been watching.

Her mother laughed as she had at Livia. Nervous, uncertain. “Well, mister, we’d like to. We’re working on it.”

“Work on it, work on it!” Stutz said, smiling broadly and bobbing his head.

When they left to walk back home her mother said, “That little Russian man sure is funny-looking.”

“Woman, you always got to talk ’bout how someone look,” her father said. “Someone nose always too big or too little. Or they teeth missing. Or they breath stank.”

“Can’t help it if he’s funny-looking.”

“Lord made him that way. He Russian.”

“Rich as he is, he can do something to his face. Keep it from being so funny-looking.”

“He’s Lithuanian,” Doris said, “not Russian.”

And little Edgar, popping her on the thigh, said, “Who asked you?”

A FEW weeks after the car ride and movie, Livia did not show up for class. Doris assumed she was playing hooky, but then two days passed, then three; still no Livia. Finally she went to Livia’s homeroom teacher to check whether Livia had been in school at all. She’d been marked present that day, and though Doris looked for her, she couldn’t find her. She was not in Fott’s class, hadn’t stopped by to lean up against Doris’s locker and dole out pithy bon mots.

As soon as the last bell rang, Doris searched the front of the school, and when she did not find Livia there, she walked to the student parking lot. There, the white kids stared at her the way department store clerks stared at her family when they went to try on clothes. They stared, then looked away as if they hadn’t seen anything at all.

Doris ran toward the gym, remembering how the smokers always hovered near it. Doris was out of breath, but Livia didn’t seem to notice or care. She stood there and smiled as though awaiting introductions at a cocktail party.

“Doris,” she said.

“Where’ve you been?” She wanted Livia to say, To and fro upon the earth and walking up and down on it . That was always Livia’s answer. Say it , Doris willed. Say it . She’d missed those lines from Job, missed Livia more than she thought she would. Say it .

“I’ve been around,” Livia said. She sounded drunk. “Around and around.”

“ Around? What about school? What about—” She caught herself before she could say, What about me?

“I hate to say it, Doris, but my time here is limited.”

Doris thought death, sickness. Livia going insane like Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass ; she imagined Livia laid up with satin sheets like Greta Garbo in Camille , the movie she’d seen for extra credit for French class.

“ No, ” Livia said, reading her mind. “Nothing serious. I’m going to school up North. I can’t stand it down here anymore. You shouldn’t either.”

She didn’t know what Livia could mean by that: Where would she go? What choice did she have? And had she known things to be any other way? Only rich folks like the Bermans could afford to go wherever they wanted.

“My mother said you were in the sanatorium,” Doris said. “Was that where you were before? Is that where you’re going?” She checked Livia’s face for some crumb of emotion.

Livia smiled brightly, as if Doris never ceased to amaze her, then drew Doris up in a hug. “Oh, Doris,” she said. “Don’t you know that the real crazy people are the ones who do the same thing over and over again? Expecting a different result every time?”

ON THE school bus all the Negro kids talked like a party, relieved to be going home. When they spoke to her, it was either a question about Holy Rollers or a question about what whites did in class, how they acted and how they treated her.

“Do they throw things at you?” one boy asked.