Lorrie Moore - The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore

"By the time they've grown up it'll be too late," Millie had said.

But Hane had thought, No, it won't . By that time he would be president of the college, or dean of a theological school somewhere, and he would be speaking from a point of achievement that would mean something to his children. He could then tell them his life story. In the meantime, his kids hadn't seemed interested in his attempts at conversation. "Forget it, Dad," his son had always said to him. "Just forget it." No matter what Hane said, standing in a doorway or serving dinner—"How was school, son?" — Michael would always tell him just to forget it, Dad. One time, in the living room, Hane had found himself unable to bear it, and had grabbed Michael by the arm and struck him twice in the face.

"This is fine, thank you," said John, referring to his turnips. "And the flight was fine. I saw movies."

"Now, what is it you plan to do here exactly?" There was a gruffness in Hane's voice. This happened often, though Hane rarely intended it, or even heard it, clawing there in the intonation.

John gulped at some milk and fussed with his napkin.

"Hane, let's save it for after grace," said Millie.

"Your turn," said Hane, and he nodded and bowed his head. John Spee sat upright and stared.

Millie began. "'Bless this food to our use, and us to thy service. And keep us ever needful of the minds of others.' Wopes. 'Amen.' Did you hear what I said?" She grinned, as if pleased.

"We assumed you did that on purpose, didn't we, John?" Hane looked out over his glasses and smiled conspiratorially at the boy.

"Yes," said John. He looked at the ceramic figurines on the shelf to his right. There was a ballerina and a clown.

"Well," said Millie, "maybe I just did." She placed her napkin in her lap and began eating. She enjoyed the leftovers, the warm, rising grease of them, their taste and ecology.

"It's very good food, Mrs. Keegan," said John, chewing.

"Before you leave, of course, I'll cook up a real meal. Several."

"How long you staying?" Hane asked.

Millie put her fork down. "Hane, I told you: three weeks."

"Maybe only two," said John Spee. The idea seemed to cheer him. "But then maybe I'll find a flat in the Big Apple and stay forever."

Millie nodded. People from out of town were always referring to the Big Apple, like some large forbidden fruit one conquered with mountain gear. It seemed to give them energy, to think of it that way.

"What will you do ?" Hane studied the food on his fork, letting it hover there, between his fork and his mouth, a kind of ingestive purgatory. Hane's big fear was idleness. Particularly in boys. What will you do ?

"Hane," cautioned Millie.

"In England none of me mates have jobs. They're all jealous 'cause I sold the car and came here to New York."

"This is New Jersey, dear," said Millie. "You'll see New York tomorrow. I'll give you a timetable for the train."

"You sold your car," repeated Hane. Hane had never once sold a car outright. He had always traded them in. "That's quite a step."

the next morning Millie made a list of things for John to do and see in New York. Hane had already left for his office. She sat at the dining room table and wrote:

Statue of Liberty World Trade Center Times Square Broadway 2-fors

She stopped for a moment and thought.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Circle Line Tour

The door of the "guest" room was still closed. Funny how it pleased her to have someone in that space, someone really using it. For too long she had just sat in there doodling on her business cards and thinking about Michael. The business cards had been made from recycled paper, but the printers had forgotten to mention that on the back. So she had inked it in herself. They had also forgotten to print Millie's middle initial — Environmental Project Adviser, Mildred R . Keegan — and so she had sat in there for weeks, ballpointing the R back in, card after card. Later Ariel had told her the cards looked stupid that way, and Millie had had to agree. She then spent days sitting at the desk, cutting the cards into gyres, triangles, curlicues, like a madness, like a business turned madness. She left them, absent-mindedly, around the house, and Hane began to find them in odd places — on the kitchen counter, on the toilet tank. He turned to her one night in bed and said, "Millie, you're fifty-one. You don't have to have a career. Really, you don't," and she put her hands to her face and wept.

John Spee came out of his room. He was completely dressed, his bright hair parted neat as a crease, the white of his scalp startling as surgery.

"I've made a list of things you'll probably want to do," said Millie.

John sat down. "What's this?" He pointed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "I'm not that keen to go to museums. We always went to the British Museum for school. My sister likes that kind of stuff, but not me."

"These are only suggestions," said Millie. She placed a muffin and a quartered orange in front of him.

John smiled appreciatively. He picked up a piece of orange, pressed it against his teeth, and sucked it to a damp, stringy mat.

"I can drive you to the station to catch the ten-o-two train, if you want to leave in fifteen minutes," said Millie. She slid sidesaddle into a chair and began eating a second muffin. Her manner was sprinkled with youthful motions, as if her body were on occasion falling into a memory or a wish.

"That would be lovely, thanks," said John.

"Did you really not like living in England?" asked Millie, but they were both eating muffins, and it was hard to talk.

At the station she pressed a twenty into his hand and kissed him on the cheek. He stepped back away from her and got on the train. "See a play," Millie mouthed at him through the window.

at dinner it was just she and Hane. Hane was talking about Jesus again, the Historical Jesus, how everyone misunderstood Christ's prophetic powers, how Jesus himself had been mistaken.

"Jesus thought the world was going to end," said Hane, "but he was wrong. It wasn't just Jerusalem. He was predicting the end for the whole world. Eschatologically, he got it wrong. He said it outright, but he was mistaken. The world kept right on."

"Perhaps he meant it as a kind of symbol. You know, poetically, not literally." Millie had heard Hane suggest this himself. They were his words she was speaking, one side of his own self-argument.

"No, he meant it literally," Hane barked a little fiercely.

"Well, we all make mistakes," said Millie. "Isn't the world funny that way." She always tried to listen to Hane. She knew that few students registered for his courses anymore, and those that did tended to be local fundamentalists, young ignorant people, said Hane, who had no use for history or metaphor. They might as well just chuck the Bible! In class Hane's primary aim was reconciling religion with science and history, but these young "Pentecostalists," as Hane referred to them, didn't believe in science or history. "They're mindless, some of these kids. And if you want your soul nourished — and they do, I think — you've got to have a mind."

"Cleanliness is next to godliness," said Millie.

"What are you talking about?" asked Hane. He looked depressed and impatient. There were times when he felt he had married a stupid woman, and it made him feel alone in the world.

"I've been thinking about the garbage barge," said Millie. "I guess my mind's wandering around, just like that heap of trash." She smiled. She had been listening to all the reports on the barge, had charted its course from Islip, where she had relatives, to Morehead City, where she had relatives. "Imagine," she had said to her neighbor in their backyards, near the prize tulips that belonged to neither one of them. "Relatives in both places! Garbagey relatives!"