Lorrie Moore - Anagrams

“Are you all right?” Eleanor asks later.

“I’m fine,” I snap, lift plum pudding out of the oven, mix hard sauce with difficulty, drinking most of the brandy myself.

We eat dinner uncomfortably, a ritual we are bad at; all dissembling and irony, we are doing imitations of other people at Thanksgiving and we do them feebly, looking around, like kids from Tomaston not knowing what fork to use.

After dinner George and Eleanor play cards in the living room. They talk in low tones. I’m in the kitchen and can’t hear what they’re saying.

When it starts to get dark outside, Eleanor has to go. She comes into the kitchen and puts her arm around my waist. “Do you need any help?” and I say no. We hug and she says she has to get going, George has destroyed her in twelve straight rummy games, the girl’s a killer.

“I know,” I say.

George and Eleanor say good-bye by laughing and pretending to sock one another in the stomach.

By nightfall George is still not speaking to me. She has gone outside, gotten on her bike, driven to the edge of our property and the Shubbys’ and remained there, arms folded.

“George, get in here,” I call from the front door. I have on only a light sweater. George has crookedly donned earmuffs and an unzipped jacket, no mittens.

She refuses. She re-folds her arms and tells me she’s running away. She’s straddled the bar of the bike; it’s too big for her.

“On your bike?” I shout.

“Yup, and I want my bank book this instant,” she shouts. “I’m not on your property, so don’t worry.”

“George, please.” My knees are rags, my head mush, my life chestnut dressing chopped for hours and hours. Is this my daughter? I don’t recognize her. I close the door, but don’t lock it. I leave her, go upstairs, and climb into bed with my clothes on and my shoes.

At five-thirty in the morning I’m up, downstairs, boiling water and pouring it over oatmeal. Though rumpled I am already dressed, this is easy, this amuses me. In the living room Georgianne is on the sofa, asleep with her earmuffs still on.

I look out the window. She has left her bike fallen on the Shubbys’ property. The streetlight is still on. I start to turn away, back to my oatmeal, when I see her, the woman with the bathrobe out in the middle of the street again, with two children and a dog, and they are waving, though the dog sees something and runs after it and the children say something to each other, take each other’s hands and walk off in another direction, and the woman is left standing alone, still waving, dauntless, happy to see me.

November twenty-ninth is my birthday. I have an ache in my wisdom tooth. Darrel is supposed to be back from his parents’ house in New Jersey and is supposed to take me out to dinner.

I count too heavily on birthdays, though I know I shouldn’t. Inevitably I begin to assess my life by them, figure out how I’m doing by how many people remember; it’s like the old fantasy of attending your own funeral: You get to see who your friends are, get to see who shows up.

Eleanor has to be away for the day but she drops by early in the morning to give me a beautiful piece of pottery with zigzags. It seems expensive, as solid solitary objects often do, though I know nothing about pottery. Georgianne has smiled at me, kissed me, made me a card. It has three construction paper panels: The first has a flower in a flower pot; the second has the same flower in a flower pot, only this time the flower has grown; in the final panel the flower has grown so much you can’t even see it — only the stem and the pot. At the bottom she has scrawled in crayon: “My love just grows and grows and grows for you. Happy Birthday. Your Daughter, Georgianne Michelle Carpenter.” It’s the exact same card design she used last year — an idea filched from a children’s magazine. Apparently she thinks I would have forgotten that she gave it to me, assumes adults don’t really take that much notice of children and that therefore she can get away with this theft and redundancy. I kiss her. I thank her. We are friends again, funny friends. I nibble on her head and say, “I chews you.” She giggles, brings her shoulders up to her ears in a lovely shrug-hunch.

In the kitchen we eat ice cream. I can’t get it together to make a cake.

· · ·

Darrel gives me a kiss with much rump-rubbing and torso-pressing. I haven’t seen him since before Thanksgiving; this feels nice; and though he could have phoned at least once this feels like love what do I know.

“I missed you,” he says in what I deem a heartfelt way.

We are in the car, driving. Darrel’s driving.

“Where are we going for dinner?” I ask. It’s getting darker earlier these days. “You’re not losing an hour, you’re gaining a sun,” I always tell my classes in the spring when the clocks get set ahead again.

“A little place out past the mall. We just keep going straight.”

“I hope it’s not that cynical Chinese place.”

“What cynical Chinese place?”

“That place with the ferns and all that cheap French wine.”

“No, this is a new place. I’ll tell you: It’s called Fig’s.”

“Oh, Gerard’s been there,” I say. “He says it’s nice,” and then suddenly I know what this is: a surprise party. I know it. I’m sure of it.

“Is this a surprise party?” Now I will watch Darrel lie. When he says no, I will study him, watch how he does it; from here on in I will know what he does when he lies, how he sets his face, how he moves his mouth, I will know his lie look, his lie voice, his lie words, though he won’t know I’m gathering this intelligence; nonetheless, I must gather.

“No,” says Darrel, and because we’re stopped for a light I can turn and see his face fall into a configuration of mature concern, of heartfeltedness. He reaches over and attempts to squeeze my left buttock, though mostly the car seat’s in the way.

“I just want to take you to a place you’ve never been to before.”

“Did you sleep with someone over Thanksgiving?” It’s a long light, and I watch his face.

“Benna,” he scolds. And then smiles, slightly self-conscious, shakes his mature, concerned, heartfelt head, and pinches me gently in the hip.

“Surprise!” shouts everyone. There is Gerard and Maple and some people I don’t know, some friends of Gerard, why does Gerard always have friends I don’t know. They wanted to go to a party; I’m only the excuse; I feel bashful and hide my face in Darrel’s sleeve as if I were Georgianne, then lift it out again. There are a few affectionate laughs and “Aw’s.” I look along their faces, and suddenly I see Verrie. She looks beautiful and stands and we hug tight.

“God, you look great,” I gasp.

“It’s California,” she says. “I hate it. Hate brings out my youthful glow.”

“Not me,” I say. “Hate makes weight,” and I puff out my cheeks and laugh but I have indeed gained weight should I care.

Fig’s is orange and square with several cigarette machines. It looks like the FVCC faculty lounge. My eyes feel scrappy and splotched. Verrie’s in town for a day, she says.

Gerard kisses me, brings me a chair. “Happy Birthday, Benna. Were you surprised?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say.

Gerard gives Darrel a friendly tap. “Good work,” he says.

“It was nothing,” says Darrel, all male conspiracy. I feel manipulated, described in the third person. Regardless of how you try to love them, men always return to one another in the end.

Eight people around a table. Introductions. Names like Pooky and Cappy. (No Merrilee.) Drinks like scotch. Presents like books. Food like steaks and chops. Why was Joan of Arc luckier than Mary Queen of Scots? Because Joan got a hot stake and Mary only got a cold chop. Cappy howls, spills a drink. Jokes like that.