Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

In the afternoon, Macon called the Meow-Bow. “May I speak to Muriel, please?” he asked. He couldn’t think of her last name.

“Muriel’s not working today,” a girl told him.

“Oh, I see.”

“Her little boy is sick.”

He hadn’t known she had a little boy. He felt some inner click of adjustment; she was a slightly different person from the one he’d imagined. “Well,” he said, “this is Macon Leary. I guess I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

“Oh, Mr. Leary. You want to call her at home?”

“No, that’s all right.”

“I can give you her number if you want to call her at home.”

“I’ll just talk to her tomorrow. Thank you.”

Rose had an errand downtown, so she agreed to drop him off at the Businessman’s Press. He wanted to deliver the rest of his guidebook. Stretched across the backseat with his crutches, he gazed at the passing scenery: antique office buildings, tasteful restaurants, health food stores and florists’ shops, all peculiarly hard-edged and vivid in the light of a brilliant October afternoon. Rose perched behind the wheel and drove at a steady, slow pace that was almost hypnotic. She wore a little round basin-shaped hat with ribbons down the back. It made her look prim and Sunday schoolish.

One of the qualities that all four Leary children shared was a total inability to find their way around. It was a kind of dyslexia, Macon believed — a geographic dyslexia. None of them ever stepped outside without obsessively noting all available landmarks, clinging to a fixed and desperate mental map of the neighborhood. Back home, Macon had kept a stack of index cards giving detailed directions to the houses of his friends — even friends he’d known for decades. And it used to be that whenever Ethan met a new boy, Macon’s first anxious question was, “Where exactly does he live, do you know?” Ethan had had a tendency to form inconvenient alliances. He couldn’t just hang out with the boy next door; oh, no, it had to be someone who lived way beyond the Beltway. What did Ethan care? He had no trouble navigating. This was because he’d lived all his life in one house, was Macon’s theory; while a person who’d been moved around a great deal never acquired a fixed point of reference but wandered forever in a fog — adrift upon the planet, helpless, praying that just by luck he might stumble across his destination.

At any rate, Rose and Macon got lost. Rose knew where she wanted to go — a shop that sold a special furniture oil — and Macon had visited Julian’s office a hundred times; but even so, they drove in circles till Macon noticed a familiar steeple. “Stop! Turn left,” he said. Rose pulled up where he directed. Macon struggled out. “Will you be all right?” he asked Rose. “Do you think you can find your way back to pick me up?”

“I hope so.”

“Look for the steeple, remember.”

She nodded and drove away.

Macon swung up three granite steps to the brick mansion that housed the Businessman’s Press. The door was made of polished, golden wood. The floor inside was tiled with tiny black and white hexagons, just uneven enough to give purchase to Macon’s crutches.

This wasn’t an ordinary office. The secretary typed in a back room while Julian, who couldn’t stand being alone, sat out front. He was talking on a red telephone, lounging behind a desk that was laden with a clutter of advertisements, pamphlets, unpaid bills, unanswered letters, empty Chinese carryout cartons, and Perrier bottles. The walls were covered with sailing charts. The bookshelves held few books but a great many antique brass mariners’ instruments that probably didn’t even work anymore. Anybody with eyes could see that Julian’s heart was not in the Businessman’s Press but out on the Chesapeake Bay someplace. This was to Macon’s advantage, he figured. Surely no one else would have continued backing his series, with its staggering expenses and its constant need for updating.

“Rita’s bringing croissants,” Julian said into the phone. “Joe is making his quiche.” Then he caught sight of Macon. “Macon!” he said. “Stefanie, I’ll get back to you.” He hung up. “How’s the leg? Here, have a seat.”

He dumped a stack of yachting magazines off a chair. Macon sat down and handed over his folder. “Here’s the rest of the material on England,” he said.

“Well, finally!”

“This edition as I see it is going to run about ten or twelve pages longer than the last one,” Macon said. “It’s adding the business women that does it — listing which hotels offer elevator escorts, which ones serve drinks in the lobbies. I think I ought to be paid more.”

“I’ll talk it over with Marvin,” Julian said, flipping through the manuscript.

Macon sighed. Julian spent money like water but Marvin was more cautious.

“So now you’re on the U.S. again,” Julian said.

“Well, if you say so.”

“I hope it’s not going to take you long.”

“I can only go so fast,” Macon said. “The U.S. has more cities.”

“Yes, I realize that. In fact I might print this edition in sections: northeast, mid-Atlantic, and so forth; I don’t know…” But then he changed the subject. (He had a rather skittery mind.) “Did I tell you my new idea? Doctor friend of mine is looking into it: Accidental Tourist in Poor Health . A list of American-trained doctors and dentists in every foreign capital, plus maybe some suggestions for basic medical supplies: aspirin, Merck Manual—”

“Oh, not a Merck Manual away from home!” Macon said. “Every hangnail could be cancer, when you’re reading a Merck Manual.”

“Well, I’ll make a note of that,” Julian said (without so much as lifting a pencil). “Aren’t you going to ask me to autograph your cast? It’s so white.”

“I like it white,” Macon said. “I polish it with shoe polish.”

“I didn’t realize you could do that.”

“I use the liquid kind. It’s the brand with a nurse’s face on the label, if you ever need to know.”

“Accidental Tourist on Crutches,” Julian said, and he rocked back happily in his chair.

Macon could tell he was about to start his Macon Leary act. He got hastily to his feet and said, “Well, I guess I’ll be going.”

“So soon? Why don’t we have a drink?”

“No, thanks, I can’t. My sister’s picking me up as soon as she gets done with her errand.”

“Ah,” Julian said. “What kind of errand?”

Macon looked at him suspiciously.

“Well? Dry cleaner’s? Shoe repair?”

“Just an ordinary errand, Julian. Nothing special.”

“Hardware store? Pharmacy?”

“No.”

“So what is it?”

“Uh… she had to buy Furniture Food.”

Julian’s chair rocked so far back, Macon thought he was going to tip over. He wished he would, in fact. “Macon, do me a favor,” Julian said. “Couldn’t you just once invite me to a family dinner?”

“We’re really not much for socializing,” Macon told him.

“It wouldn’t have to be fancy. Just whatever you eat normally. What do you eat normally? Or I’ll bring the meal myself. You could lock the dog up… what’s his name again?”

“Edward.”

“Edward. Ha! And I’ll come spend the evening.”

“Oh, well,” Macon said vaguely. He arranged himself on his crutches.

“Why don’t I step outside and wait with you.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Macon said.

He couldn’t bear for Julian to see his sister’s little basin hat.

He pegged out to the curb and stood there, gazing in the direction Rose should be coming from. He supposed she was lost again. The cold was already creeping through the stretched-out sock he wore over his cast.