Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

“Well, I don’t know. I wonder about winter,” Macon said.

“Winter?”

“I mean right now in the middle of June a flowered couch looks fine, but it might seem out of place in December.”

“So you prefer something in a solid,” Sarah said.

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Or maybe stripes.”

“I’m not sure.”

“I know you don’t like plaids.”

“No.”

“How do you feel about tweeds?”

“Tweeds,” Macon said, considering.

Sarah handed over the book and started loading the dishwasher.

Macon studied pictures of angular modern couches, cozy chintz-covered couches, and period reproduction couches covered in complex fabrics. He took the book to the living room and squinted at the spot where the couch would be sitting. The old one, which had turned out to be too waterlogged to salvage, had been carted away, along with both armchairs. Now there was just a long blank wall, with the freshly plastered ceiling glaring above it. Macon observed that a room without furniture had a utilitarian feeling, as if it were merely a container. Or a vehicle. Yes, a vehicle: He had a sense of himself speeding through the universe as he stood there.

While Sarah got dressed, Macon took the dog out. It was a warm, golden morning. Neighbors were trimming their grass and weeding their flower beds. They nodded as Macon walked past. He had not been back long enough for them to feel at ease yet; there was something a little too formal about their greetings. Or maybe he was imagining that. He made an effort to remind them of how many years he had lived here: “I’ve always liked those tulips of yours!” and “Still got that nice hand mower, I see!” Edward marched beside him with a busybody waggle of his hind end.

In movies and such, people who made important changes in their lives accomplished them and were done with it. They walked out and never returned; or they married and lived happily ever after. In real life, things weren’t so clean-cut. Macon, for instance, had had to go down to Muriel’s and retrieve his dog, once he’d decided to move back home. He had had to collect his clothing and pack up his typewriter while Muriel watched in silence with her accusing, reproaching eyes. Then there were all kinds of other belongings that he discovered too late he’d forgotten — clothes that had been in the wash at the time, and his favorite dictionary, and the extra-large pottery mug he liked to drink his coffee from. But of course he couldn’t go back for them. He had to abandon them — messy, trailing strings of himself cluttering his leavetaking.

By the time he and Edward returned from their outing, Sarah was waiting in the front yard. She wore a yellow dress that made her tan glow; she looked very pretty. “I was just wondering about the azaleas,” she told Macon. “Weren’t we supposed to feed them in the spring?”

“Well, probably,” Macon said, “but they seem all right to me.”

“In April, I think,” she said. “Or maybe May. No one was here to do it.”

Macon veered away from that. He preferred to pretend that their lives had been going on as usual. “Never mind, Rose has whole sacks of fertilizer,” he said. “We’ll pick up some from her while we’re out.”

“No one was here to seed the lawn, either.”

“The lawn looks fine,” he said, more forcefully than he’d meant to.

They shut Edward in the house and climbed into Macon’s car. Sarah had brought along a newspaper because there were several furniture ads. “Modern Housewares,” she read off. “But that’s all the way down on Pratt Street.”

“Might as well give it a try,” Macon said. Pratt was one of the few streets he knew how to find.

After they left their neighborhood, with its trees arching overhead, the car grew hotter and Macon rolled his window down. Sarah lifted her face to the sunlight. “Be a good day to go to the pool,” she said.

“Well, if we have time. I was thinking of asking you to lunch.”

“Oh, where?”

“Anywhere you like. Your choice.”

“Aren’t you nice,” she said.

Macon drove past two unshaven men talking on a corner. Sarah locked her door. Macon thought of what the men would be saying: “What’s coming down, man?” “Not all that much.”

The sidewalks grew more crowded. Women lugged string-handled shopping bags, an old man dragged a grocery cart, and a girl in a faded dress leaned her head against a bus stop sign.

At Modern Homewares, huge paper banners covered the plate glass windows. SPECIAL FOR FATHER’S DAY! they read. Sarah hadn’t mentioned that this was a Father’s Day sale. Macon made a point of mentioning it himself, to show it didn’t bother him. Taking her arm as they entered, he said, “Isn’t that typical. Father’s Day! They’ll capitalize on anything.”

Sarah looked away from him and said, “All they seem to have is beds.”

“I suppose it began with reclining chairs,” Macon said. “A Barcalounger for Dad, and next thing you know it’s a whole dinette set.”

“Could we see your couches,” Sarah told a salesman firmly.

The couches were all of the straight-back, Danish sort, which was fine with Macon. He didn’t really care. Sarah said, “What do you think? Legs? Or flush with the floor.”

“It’s all the same to me,” he said. He sat down heavily on something covered in leather.

Sarah chose a long, low couch that opened into a queen-sized bed. “Macon? What do you say?” she asked. “Do you like what you’re sitting on better?”

“No, no,” he said.

“Well, what do you think of this one?”

“It’s fine.”

“Don’t you have any opinion?”

“I just gave you my opinion, Sarah.”

Sarah sighed and asked the salesman if he offered same-day delivery.

They’d been so efficient about picking out the couch that time remained for other errands as well. First they drove to Hutzler’s and bought queen-sized sheets. Then they checked the furniture department for armchairs; there was a Father’s Day sale there, too. “Maybe we’re on a roll,” Sarah told Macon. But they weren’t as lucky with the armchairs; nothing looked just right. Not to Macon, at least. He gave up trying and stood watching a kiddie show on a row of television sets.

After Hutzler’s they went to get fertilizer from Rose, but Macon braked on the way and said, “Wait! There’s my bank.” It had come upon him unexpectedly — the branch where he rented a safe deposit box. “I need my passport for the France trip,‘ he told Sarah. “Might as well pick it up while I’m here.”

Sarah said she’d just wait in the car.

He had to stand in line; two elderly women were ahead of him. They were checking out their jewels for Saturday night, he liked to imagine. Or clipping their coupons — whatever coupons were. While he stood there he kept feeling the presence of someone behind him. For some reason he didn’t want to turn and find out who it was. He just kept staring ahead, every now and then glancing at his watch in a businesslike way. This person breathed very gently and smelled like flowers — bitter, real-life flowers, not the kind in perfume bottles. But when he finally squared his shoulders and looked around, he found only another stranger waiting for her jewels.

It wasn’t true that Muriel had watched in silence as he packed. Actually, she had spoken. She had said, “Macon? Are you really doing this? Do you mean to tell me you can just use a person up and then move on? You think I’m some kind of… bottle of something you don’t have any further need for? Is that how you see me, Macon?”

His turn for the vault had arrived, and he followed a girl in a miniskirt across a carpeted area, into the windowless cubicle lined with drawers. “I won’t need to take my box to the other room,” he told the girl. “I just want to get one thing.”