Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons

"For the what?"

"For the weekend."

Mrs. Stuckey stooped for the grocery bags and started wading out of the room, bending slightly at the knees so her arms looked too long for her body. At the door she said, "I'd sooner see you lying in your casket."

"But, Mom!"

Fiona was on her feet now, following her into the hallway. She said, "Mom, the weekend's half finished anyhow. We're talking about just one single night! One night at Leroy's grandparents' house."

"And Jesse Moran would be nowhere about, I suppose," Mrs. Stuckey said at a distance. There was a crash-presumably the grocery bags being dumped on a counter.

"Oh, Jesse might be around maybe, but-"

"Yah, yah," Mrs. Stuckey said on an outward breath.

"Besides, so what if he is? Don't you think Leroy should get to knew her daddy?"

Mrs. Stuckey's answer to that was just a mutter, but Maggie heard it clearly. "Anyone whose daddy is Jesse Moran is better off staying strangers."

Well! Maggie felt her face grow hot. She had half a mind to march out to the kitchen and give Mrs. Stuckey what for. "Listen," she would say. "You think there haven't been times I've cursed your daughter? She hurt my son to the bone. There were times I could have wrung her neck, but have you ever heard me speak a word against her?"

In fact, she even stood up, with a sudden, violent motion that creaked the sofa springs, but then she paused. She smoothed down the front of her dress. The gesture served to smooth her thoughts as well, and instead of heading for the kitchen she collected her purse and went off to find a bathroom, clamping her lips very tightly. Please, God, don't let the bathroom lie on the other side of the kitchen. No, there it was-the one open door at the end of the hall. She caught the watery green of a shower curtain.

After she had used the toilet, she turned on the sink faucet and patted her cheeks with cool water. She bent closer to the mirror. Yes, definitely she had a flustered look. She would have to get hold of herself. She hadn't finished even that one beer, but she thought it might be affecting her. And it was essential just now to play her cards right.

For instance, about Jesse. Although she had failed to mention it to Fiona, Jesse lived in an apartment uptown now, and therefore they couldn't merely assume that he would happen by while Fiona was visiting.

He would have to be expressly invited. Maggie hoped he hadn't made other plans. Saturday: That could mean trouble. She checked her watch. Saturday night he might very well be singing with his band, or just going out with his friends. Sometimes he even dated-no one important, but still. . .

She flushed the toilet, and under cover of the sound she slipped out of the bathroom and opened the door next to it. This room must be Leroy's.

Dirty clothes and comic books lay everywhere. She closed the door again and tried the one opposite. Ah, a grownup's room. A decorous white candlewick bedspread, and a telephone on the nightstand.

"After all you done to free yourself, you want to go back to that boy and get snaggled up messy as ever," Mrs. Stuckey said, clattering tin cans.

"Who says I'm getting snaggled? I'm just paying a weekend visit."

"He'll have you running circles around him just like you was before."

"Mom, I'm twenty-five years old. I'm not that same little snippet I used to be."

Maggie closed the door soundlessly behind her and went over to lift the receiver. Oh, dear, no push buttons. She winced each time the dial made its noisy, rasping return to home base. The voices in the kitchen continued, though. She relaxed and pressed the receiver to her ear.

One ring. Two rings.

It was a good thing Jesse was working today. For the last couple of weeks, the phone in his apartment had not been ringing properly. He could call other people all right, but he never knew when someone might be calling him. "Why don't you get it fixed? Or buy a new one; they're dirt cheap these days," Maggie had said, but he said, "Oh, I don't know, it's kind of a gas. Anytime I pass the phone I just pick it up at random. I say, 'Hello?' Twice I've actually found a person on the other end."

Maggie had to smile now, remembering that. There was something so ... oh, so lucky about Jesse. He was so fortunate and funny and haphazard.

"Chick's Cycle Shop," a boy said.

"Could I speak to Jesse, please?"

The receiver at the other end clattered unceremoniously against a hard surface. "Jess!" the boy called, moving off. There was a silence, overlaid by the hissing sound of long distance.

Of course this was stealing, if you wanted to get picky about it-using someone else's phone to call out of state. Maybe she ought to leave a couple of quarters on the nightstand. Or would that be considered an insult? With Mrs. Stuckey, there was no right way to do a thing.

Jesse said, "Hello."

"Jesse?"

"Ma?"

His voice was Ira's voice, but years younger.

"Jesse, I can't talk long," she whispered.

"What? Speak up, I can barely hear you."

"I can't," she said.

"What?"

She cupped the mouthpiece with her free hand. "I was wondering," she said. "Do you think you could come to supper tonight?"

"Tonight? Well, I was sort of planning on-"

"It's important," she said.

"How come?"

"Well, it just is," she said, playing for time.

She had a decision to make, here. She could pretend it was on Daisy's account, for Daisy's going away. (That was safe enough. In spite of their childhood squabbles he was fond of Daisy, and had asked her only last week whether she would forget him after she left.) Or she could tell him the truth, in which case she might set in motion another of those ridiculous scenes.

But hadn't she just been saying it was time to cut through all that?

She took a deep breath. She said, "I'm having Fiona and Leroy to dinner."

"You're what?"

"Don't hang up! Don't say no! This is your only daughter!" she cried in a rush.

And then glanced anxiously toward the door, fearing she'd been too loud.

"Now, slow down, Ma," Jesse said.

"Well, we're up here in Pennsylvania," she said more quietly, "because we happened to be going to a funeral. Max Gill died-I don't know if Daisy's had a chance to tell you. And considering that we were in the neighborhood . . . and Fiona told me in so many words that she wanted very much to see you."

"Oh, Ma. Is this going to be like those other times?"

"What other times?"

"Is this like when you said she phoned and I believed you and phoned her back-"

"She did phone then! I swear it!"

"Somebody phoned, but you had no way of knowing who. An anonymous call.

You didn't tell me that part, did you?"

Maggie said, "The telephone rang, I picked it up. I said, 'Hello?' No answer. It was just a few months after she left; who else could it have been? I said, 'Fiona?' She hung up. If it wasn't Fiona, why did she hang up?"

"Then all you tell me is: 'Jesse, Fiona called today,* and I break my neck getting to the phone and make a total fool of myself. I say, 'Fiona?

What did you want?' and she says, 'To whom am I speaking, please?' I say, 'Goddamn it, Fiona, you know perfectly well this is Jesse,' and she says, 'Don't you use that language with me, Jesse Moran,' and I say, 'Now, look here. It wasn't me who called you, may I remind you,' and she says, 'But it was you, Jesse, because here you are on the line, aren't you,' and I say, 'But goddamn it-' "

"Jesse," Maggie said. "Fiona says she sometimes thinks of sending you another telegram."

"Telegram?"

"Like the first one. You remember the first one."

"Yes," Jesse said. "I remember."

"You never told me about that. But at any rate," she hurried on, "the telegram would read, Jesse, I love you still, and it begins to seem I always will.''