Anne Tyler - Noah's Compass

“I understand these carrots aren’t really babies at all,” he told Eunice. “They’re full-sized but they’ve been whittled down by machines to make them little.”

“That’s all right,” Eunice said, and she laid the single carrot she’d selected onto her plate. For someone so well padded, she seemed a very dainty eater. “Now, I haven’t spoken yet to Mr. McPherson,” she said.

“McPherson. Oh. At Cope.”

“I thought first you could write him a letter of inquiry, and then I would stop by his office and put in a word of recommendation.”

“Well, but-” Liam began.

He was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Maybe he was edgier these days than he realized, because his heart gave a sudden thump. Someone called, “Poppy?”

Kitty came staggering in with her duffel bag and a large canvas tote. She still wore her work clothes-the pink polyester tunic she always complained about. Her mascara or whatever it was had blurred so she seemed to have two black eyes. “Oh!” she said when she saw Eunice.

Liam said, “Eunice, this is Kitty, my daughter. Kitty, this is Eunice, um…”

“Dunstead,” Eunice said. She was sitting almost sway-backed now with her hands folded under her chin. She looked a little bit like a chipmunk. “It’s such a thrill to meet you, Kitty!”

“Hi,” Kitty said flatly. Then she turned to Liam. “I’ve reached the end of the line, I tell you. I’m not staying under that woman’s roof another minute.”

“Well, why not have a piece of chicken,” Liam said. “Eunice here was kind enough to bring a-”

“First of all, I am seventeen years old. I am not a child. Second, I have always been an extremely reasonable person. Wouldn’t you say I’m reasonable?”

“Should I go?” Eunice asked Liam.

She spoke in a low, urgent voice, as if hoping Kitty wouldn’t hear. Liam glanced at her. In fact, he did wish all at once that she would go. This was not working out the way he’d imagined; it was getting complicated; he felt frazzled and distracted. But he said, “Oh , no, please don’t feel you have to-”

“I think I should,” she said, and she rose, or half rose, watching his face.

Liam said, “Well, then, if you’re sure.”

She stood up all the way and reached for her purse. Kitty was saying, “But some people just take this preconception into their heads and then there’s no convincing them. ‘I know you,’ they say; ‘I don’t trust you as far as I can-’”

“Sorry,” Liam told Eunice as he followed her toward the door.

“That’s all right!” she said. “We can always get together another time. I’ll phone you tomorrow, why don’t I. Meanwhile, you can be looking through those materials I brought. Did I give you those materials? What’d I do with them?”

She stopped walking to peer down into her purse. “Oh. Here,” she said, and she pulled out several sheets of paper folded haphazardly into a wad.

Liam accepted them, but then he said, “Actually, Eunice… you know? I really don’t think I’ll apply there.”

She stared up at him. He took another step toward the door, meaning to urge her on, but she held her ground. (He was never going to get rid of her.) She said, “Are you saying that just because Mr. C. forgot he had met you?”

“What? No!”

“Because it means nothing that he forgot. Nothing at all.”

“Yes, I understand. I just-”

“But we won’t go into the particulars,” she said, and she slid her eyes in Kitty’s direction. “I’ll phone you in the morning, okay?”

“Fine,” he said.

Fine. He would deal with it in the morning.

“Bye-bye for now, Kitty!” she called.

“Bye.”

Liam opened the door for Eunice, but he didn’t follow her out. He stood watching her cross the foyer. At the outer door she turned to wave, and he lifted the wad of papers and nodded.

When he went back inside he found Kitty sitting at the table, grasping a chicken breast with both hands and munching away at great speed. She said, “Any chance you’ll be going by an ATM any time soon?”

“I hadn’t planned to.”

“Because I spent my very last dollar on the taxi.”

“You came by taxi?”

“What do you think, I carried all this luggage on the bus?”

“I gave it no thought at all, I suppose,” he said, and he dropped back down on his chair.

Kitty set her chicken breast on the bare table and wiped her hands on a paper napkin. The napkin turned into a greasy shred. “That woman’s younger than Xanthe,” she told him.

“Yes, you’re probably right.”

“She’s way too young for you.”

“For me! Oh, goodness, she’s got nothing to do with me!”

Kitty raised her eyebrows. “Think not?” she asked him.

“Good Lord, no! She came to help with my résumé.”

“She came because she has this big huge crush on you that sticks out a mile in every direction,” Kitty said.

“What!”

Kitty eyed him in silence as she took a carrot from the bag.

“What a notion,” Liam said.

He didn’t know which was more shocking: the notion itself, or the slow, deep sense of astonished pleasure that began to rise in his chest.

Now he saw that Eunice had certain subtle attractions. In looks, for instance, there were qualities that might not be apparent at first glance: the creamy, cushiony softness of her skin, the pale matte silk of her unlipsticked mouth, her clear gray eyes framed by long brown lashes. The dimple in each of her cheeks resembled the precisely drilled dent that forms at the center of a whirlpool. Her nose, which was more round than pointed, added a note of whimsy.

And wasn’t her occasional lack of grace a sign of character? Like an absentminded professor, she concentrated on the intangibles. She was too busy with more important matters to notice the merely physical.

She showed a kind of trustfulness, too, that was seldom seen in grownups. The way she had rushed after him on the street, and flung herself into his problems, and thought nothing of coming alone to his apartment… In retrospect, Liam found that touching.

It had been years since he had had any sort of romantic life. He’d more or less given up on that side of things, it seemed. But now he remembered the significance that a love affair could lend to the most ordinary moments. The simplest activities could take on extra color and intensity. Days had a purpose to them-an element of suspense, even. He missed that.

He rose too early the following morning, after a restless night. Kitty was still asleep in the den. (That much he had insisted on: he wasn’t forfeiting his bedroom a second time.) At first he contented himself with making a great deal of noise over breakfast, but when she hadn’t appeared by seven thirty, he tapped lightly on her door. “Kitty?” he called. He opened the door a few inches and peered in. “Shouldn’t you be getting up?”

The blanket on the daybed stirred, and Kitty raised her head. “What for?” she asked him.

“For work, of course.”

“Work! It’s the Fourth of July.”

“It is?” he said.

He thought a moment. “Does that mean you have the day off?” he asked.

“Well, duh!”

“Oh.”

“The plan was, I’d get to sleep as long as I wanted,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said.

He closed the door.

The Fourth of July! So, well, what about Eunice? Would she call anyhow? And was Kitty going to hang around all morning?

He poured himself another cup of coffee, even though it would give him the jitters. In fact, maybe he had the jitters already, because when the telephone rang, he actually jumped. The coffee sloshed in his cup. He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”