Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

The little girls from the Branch Bank got bored and—inspecting their nails, twirling their hair around their fingertips—drifted back inside. Adelaide—whom Edie blamed, bitterly, for the whole business (she and her Sanka!)—appeared very put out, and stood a cool distance from the scene as if she weren’t a part of it, talking to a nosy choir friend, Mrs. Cartrett, who had pulled over to see what was going on. At some point she’d hopped in the car with Mrs. Cartrett and driven off without even telling Edie. “We’re driving to McDonald’s to get a sausage and biscuit,” she’d called out to Tat and poor Libby. McDonald’s! And—to top it all off—when the insect-faced policeman finally gave Edie permission to leave, her poor old car had of course refused to start, and she had been forced to square her shoulders and walk back into the horrible chilly branch bank, back in front of all the saucy little tellers, to ask if she could use the telephone. And all the while, Libby and Tat had sat, uncomplainingly, in the back of the Oldsmobile, in the frightful heat.

Their cab hadn’t taken long to come. From where she stood, at the manager’s desk in the front, talking on the phone to the man from the garage, Edie watched the two of them walking to the taxi through the plate-glass window: arm in arm, picking their way across the gravel in their Sunday shoes. She rapped on the glass; Tat, in the glare, turned halfway and raised an arm and all of a sudden the name of Tatty’s old doll came to Edie so suddenly that she laughed out loud. “What?” said the garage man; the manager—wall-eyed behind thick glasses—glanced up at Edie as if she were crazy but she didn’t care. Lycobus . Of course. That was the tin doll’s name. Lycobus, who was naughty, and sassed her mother; Lycobus, who invited Adelaide’s dolls to a tea party, and served them only water and radishes.

When the tow truck finally came, Edie accepted a ride home from the driver. It was the first time she’d been in a truck since World War II; the cab was high, and climbing up inside it with her cracked ribs had not been fun: but, as the Judge had been so fond of reminding his daughters, Beggars Can’t Be Choosers.

By the time she got home, it was nearly one o’clock. Edie hung up her clothes (not until she was undressing did she remember that the suitcases were still in the trunk of the Oldsmobile) and took a cool bath; sitting on the side of her bed, in her brassiere and panty-waist, she sucked in her breath and taped up her ribs as best as she could. Then she had a glass of water, and an Empirin with codeine left over from some dental work, and put on a kimono and lay down on the bed.

Much later, she’d been awakened by a telephone call. For a moment, she thought the thin little voice on the other end was the children’s mother. “Charlotte?” she barked; and then, when there was no answer: “Who is calling, please?”

“This is Allison. I’m over at Libby’s. She … she seems upset.”

“I don’t blame her,” said Edie; the pain of sitting up suddenly had caught her unawares, and she took her breath in sharply. “Now’s not the time for her to entertain company. You ought not be over there bothering her, Allison.”

“She doesn’t seem tired. She—she says she has to pickle some beets.”

“Pickling beets!” Edie snorted. “I’d be mighty upset if I had to pickle beets this afternoon.”

“But she says—”

“You run home and let Libby rest,” said Edie. She was a little groggy from her pain pill; and, for fear of being questioned about the accident (the policeman had suggested her eyes might be at fault; there had been talk of a test, a revoked license) she was anxious to cut the conversation short.

In the background, a fretful murmur.

“What’s that?”

“She’s worried. She asked me to call you. Edie, I don’t know what to do, please come over and see—”

“What on earth for?” said Edie. “Put her on.”

“She’s in the next room.” Talk, indistinguishable; then Allison’s voice returned. “She says she has to go to town, and she doesn’t know where her shoes and stockings are.”

“Tell her not to worry. The suitcases are in the trunk of the car. Has she had her nap?”

More mumbled talk, enough to test Edie’s patience.

“Hello?” she said loudly.

“She says she’s fine, Edie, but—”

(Libby always said she was fine. When Libby had scarlet fever, she said she was fine.)

“—but she won’t sit down,” said Allison; her voice seemed far away, as if she hadn’t brought the receiver properly to her mouth again. “She’s standing in the living room….”

Though Allison continued to speak, and Edie continued to listen, the sentence had ended and another begun before Edie realized—all of a sudden—that she hadn’t understood a word.

“I’m sorry,” she said, curtly, “you’ll have to speak up,” and before she could scold Allison for mumbling there was a sudden ruckus at the front door: tap tap tap tap tap , a series of brisk little knocks. Edie re-wrapped her kimono, tied the sash tight and peered down the hall. There stood Roy Dial, grinning like an opossum with his little gray saw-teeth. He tipped her a sprightly wave.

Quickly, Edie ducked her head back into the bedroom. The vulture , she thought. I’d like to shoot him . He looked as pleased as punch. Allison was saying something else.

“Listen, I’ve got to let you go,” she said, briskly. “I’ve got company on the porch and I’m not dressed.”

“She says she has to meet a bride at the train station,” said Allison, distinctly.

After a moment, Edie—who did not like to admit she was hard of hearing, and who was used to galloping straight over conversational non sequiturs—took a deep breath (so that her ribs hurt) and said: “Tell Lib I said lie down. If she wants me to, I’ll walk over and take her blood pressure and give her a tranquilizer as soon as—”

Tap tap tap tap tap!

“As soon as I get rid of him,” she said; and then said goodbye. She threw a shawl over her shoulders, stepped into her slippers and ventured into the hall. Through the leaded glass panel of the door, Mr. Dial—mouth open, in an exaggerated pantomime of delight—held up what looked like a fruit basket, wrapped in yellow cellophane. When he saw that she was in her robe, he gave a gesture of dismayed apology (eyebrows going up in the middle, in an inverted V) and—with extravagant lip movement, pointed at the basket and mouthed: sorry to bother you! just a little something! I’ll leave it right here …

After a moment’s indescision, Edie called—on a cheery, changed note—”Wait a minute! Be right out!” Then—her smile souring as soon as she turned her back—she hurried to her room, closed the door and plucked a housedress from her closet.

Zip up the back; dab, dab , rouge on both cheeks, puff of powder on the nose; she ran a brush through her hair—wincing at the pain in her raised arm—and gave herself a quick glance in the mirror before she opened the door and went down the hall to meet him.

“Well, I declare,” she said, stiffly, when Mr. Dial presented her with the basket.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you,” said Mr. Dial, turning his head, cozily, to look at her from the opposite eye. “Dorothy ran into Susie Cartrett at the grocery store and she told her all about the accident…. I’ve been saying for years ”—he laid a hand on her arm, for emphasis—”that they needed a stop light at that intersection. Years! I phoned out at the hospital but they said you hadn’t been admitted, thank goodness.” A hand to his chest, he rolled his eyes Heavenward in gratitude.