Энн Тайлер - Searching for Caleb

“But I will be,” said Justine.

“I mean seriously telling fortunes. You have the knack.”

“Oh,” said Justine. “Well, I don’t think I—”

“Do you ever have flashes when you know something is going to happen?”

“No! Really,” said Justine. She pulled her hand away.

“All right, all right. Here’s the list, then, of the major lines of the palm. Life, mind, heart, fate . . . ”

But later when she had heaved herself up to see Justine to the door, she said, “This is really not a parlor game, you realize.”

“No, I’m sure it isn’t,” Justine said politely.

“ You know it isn’t.”

Justine couldn’t think what was expected of her. She went on buttoning her coat. Madame Olita leaned forward and jabbed the back of Justine’s left hand with one stubby finger. “You have a curved ring of Solomon, a solid line of intuition, and a mystic cross,” she said.

“I do?”

“Even one of those denotes a superior fortune teller.”

Justine straightened her hat.

“I have a mystic cross too,” said Madame Olita, “but I’ve never found one on anybody else. They are very rare. May I see your right palm, please?”

Justine held it out, unwillingly. Madame Olita’s hands felt like warm sandpaper.

“Well?” Justine said finally.

“You are very young,” Madame Olita told her.

Justine opened the door to go.

“But you’re going to enter into a marriage that will disrupt everything and break your parents’ hearts,” said Madame Olita, and when Justine spun around Madame Olita gave her a small, yellow smile and lifted a hand in farewell.

Out in the car, Duncan and Glorietta were kissing in broad daylight. “Stop that,” Justine said irritably, and Duncan broke away and looked up at her, surprised.

Justine wondered if some aura of Duncan’s had rubbed off on her, so that Madame Olita had told the wrong person’s fortune.

In the church hall after the sermon one Sunday a boy named Neely Carpenter asked Justine what time it was. “It’s approximately twelve thirteen and a half,” she told him.

“ Approximately twelve thirteen and a half? ”

“My watch says that, you see, but my watch is a little off,” said Justine. “It’s logical, really.” She started laughing. Neely Carpenter who had always thought of her as a spinster-faced girl, looked surprised for a moment and then asked if she would like a ride home from church.

After that he gave her a ride every Sunday, and he took her to the movies every Saturday night. Justine’s mother said she thought that was very sweet. It was the fall of Justine’s senior year, after all; she was seventeen. It was about time she had a steady boyfriend. And Neely was a doctor’s son recently moved to Roland Park, a serious-looking boy with very straight black hair and excellent manners. “Why don’t you invite this Neely boy for Sunday dinner?” Justine’s mother asked her.

Sunday dinner was always held at Great-Grandma’s house, with four leaves extending the table so that everyone could sit around it. Neely looked a little stunned when he saw how many Pecks there were, but he found a seat between Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan and did his best to keep his place in the conversation. “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am,” he kept saying. Justine thought he was doing fine. She was proud of her family, too — her aunts in their new rust-colored fall outfits, her handsome cousins, her stately grandfather with his hair turned silvery white and his face puzzled-looking from the effort he had started having to make in order to hear. So she was surprised when later, after Neely had gone home, Duncan said, “You’ll never see him again.”

They were out on Great-Grandma’s lawn, where Justine had gone to see Neely off and where Duncan, up to some project or other, was unrolling a gigantic reel of baling wire across the grass. When he raised his head to speak to her Justine was struck by his expression, which was almost the same as his grandfather’s. “Why do you say that?” she asked him.

“Nobody takes Sunday dinner with the Pecks and comes back for more.”

“Well! Just because Glorietta! And besides, you’re wrong. He’s already asked me to Sue Pope’s birthday dance.”

“Then he’s a fool,” said Duncan. “No, I don’t mean because of you, Justine. I mean, who would willingly mix with that crowd in the dining room?”

“I would,” said Justine. “I thought they were very nice to him.”

“Ah, yes! ‘Ask if your little friend there would like another potato, Justine.’ Little friend! And, ‘Tell me, is it true that you go to public school? How are the public schools?’ And, ‘I understand your father is a doctor, um, Reilly. How nice! It’s a very rewarding profession, I hear, though a little — mechanical, don’t you think? We are all lawyers, I suppose you know—’ ”

“What’s wrong with that? They were only showing an interest,” Justine said.

“Ho! And then when he asked Great-Grandma if he could help to clear the dishes. Then he got it twice! ‘Oh, my, no, we have a servant, dear.’ And, ‘Besides,’ Aunt Caroline says, ‘it’s the very best china.’ ”

“Well?” said Justine. “We do have a servant. And it was the best china.”

Duncan stopped unreeling the baling wire. He straightened up and wiped his face on his sleeve. “You really don’t see it, do you,” he said.

But Justine wouldn’t answer. She folded her arms against an autumn wind and looked instead at the four brick houses behind them, where everybody was getting comfortable now with newspapers and needlework and cups of spiced tea. “You know what those houses remind me of?” Duncan said, following her gaze. “Hamsters. Or baby mice, or gerbils. Any of those little animals that cluster in one corner piled on top of each other even when they have a great big cage they are free to spread out in.”

“Oh, Duncan,” Justine said.

She knew he only talked that way because he was going through a difficult time. Next year he would enter college and he wanted to go to Hopkins instead of the University and study science instead of law. But Grandfather Peck and the uncles kept arguing with him, nagging, pushing him. Of course he could study science, it was a free country, they said, but all the same there was something so materialistic about science, whereas law . . . “Peck, Peck, Peck & Peck,” said Duncan, referring to the family firm, which was actually called Peck & Sons. “What a perfect name for them.” And he would shut himself away in his room, or go riding aimlessly with Glorietta so close beside him that if the Graham Paige were a matchbox (which it almost appeared to be) they would have tipped over long ago.

So Justine didn’t worry when he spoke so bitterly. And sure enough, Neely kept on asking her out. He never came to Sunday dinner again but that was because he really had to eat with his own family, he said. He did take her to movies and dances and birthday parties. He drove her home the long way around and parked some distance from the Pecks’ in order to kiss her good night. He asked if she would like to move to the back seat where they would be more comfortable. “Oh well, oh no—” said Justine, uncertain of the proper answer. She really didn’t know what she was supposed to do in this situation. None of her girl cousins could help her, either. All they knew about sex was what Duncan had told them when he was eight; that and the vague, horticultural-sounding information their mothers had given out. So Justine would flutter and debate with herself, but she always ended up saying, “Well actually I’m very comfortable where I am but thank you just the—” Neely, who might have been uncertain too, would look almost relieved. Going home he hummed along with “Good Night, Irene” on the radio. He was starting to talk about their getting married someday, after he was through with medical school. Justine thought he was the best-looking boy in Roland Park and she liked his eyes, which were gray and translucent like quartz, and his quiet, level way of speaking. It was possible that she might even love him, but she didn’t know what her mother would say.