Richard Russo - Nobody's Fool

Mrs. Gruber had lived in North Bath all her life and had been to Albany countless times, but still had no idea how to get there or, having got there, how to return. She had never in her life driven an automobile. Driving she’d left to her husband, and since his death she’d left it to Miss Beryl. It did not occur to Mrs. Gruber to wonder whether her friend minded driving, any more than it ever crossed her mind that she herself ought to learn. She considered the fact that she did not drive to be an inconvenience similar to being born left-handed, and no remedy for either suggested itself.

Increasingly, Miss Beryl did mind driving, especially in less than ideal weather, especially on the busy interstate, especially when their destination was a restaurant that was not among her favorites. Miss Beryl never drove over forty-five miles an hour, and on the interstate cars swerved around her Ford and raced by, horns blaring to full Doppler effect, causing Miss Beryl to slow and brace for impact. The blaring horns had no discernible effect upon Mrs. Gruber, whose hearing had begun to fail and who seldom, at least in a car, roused to external stimuli. As far as Miss Beryl could tell, her companion, while possessed of normal eyesight, never saw anything she was looking at while riding in a car. The view through the front windshield of Miss Beryl’s Ford was to Mrs. Gruber a television screen upon which a program she wasn’t interested in was playing. She’d have turned it off if she could.

Invariably the first thing to register upon Mrs. Gruber’s senses was the sight of the Northwoods Motor Inn itself, a low-lying structure that was, to Miss Beryl’s mind, the most nondescript building in the city of Albany. Then Mrs. Gruber would point to it and exclaim “There!” a particularly annoying gesture, especially after Miss Beryl had already pulled into the left-turn lane and hit her blinker. She understood, of course, that left-turn lanes, turn signals and traffic lights bore no particular significance to her companion, but nonetheless it was annoying to navigate solo the ten miles of pulsing interstate traffic, find the correct exit and make the necessary turns through busy city traffic amid honking horns, only to have her destination pointed out to her at the end of Mrs. Gruber’s bony finger.

Miss Beryl, who did not this day share her friend’s buoyant good spirits, did her best to shut out Mrs. Gruber’s chatter and stave off regret at having so hastily decided not to travel. Midmorning, Clive Jr. had called to wish her a happy Thanksgiving and wondered, near the end of their conversation, what time she and Mrs. Gruber would be getting back from Albany. Miss Beryl knew her son too well to believe that this was a casual inquiry. The very feet that Clive Jr. had stressed the “oh-by-the-way” nature of the query suggested to her that finding out what time she’d be returning from Albany was the real purpose of the call. Also, she was pretty sure she hadn’t mentioned that she and Mrs. Gruber were going to Albany for dinner.

Miss Beryl saw her exit coming up, turned on her blinker and began to edge the Ford to the right in anticipation of the off-ramp lane. When that finally arrived, she slid the car even farther right and finally stopped at the traffic signal and used the opportunity to glance at her friend, whom she suspected of being Clive Jr.’s snitch. If Mrs. Gruber knew she was being examined suspiciously, she gave no sign, but rather continued to chatter aimlessly, joyously. Whatever Clive Jr. was up to, Miss Beryl decided, Mrs. Gruber already knew about it. Or knew more about it than Miss Beryl did. Which left Miss Beryl to speculate. He’d seemed disappointed, almost alarmed, to learn that she’d not be traveling this year. Knowing Clive Jr., who was full of schemes, this latest could be just about anything. He might be looking into retirement communities for her again, though he’d promised to give that up. Clive Jr. himself lived in a luxury town house in a community of town homes built along the edge of the new Schuyler Springs Country Club. He’d had Miss Beryl out to visit one afternoon last summer shortly after he’d moved in. The same builder, he told her, was starting a new community designed specifically for the elderly on the other side of town. They’d eaten lunch outdoors on the enclosed patio while Clive Jr. showed her a brochure and explained the advantages of community living while golfers on the nearby fourteenth tee sliced balls off the side of the town house to gunshot effect. One ball even made it into the enclosed patio where they sat and rattled around the perimeter angrily. “We seem to be under siege here, son,” Miss Beryl observed when Clive Jr. bent to pick up the smiling Titleist that finally came to rest at his feet. His expression at that moment was like the one so often captured in photographs of Clive Jr. as a boy showing off a Christmas or birthday present. The idea of these photos was always to capture the boy in a moment of happiness, but Clive Jr., more often than not, wore an expression that suggested he’d already discovered what was wrong with the gift and why it couldn’t possibly perform the feats illustrated on the package it came in.

When the light turned, Miss Beryl pulled through the intersection and considered what Clive Jr. was up to now, whether it had anything to do with her leaving her home. She was still contemplating this possibility when she heard Mrs. Gruber ask, “Wasn’t that it, dear?” and noticed that her friend’s bony finger was indeed pointed at the one building in Albany that she recognized, the Northwoods Motor Inn, their destination, already overshot.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Gruber sadly, watching the Northwoods Motor Inn recede behind them, as if her friend’s mistake might well be too severe to admit correction. “Can we turn around, do you suppose?”

In feet, they could not, at least for a quarter mile. The street they were on was divided by an island, the existence of which escaped Mrs. Gruber’s notice. When the Northwoods Motor Inn disappeared from sight in the rear window, Mrs. Gruber let out a loud sigh. Several blocks farther on, when they stopped at a traffic light, Mrs. Gruber spied an alternative. “That might be nice,” she offered. “It certainly looks nice.”

“That’s a bank,” Miss Beryl said, though she had to admit that except for the huge sign identifying it as a bank, it did look more like a restaurant.

Mrs. Gruber sighed again.

Miss Beryl turned, looped through the bank’s empty lot, and headed back the way they had come, a maneuver that befuddled Mrs. Gruber, who expressed both surprise and excitement when the Northwoods Motor Inn came into view a second time, now on the other side of the street. “There!” Mrs. Gruber pointed. She also directed Miss Beryl to a parking space. “There!” she pointed again after her friend had slowed, signaled and begun to turn into the space. Things were going to work out after all. Things had a way of working out, even when they looked the darkest, Mrs. Gruber mused. It was a lesson in life that she’d learned again and again, and she made a mental note right there in the front seat of Miss Beryl’s Ford to quit being an old Gloomy Gus.

The Northwoods Motor Inn catered, especially on Sundays and holidays, to old people. The dining room was large and all on one level, and there was plenty of room between the white-clothed tables for wheelchairs. The young waitresses, attired in friendly Tyrolean costume, were all strapping girls, sturdy enough to support an elderly diner on each arm when it came time to sidle down the soup-and-salad buffet. These girls knew from experience that their clientele were enthusiastically committed to the buffet concept in direct proportion to their physical inability to negotiate it. The more compromised by arthritis, ruptured discs, poor eyesight, dubious equilibrium and tiny appetite, the more the Northwoods’ diners were enamored of the long buffet tables with their sweeping vistas of carrot and celery sticks, cottage cheese, applesauce and cheese cubes speared with fancy cellophaned toothpicks, as well as the exotica, pea and three-bean and macaroni-vinaigrette salads, many of which required explanation. The buffet tables had a way of backing up as these explanations were made and choices narrowed, until the line snaked halfway around the room.