Anne Tyler - Vinegar Girl

She tossed her dishcloth into the hamper in the pantry. (Her father believed in 100-percent cotton dishcloths, used once and then laundered with bleach. He viewed sponges with an almost superstitious horror.)

“Well, all done here,” she told Pyotr. “Thanks for helping. Father’s in the living room, I think.”

He stood looking at her, perhaps waiting for her to lead the way, but she leaned back against the sink and folded her arms across her chest. Eventually, he turned and left the kitchen, and Kate went to the dining room to work on the income tax.

—

“That went well, don’t you agree?” her father asked her.

He had drifted into the dining room after seeing Pyotr off. Kate totaled a column before she looked up, and then she said, “Did you talk to Bunny?”

“Bunny,” he said.

“Did you talk to her about Edward Mintz?”

“I did.”

“What’d she say?”

“About what?”

Kate sighed. “Let’s try to concentrate, here,” she said. “Did you ask her why she didn’t just get a tutor from the agency? Did you find out how much money he’s charging?”

“He’s not charging any money.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“Why not?”

“We want this arrangement to be on a professional footing. We want to be able to fire him if he turns out to be no help.”

“Would you be willing to marry Pyoder?” her father asked.

“What?”

She sat back in her chair and gaped at him, the calculator still in her left hand, the ballpoint pen in her right. The full import of his question slammed into her after several seconds’ delay — a kind of thud to the midriff.

He didn’t repeat it. He stood waiting trustfully for an answer, with his fists balled up in his coverall pockets.

“Please tell me you’re not serious,” she said.

“Now, just consider the possibility, Kate,” he said. “Don’t make any hasty decisions till you’ve given it some thought.”

“You’re saying you want me to marry someone I don’t even know so that you can hang onto your research assistant.”

“He’s not any ordinary research assistant; he’s Pyoder Cherbakov. And you slightly know him. And you have my word as a reference for him.”

“You’ve been hinting at this for days, haven’t you?” she asked. It was humiliating to hear how her voice shook; she hoped he didn’t notice. “You’ve been throwing him at me all along and I was too dumb to see it. I guess I just couldn’t believe my own father would conceive of such a thing.”

“Now, Kate, you’re overreacting,” her father said. “You’ll have to marry someone sooner or later, right? And this is someone so exceptional, so gifted; it would be such a loss to mankind if he had to leave my project. And I like the fellow! He’s a good fellow! I’m sure you’ll come to feel the same way once you’re better acquainted.”

“You would never ask Bunny to do this,” Kate said bitterly. “Your precious treasure Bunny-poo.”

“Well, Bunny’s still in high school,” he said.

“Let her drop out, then; it’s not as if it would be any loss to the world of learning.”

“Kate! That’s uncharitable,” her father said. “Besides,” he added after a moment, “Bunny has all those young men chasing after her.”

“And I don’t,” Kate said.

He didn’t argue with that. He looked at her mutely, hopefully, with his lips tensely pursed so that his little black mustache bunched itself together.

If she kept her expression impassive, if she didn’t blink or even open her mouth to say another word, she might be able to stop the tears from spilling over. So she was silent. By degrees she stood up, careful not to bump into anything, and she set down her calculator and turned and walked out of the dining room with her chin raised.

“Katherine?” her father called after her.

She reached the hall, she crossed the hall, and then she started pounding up the stairs with the tears positively streaming, flying off her cheeks as she arrived on the landing and rounded the newel post and ran smack into Bunny, who was just starting down. “Hello?” Bunny said, looking startled.

Kate threw her pen into Bunny’s face and stumbled into her own room and slammed the door behind her.

You could really feel physically wounded if someone hurt your feelings badly enough. Over the next few days, she discovered that. She had discovered it several times before, but this felt like a brand-new revelation, as sharp as a knife to her chest. Illogical, of course: why her chest? Hearts were just glorified pumps, after all. Still, her own heart felt bruised, simultaneously shrunken and swollen, and if that sounded self-contradictory, well, so be it.

She walked to work every day feeling starkly, conspicuously alone. It seemed that everyone else on the street had someone to keep them company, someone to laugh with and confide in and nudge in the ribs. All those packs of young girls who’d already figured everything out. All those couples interlinked and whispering with their heads together, and those neighbor women gossiping next to their cars before they left for work. Eccentric husbands, impossible teenagers, star-crossed friends they gossiped about, and then they would break off and “Morning” they would say to Kate — even the ones who didn’t know her. Kate pretended not to hear. If she ducked her head low enough, her hair would swing forward so it completely hid her profile.

The weather was more springlike now, and the daffodils were beginning to bloom and the birds were downright raucous. If her time had been her own, she would have worked in the garden. That always soothed her spirits. But no, she had to go to school every morning, and plaster a flashy smile on her face when she arrived at the main entrance where the parents were dropping their children off. Some of the younger children were still reluctant to say good-bye even this late in the school year, and they would cling fiercely to their parents’ knees and bury their faces, and the parents would send Kate a woebegone look and Kate would put on a commiserating, entirely fraudulent expression and ask the child, whoever it was, “Want me to hold your hand while we go in?” This was because Mrs. Darling was standing in the doorway, waiting for any excuse to fire her. Although so what if she were fired? What difference would it make?

On her way to Room 4 she gave no more than a nod to any teachers or assistants she saw conversing in the corridor. She said hello to Mrs. Chauncey and she stowed her belongings in the supply closet. As the children entered the room they raced over to catch her up on some piece of urgent news — a pet’s new trick, a scary dream, a present from a grandmother — and often several were speaking at once while Kate stood in their midst as still as a tree and said, “Really. Huh. Just imagine.” It felt like the most tremendous effort, but none of the children seemed to notice that.

She went through the motions of Show and Tell, Story Time, Activity Hour. She took a break in the faculty lounge, where Mrs. Bower was debating cataract surgery or Mrs. Fairweather was asking whether anyone else had ever had bursitis, and they would all pause to greet her and Kate would mumble something like “Mmph” and let her curtain of hair fall forward as she proceeded to the restroom.

Room 4 seemed to be passing through a particularly contentious period, and all the little girls stopped speaking to Liam M. “What did you do to them?” Kate asked him, and he said, “I don’t know what I did.” Kate believed him, too. Sometimes very complicated machinations went on with those little girls. She told Liam M., “Well, never mind, they’ll get over it by and by,” and he nodded and heaved an enormous sigh and threw his shoulders back bravely.