Anne Tyler - Vinegar Girl

They zipped down North Charles, somehow managing to hit every intersection just as the traffic light was turning red. Pyotr never once stopped. They whizzed past cherry trees and Bradford pear trees in full bloom, each with a puddle of pink or white petals on the ground underneath. When they reached the construction mess around the Johns Hopkins campus, Pyotr took a snappy turn off Charles without bothering to signal, nearly mowing down a crowd of young people carrying picnic baskets. It was almost one o’clock now, and the whole world seemed to be heading out for lunch — everyone laughing, calling to friends, strolling aimlessly with no sense of urgency. Pyotr cursed under his breath and cranked his window shut.

In front of Mrs. Murphy’s house, Pyotr scraped his tires alongside the curb and cut the engine. He opened his door and got out and nearly shut it on Kate’s ankles, because she was in the act of sliding past the stick shift and across the driver’s seat. “Watch it!” she told him. At least he had the grace then to stand back and wait for her to emerge, but he still didn’t speak, and he closed the door with unnecessary firmness once she was out.

They smushed a layer of pale pink blossoms carpeting the sidewalk. They climbed the three brick steps and came to a stop on the stoop. Pyotr slapped his front pockets. Then he slapped his rear pockets. Then he said, “Hell damn,” and put his finger on the doorbell and held it there.

It seemed at first that no one would answer. Finally, though, a creaking sound came from inside, and then Mrs. Liu flung the door open and demanded, “Why you ring?”

She was wearing what appeared to be the same clothes she had worn when Kate first met her, but she was no longer all smiles. Without giving Kate so much as a glance, she scowled fiercely at Pyotr and said, “Mrs. Murphy having her nap.”

“I don’t want Mrs. Murphy; I want to get into house!” Pyotr shouted.

“You have key to get into house!”

“I locked key in car!”

“Again? You do this again?”

“Do not quack at me! You are very rude!” And Pyotr shoved his way past her and strode directly to the staircase.

“Sorry,” Kate told Mrs. Liu. “We didn’t mean to disturb you. Monday I’m getting an extra key made, so this shouldn’t happen again.”

“ He is the one is very rude,” Mrs. Liu said.

“He’s had a really hard day.”

“He has many hard days,” Mrs. Liu said. But she stepped back, finally, and let Kate enter the house. Belatedly, she asked, “You got married?”

“Right.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Kate said.

She hoped Mrs. Liu wasn’t feeling sorry for her. Before, she had acted so fond of Pyotr, but now it seemed they disliked each other.

Pyotr had reached the second flight of stairs before she caught up with him. She bypassed him and started toward the room that was going to be hers, where she planned to deposit her tote. Behind her, Pyotr said, “Where my extra keys are?”

She paused and turned. He had stopped on the landing, and he was gazing all around him. Since the landing was entirely bare, without a stick of furniture or a picture or so much as a hook on the wall, it seemed an unlikely place to look for his keys, but there he stood, wearing a baffled expression.

She censored the first response that came to her, which was “How should I know where your extra keys are?” She set her tote on the floor and asked, “Where do you keep them?”

“In kitchen drawer,” he said.

“Let’s look in the kitchen drawer, then, why don’t we,” she said. She spoke more slowly and evenly than usual, so that she wouldn’t come across as exasperated.

She led the way to the kitchen and began opening the cranky white metal drawers beneath the counter: one drawer containing dime-store knives and forks and spoons, one containing an assortment of cooking utensils, one containing dishcloths. She returned to the utensil drawer. That seemed to have the most possibilities, even if it wasn’t where she herself would have kept keys. She rattled through several spatulas, a whisk, a hand-cranked eggbeater…Pyotr stood watching with his arms hanging limp, offering no help.

“Here you go,” she said finally, and she held up an aluminum shower-curtain ring bearing a house key and a Volkswagen key.

Pyotr said, “Ah!” and lunged for them, but she took a step back and hid the keys behind her.

“First you have to call the police,” she said, “and tell them you made a mistake about Bunny. Then you get the keys.”

“What?” he said. “No. Hand me keys, Katherine. I am husband and I say hand me keys.”

“I am wife and I say no,” she said.

She supposed he could have wrested them from her. She fancied she saw the thought cross his face. But in the end he said, “I will only tell police Bunny is maybe not vegetarian. Okay?”

“Tell them she didn’t take the mice.”

“I will tell them you think she didn’t take the mice.”

Kate decided that was the best she could hope for. “Do it, then,” she said.

He took his cell phone from the right front pocket of his shorts. Then he took his billfold from his back pocket. He pulled out a business card. “Detective assigned to my case, personally,” he said with some pride. He held the card up for her to read. “How you pronounce this name?”

She peered at it. “McEnroe,” she said.

“McEnroe.” He clicked his phone on, studied the screen a moment, and then began the laborious process of placing a call.

Even from where she stood, she could hear the single ring, followed immediately by a male voice making a canned announcement. “He must have turned his phone off,” she told Pyotr. “Leave a message.”

Pyotr lowered his phone and gaped at her. “He turned it off ?” he asked.

“That’s why his voice mail picked up so fast. Leave a message.”

“But he said I call him night or day. He said this was his personal number.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. She snatched the phone away from him and pressed it to her ear. “Detective McEnroe, this is Kate Battista,” she said. “I’m calling for Pyotr Shcherbakov; the laboratory break-in case. He told you that my sister, Bunny, could be a possible suspect, but that’s because he was thinking Bunny’s a vegetarian, and she’s not. She eats meat. Also she was home all last evening and I’m sure I would have known if she had gone out during the night, so you can take her off your list. Thanks. Bye.”

She ended the call and returned the phone to Pyotr. It was anyone’s guess whether she had spoken in time to be recorded.

Pyotr put the phone in his pocket. He said, “Detective told me, ‘Here’s my card.’ He told me, ‘You should call me any time, if you have any further thoughts.’ And now he does not answer. Is final straw; is last straw. This is worst day of my life.”

Kate knew it was unreasonable of her, but she couldn’t help feeling insulted.

She gave up the keys in silence.

“Thank you,” he said absently. Then he said, “Well, thank you”—the unaccustomed “well” slightly softening his tone. He passed a hand over his face. He looked drawn and weary, and suddenly older than his age.

“I have not told you this,” he said, “but the three years I have been here have been difficult years. Lonesome years. Perplexing. Everyone acts that to be in America is a gift, but is not one hundred percent a gift. Americans say things that are misleading. They seem so friendly; they use first names from beginning. They seem so casual and informal. Then they turn off their phones. I do not understand them!”

He and Kate were facing each other, no more than a foot apart. She was close enough to see the microscopic blond glints of his whiskers, and the tiny brown specks mixed in with the blue of his eyes.