Anne Tyler - Vinegar Girl

“It is the language, maybe?” he asked. “I know the vocabulary, but still I am not capable to work the language the way I want to. There is no special word for ‘you’ when it is you that I am speaking to. In English there is only one ‘you,’ and I have to say the same ‘you’ to you that I would say to a stranger; I cannot express my closeness. I am homesick in this country, but I am thinking I would be homesick in my own country now, also. I have no longer any home to go back to — no relatives, no position, and my friends have lived three years without me. There is no place for me. So I have to pretend I am fine here. I have to pretend everything is…how you say? Hunky-dory.”

Kate was reminded of her father’s confession weeks earlier, when he was telling her what a long haul it had been. Men were just subject to this belief that they should keep their miseries buried deep inside, it seemed, as if admitting to them would be shameful. She reached out and touched Pyotr’s arm, but he gave no sign he had noticed. “I bet you didn’t even have breakfast,” she told him. It was all she could think of to say. “That’s what it is! You’re starving. I’m going to fix you something.”

“I don’t want it,” he said.

In the church she had been thinking that maybe the reason he went ahead with the wedding regardless was that underneath, he…well, liked her, a little. But now he wasn’t even looking at her; he didn’t seem to care that she was standing there so close to him with her hand on his arm. “I just want mice back,” he said.

Kate dropped her hand.

“I would like that the thief would be Bunny,” he said. “Then she could tell us where are they.”

Kate said, “Believe me, Pyotr, it wasn’t Bunny. Bunny’s nothing but a copycat! She just has this little semi-crush or whatever it is on Edward Mintz and so when Edward said he was vegan…”

She paused. Pyotr was still not looking at her or even hearing her, probably. “Oh,” she said. “It was Edward.”

Then he did flick his eyes in her direction.

“Edward knows where the lab is,” she said. “He went to the lab with Bunny, that time she brought Father his lunch. He must have been standing right beside her when she punched in the lock combination.”

Pyotr had been holding the keys in his left hand, and now he gave them a sudden toss upward, caught them again, and walked out of the kitchen.

Kate said, “Pyotr?”

By the time she reached the landing, he was halfway down the first flight of stairs. “Where are you going?” she called over the railing. “Just wait till you’ve finished lunch and then call the detective, why don’t you. What do you think you’re doing? Can I come with you?”

But all she heard was the slapping sound of his flip-flops descending the stairs.

She should make him take her with him. She should run after him and fling herself into the car. It was hurt feelings, probably, that stopped her. Ever since the wedding he had been downright abusive, as if now that they were married he thought he could treat her however he liked. He hadn’t even noticed how helpful she had been about his stupid keys, or how she had offered so nicely to fix him something to eat.

She turned from the stairs and continued down the hall to the living room. She went over to one of the windows and peered at the street below. The VW was already pulling away from the curb.

—

In movies, women were always flinging together elegant, impromptu meals from odds and ends in the fridge, but Kate didn’t see how she could do that with what was in Pyotr’s fridge. All it held was a jar of mayonnaise, a few cans of beer, a carton of eggs, and some very pale celery. Also a screwed-up bag from McDonald’s, which she didn’t bother investigating. The fruit bowl on the counter displayed a single speckled banana. “Miracle food,” she could hear Pyotr saying, which seemed at odds with his fondness for McDonald’s and KFC. When she looked through the cupboards above the counter she found rows and rows of empty containers — bottles and jars and jugs meticulously washed and saved. You would think he planned to take up canning.

Her only option was scrambled eggs, she figured, but then she realized he didn’t even have butter. Could you make scrambled eggs with no butter? She wasn’t going to risk it. Maybe deviled, then. At least he had mayonnaise. She put four eggs in the dented saucepan she found in the drawer beneath the stove, and she covered them with water and set them to boil.

She hoped he wasn’t doing anything foolish. He should have just called the police. But maybe that was where he was going, down to the station in person, or maybe to the lab to reconnoiter with her father.

She went back to the living room and looked out the window again, for no earthly reason.

The living room seemed less empty now that Pyotr had moved his desk in from the study. It was heaped with various belongings that must also have been in the study — junk mail and stacks of books and coiled extension cords, in addition to the computer equipment. She picked up a wall calendar, curious to know if he’d made a note of their wedding, but the page was still turned to February and all the days were blank. She put it back on the desk.

She returned to the landing for her tote and carried it to her room. The leopard-print slipcover had vanished; the daybed had been stripped to its rust-stained navy-and-white-striped mattress, and there was no sign of sheets or blankets. A naked pillow slumped on the floor next to it. Couldn’t he at least have put fresh linens on — tried to make it more welcoming? Her garment bag hung in the closet and her carton of shower gifts sat on the bureau, but she couldn’t imagine ever feeling she belonged here.

The air in this room had an atticky smell, and she walked over to the window and struggled to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally she gave up and went back out to the kitchen. She looked to see if the eggs were done, but how was she supposed to tell? At home she had relied on a plastic color-changing gadget dating back to Mrs. Larkin. So she let the eggs cook a few minutes longer while she spooned mayonnaise into a plastic mixing bowl and sprinkled in salt and pepper from the two shakers on the table. Then she resumed her inventory, looking into all the under-counter cabinets, but they were nearly empty. After lunch, she would have to unpack the kitchen items from her box of shower gifts. The thought lifted her spirits somewhat. A project! She knew just where she would store her green mugs.

She turned off the burner beneath the eggs and carried the pan to the sink and ran cold water over them until they were cool enough to handle. When she started peeling the first one she could tell by the feel of the white that it was cooked enough, but as luck would have it, the shell came off in tiny, sharp, stubborn chips, bringing chunks of white along with them. The egg ended up about half its original size, pockmarked and ugly, and the tips of her fingers were bleeding. She said, “Damn,” and rinsed the egg under the faucet and held it up, considering.

All right, egg salad, then.

This turned out to be a wise decision, because the other three eggs looked equally deformed after she had peeled them. She chopped them with a very dull knife and then she chopped some celery, using the counter as her work surface because she couldn’t find a cutting board. Most of the celery had to be stripped off and thrown into the bucket under the sink. Even the innermost stalks were slightly flabby.

She thought of the salad bowl she’d been given at her shower, and she went back to her room to get it. Packed inside the bowl was her dream catcher. She took it out and held it up and pivoted slowly in the center of the room, debating where to hang it. Ideally, she supposed, it should be suspended from the ceiling directly over her bed, but that seemed like a lot of work and she wasn’t sure that Pyotr owned a hammer and nails. She looked toward the window. It had only a yellowed paper shade, but there must have been curtains at some point because an adjustable metal rod was stretched between brackets above it. She put the dream catcher down and dragged the ottoman over from in front of the armchair in the corner. Then she took off her shoes and stood on the ottoman and tied the dream catcher to the curtain rod.