Anne Tyler - Vinegar Girl

She wondered if Pyotr had ever seen one of these. He would probably find it peculiar. Well, it was peculiar. He would fold his arms and tilt his head and study it for a long, silent moment. Things always seemed to interest him so. He always seemed to be watching her with such close attention — at least until today. She wasn’t accustomed to attention, but she couldn’t say she found it unpleasant.

She hopped off the ottoman and dragged it back to the armchair and put her shoes on again.

Could the police have had him come with them to Edward’s house to make the arrest, possibly?

It was almost 2:30. The so-called wedding banquet was scheduled for 5:00. This meant there was plenty of time yet, but on the other hand, Aunt Thelma’s house was way out in horse country and Pyotr would need to wash up and change clothes before he went. And Kate was all too familiar with how people in labs could forget to look at the clock.

Maybe he had to fill something out, a warrant or an affidavit or whatever they called it.

She unpacked the rest of her shower gifts and found places for them in the kitchen. She emptied her suitcases into her bureau drawers, helter-skelter at first, but then, feeling time hanging heavy, she rearranged everything in orderly stacks. She unpacked the items from her tote — her brush and comb, which she set on her bureau; her toothbrush, which she took to the bathroom. It seemed too intimate, somehow, to fit her toothbrush into the holder alongside Pyotr’s, so she went to the kitchen for a jelly glass and she stood her toothbrush in that and set it on the bathroom windowsill. There was no medicine cabinet, but a narrow wooden shelf above the sink held shaving supplies, a comb, and a tube of toothpaste. Would they be sharing this toothpaste? Should she have brought her own? How, exactly, were they going to divide the household expenses?

There were so many logistics they hadn’t thought to discuss.

Next to the shower stall, a used-looking towel and washcloth hung on a chrome rod, and on another rod next to the toilet were another towel and washcloth, brand new. Those must be meant for her. The sight partly assuaged the injury of the bare mattress in her bedroom.

It was after 3:00 now. She took her phone from her tote and checked it, just in case she’d somehow missed his call, but there were no messages. She put the phone back. She would just go ahead and eat on her own. All at once she was hungry.

In the kitchen she scooped a bit of egg salad onto a chipped white plate. She got herself a fork and a paper towel, since she couldn’t find any napkins, and she settled herself at the table. But when she looked down at her lunch she caught sight of a fleck of bright red on a piece of yolk: her own blood. She spotted another fleck, and another. In fact, her egg salad as a whole looked effortful and not quite clean — overhandled. She stood up and scraped her serving into the garbage bucket, and she added the rest of the egg salad from the bowl and then concealed the whole mess beneath the paper towel. The kitchen had no dishwasher, so she rinsed her dishes under the tap and dried them with another paper towel and put them away. Destroying the evidence.

It occurred to her that life in the coed dorm had been a lot more fun than this. Also (looking down at her left hand) that white gold and yellow gold really didn’t go together. What had she been thinking, listening to her father on matters of fashion? In fact, people shouldn’t wear rings at all if their nails were short and ragged and rimmed with garden soil.

From the fridge she took a beer, and she opened it and tossed back a good portion of it before she went out to the landing again, still carrying the can. She wandered toward Pyotr’s room. His door was shut, but what the hell; she turned the knob and walked in.

The room was sparsely furnished, like the rest of the apartment, and very neat. The only thing out of place was the ironing board that had been set up at the room’s center, with an iron standing on top of it and a crisp white dress shirt draped over its narrower end. This had the same effect on her as the new towel and washcloth. She felt more hopeful.

The double bed beneath the window was covered with a red satin quilt stitched with fraying gold thread, like something in a cheap motel, and a reading lamp was clamped precariously to the headboard. On the nightstand was a bottle of aspirin and a gilt-framed photo of Kate. Of Kate? She picked it up. Oh, of Kate and Pyotr, except that since Kate’s stool was higher than Pyotr’s chair she filled more of the scene. The startled expression she wore wrinkled her forehead unbecomingly, and the T-shirt beneath her buckskin jacket was streaked with dirt. It was not a picture to be proud of. All that distinguished it from the others her father had snapped — some at least marginally more flattering — was that it was the very first one, the one he’d taken on the day that she and Pyotr had met.

She thought about that a moment and then set the picture back down on the nightstand.

The bureau was topped with a dusty cutwork dresser scarf, probably Mrs. Liu’s contribution, and a saucer that contained a few coins and a single safety pin. Nothing else. The walnut-framed mirror above it was so old that Kate seemed to be looking at herself through gauze — her face suddenly pale and her cloud of black hair almost gray. She took another swig of beer and opened a drawer.

It was her superstitious belief that people who snooped in other people’s private spaces were punished with hurtful discoveries, but Pyotr’s drawers revealed just a paltry collection of clothing, carefully folded and stacked. There were two long-sleeved jerseys she had seen a dozen times, two short-sleeved polo shirts, a small pile of socks rolled in pairs (all ribbed white athletic socks except for one pair of navy dress socks), several pairs of white knit underpants like the ones the little boys in Room 4 wore, and several foreign-looking, tissue-thin undershirts with uncommonly close-set straps. No pajamas. No accessories, no doodads, no frivolities. The only thing she learned about him was the touching meagerness of his life. The meagerness and the…rectitude, was the word that came to her mind.

In his closet she found the suit he must have been planning to wear to the wedding — a shiny navy — along with two pairs of jeans, one still threaded with a belt. A vivid purple tie splashed with yellow lightning bolts was looped over the rod, and his brown Oxfords sat on the floor beside his sneakers.

Kate took another swig of beer and left the room.

Back in the kitchen, she polished off her beer and tossed the can into the paper bag that Pyotr appeared to be using for recycling. She got another beer from the fridge and returned to her own room.

She went directly to her closet and unzipped the garment bag and lifted out the dress she planned to wear to Aunt Thelma’s. It was the one piece of clothing she owned that seemed suitable for a party — red cotton with a scoop neck. She hung it from the hook on the closet door and stepped back to assess it. Should she give it a touch-up with Pyotr’s iron? That seemed like a lot of work, though. She took a meditative sip of beer and gave up on the idea.

The walls here in her bedroom were as bare as the others. She had never realized how bleak a place looked without pictures. For a few minutes, she entertained herself by contemplating what she might hang. Some things from her room at home, maybe? But those were so outdated — faded posters featuring rock groups she no longer listened to, and team photos from her basketball days. She should find something new. Start fresh.

But this time, the thought of a project failed to perk her up. She was feeling very tired, all at once. It might have been the beer, or it might have been because she had slept poorly the night before, but she wished she could take a nap. If there had been sheets on the bed, she would have taken a nap. As it was, she sat down in the armchair in the corner, and she kicked her shoes off and stretched her legs out on the ottoman. Even through the closed window, she could hear birds singing. She focused on those. “Terwhilliker, whilliker, whilliker!” they seemed to be saying. Gradually, her eyelids grew heavy. She set her beer can down on the floor and let herself drift into sleep.