Anne Tyler - Vinegar Girl

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Footsteps coming up the stairs, slap-slap-slap. “Khello?” Footsteps across the landing. “Where are you?” Pyotr called. A giant peony bush arrived in her doorway, with Pyotr somewhere behind it. “Oh. You are resting,” he said.

She couldn’t see his face because it was hidden by the bush, which stood in a green plastic nursery pot and already had some buds on it. White, they were going to be. She sat up straighter. She felt a little muzzy. It had been a mistake to drink beer in the daytime.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Instead of answering, he said, “Why you didn’t rest on your bed?” Then he slapped the side of his head, nearly losing control of the peony bush. “The sheets,” he said. “I bought new sheets, and new sheets have toxic chemicals perhaps, so I washed them. They are down in Mrs. Murphy’s dryer.”

This was absurdly heartening to hear. Kate reached for her shoes and slipped them on. “Did you tell the police?” she asked.

“Tell them what?” he said, infuriatingly. He was setting the peony bush on the floor, standing back to dust his hands off. “Oh,” he said in a nonchalant tone. “Mice are back.”

“They’re…back?”

“After you say it is Eddie,” he said, “I think, ‘Yes. Makes sense. It is Eddie.’ So I get in my car and I drive to his house and I pound on his door. ‘Where my mice are?’ I ask him. ‘What mice?’ he says. False surprised look, I can see right away. ‘Just tell me you didn’t loosen them in the streets,’ I say. ‘In the streets!’ he says. ‘Do you really think I’d be that cruel?’ ‘Tell me they are caged,’ I say, ‘wherever they are. Tell me you did not expose them to any common, downtown mice.’ He gets pouty dark look on his face. ‘They’re safe in my room,’ he says. His mother is shouting at me, but I do not pay heed. ‘I’m calling the police!’ she is shouting, but I run straight upstairs and find out which is his room. Mice are still in cages, stacked high.”

“Whoa,” Kate said.

“This is why I am gone so long. Making Eddie move mice back to lab. Your father was in lab. He hugged me! He had tears behind his glasses! Then Eddie became arrested, but your father is not, how they say? Pushing charges.”

“Really!” Kate said. “Why not?”

Pyotr shrugged. “Long story,” he said. “We decided after detective came. Detective answered his phone, this time! Very nice man. Lovely man. Plant is from Mrs. Liu.”

“What?” Kate said. She was feeling as if she’d been spun in circles with a blindfold on.

“She asked that I carry it to you. Wedding present. Something for backyard.”

“So she’s okay now?” Kate asked.

“Okay?”

“She was in such a temper.”

“Oh, yes, she is always talking mean when I lose my keys,” he said blithely. He walked over to the window and lifted the sash with no apparent effort. “Ah!” he said. “Is lovely outside! Are we not late?”

“Excuse me?”

“Was reception not at five?”

Kate glanced at her watch: 5:20. “Oh, God,” she said, and she leapt to her feet.

“Come! We drive fast. You can phone your aunt from car.”

“But I’m not changed. You’re not changed.”

“We go as we are; it is family.”

Kate spread her arms to reveal the wrinkles across the front of her dress from her nap, and the mayonnaise stain near her hem. “Just give me half a second, okay?” she said. “This dress is a disaster.”

“Is a beautiful dress,” he said.

She looked down at it and then dropped her arms. “Fine, it’s a beautiful dress,” she said. “Have it your way.”

But he was already out on the landing now, heading toward the stairs, and she had to run to catch up with him.

Aunt Thelma answered the door in a floor-length, flowered hostess gown. Kate could smell her perfume even from where they stood. “Hello, my dears!” she cried. There was no way she could not have been taken aback by what they were wearing, but she hid it well. She stepped out onto the veranda to press her cheek to Kate’s and then to Pyotr’s. “Welcome to your wedding banquet!”

“Thank you, Aunt Sel,” Pyotr said, and he flung his arms around her in an enthusiastic hug that nearly knocked her over.

“Sorry we’re so late,” Kate told her. “Sorry we didn’t have time to dress.”

“Well, you’re here; that’s all that matters,” her aunt said — a much milder reaction than Kate would have predicted. She patted down the side of her hairdo that Pyotr had disarranged. “Come on out back; everyone’s having drinks. Aren’t we lucky the weather’s so nice!”

She turned to lead them through the entrance hall, which was two stories high. A giant crystal chandelier hung at its center like an upside-down Christmas tree, and Pyotr slowed to gaze up at it for a moment with a dazzled expression. In the living room, sectional couches lumbered through the vast space like a herd of rhinos, and both coffee tables were the size of double beds. “Kate’s father has been telling us what an eventful day you’ve had, Pyoder,” Aunt Thelma said.

“Was very eventful,” Pyotr said.

“He’s been quite talkative, for him. We’ve all learned the most amazing amount about mice.”

She opened the French doors to the patio. It was a long while yet till sunset, but paper lanterns glowed in the trees and netted candles flickered palely on all the tables. When Kate and Pyotr stepped out onto the flagstones, the guests turned as a group, which made it seem as if there were considerably more of them than there really were. Kate felt the force of their attention like a wind that suddenly smacked her in the face. She stopped short, holding her tote low in front of her to hide the mayonnaise stain. “Here they are!” Aunt Thelma caroled, and she flung out one arm majestically. “Introducing…Mr. and Mrs. Cherbakov and Cherbakova! Or however they do it.”

There was a general “Ah!” and a smattering of applause, most people just patting the insides of their wrists with their fingertips in order to accommodate their wineglasses. Kate’s girlhood friend Alice had put on a little weight since Kate had last seen her, and her husband held a baby perched in the crook of his arm. Uncle Theron was wearing a defiantly unchurchy outfit of khakis and a Hawaiian shirt, but all the other men wore suits, and the women were in spring dresses that showed their winter-white arms and legs.

Dr. Battista was clapping the loudest. He had set his glass on a table to free his hands, and his face was shining with emotion. Bunny, at the far end of the patio, wasn’t clapping at all. She clenched a Pepsi can in her fist and glared at Pyotr and Kate belligerently.

“All right, everybody, we’re switching to champagne,” Uncle Barclay called. He arrived in front of Pyotr and Kate with two foam-topped flutes. “Drink up; it’s the good stuff,” he told them.

“Thanks,” Kate said, accepting hers, and Pyotr said, “Thank you, Uncle Bark.”

“Looks like you just got out of bed, Pyoder,” Uncle Barclay said with a sly chuckle.

“This is the latest fashion,” Kate told him. She’d be damned if she would offer any more apologies. “He bought it at Comme des Garçons.”

“Beg your pardon?”

She took a hefty sip of champagne.

“Could you and Pyoder stand closer together?” her father asked her. He was holding his cell phone in both hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of the wedding. I know I had a lot on my mind, but…Maybe your uncle could restage the ceremony for us.”

“No,” Kate told him flatly.

“No? Oh, well,” he said, squinting down at his phone. “Whatever you say, darling. This is such a joyous day! And you are the one we have to thank, pointing us toward the Mintz boy. I never would have suspected him.”