Anne Tyler: Vinegar Girl

—

Tact, restraint, diplomacy. What was the difference between tact and diplomacy? Maybe “tact” referred to saying things politely while “diplomacy” meant not saying things at all. Except, wouldn’t “restraint” cover that? Wouldn’t “restraint” cover all three?

People tended to be very spendthrift with their language, Kate had noticed. They used a lot more words than they needed to.

She was taking her time walking home because the weather was so nice. In the morning it had been downright cold, but since then the day had warmed up and she carried her jacket slung over one shoulder. A young couple was strolling at a leisurely pace in front of her, the girl telling some long tale about some other girl named Lindy, but Kate didn’t bother trying to pass them.

She wondered whether the pale blue, faceless pansies she saw in somebody’s garden urn would bloom in her backyard. She had way too much shade in her backyard.

Behind her, she heard her name called. She turned to see a light-haired man hurrying toward her with one arm raised, as if he were hailing a cab. For a moment she couldn’t imagine what he had to do with her, but then she recognized her father’s research assistant. The absence of his lab coat had confused her; he was wearing jeans and a plain gray jersey. “Hi!” he said as he arrived next to her. (“Khai,” it sounded like.)

“Peter,” she said.

“Pyotr.”

“How’re you doing,” she said.

“I fear I may be having cold,” he told her. “My nose waters and I sneeze a great deal. Has been taking place since last night.”

“Bummer,” she said.

She resumed walking, and he fell into step alongside her. “It was a good day at your school?” he asked.

“It was okay.”

They were right on the heels of the young couple now. Lindy ought to just dump the guy, the girl was saying, he was making her unhappy; and the boy said, “Oh, I don’t know, she seems all right to me.”

“Where are your eyes ?” the girl asked him. “The whole time they’re together she keeps looking into his face and he keeps looking away. Everybody’s noticed it — Patsy and Paula and Jane Ann — and finally my sister came right out and said to Lindy; she said—”

Pyotr briefly clamped Kate’s upper arm to steer her around them. It startled her for a moment. He was barely taller than Kate, but she had trouble matching his stride, and then she wondered why she was trying and she slowed her pace. He slowed too. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked him.

“Yes! I am just going.”

Since the lab lay two blocks in the opposite direction, this didn’t make any sense, but that was no concern of hers. She glanced at her watch. She liked to get home before Bunny, who was not supposed to entertain boys when she was alone but sometimes did anyhow.

“In my country we have proverb,” Pyotr was saying.

Didn’t they always, Kate thought.

“We say, ‘Work when it is divided into segments is shorter total period of time than work when it is all together in one unit.’ ”

“Catchy,” Kate said.

“How long you have been letting your hair grow?”

The change of subject took her aback. “What?” she said. “Oh. Since eighth grade, maybe. I don’t know. I just couldn’t take any more of that Chatty Cathy act.”

“Chatty Cathy?”

“In the beauty parlor. Talk, talk, talk; those places are crawling with talk. The women there start going before they even sit down — talk about boyfriends, husbands, mothers-in-law. Roommates, jealous girlfriends. Feuds and misunderstandings and romances and divorces. How can they find so much to say? I could never think of anything, myself. I kept disappointing my beautician. Finally I went, ‘Shoot. I’ll just quit getting my hair cut.’ ”

“It is exceedingly attractive,” Pyotr said.

“Thanks,” Kate said. “Well, this is where I turn off. Do you realize the lab’s back that way?”

“Oh! Is back that way!” Pyotr said. He didn’t seem too perturbed about it. “Okay, Kate! See you soon! Was nice having a talk.”

Kate had already started down her own street, and she raised an arm without looking back.

—

She had barely stepped into the house when she heard a distinct male voice. “ Bunny ,” she called in her sternest tone.

“In here!” Bunny sang out.

Kate tossed her jacket onto the hall bench and went into the living room. Bunny was sitting on the couch, all frothy golden curls and oh-so-innocent face and off-the-shoulder blouse far too lightweight for the season; and the Mintz boy from next door was sitting next to her.

This was a new development. Edward Mintz was several years older than Bunny, an unhealthy-looking young man with patchy beige chin whiskers that reminded Kate of lichen. He had graduated from high school two Junes ago but failed to leave for college; his mother claimed he had “that Japanese disease.” “What disease is that?” Kate had asked, and Mrs. Mintz said, “The one where young people shut themselves in their bedrooms and refuse to go on with their lives.” Except that Edward seemed bound not to his bedroom but to the glassed-in porch that faced the Battistas’ dining-room window, where day in and day out he could be seen sitting on a chaise longue hugging his knees and smoking suspiciously tiny cigarettes.

Well, all right: no danger of romance, at least. (Bunny’s weakness was football types.) Still, a rule was a rule, so Kate said, “Bunny, you know you’re not supposed to entertain when you’re on your own.”

“Entertain!” Bunny cried, making her eyes very round and bewildered. She held up a spiral notebook that lay open on her lap. “I’m having my Spanish lesson!”

“You are?”

“I asked Papa, remember? Señora McGillicuddy said I needed a tutor? And I asked Papa and he said fine?”

“Yes, but…” Kate began.

Yes, but he surely hadn’t meant some pothead neighbor boy. Kate didn’t say this, however. (Diplomacy.) Instead, she turned to Edward and asked, “Are you especially fluent in Spanish, Edward?”

“Yes, ma’am, I had five semesters,” he said. She didn’t know whether the “ma’am” was smart-aleck or serious. Either way, it was annoying; she wasn’t that old. He said, “Sometimes, I even think in Spanish.”

This made Bunny give a little giggle. Bunny giggled at everything. “He’s already taught me so much?” she said.

Another irksome habit of hers was turning declara-tive sentences into questions. Kate liked to needle her by pretending she thought they really were questions, so she said, “I wouldn’t know that, would I, because I haven’t been in the house with you.”

Edward said, “What?” and Bunny told him, “Just ignore her?”

“I got an A or A-minus in Spanish every semester,” Edward said, “except for senior year, and that one wasn’t my fault. I was undergoing some stress.”

“Well, still,” Kate said, “Bunny’s not allowed to have male visitors when no one else is home.”

“Oh! This is humiliating !” Bunny cried.

“Tough luck,” Kate told her. “Carry on; I’ll be nearby.” And she walked out.

Behind her, she heard Bunny murmur, “ Un bitcho .”

“ Una bitch-AH ,” Edward corrected her in a didactic tone.

They fell into a little spasm of snickers.

Bunny was not nearly as sweet as other people thought she was.

Kate had never quite understood why Bunny existed, even. Their mother — a frail, muted, pink-and-gold blonde with Bunny’s same asterisk eyes — had spent the first fourteen years of Kate’s life checking in and out of various “rest facilities,” as they were called. Then all at once, Bunny was born. It was hard for Kate to imagine how her parents had considered this to be a good idea. Maybe they hadn’t considered; maybe it had been a case of mindless passion. But that was even harder to imagine. At any rate, the second pregnancy had brought to light some defect in Thea Battista’s heart, or perhaps had caused the defect, and she was dead before Bunny’s first birthday. For Kate, it was hardly a change from the absence she’d known all her life. And Bunny didn’t even remember their mother, although some of Bunny’s gestures were uncannily similar — the demure tuck of her chin, for instance, and her habit of nibbling prettily on the very tip of her index finger. It was almost as if she had been studying their mother from inside the womb. Their aunt Thelma, Thea’s sister, was always saying, “Oh, Bunny, I swear, it makes me cry to see you. If you aren’t the image of your poor mother!”