Elizabeth McCracken - The Giant's House - A Romance

“Hello,” I said. “My name’s Peggy.”

“Of course it is,” said Caroline. She didn’t bother to tell me her name again, though I remembered it. “We’ve been playing baseball.”

“Softball,” said Mrs. Sweatt.

“Right,” said Caroline. “Actually, I wasn’t playing, just Missus, James, and my husband. The nursing home — where Missus volunteers — against the Brewsterville Inn — which is where Oscar, my husband, works.”

“Who won?”

“The Inn murdered us,” Mrs. Sweatt said softly, as if reporting an actual, traumatic crime.

“But Missus has been practicing, and she was very good.”

Mrs. Sweatt laughed. She gave Caroline a pat, and then the park bench behind her. And at that moment, I knew why her husband fell in love with her, why any man would. The languid, fond hand, and that sudden giggle — it was like a magician pulling coins from your ear and then handing them over, as if the two of you were equally responsible for the sudden small miracle of wealth.

“What Caroline means is, I caught the ball once.”

“But that’s hard!” said Caroline. “It’s a big ball!”

“For all the good it did us. Jim hit our only home run.”

“We’re waiting for the menfolk right now,” Caroline said. “We’re going to Charley’s for ice cream. You want to come?”

You can’t imagine how this question astounded me. Did people really do this? See somebody on the street and take her away, as if communing with others of the human race were the simplest thing in the world?

I couldn’t think of the answer, and so I offered a simple statement of fact: “I don’t want to intrude.”

“No intrusion,” said Caroline. “Look, here they come.”

I turned around to see James walking toward us, a car driving slowly next to him, as if it were his pet. At a corner they both stopped, and James leaned over and stuck his head in the car. Then he turned down the side street, and the car continued toward us.

The Stricklands’ car was an enormous green Chevy, with a sun visor that made it look perturbed and dishonest, like a gambler. The man who stepped out somehow matched, big-faced and lantern-jawed, with hair so glossy black I wondered whether it was dyed. He was broad through the shoulders in an old-fashioned square-muscled way.

Mrs. Sweatt was standing up, looking upset. “Where did Jim go?” she asked the man.

“Some kids are having a barbecue, so he decided to stand up the old people.” He smiled at me. “I’m Oscar Strickland.”

“Peggy Cort,” I said.

“Nice to meet—”

“He should ask me for permission,” said Mrs. Sweatt.

Oscar shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind.” But Mrs. Sweatt was looking wistfully at where James had disappeared.

“I invited Peggy to come with us,” said Caroline.

“Am I invited for the ride even if I don’t eat ice cream?” I asked.

Oscar looked shocked at such a sentiment. “No ice cream?”

I watched Caroline pinch him in the side.

“You’re welcome to come,” she said, “ice cream or no ice cream.”

I rode in the back with Mrs. Sweatt, who looked out the window with a great deal of purpose. Charley’s was in Provincetown, on the skinny main street that ran parallel to the bay. The sun had set by the time we got there, and the air was by-the-sea-in-autumn cool. Mrs. Sweatt announced that she didn’t want any ice cream either.

“This is Charley’s!” said Oscar.

Mrs. Sweatt pulled her socks up and tugged at the cuffs of the bloomers. “I’m just going to walk to the beach,” she said.

“Peggy, why don’t you go with her?” said Caroline.

Mrs. Sweatt sighed audibly.

“Good idea,” Oscar said. “We’ll have our ice cream and catch up with you.”

“I may be a while,” said Mrs. Sweatt. “I want to sit in a little silence.”

“You can sit in silence with Peggy. We’ll have our ice cream. We’ll give you time.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Sweatt said to me. “Come on.”

I didn’t want to go with her, of course, and yet was happy to: I’ve always found a certain sullenness comforting. So Mrs. Sweatt and I walked the block to the bay, to one of the stone walls that separated the backs of the shops from the start of the beach. Mrs. Sweatt climbed up to sit down, and I followed.

“So,” I said. “James hit a home run.”

Mrs. Sweatt was trying her best to sit in a little silence.

I hadn’t dressed for a sea breeze, and I rubbed my goose-bumpy arms. “I didn’t know he was an athlete.”

“You should see him play basketball,” said Mrs. Sweatt. “He sure doesn’t get it from me.”

“But you played today, too, right?”

She smiled. “I caught one lonely pop fly. Thus begins and ends my career in sports.”

“What about James’s father?” I asked. “Was he an athlete?”

Mrs. Sweatt played with some sand caught in the cracks of the wall, then looked toward the bay. Her bloomers buckled up into silly pleats across her lap. Finally she said, “Who?”

“Ah. You’ve forgotten him.”

“No.” She sighed. “I can’t forget him. I don’t even try.”

It was like a line of a popular song— I can’t forget, I don’t even try —and she made it sound like the truest sentence there ever was.

“Shouldn’t you try?” I said dubiously.

“For what? Then I’d remember trying, too.” She started digging in her soft purse. “There’s two ways to get rid of something that big: effort and erosion. I’m trying for the second.” She brought out a dark brown medicine bottle and drank straight from it. Then she coughed.

“It’s not working,” I said.

“What?”

“The cough syrup. You coughed.”

She looked at the bottle. “Vodka.” She screwed the cap back on. “I’m on this medicine. To keep my weight down. It makes me nervous, so sometimes I take a little vodka to balance it out. You’re lucky, you don’t have to worry about your weight. Without my medicine, I’d start eating the ice cream and I–I just wouldn’t stop . So this medicine makes me stop.” She shook the bottle, then took another sip. “Disgusting.”

It was as much as I’d ever heard Mrs. Sweatt say. I understood, now, why I’d been sent along — to keep her, if not from actually drinking, then from drinking alone.

“I never was a vodka drinker,” I said.

“Me neither. But if I don’t — I get nervous. I can’t sleep.” She offered me the bottle.

“No, thanks.”

“I drink too much,” she said.

“Do you?”

“So they say.” She banged her heels against the seawall, thinking. She shook her bottle again, as if she were trying to conjure up more vodka, and examined its level. “I know people talk about me, I know what they say about me, I just try not to listen or behave too badly. I’d drink whiskey, but people can smell that.” She laughed her magician’s laugh, wistful and miraculous. “That’s all I need, to have people in this town talk truth instead of rumors. Nobody is invisible”—at this she elbowed me lightly—“but I aim to be at least confusing.”

“Whiskey,” I said. “Now you have me wanting some.”

She cut a look at me. “Really? You’d drink whiskey?”

“Sure,” I said. I half expected her to pull a second bottle from her bag, but instead she jumped up. “Come on,” she said. “They’re dawdling. We have time.” She slapped sand off the seat of her dark bloomers. “Come on,” she said again.

She led me to a door with a stained-glass window that showed two pilgrims, heels kicked up, mugs in their hands. The edge of the bar was two steps from the door. Mrs. Sweatt waved at the bartender, whispered something, and held up two fingers. He nodded and delivered two shots of whiskey.