Distortions (33 page)

“You didn’t do anything. You got your soft drink. Drink it.”

“You couldn’t make the machine work either,” the little boy says.

“It was broken,” his mother says.

“Then what are you mad about?”

“I’m mad because you just add to the confusion. I want to get the groceries and go home and put them away. All right? Sit back and finish your drink.”

It is just another day in Big Bear City, California.

Monday

T
ook monthly leaf cuttings to send to her friends in the violet association. Other than that, all routine: turning on fluorescent light, usual watering from dish beneath the pot. Store delivered decorative pots. Now the inside pots must be carefully lifted so that none of the delicate leaves snap. A tricky business. My fingers must not touch the leaves. The clay pots must be centered exactly in the decorative pots, then misted from a distance of two feet. Mrs. Edway has inspected them carefully to be certain there are no bruised leaves. After unjust complaint yesterday, put ice water on the violets today to get even. Wilted a little. Shook my head with her as she called the violets “temperamental.” Annoyed me by talking about too many articles she’d read in the violet association publication. Made note to discard next issue of the magazine in post office when I pick up the mail. She calls the mails “unreliable.” She has been crankier than usual. I suspect her pain is worse, but after years of marriage I know better than to ask. Mrs. Edway has always had her secrets.

Yesterday I began reading
Confessions of Z
. Next to be read are
The Red and the Black
and
The Charterhouse of Parma
. It sounds as though we are literate people. Also in the pile are
The Silver Chalice, French Science-fiction Stories
, and
Man Meets Dog
. Every time I read to her she reminds me how lucky we are that the librarian’s mother is her personal friend, so the librarian sends us books by messenger every Saturday at noon, when the library closes. I am not sure whether the books are selected by the librarian or by the messenger, who is a young schoolgirl of racially mixed parentage. Sometimes, as Mrs. Edway called to my attention, we receive a selection of books from authors whose names follow alphabetically: Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Flaubert. Other times there seems to be little method in the selection. Mrs. Edway and I agree, however, that we should be grateful for the service, which began when Mrs. Edway (who had donated half a dozen specimen violets to the reading room of the library) wrote a note to the librarian saying that she would no longer be able to make a weekly inspection of the violets because of her poor health; in fact, she would no longer be able to use the library at all. Our service began the week the note was delivered. On that occasion the librarian came herself, dropping off several anthologies of
English and American literature. She declined to stay, although she did wait long enough to be given several Food’N’Bloom pellets.

Something interesting happened: after careful consideration as to whether we wanted a dog or a cat or nothing, we voted secretly, on separate pieces of paper, which we held up at the same time, so that one couldn’t change his mind after seeing what the other had written. Each of us had written “cat.” Next Saturday I will ask the messenger if any of her schoolmates have kittens they want to give away.

Mrs. Edway sees me writing and asks who I think is going to read all this. She is jealous for two reasons: I am using Xerox paper that Bernie brings me (he brings his father Xerox paper, while he brings his mother nothing), and because I have not begun the afternoon reading yet. I am not much interested in
Confessions of
Z and may call for a vote as to whether we should continue with it. She is cranky today because she did not have a good night, and if she suspects that I am not calling for the vote just out of routine, she is sure to answer, “Yes.”

She is looking through a magazine now, holding it close to her face. I suspect she is studying ads for cat food. The pictures show so clearly which brand contains more liver that it will not be necessary to vote when it comes time. What a coincidence that she received a free coupon for creamy liver dinner in the mail this morning. Is it the same brand pictured in the magazine?

Bernie just called to check on things. Xerox has developed an improved reproduction-machine paper. He is going to a convention to describe the new product to clients. He tells me his mind will be at rest if I persuade her to see a doctor before he leaves town.

The messenger has come and gone.
Romeo and Juliet
was not accounted for when she returned the books we had finished to the library today. She told me the book had to be in this house, because it was not in her house. She described putting the pile on her bureau and removing the pile this morning to return on her way to school. She carried them in a book bag, so she could not have dropped the book. I tried to treat the subject lightly and asked, “Wherefore art thou, book?” as she sprawled to look under
the bed. Wanted to ask about the kitten, but she seemed very agitated. Decided to wait until Saturday. She made a thorough search of all but one room, and did not have time to do that because it was her lunch hour, and she had to return to school.

I raised what I thought might be a touchy subject: a charcoal filter for the spigot. She agreed.

Abandoned
Confessions of
Z for
The Red and the Black
. Listened to Brahms. Dinner of crab-stuffed flounder, lima beans and corn. She went to bed an hour earlier than usual, not feeling well again.

Tuesday

Arose early, prepared pancake batter for breakfast. Wrote two notes: one to the mail-order house for a charcoal filter, the other to Dr. Yeusa. The messenger arrived just as I finished writing. She was distraught and said she must find
Romeo and Juliet
. The search ended in vain at eight-thirty when she had to leave for school.

Must call Mrs. Edway’s attention to “High Hopes”—two withering leaves.

She slept through the phone call from Bernie, allowing me to tell him that I had contacted the doctor, asking him to stop by unannounced. He thanked me, promised a supply of the new Xerox paper.

When she awakens we will have breakfast and take the Tuesday stroll.

Radio bulletin about a missing two-engine plane.

Walked by the frozen pond, where children were ice-skating. One child recognized us, a girl about eleven, and asked if she could stop by with a selection of Girl Scout cookies. A nice little girl—remembered her from last year. Mrs. Edway knew her name, I think, but wouldn’t say it in front of me. She points up my deficiencies, such as forgetting names, by not helping out. She knows the messenger’s name, too, but won’t use it. Am waiting to ask the favor about the kitten because things are still strained between us. Looked for
Romeo and Juliet
myself. No luck. Told the messenger it had to be either here or there. She is convinced it is here and has arranged to stop by with a friend after school. I
think her job may be in jeopardy and will suggest to Mrs. Edway that she offer to repay the library for the loss and to assume responsibility.

Mrs. Edway’s cousin from San Francisco mailed her a belated birthday gift: an embroidered picture of the Eiffel Tower.
La Tour Eiffel
in black cross-stitch at the bottom. Took a secret vote to see if it should be hung: “Yes.” We decided on the dining room without having to vote. Mrs. Edway wrote a note to the librarian offering to replace the book before I suggested it. She leaves the envelopes for me to lick and seal because she doesn’t like the taste. Peeked before I mailed it, but the note didn’t mention the messenger’s name.

Fell asleep in the afternoon after the episode in which Julien wishes he had died in M. de Renal’s garden. Dinner was late, and I didn’t concentrate as much as usual on the preparation because I was trying to piece together the nightmare I’d had about a plane circling a garden. Someone had asked questions of me, and the correct answer would allow the plane to land. If Mrs. Edway slept when I did, she didn’t say. I awoke to see her examining a magazine close to her face. She always looks over the top of her magazine to let me know she is aware I’m dozing. When she dozes, I ignore it.

She makes a shopping list for Wednesday. I have my own little private joke about the list: she can’t see well and lists toothpaste every week, although she has over a hundred tubes in reserve, and I keep buying them, stacking them up so if her vision improves and she sees them we will have something to argue about. We can well afford the toothpaste—no harm done. We spend some time, while the food cooks, making lists of vegetables and meats we will both eat, then buy seven dinners of items we have both agreed upon. She has added a few things to the list when she gives it to me: a hairnet, vitamins, toothpaste (I laugh to myself).

Chicken casserole and tossed salad for dinner. She asks me if it is iceberg lettuce. I chopped it small on purpose, knowing she’d ask. I answer that it is romaine. No argument.

Search parties have gone out for the plane.

Mrs. Edway answers the phone. It is the messenger, who says she was kept after school and hopes we weren’t inconvenienced
waiting for her. Sensing that things have turned around a bit, I ask her for the phone and tell the messenger that we are replacing the book. I inquire about the kitten. She thinks she knows where she can get one and promises to call back.

Wednesday

Pushing the grocery cart back from the store, I see a car parked in front of the house. Dr. Yeusa received my note in the morning mail. He is a thin man with curly, bushy hair and small silver-rimmed glasses. Mrs. Edway and the doctor look at each other over the tops of their glasses. She refuses to stand when asked, and asks him to join her on the couch. I will fix them tea. She is angry with me for what I have done, so surely I will at least fix tea. She allows the doctor to question her. It is a pain in the stomach that usually comes only at night. He takes her blood pressure; she turns her head to avoid looking. She sees the bad leaves on the violet, the ones I forgot to mention, and gets up, the device still wrapped around her arm. On her way back from the violets, the doctor blocks her way and examines her abdomen. He takes a blood sample and puts it out of sight in his bag at tea-drinking time. Before he leaves he phones in a prescription for sedatives.

She will not speak to me.

There is a knock at the door. Mrs. Edway says, “I like the mint and the assorted.” But it isn’t the Girl Scout. It’s another girl, and she’s brought a basket of kittens—all six weeks old, she says. She takes the blanket off. Mrs. Edway and I study the contents. We each write on a slip of paper which one we like. Her slip reads: gray and white, all gray, the largest kitten. Mine: gray, multicolored, orange-ish one. We confer; yes, by “the largest kitten” she meant the multicolored one. So it is narrowed down to that one or the gray one. I tell her that either is all right with me. She chooses the multicolored kitten. The girl stares, even after we have chosen. No, she says, they’re free, and leaves the house.

I offer the kitten a can of liver, but it seems uninterested and walks off to explore the kitchen.

Dinner: liver and onions, succotash, pound cake. Lately we have been arguing about the necessity of both a green and a yellow vegetable daily, now that vitamin pills are so fashionable. I fix
dinner, so she gets both, but the idea of having to eat them for good health gives us something to talk about To annoy me, she used to finish her vegetables
and
take a vitamin pill. Now, since I shop, I ignore vitamin pills when they are on the list.

On one of my pieces of paper she has begun a thank-you note. I see “Merci, Celeste,” but she shades the note with her hand when she sees me looking.

Two cowboys die, shot by another cowboy on horseback. The rest of the movie shows the cowboy’s dog walking home without his master, and the wife of one of the dead cowboys standing on the front porch staring curiously at the dog, who slinks under the porch. The wife goes down the stairs to look at the dog. Program interrupted by delivery boy from drugstore. Embarrassed to say I nearly tipped him a nickel instead of a quarter. Usually keep that nickel separate from my other change because it’s an Indian head. Mrs. Edway sits stirring the batter for carrot bread. The movie depresses her and she speaks bitterly against Bernie for not calling, wonders what will happen to the inn across the street when it’s sold. She asks how many years we’ve lived in the house, and I tell her fifty. She gets confused when she’s tired. She tosses the kitten a ball of yarn that is nearly as big as the animal itself. The kitten circles it. She asks what we decided to name the kitten. No use lying, telling her the name I like; if it doesn’t ring a bell, she won’t believe me. “Rainbow,” I tell her all the same. She nods. I suspect she’s not tired, but in pain.