The sight of Honor Carmichael took Duane aback. He was accustomed to having pretty much anybody show up at his garden—a couple from Auckland, New Zealand, had stopped and picked a few vegetables one day—but the one person he had not expected to see there was his psychiatrist, the woman he had wanted in his dream. The two women seemed to be having an animated conversation as they inspected the garden. The little short woman seemed to be agitated—perhaps even annoyed. She kept gesturing with her cane, and raising her hands as if in despair.
After watching the two for a few minutes Duane began to feel like a Peeping Tom. He washed his face again and hastily ran a comb through his hair before stepping out to greet them. Though Honor Carmichael saw him at once and walked over to greet him, the little short woman, who was boldly lipsticked, took not the slightest notice of him.
“I don’t believe you grew up here—it’s a lie you told me to make me believe you’re some kind of hick,” the small stout woman said. “This is the end of the earth. I don’t believe you grew up here, and if you did I have no idea why I’m living with you. No wonder we don’t get along.”
Honor came over and shook hands with Duane, evidently quite unperturbed by her friend’s protest, which was delivered in a strange, gravelly-voice accent that Duane couldn’t place—all he knew was that it was not a Texas accent.
“Hi,” Honor said. “We’ve come to raid your garden. It’s really wonderful.”
“But have you got any squash? I’m not finding any squash and I live for squash,” the stocky woman said, looking at Duane suspiciously. Evidently her appetite for squash took precedence over her views about whether Honor had grown up in Thalia because she dropped that subject and never mentioned it again.
“Duane, this is my friend Angie Cohen,” Honor said. “Angie Cohen from Baltimore, the squash lover.”
“Well, if she’s a squash lover she’s landed in the right garden,” Duane said. “We’ve got eight or nine kinds of squash and they’re ready to go.”
He had shaken hands with Honor and now reached out to shake hands with her friend. Angie Cohen extended her hand for a moment but turned away before he really had time to shake it.
Honor looked lovely under her wide-brimmed hat. Her arms and legs were tanned, though Angie Cohen’s were a fish-belly white.
Duane was glad the little woman with the cane had asked for squash, because he had planted several varieties that could not be found in the local supermarkets. Karla had always loved squash, both to eat and to look at. Throughout the summer she always kept a big tray of squashes on the kitchen counter, and a bucket or two of them on the small porch inside the back door, to distribute to guests.
Though it was Angie Cohen who had asked about the squash, it was Honor who actually squatted down and selected a dozen or more, putting them in her large straw bag.
“Leave that one, it looks mealy,” Angie said—otherwise she made no comment.
“I’m afraid you’ve missed the peaches,” Duane said. “Everybody who showed up last week took peaches.”
“What about cucumbers?” Angie asked, when she considered that they had enough squash. “I haven’t had a decent cucumber since we left Maryland.”
Honor looked at her friend and wrinkled her nose.
“Angie, we left Maryland fifteen years ago,” she said. “I’ve had plenty of decent cucumbers since then.”
“Oh, you—you’ve got no sensitivity,” Angie Cohen said. “You could eat wallpaper and like it. The best cucumbers grow on the eastern shore of Maryland and you won’t find anyone who knows cucumbers who disagrees with me.”
Honor ignored that remark, but she followed Duane to the cucumber row and picked several. Angie Cohen did not join them—she seemed convinced that no Texas cucumber could be worth the walk.
“This garden is wonderful,” Honor told him. “What a very generous way to honor your wife.”
“Well, she always liked gardens,” Duane said. “We gardened together for quite a few years. When the kids were home we ate most of what we grew, but now our kids have moved away. I can grow a lot more than I can eat. Giving it away seemed like the best plan. How’d you hear about it?”
“Oh, from a patient,” Honor said.
Angie Cohen was limping along impatiently, several rows away. Every time Duane glanced at her she glared back at him, balefully—she seemed to be in a very quarrelsome mood. The fact that he and Honor were chatting for a moment clearly didn’t please her.
“Honor, get over here and pick some of these beets,” she said—it came out almost like a growl.
“It’s inhumanly hot,” she added, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket and mopping her face.
“We’ll go in a minute, Angie,” Honor said.
“Beets!” Angie said, pointing at the plants. “Beets, beets, beets!”
“I heard you the first time, Angie,” Honor said.
She didn’t hurry to obey her friend. Instead she stood looking at Duane.
“It seems to me you found the right cure for yourself,” she said. “You planted a garden, and it solved some of your problems. So I suppose you won’t be needing a psychiatrist again.”
“Oh, I will, though,” Duane said. “I’ve just kind of been trying to get adjusted to not having my wife.”
Honor Carmichael gave her friend a casual wave, as if to say hold your horses, and then looked straight at Duane.
“You were looking for something that felt essential, as I remember,” she said. “Something whose value was undeniable. Well, you found it. A garden is essential. It’s simple and it’s good, and you’re feeding the poor, which is also good.”
“Honor, goddamit, what about these beets?” Angie Cohen growled.
Honor was now the one to look impatient.
“She won’t let me alone,” she said to Duane. Then she went over, knelt down, and picked a dozen beets.
“Well, beets have iron and I really need the iron,” Angie said, as if someone had questioned her right to iron.
By the time the two women finished going through the garden the straw basket was bulging—Duane persuaded Honor to let him carry it to their car.
“I sure hope you ladies will come back sometime,” he said. “This garden is a long way from played out.”
“We missed the asparagus, though,” Angie said glumly, as she limped around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle—it was an old green Volvo, its backseat littered with books and papers.
“Well, you did,” Duane said. “I had some fine white asparagus back in June.”
“Too late—every goddamn thing we do is too late,” Angie said, as she got in the car. She didn’t thank him for the vegetables, and she slammed the car door hard.
“Don’t mind her, she lives for complaint,” Honor said. “Thank you very much for the wonderful vegetables. We’re going to have fine eats for the next few days, thanks to you.”
She stood by the open trunk, looking at Duane with her head tilted slightly back. She took off the floppy hat and let her long hair spill over her shoulders.
“Did you read that book I recommended to you, the last time I saw you?” she asked. For a moment, because the trunk lid was up, they were concealed from her companion.
“Well, I bought it,” Duane said. “But that’s as far as it’s gone. It looks way over my head.”
Honor shook her head, frowning a little.
“It’s a very long book, but it’s not over your head,” she told him. “You just need to take it slow.”
“Slow is the only way I could take it,” Duane said.
Angie Cohen honked loudly, but Honor ignored her.
Duane began to wish he could spend more time with Honor—a lot more time. He felt confused but was glad, at least, that she was allowing him a moment.
“Honor, let’s go!” Angie Cohen said loudly. “I’m melting in this goddamn car.”
Honor walked around the car and looked in at her friend.
“Then melt,” she sai
d. “I’m having a word with my patient. Do you mind?”
“Well, can’t he make an appointment?” Angie said. “Why should I have to sit in this end-of-the-earth town all day?”
But her complaint had lost much of its force.
Honor came back to Duane and closed the trunk.
“You still consider yourself my patient, do you not?” she asked.
He nodded.
“We’ve lapsed, that’s all,” Honor said. “You’ve planted your garden—you’re okay for now. But someday you may want to go on with your therapy.”
“I’m sure I will,” Duane told her.
“Good, because we’ve only just got started,” Honor said. “If I’m still your doctor then I have the right to write you prescriptions, correct?”
Duane thought she might be talking about antidepressants and started to protest, but Honor stopped him with a look.
“Nope, I’m not prescribing Prozac,” she said. “I’m prescribing Proust. I want you to sit down and read this great book. Read just ten pages a day—no more. It’ll take you an hour.”
Duane had looked into the three fat volumes a few times. They looked completely tedious, to him.
“I’m kind of a slow reader,” he said.
Honor fanned herself with her big hat.
“An hour and a half, then,” she said. “You can spare an hour and a half a day, I hope. The whole thing is about thirty-five hundred pages. If you read ten pages a day you’ll be through in a year. Then call and make an appointment with me and we’ll resume our talks.”
“But what if I need to call you before then?” Duane asked.
Honor didn’t answer. Instead she turned and looked at his garden again.
“Do you intend to do this next year?” she asked. “Next year and all the years thereafter?”
Angie Cohen, unable to tolerate the delay, honked again but Honor stood as she was, looking directly at Duane, waiting for him to answer her question—it was a question he had already begun to ask himself as well. Such a garden was a big responsibility—he knew that already.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was lucky with the rains this spring. I doubt I’ll be that lucky two years in a row.”
“Not the point,” Honor said. “People who receive great blessings expect the blessings to continue. And a garden such as this, where poor people are allowed to take what they want, is a great blessing indeed.”
“I guess it is,” Duane said. “I’ve thought about that too. But I don’t know about next year. I was hoping to travel some.”
“You should,” Honor said. “But good deeds are tricky—once you start being saintly it’s not too easy to stop.”
“Oh, I’m not saintly,” Duane said. “I just started my garden at the right time and then got lucky with the rains.”
Honor laughed at the remark—she had a pleasing, throaty laugh.
“Now you’re trying to shift the burden of your good deeds onto God, or nature, or something—that’s smart, actually,” she said. “I haven’t done many good deeds, but the few I have done have got me in more trouble than my bad deeds.”
Angie Cohen honked a third time—long and loud.
“Honor, get in this car!” she yelled.
Through the window they could see Angie, twisted around to look at them as she mopped her sweaty face.
“Can you believe her?” Honor said. “She’s honked three times now. Only someone from Baltimore or points north and east would be that rude.”
“I guess she’s hot,” Duane said.
“Yes, and if she was cold she’d do the same thing,” Honor said. “She just won’t let me alone.”
She reached out her hand and he shook it.
“Take your prescription now—ten pages of Proust a day,” she said. “And thanks again for the vegetables.”
“You’re welcome,” Duane said.
Honor got in the Volvo and turned it around. He could hear Angie Cohen, complaining volubly, as they drove away.
10
WHEN HONOR CARMICHAEL and her friend Angie drove off, Duane felt so unsettled that he could neither work nor rest. The unexpected visit had been deeply disquieting. He had never expected to encounter Honor outside her psychiatric offices, had never expected to converse with her except as a patient converses with a doctor. Now that she was gone, having given him a strange assignment which she expected him to take a year to complete, he felt both pleased and frustrated. He felt that the woman liked him—that at least she seemed to want him to continue as her patient. And yet she had told him he should call her in a year, or whenever he finished reading the fat, three-volume French book. That Honor could casually posit a gap of that sort in their acquaintance disturbed him. It meant that she didn’t feel the need to establish a relationship with him immediately—not even a professional relationship.
His own response to Honor Carmichael, on the other hand, was so strong that he couldn’t imagine going a year without seeing her. He knew that he was attracted to her as a woman—more strongly attracted than he had been to any woman for a long time. Yet he felt doubly blocked: first by the fact that she was his doctor, meaning that a professional relationship was the only kind he was supposed to expect, and secondly by her imposition of the yearlong wait.
Also, he was puzzled by Angie Cohen’s role in Honor Carmichael’s life. The remark Honor made when Angie was bragging on Maryland cucumbers indicated that they had been together a long time. He wondered if Angie Cohen might be a psychiatrist too—the two women might be partners.
What Duane really wanted to do was call Honor up and ask her if she would go out with him. He was ready to forget the doctor-patient relationship. Honor had looked at him acutely several times—perhaps she harbored some feelings for him that were not so different from those he felt for her.
But he didn’t call her. The fact that she still considered him her patient inhibited him. He had the sense that, at this stage of things at least, Honor Carmichael would be severely displeased if he suddenly called her up and asked her for a date.
He went into the trailer house and fidgeted for a while, unable to get Honor Carmichael off his mind. The thoughts he had about her were not professional thoughts, either. They were sexual thoughts.
Then it occurred to him that perhaps the solution to his powerful need to see Honor again, and quickly, was just to get the three fat French books and read them straight through—it couldn’t be that hard.
Once, twenty years ago, when speed-reading was in vogue, he had let Karla drag him to a course in it. Her enthusiasms in the way of self-improvement varied—she might want yoga one day and speed-reading the next. She scanned the papers and signed them up for whatever was available. In most cases Duane would go to a few meetings and then quietly drop out, using the pressures of the oil business as an excuse. But he had not dropped out of the speed-reading course. At one point he got so good at it that he could read a whole issue of the newspaper, or even a copy of Time, in about forty-five seconds. He had been much better at speed-reading than Karla, a fact that pissed her off.
“Duane, you’re just supposed to go to the classes to keep me from getting raped in the parking lot,” she explained. “You’re not supposed to get better grades than I do.”
The memory of his skill as a speed-reader gave Duane a surge of hope. If he could remember how to speed-read he might be able to rip through the French books in a week or two. His spirits high, he immediately bicycled out to the cabin, where he kept the books. But his half hour of optimism proved to have been foolish. The key-word technique that had been so helpful when reading Time was completely useless when applied to the book he had in his hand. The sentences seemed to run on for pages—often he could not even find the verbs. Within half an hour he gave up—he had been unable even to discover the name of the character who was telling the story, and nothing about the story, if there was a story, interested him in the least. He was convinced that what Honor Carmichael wanted of him was simply bey
ond his powers. It was hopeless. If he was required to read the books by Proust all the way through before he could see Honor again, then he would never see her again.
In frustration he closed the book and then threw it at the wall. What kind of doctor would do such a thing to a patient? Though working in the garden had relieved him of much of his depression, the summer would soon end and his depression might return. It seemed deeply irresponsible on her part. What if he fell into real despair? Was he supposed to despair for a year just because he couldn’t read a huge book that held no interest for him?
Though finally Duane calmed down enough to pick the book up and put it back on the shelf with the other two, he could not stop thinking about Honor Carmichael. That night he stayed in the cabin, thinking about her. He slept little and woke up with an erection—his first morning erection in years. It made him feel a little silly. Here he was, a sixty-three-year-old man who had the hots for his doctor. Probably it wasn’t even legal for a patient to sleep with his psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist, in any case, seemed to be living with an unpleasant little woman with a growly voice. What was that about?
Duane felt much too restless just to sit around the cabin, so he jumped on his bicycle and pedaled over to the Corners, to have a chat with Jody Carmichael. It was early—he thought he might catch Jody alone. But as he was nearing the intersection where the store stood he heard the sound of a lawn tractor—far ahead he saw the stumpy figure of Angie Cohen, riding the lawn tractor in her mashed-down hat. She was cutting the weeds in the ditches around the store. If Angie was there, Honor must be somewhere around, but he didn’t see her. He turned around and pedaled all the way back to his cabin and had some coffee. Angie Cohen was the last person he wanted to see.
While he was having coffee he flipped through the French book again, hoping to find some dialogue or something that he could be interested in, but, as he feared, it was hopeless. The book was an impenetrable mass of words.
Two hours later, when the sun was well up and the day too hot for anyone sane to be riding a lawn tractor, Duane rode back to the Corners again. This time there was no Angie, no Volvo, no lawn tractor.