“I hope not. That’s their mom.”
Cynthia’s eyes widen. “Are you kidding?” She looks at the photo again. And then we hear the door open. There is a pause, and then I hear, “Hello? Katie?” Mrs. Wexler. The naked one.
We put the photo back fast, close the door, and come out into the hall. My heart is beating so fast, I can feel it in my throat. “Just go down like normal,” Cynthia whispers. “Let me go first. I’ll talk.”
We come downstairs and Mrs. Wexler is standing there looking at us with a question in her eyes.
“Hi, I’m Cynthia. We were in the bathroom.”
Well, why did I let her talk. In the bathroom! Together!!
But, “Oh,” Mrs. Wexler says, mildly. And then she turns to her husband. “I’m going to bed.” It is so cold and mean, and it makes everything so uncomfortable.
“Fine,” Mr. Wexler says.
I get it, I think. They had a fight. That’s why they’re home early. And that’s why they aren’t paying attention to anything else. Sometimes someone else’s misfortune is your good luck.
Mr. Wexler pays me what I would have made if they’d stayed out later. “This is too much,” I say, but he says, “No, you go ahead and take it. Thank you.”
“Thank you.” I feel so bad for him, his tie all loosened, his party wrecked. He goes to a high cupboard in the kitchen and takes down a bottle, then calls, “We’ll see you next time.”
“The boys were fine,” I say, and he says good, that’s good. I have a sudden thought to tell him that there is a nice men’s cologne called Brut, which Bubba practically bathes in, but I don’t say anything. I just close the door behind Cynthia and me as softly as I can.
IT IS ODD BUT TRUE that one of my best friends is an old priest. I met him soon after I moved here, and even though my family doesn’t go to church, I go to see Father Compton every now and then. He’s a white-haired guy bent over like the letter C, his eyebrows all tangled up. There is something about him that makes you feel it’s all right to bring out your feelings, no matter what they are. We talk in his office, which has red carpet and dark bookcases spilling over with books, books, books. He has a little teapot and a china cup the light comes through, and he always has treats, which are supposed to be for him but he shares them with everybody.
Today he is offering me gingersnaps, which are among my favorite, so I take a couple while I tell him about what happened at the Wexlers. It is not something I could tell any other adult, but when you tell Father Compton, it is almost like talking to a stuffed animal who had lived on your bed forever. I feel so strange about what I saw, and to tell the truth I’m not sure I can baby-sit there anymore. But how to tell my dad the reason I want to quit? This is what I need help with.
Father Compton listens to the story while he eats his cookie. Little crumbs fall all over the front of him, but he pays no attention, because that is the kind of listener he is. When I’m through talking, he says, “Well, Katie, this is what I think. I think you have seen some evidence of a man who finds his wife beautiful. I don’t find that so much of a problem. What concerns me is the way that you found that photograph.”
I have to say that I had hoped that we could gloss over the sin of me snooping and move right into the sin of the photograph. If the photograph is not a sin, I am not so comfortable being here anymore. “Uh huh,” I say, and look out the window behind Father Compton’s head. Some people can tell time by where the sun is in the sky.
“We all have things we need to keep to ourselves,” Father Compton begins, and I give up on looking out the window and lean back to listen to him because, as usual, he is right. Sometimes I think that when I come here to talk, my one self is saying it’s for a certain reason, but my other self knows better. It waits until we get here and then it jumps out and says, Now.
I GUESS I HAVE STARTED a fad, because now Ginger is entering a contest. It is something she found in a magazine, the Instant Tender Tea Contest. If she wins, she’ll get Mrs. Webley for a year. Mrs. Webley is a maid who will do everything for you, so you can live the life of Riley. “Can you imagine?” Ginger says. “A maid, for a year! She’ll cook, she’ll clean, she’ll baby-sit. . . . ” We are lingering over breakfast. My dad has gone to work, and I don’t have to work at all. What I’m going to do is go for a long walk by myself, and I’m bringing my notebook. This is something I love to do. There is a peace that comes.
“I don’t need a baby-sitter,” I say quickly.
“Oh, I know that,” Ginger says. “But suppose your father and I wanted to take a little weekend trip. She could stay with you.”
“I can stay alone!”
“I know you can,” Ginger says, but she doesn’t exactly sound convinced.
“I can!”
She looks up and smiles, Okay.
To win the contest, all you have to do is complete the last line of their jingle:
Just the top tender leaves from the top of the tree
Go into new Instant Tender Leaf Tea
The tea in this jar
Tastes better by far
________________.
That’s it. You finish the jingle and send it with the inner seal from the jar. I have never told Ginger I like to write poetry, but now might be the time. “I can probably help you,” I say. But then, rather than say, “I write poetry,” I say, “I like poetry.” It just changes like that, on the way from my brain out of my mouth.
“Do you? Oh, that’s wonderful, let’s do it right now. I have to go and get groceries later; I’ll buy some tea and then I’ll mail the entry right in—the deadline is in a week.” She goes to the kitchen drawer for paper and pencils, then sits at the table with me and stares into space, thinking.
I read the ad again, study the jingle. They give a suggestion for a last line: That’s why New Instant Tender Leaf Tea is for Me! Not to be rude, but I think Bones and Bridgett could come up with something better than that.
On my paper, I write, “Sea, glee, bee.” Then, “majesty, honesty.”
“What have you got so far?” Ginger asks. Her paper is blank.
“Oh, these are just words that rhyme,” I say.
She comes over, looks at my list. “Hey! We could say, ‘When I drink it, I feel like Her Majesty!’ ”
“Uh huh.” I was thinking of something a little better.
“Or, It’s the tea that just fills me with glee!’ ”
Uh oh, I think. But, “Maybe,” I say. And then, “How about we work alone and then see what we each come up with?”
“Well, I didn’t get too far before, working alone,” Ginger says. “I like this idea of working together!”
“Or . . . ,” I say, my eyebrows all wrinkled like this brilliant idea is just occurring to me now. “You could go get the tea and I could come up with some things, and then you could just pick the one you like best.”
“That would be perfect!” she says, and she is as smiley as a little kid handed a yellow balloon.
I LIKE WHEN YOU WALK far enough that a kind of relaxation happens and you can be inside the rhythm of your feet. Your brain shifts like a car; you settle down, look around, and feel ah. In a more slow-motion way, you see where you are. And where I am is outside and free, on a summer day. There are times you know your own luck.
The thing about seasons is that when you’re in one, you can’t believe the others will ever come back. It feels to me like summer has its feet planted far apart and its hands on its hips: I am here. Gardens are full of primary colors, grass sprouts from cracks in the sidewalk, bees fly heavy and low, like you could just reach down and grab one. You can smell the heat trapped in the concrete, that ironed pillowcase smell. Windows are open, and people seem open too—there is no hunching over from the cold, keeping your eyes on the sidewalk, concentrating on getting to where you’re going so you can be warm and not freeze to death. When you pass by someone, you take the time to nod a greeting or even stand and have a little conversation, the sun making a disc of warmth on
the top of your head.
Curtains move in S-shaped dances from the breeze, or puff out dramatically, then fall straight and still, like they’re denying they did anything. Kids with Kool-Aid mustaches run in and out of the house, banging the screen door and yelling to their mothers, and you can hear the faint voice of their mothers yelling back not to bang the door, how many times does she have to tell them to not bang the door. There is a different weight to the air. People sit on their porches after dinner, reading the paper or sitting idle, their hands behind their heads and their ankles crossed, waiting to see who passes by. There is a low happiness in them that they can’t explain.
I walk far enough out of the neighborhood that the houses end and open fields begin. I don’t know who these fields belong to. I don’t see how they can belong to anyone, really, how any land can. I wonder sometimes how it all started, that land got owned. Somebody came someplace new and didn’t see anybody else around and said, “Huh. Well, this is mine.” And then they stuck a flag in. And then came war.
I wander far out into the middle of a field and lie down in knee-high grass. What a fine smell; you can understand why horses eat it. I close my eyes and listen to the drone of an airplane overhead. Now I have been on an airplane. It is in my bag of experiences, which mostly is empty. I wonder when I die what will be in my bag, and why. I think of Mrs. Wexler, and how her bag must be pitiful flat, and then I think of the Randolphs and how each of their bags would look like it was about to explode. I don’t know, really, why it ends up that some people get so much and some so little. Some they can’t help it, but some they can.
I sit up, take out my notebook, smooth the page with the flat of my hand. I want to try a poem about a summer day. I want yellow and green in it; I want heat and drops of water and the slow flap of a new butterfly’s wings. I think I’ll end with something I saw on the way over: a slide on a playground, the metal glinting so hard in the sun, a line of kids all waiting to go up the ladder. Whenever I start a poem, I feel like my heart is about to break. Because of all there is, because of how every single thing can have such a pure beauty that aches to be known. I take in a deep breath, and then all there is is the scritch scritch scritch of my pen, trying to say something so true. What if it works? Then when I read it again, the little voice inside will say, Yes. Yes. Yes. And there will be this rare excitement that makes me bend over myself with pleasure, then rise up smiling, my fingers pressed over my mouth as though to keep things from bursting out. I am lucky on the inside.
WHEN I COME BACK FROM my walk, Ginger is so excited to see me. “I got the last line of the jingle!” she says. “It just all of a sudden came to me at the grocery store!”
“Let’s see,” I say, and Ginger says, “Well, I’d like to read it to you. Will you let me read it to you?”
“Sure!” I sit down and turn toward her, my knees together and my hands in my lap like a real audience.
She moves to the middle of the kitchen, straightens, then holds up the page she’s written her poem on. It’s her good stationery; I can see the design of the flowers that go all around the edges. She starts to read, then all of a sudden stops. “Well, for heaven’s sake, I can’t believe it, I feel nervous!”
I understand this. You’ve done something so important that you are worried about showing someone else. It is too delicate and newborn, even if it’s not new. Inside yourself, hands wring. “Want me to close my eyes?” I ask.
“No, that’s okay. It’s just that I’ve never written a poem before. But here, here goes.”
She takes in a breath, then recites:
Just the top tender leaves from the top of the tree
Go into new Instant Tender Leaf Tea
The tea in this jar
Tastes better by far
Than French food in gay old Paree!
“Oh! . . . That’s good,” I say. How can I not. She’s so proud, her mouth in a tight smile and her eyes so lit up.
“Thank you! Okay, so I guess I’ll just mail it in. And then we just have to wait.”
“Right.” I imagine a table full of judges, all wearing those half glasses. I hope they’ll be kind.
“How about some lunch?” Ginger asks.
I nod yes. And then I hear myself say, “Would you like to read a poem I wrote today?” It is as though my shy self has slipped past my guard self, and bingo, my secret is out.
“You did it, too?” She turns on the faucet, starts washing her hands.
“I didn’t write anything for the contest,” I say. “I wrote just . . . a poem. About summer.”
“Well, read it to me, like I did to you.”
“I think it might be better if you just read it to yourself.”
She comes over, wiping her hands on the little towel built into her apron. I start to hand her my poem, then say, “Would you mind if I leave while you read it?”
Something in my face tells her something. “That’s fine,” she says, serious, and I go to my room. I know it will only take a minute for her to read, but I stay sitting on my bed for ten minutes. When I come out, she’s making sandwiches. She puts plates for both of us on the table. BLTs. She pours milk for me, coffee for her. Then she sits down and looks at me, standing there in the middle of the kitchen. “I don’t know anything about poetry, really,” she says. I am all of a sudden so embarrassed that I showed her. But then she says, “But I know when someone has a gift. And I think you do, Katie. My goodness, you’re a poet, and I never even knew.”
I sit down at the table. One of my fists is clenched so tight. And in my head, a person who was out walking and walking in the dark comes to a little house with a light on. Waits at the door for a moment, and then goes in. Finds such a welcome that she stays.
MRS. RANDOLPH IS SICK. “Under the weather,” Mr. Randolph calls it. At first I feel guilty, thinking I should never have taken her outside, but he says it’s not that. “It happens every now and then,” he says. “She’ll rally. She’s sleeping, now—we’ll just let her rest.” He pulls out a kitchen chair, gestures for me to sit down at the table, and he sits at the other side. “I thought I’d make a nice cold soup for dinner, a cucumber soup. Maybe you could help me.”
Well, I have never heard of such a thing. Cold soup! And made out of cucumbers! But I just smile and nod like my family had it for dinner just last night.
Mr. Randolph lays some newspaper out on the table, then gets some cucumbers out of the refrigerator and hands them to me. “You peel, and I’ll chop, okay?”
While I peel the cucumbers, he washes his breakfast dishes. I look at his skinny back, the slow, slow way he puts the dishes in the drying rack. When Ginger does dishes, she’s so fast, it’s like her hands are a blur. The way Mr. Randolph does it is so slow, it’s interesting to watch, like a movie of something you’ve seen so many times, but never seen.
I think of how Mr. Randolph is so careful with everything, and then I think of the Wexlers. How can they be so different? Didn’t they both feel so in love at first, and what happened to the Wexlers that they don’t have that anymore?
“Mr. Randolph?” I say. “Do you and your wife ever fight?”
He turns around, smiles. “Oh, sure.” He holds a cup under the rinse water, puts it in the rack. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“When we were young, we used to go round and round about all kinds of things, politics especially. We don’t do that so much anymore. Now it’s a little disagreement every now and then over whether the peas are too salty. But you can’t have a marriage without a little conflict.”
“You just seem so happy,” I say.
“Well.” He turns to smile at me. Yes, we are, he is saying. I imagine him trying to help Mr. Wexler, but all that comes into my head is Mr. Randolph hearing about how Mrs. Wexler treats Mr. Wexler, then shaking his head, saying, Well, I’m sorry, young man. A pat to the shoulder. I truly am sorry for you, son.
I’m done peeling the cucumbers by the time he’s finished with t
he dishes. He puts a cutting board down on the table, takes the cucumbers from me, and starts chopping. “I can help do that, too,” I say, and he says, “No, no need. I’m happy just to have your company.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, and then my mind goes plumb blank. I hate when this happens. I clear my throat, hoping for a jump start to start talking again, but it’s no good.
“Happy to just have you sitting there,” Mr. Randolph says, again. He hasn’t even looked up, but somehow he knows what I’m thinking.
I hear the wood and knife language of his chop-chop-chopping, and the rhythm brings a kind of comfort. I lean back and let the sound fill the space. I look around the kitchen, the yellow ruffled curtains at the window, the cheerful wallpaper, the long Formica counters. This kitchen is bigger than ours, even though there’s just the two of them; the Randolphs never did have children.
“Are you looking forward to classes starting?” Mr. Randolph asks.
“Some.”
“Ah. So you’ll be ‘creeping like the snail, unwillingly to school.’ ”
“Who said that?”
“The bard.”
“Pardon?”
“William Shakespeare.”
“Oh! I’ve read him, a little.”
“And?”
“Well, it’s beautiful, his language. When I read it, I feel . . . high up. But sometimes it’s hard to understand.”
“You need a good teacher to really appreciate Shakespeare.”
“They’re hard to find,” I say. “I’ve only had a couple good ones. But they were so—”
Suddenly Mr. Randolph stops chopping and lifts his head in a particular kind of alertness.
“Want me to check on her?” I ask, but he is already up and on his way to Mrs. Randolph’s bedroom.
I follow him down the hall. She’s awake. Now, how did he know? There was not one sound.
He sits on the bed beside her. I’ll bet he smells like cucumbers. I’ll bet she can smell that plain, clean smell from his hand that he has laid at the side of her face.