crucial conversation is interrupted while I add up several sales and greet two or three newcomers. Sometimes the business of being a bookseller provides me with an escape from a long-winded, lonely person like Bagley, but sometimes it is frustrating, and I hope Patience and Alice will come back.
For the moment I have other things on my mind. I invited Joan to have supper with me in my apartment upstairs and it is about time to rescue Patapouf and close up for the day. I had left her upstairs as she seemed to long to be left alone and to sleep, the dear old thing. By now, however, she will be feeling restless, so I lock up a little early for once.
We go out into the autumn dusk, walking together among all the people coming home from work or out to shop for their suppers, and I am happy to stop whenever Patapouf wants to for her endless sniffing of trees and hedges, for then I can stand and drink in the light, especially as the setting sun lights up a beech tree turning it a startling gold. At that moment I miss Chestnut Hill badly, our garden and our beautiful trees. But I remind myself that I have exchanged all that beauty for the human scene around me, for the friendliness of a city neighborhood where people do not shut other people out with high gates and fences. There are compensations.
“Will she bite if I pat her head?” a very dirty little boy asks me. Patapouf is wagging her tail very hard. I have been in a reverie and have not noticed the boy or his friend.
“First let her sniff your hand,” I suggest, “then she’ll know you are a friend.” And pretty soon he is kneeling down and patting her head quite gently while Patapouf wags her tail. The other little boy meanwhile has decided to pat her back but does not know quite how.
“Patting is not hitting,” I suggest. So he stops and gives me a disgusted frown.
“Come on Peter, this is boring,” he says, and off they go, Peter looking back once to wave goodbye.
How can Martha not want a child, I ask myself. I have been thinking quite a lot about her and wonder when she will come back, and whether anyone will buy a painting.
Now it is time to hurry home and put the meat loaf in the oven. I look forward to a talk with Joan. She will be my first guest for a meal. Vicky and I had a cook, Emma, who mothered us and spoiled us. Cooking, too, is a new exercise for me. I have squash, the frozen kind, melting in the double boiler and shall add sour cream and brown sugar when it has melted. But as I set the table in a corner of the living room, I feel suddenly tired. Joan can open the wine, I decide. I made chocolate mousse yesterday, so I can sit down for five minutes, and I do, feeling the tension flow out of me as I stroke Patapouf’s silky ears.
Joan sits by the fire, which she has lit for me, drinking her martini, and I sit opposite with my scotch. I realize how much I have wanted someone to talk with, someone I know and who is part of the enterprise.
“Do you get awfully tired?” I ask. “Today suddenly I feel done in.”
“Actually, no. I find it fun,” she says.
“So many people, so many lives.”
“That’s your side. I keep busy at the register.”
“How are we going to find a Saturday person?”
“Maybe someone will turn up. I don’t mind doing that for a while, though.”
“Really? But you don’t want the store to eat up your life.”
“I don’t have a life.”
“What did you do before?”
“Brooded.”
“I expect your friends asked you over for dinner, knowing you must be at loose ends.”
At this Joan shakes her head, implying that I am a little crazy. “My friends were our friends, you see.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A divorced woman, Harriet, is not a social asset.”
I must look bewildered, as bewildered as I feel. It just seems to me unbelievable that friends would drop a friend who is suddenly single.
“Couples invite other couples … I suppose one becomes a threat.”
It does occur to me now that
For the moment I have other things on my mind. I invited Joan to have supper with me in my apartment upstairs and it is about time to rescue Patapouf and close up for the day. I had left her upstairs as she seemed to long to be left alone and to sleep, the dear old thing. By now, however, she will be feeling restless, so I lock up a little early for once.
We go out into the autumn dusk, walking together among all the people coming home from work or out to shop for their suppers, and I am happy to stop whenever Patapouf wants to for her endless sniffing of trees and hedges, for then I can stand and drink in the light, especially as the setting sun lights up a beech tree turning it a startling gold. At that moment I miss Chestnut Hill badly, our garden and our beautiful trees. But I remind myself that I have exchanged all that beauty for the human scene around me, for the friendliness of a city neighborhood where people do not shut other people out with high gates and fences. There are compensations.
“Will she bite if I pat her head?” a very dirty little boy asks me. Patapouf is wagging her tail very hard. I have been in a reverie and have not noticed the boy or his friend.
“First let her sniff your hand,” I suggest, “then she’ll know you are a friend.” And pretty soon he is kneeling down and patting her head quite gently while Patapouf wags her tail. The other little boy meanwhile has decided to pat her back but does not know quite how.
“Patting is not hitting,” I suggest. So he stops and gives me a disgusted frown.
“Come on Peter, this is boring,” he says, and off they go, Peter looking back once to wave goodbye.
How can Martha not want a child, I ask myself. I have been thinking quite a lot about her and wonder when she will come back, and whether anyone will buy a painting.
Now it is time to hurry home and put the meat loaf in the oven. I look forward to a talk with Joan. She will be my first guest for a meal. Vicky and I had a cook, Emma, who mothered us and spoiled us. Cooking, too, is a new exercise for me. I have squash, the frozen kind, melting in the double boiler and shall add sour cream and brown sugar when it has melted. But as I set the table in a corner of the living room, I feel suddenly tired. Joan can open the wine, I decide. I made chocolate mousse yesterday, so I can sit down for five minutes, and I do, feeling the tension flow out of me as I stroke Patapouf’s silky ears.
Joan sits by the fire, which she has lit for me, drinking her martini, and I sit opposite with my scotch. I realize how much I have wanted someone to talk with, someone I know and who is part of the enterprise.
“Do you get awfully tired?” I ask. “Today suddenly I feel done in.”
“Actually, no. I find it fun,” she says.
“So many people, so many lives.”
“That’s your side. I keep busy at the register.”
“How are we going to find a Saturday person?”
“Maybe someone will turn up. I don’t mind doing that for a while, though.”
“Really? But you don’t want the store to eat up your life.”
“I don’t have a life.”
“What did you do before?”
“Brooded.”
“I expect your friends asked you over for dinner, knowing you must be at loose ends.”
At this Joan shakes her head, implying that I am a little crazy. “My friends were our friends, you see.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A divorced woman, Harriet, is not a social asset.”
I must look bewildered, as bewildered as I feel. It just seems to me unbelievable that friends would drop a friend who is suddenly single.
“Couples invite other couples … I suppose one becomes a threat.”
It does occur to me now that
Similar Books
