The Wintering by Joan Williams Page A

Decker’s old house. Her bitten fingernails were hard to keep clean. Amy dug at them as if they were soon to be inspected; her hands nervously touched her hair. Most often, she walked with her eyes looking down, so now saw paint peeling at the base of the house’s columns, though at eye-level they were more freshly painted. It seemed typical of the false front put up by Borden and his mother, who had lived for years in genteel arrears. Their thinking was that who they had been born made all the difference. Propped to the house against rain, old wicker furniture was mindful of hidden faces. This gave the place an uninviting air, despite crapemyrtle flowering gorgeously pink at the front windows. Quill twisted a brass doorbell, like winding a clock, which caused an alarmed ringing in the back of the house. Calling out as shrilly, Mrs. Decker came along the hall on tall thin spike heels, crying in time to their staccato beat, “Yoo hoo yoo hoo yoo hoo.” She threw her arms around Quill’s neck and her upturned face read, Wasn’t it delightful that she was so small? Did he realize the top of her head barely touched his chin?
    Her shoes were tiny as an elf’s and were dyed aqua to match her dress. Amy was more aware of her own sandals, broad and flat like a clown’s shoes. She abandoned the idea of ever being groomed and hugged her pocketbook against her chest. Mrs. Decker acknowledged her briefly. “You’re not,” she said, “making your debut and not even going to the luncheon? Surely, you didn’t give that up for this expedition!” However, she did not listen to Amy answering that she had. Instead, Mrs. Decker led Quill toward a velvet love seat in the living room.
    Left to follow, Amy glanced behind her and prayed the woman would not notice the yellowish dusty streaks she was leaving across her polished dark floors. She sank into a wing chair opposite the love seat and tucked her feet beneath it. But that moment Mrs. Decker saw them and wondered, Why those shoes? The thought quite clearly reflected itself in the puzzlement on her face. The eyes she lifted to Amy’s face admitted that Amy was pretty, but did she never change expression? Amy stared back at her with such fear in her eyes, Mrs. Decker felt she had to say something. “Your hair,” Mrs. Decker said, which caused Amy immediately to begin apologizing for its being stringy. One thing Mrs. Decker hated was for young people to interrupt, and in the way she bit her lip she made that quite clear. When Amy was silent, she was able to begin again. “Your hair,” Mrs. Decker said, “looks lovely there in the sunlight.” Then she looked at Amy a little queerly: what had made her so defensive? Again, she glanced briefly at the shoes, wondering why they were muddy. Quill’s, however, were polished and clean. She had not thought him the sort of boy to have gone off in the woods with some girl.
    â€œThank you,” Amy had said shyly, drawing back into her chair. “My mother never thinks my hair looks nice.”
    â€œWell, now it looks like an angel’s,” Mrs. Decker said. “Howard?” she repeated. Did she know Amy’s family in Delton?
    Her parents had not been born in Delton, Amy answered, but had moved there from Arkansas when she was born.
    That accounted for things, Mrs. Decker thought, and Amy probably had not even been invited to the luncheon. Somehow, she made that thought obvious before turning her attention back to Quill.
    Not only had Mrs. Decker seen her shoes but the swooping ring left by Edith’s attempt to clean her skirt, and Amy drew her pocketbook over it. Trying to appear interested in Mrs. Decker’s conversation, she looked instead as forlorn as a child waiting apprehensively outside a principal’s office. Appearances kept up in this room were as fragile as the old china mustache cups collected on a side table. Mrs. Decker’s