“Say it,” he whispers, the hand holding the flowers against my left ear, the hand with the bag covering my right.
Isn’t this the stereotype of the maniac in the asylum — hands clamped to both ears to … what? Shut out voices? Hear them more clearly? The drink has made me woozy, and all I hear is a hum. He moves his hands up and down, rubbing the sides of my head.
“Say it,” he’s whispering through the constant roar. “Say ‘I have a nice life.’ ”
WAITING
“It’s beautiful,” the woman says. “How did you come by this?” She wiggles her finger in the mousehole. It’s a genuine mousehole: sometime in the eighteenth century a mouse gnawed its way into the cupboard, through the two inside shelves, and out the bottom.
“We bought it from an antique dealer in Virginia,” I say.
“Where in Virginia?”
“Ruckersville. Outside of Charlottesville.”
“That’s beautiful country,” she says. “I know where Ruckersville is. I had an uncle who lived in Keswick.”
“Keswick was nice,” I say. “The farms.”
“Oh,” she says. “The tax writeoffs, you mean? Those mansions with the sheep grazing out front?”
She is touching the wood, stroking lightly in case there might be a splinter. Even after so much time, everything might not have been worn down to smoothness. She lowers her eyes. “Would you take eight hundred?” she says.
“I’d like to sell it for a thousand,” I say. “I paid thirteen hundred, ten years ago.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “I suppose I should try to tell you it has some faults, but I’ve never seen one like it. Very nice. My husband wouldn’t like my spending more than six hundred to begin with, but I can see that it’s worth eight.” She is resting her index finger on the latch. “Could I bring my husband to see it tonight?”
“All right.”
“You’re moving?” she says.
“Eventually,” I say.
“That would be something to load around.” She shakes her head. “Are you going back South?”
“I doubt it,” I say.
“You probably think I’m kidding about coming back with my husband,” she says suddenly. She lowers her eyes again. “Are other people interested?”
“There’s just been one other call. Somebody who wanted to come out Saturday.” I smile. “I guess I should pretend there’s great interest.”
“I’ll take it,” the woman says. “For a thousand. You probably could sell it for more and I could probably resell it for more. I’ll tell my husband that.”
She picks up her embroidered shoulder bag from the floor by the corner cabinet. She sits at the oak table by the octagonal window and rummages for her checkbook.
“I was thinking, What if I left it home? But I didn’t.” She takes out a checkbook in a red plastic cover. “My uncle in Keswick was one of those gentleman farmers,” she says. “He lived until he was eighty-six, and enjoyed his life. He did everything in moderation, but the key was that he did everything.” She looks appraisingly at her signature. “Some movie actress just bought a farm across from the Cobham store,” she says. “A girl. I never saw her in the movies. Do you know who I’m talking about?”
“Well, Art Garfunkel used to have a place out there,” I say.
“Maybe she bought his place.” The woman pushes the check to the center of the table, tilts the vase full of phlox, and puts the corner of the check underneath. “Well,” she says. “Thank you. We’ll come with my brother’s truck to get it on the weekend. What about Saturday?”
“That’s fine,” I say.
“You’re going to have some move,” she says, looking around at the other furniture. “I haven’t moved in thirty years, and I wouldn’t want to.”
The dog walks through the room.
“What a well-mannered dog,” she says.
“That’s Hugo. Hugo’s moved quite a few times in thirteen years. Virginia. D.C. Boston. Here.”
“Poor old Hugo,” she says.
Hugo, in the living room now, thumps down and sighs.
“Thank you,” she says, putting out her hand. I reach out to shake it, but our hands don’t meet and she clasps her hand around my wrist. “Saturday afternoon. Maybe Saturday evening. Should I be specific?”
“Any time is all right.”
“Can I turn around on your grass or no?”
“Sure. Did you see the tire marks? I do it all the time.”
“Well,” she says. “People who back into traffic. I don’t know. I honk at them all the time.”
I go to the screen door and wave. She is driving a yellow Mercedes, an old one that’s been repainted, with a license that says “RAVE-I.” The car stalls. She re-starts it and waves. I wave again.
When she’s gone, I go out the back door and walk down the driveway. A single daisy is growing out of the foot-wide crack in the concrete. Somebody has thrown a beer can into the driveway. I pick it up and marvel at how light it is. I get the mail from the box across the street and look at it as cars pass by. One of the stream of cars honks a warning to me, although I am not moving, except for flipping through the mail. There is a CL&P bill, a couple of pieces of junk mail, a post card from Henry in Los Angeles, and a letter from my husband in — he’s made it to California. Berkeley, California, mailed four days ago. Years ago, when I visited a friend in Berkeley we went to a little park and some people wandered in walking two dogs and a goat. An African pygmy goat. The woman said it was housebroken to urinate outside and as for the other she just picked up the pellets.
I go inside and watch the moving red band on the digital clock in the kitchen. Behind the clock is an old coffee tin decorated with a picture of a woman and a man in a romantic embrace; his arms are nearly rusted away, her hair is chipped, but a perfectly painted wreath of coffee beans rises in an arc above them. Probably I should have advertised the coffee tin, too, but I like to hear the metal top creak when I lift it in the morning to take the jar of coffee out. But if not the coffee tin, I should probably have put the tin breadbox up for sale.
John and I liked looking for antiques. He liked the ones almost beyond repair — the kind that you would have to buy twenty dollars’ worth of books to understand how to restore. When we used to go looking, antiques were much less expensive than they are now. We bought them at a time when we had the patience to sit all day on folding chairs under a canopy at an auction. We were organized; we would come and inspect the things the day before. Then we would get there early the next day and wait. Most of the auctioneers in that part of Virginia were very good. One, named Wicked Richard, used to lace his fingers together and crack his knuckles as he called the lots. His real name was Wisted. When he did classier auctions and there was a pamphlet, his name was listed as Wisted. At most of the regular auctions, though, he introduced himself as Wicked Richard.
I cut a section of cheese and take some crackers out of a container. I put them on a plate and carry them into the dining room, feeling a little sad about parting with the big corner cupboard. Suddenly it seems older and bigger — a very large thing to be giving up.