— No I'm glad you, to finally meet you, we've wondered…
— Came up last week I couldn't get in there, he was past her for the kitchen, — new lock on the door I couldn't get in.
— Yes I know it yes, we had to have the plumber in to…
— I heard about it.
— I mean if we'd known where to reach you, if you'd just called before you…
— Never mind, just a damned nuisance.
— Yes well it's, I mean it's been rather a nuisance for us too Mister McCandless, if you'd left an address, a phone number some way to reach you, she came on behind him. — That card you sent about the furnace we didn't even know what country you were in, how could we send you a new key. I can't even let you in now, the plumber…
— I've got one… had it out in fact, rattling the padlock.
— Yes well, well good you must have called the agent, if we'd known where to reach you, things like this happen people call you we don't know where to…
— Who.
— Called you? I don't know. The IRS. I don't know who else. People call and hang up. I start to say they can leave a message if we hear from you and they hang up. You have some awfully rude friends.
— They may not all be friends, Mrs Booth… he'd slid the door open, paused there looking in. — You're welcome to have the phone taken out you know, came over his shoulder, — the agent said you wanted it left in till you could make your own arrangements, it hardly matters to me. I can call now and have it discon…
— Oh no that's not what I, I mean you're welcome to leave it yes I really don't mind answering it at all, if we just knew where to reach you, where to tell them to reach you these rude calls and people coming to the door just so rude I couldn't… she broke off, talking to his back hunched there in the doorway lighting a cigarette cupped as though in a wind, as though ducked away from some bleak promontory, from the deck of a ship. What people at the door, he wanted to know.
— Just, well there was just one but he wasn't nice at all, he wouldn't even tell me his whole name I mean, just his first one I can't remember it. Just these hard little round eyes he had on a speckled jacket and kind of yellow…
— What did he want? came back through the open door.
— To talk to you, he just said he wanted to talk to you, she said into the room where books rose from the floor heaped against a fluted column to a whorl of walnut, the leg of something, a buffet, a sideboard, she stood still looking round her as though for something to do, to explain her presence here in the kitchen, her own kitchen, her own house, stood there emptyhanded looking at the telephone until it rang. — Yes? Yes it is… Oh… her voice fell, she turned her back on the empty doorway, — for an appointment with Doctor Terranova, yes… No it's in connection with, with my… she got by the end of the table, got as far as the cord would reach — with the plane crash yes but not, I mean not my lawsuit my husband's… her voice gone still lower, — his companion suit for loss of, of my services due to my injur… what? No, no of my, of marital services due to my… What, now? or when it happened… and near a whisper — my age now is, I'm thirty three, I… no I said thir… No I can't now, I can't give you a whole history now you'll have to… no you'll have to call later.
Smoke settling in still layers barred the doorway. A light had gone on in there, and the sound of movement, a chair, or a drawer pulled open. She found her morning's coffee cup and rinsed it at the sink. Out over the terrace the mist lay featureless as the day itself come into being and left adrift with no better than the clock to dispense its passage, to turn her abrupt as her glance to it back for the front door streaking the glass panels with her damp towel wads against the shade out there poling along with his broom paused every third step, every second one, gazing ahead, getting his bearings.
When finally she heard it again she started at the loudness of her own voice, — Hello…? rising with conviction at each word, — no I'm terribly sorry Senator, Paul's not here… talking at the phone, past it to the open doorway — I think he plans to be in Washington very soon, he's had to make a trip south something suddenly came up in connection with, pardon…? gathering aplomb and even cordial condescension, — that's terribly kind but I honestly can't say, we do want to get down to Montego Bay for a few days with friends if Paul can possibly take the time but you know how busy he's been with the… and abruptly the open doorway was gone, the door pushed closed, slammed in fact, — it's nothing no, I can't talk to you now, I'll be… her voice fallen, — well call later then, call later…
Silenced, the vexation in her voice surfaced in her hands back streaking While the bonnet is trimming, the face grows old, on the glass of the sampler; culling the morning's mail for Doctor Yount, Doctor Kissinger, Dan-Ray Adjusters, Inc. crumpled and tossed; B & G Storage, The American Cancer Society and The National Rifle Association aside unopened; a flood of glossy pages from Christian Recovery for America's People, the community college flyer's offerings unfurled in mini-courses on Stress Management, Success Through Assertiveness, Reflexology, Shiatsu, Hypnocybernetics and The Creative You; Gold Coast Florists torn open: Floral arrangement $260? Mounting to her eyes, her vexation seized wherever she turned them to be seized in turn by the unwavering leer of the Masai warrior on the magazine cover displayed, along with Town & Country and a National Geographic, on the coffee table, and she picked up the bird book for refuge in godwits and curlews, sandpipers, snipe, the repose they conjured as quickly gone with another turn of the page and she was up and through the kitchen, tapping on the white door — Mister McCandless?
It rolled back sharply as though he'd been waiting there. — I just remembered… she stood clutching the book, a finger tucked in its pages witnessing her urgency, — the man I said came to the door for you? Lester. His name was Lester… She got a brief nod for that, a murmur of dismissal but she stood looking past him there square in the doorway to bookshelves filled floor to ceiling through the planes of tobacco smoke, papers in stacks, in rolls, shadeless lamps, leather cases, filing cabinets pulled open, — are you a writer? she blurted.
— I'm a geologist, Mrs Booth.
— Oh. Because there are so many books aren't there, and papers and, and look! You have a piano! Isn't it? under all these things, I saw the corner of it I thought it was a buffet or something, a marvelous old sideboard we had one all the drawers done in velvet where we kept the silver but it's a spinet isn't it, couldn't it go in the alcove? in the living room there in the alcove…? It needed work he told her, the sounding board was warped. — Oh. Because it would be so sweet there in the alcove, maybe we could get it fixed couldn't we…? Why, did she play? — Well yes but, I mean not for a long time, those little Haydn pieces and things like that but not, I mean nothing modern, I mean I never got to Debussy or even…
He'd try to look into it he said, turning away, — now I know you're busy please don't let me keep you.
— No that's all right. I mean I've just been cleaning the windows in there, they're so fogged with smoke. You smoke a lot don't you… Too much he agreed, tapping tobacco from a glazed envelope into a paper. — Like that window right over your table there, she nodded past him, — you can hardly see through it.
— I don't especially want to see through it Mrs Booth. Now please don't let me…
— Wait I'll get you an ashtray… and she was back that quick with a saucer, — if you need anything else… He stood over the still commotion of papers spread on the table there, motionless till he reached for the ashtray he'd been using. — I just meant if you want a cup of tea or anything… and she stumbled, turning for the door, tumbling the books stacked against the piano, — oh, I'm sorry, I'll…