She lowered her face again to the mug and sniffed.
“Why Don, this isn’t coffee …” she trailed off.
“Of course it’s not,” said Don Pond. “You’ve never known me to serve coffee, and I wouldn’t start now, when my main goal is to put you at your ease, to keep everything nice and normal. I find coffee off-putting and viscous.”
“Hmmm,” Melba swung her legs, snuffling at the mug, working the scent up her nostrils as she tried to identify the components. She couldn’t distract herself, though, from Don Pond’s ill-considered remark and, sighing, realized that she had to contradict him.
“I can’t agree with you, Don,” said Melba. “Not about coffee. I know I’m being quarrelsome. But wouldn’t you describe coffee differently if you considered longer? Imagine you’re taking a sip of coffee. Now hold the coffee in your mouth. Don’t you find it different than what you described? It’s not off-putting and viscous, is it? Why it’s soothing,” exclaimed Melba. “Soothing and jarring. That’s exactly what coffee is. Rather complex, but I’m sure you can tell if you concentrate.”
Melba wished she could brew Don Pond her special coffee, in case his imagination had flaws. Her coffee had been tested again and again, and she knew for certain that it always produced exactly those effects. To be soothed but also jarred — this was what Melba most needed, and that was what coffee, all coffee, but Melba’s coffee above all others, delivered. Randal Hans had said he needed this too. But perhaps Randal Hans had only said this to be confirming, because when he was Melba’s boyfriend, he exerted himself, verbally, to confirm many of her statements, which he later negated in writing.
The circumference of Don Pond’s beard contracted slightly. He was pursing his mouth, concentrating on the imaginary mouthful. Then he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I’m really put off. There’s a gluey, bitter taint to my saliva now. No, I don’t like it.”
Melba averted her eyes. Apparently Don Pond was not her boyfriend, or at least not the confirming kind. Melba smiled a little to herself. She didn’t want Don Pond for a boyfriend anyway. She liked his head more and more, but other than his head he did not have a great deal to recommend him. He did not need to be soothed and jarred for one thing, or, at least, not by coffee. Perhaps he was soothed and jarred by something else? A pet?
Melba had noticed that people with pets sometimes put less emphasis on coffee than people without pets. Pets, she suspected, performed a service similar to coffee. Pets were always bounding onto their owners’ beds in the mornings, tonguing and clawing and defecating and yelping joyously.
Yes, it amounted to the same thing, thought Melba. Did Don Pond keep pets? She cocked her head, listening. She heard noises coming from the corners of the house, but the noises didn’t prove the presence of pets. Melba Zuzzo’s house was filled with noises, chirps, hisses, grunts, scratchings, and scrabblings, but she didn’t call the animals who made these noises pets. They didn’t bound for one thing, but scurried, and their behavior was sly and unredeemed. Those animals were not carefree like pets, and they displayed none of the pet’s easy sovereignty.
Don Pond gestured at the coffee table on which Melba noted a thick book, a wooden yo-yo, a teapot, an oilcan, and several garlic sticks laid in a row on top of the bakery bag. Melba felt herself flush as she caught sight of the garlic crumbs smattering the highly glossed surface of the table. So Don Pond hadn’t forgotten.
“I prefer tea to coffee,” said Don Pond. “This tea I’ve steeped for you is anti-viral, with tumor-inhibiting properties.”
Melba clapped a hand to her earlobe. The carbuncle had grown. It was a tumor? She searched Don Pond’s face. She read nothing there, but the insinuating thrust of his words could not be parried. She probed the ear, probed it again. A tumor. She should have known.
“Who told you about the tumor?” she demanded.
“No one had to tell me,” said Don Pond. “I’m not blind. But Dr. Buck isn’t calling it a death sentence. He says that you haven’t assumed leadership of your family, that you aren’t ready for a serious illness.”
“That’s true of Melba Zuzzo,” whispered Melba. “But if there’s any truth to the allegations … Don, Ned Hat has alleged …”
“Dammit, Melba, nobody believes the allegations.” Don Pond tossed his head, and stroked his beard up and down, fingers hooked into claws.
“Oh!” Breathing hard, Melba set her mug carefully beside her on the cushion and launched herself from the couch, hitting the carpet on all fours. She stood up shakily, bumping the coffee table with her shin.
“I need to pace, Don,” she said. Don Pond nodded. He had calmed considerably.
“That’s fine, Melba,” he said.
“I’ll be careful I don’t end up at the bakery!” She gave Don a watery smile and in response a smile opened in the beard, splitting the gourdlike head. Melba circled the coffee table warily. It was very close to both the couch and the loveseat and as she paced the length of the table on either side her legs brushed alternately the couch and the legs of Don Pond.
“Let me put on some music,” said Don Pond, tactfully. He stood and disappeared into the corner of the house. The house was not big, but Don Pond matched the house very closely, and he was difficult to see as he bent and fiddled.
“This music was recorded in a cave,” he called. “If you don’t like it, I can play something else.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Melba.
“I bet it’d be something special to listen to it, also in a cave,” said Don Pond, returning to the loveseat.
“It sounds like fluttering,” said Melba.
“That’s right!” said Don Pond. “There’s fluttering, and it’s very dark, and you’re in the company of personified forces.”
Melba’s legs brushed Don Pond’s legs as she squeezed between the loveseat and the table. She tried to hurry her pacing, but her skirts and apron tangled her up and she fell, turning her body sideways so that she landed in the slot between the chair and the table, upsetting neither. It was skillfully done.
“Oh don’t move,” said Melba, because she could feel Don Pond shifting his weight. “I’m going to lie here for just a moment.” The thick carpet cushioned the side of her face and if she angled up her eyes she could see the legs and the underside of the table, less highly glossed than the surface. Her ribs pressed protuberances — Don Pond’s feet — and her back pressed against Don Pond’s legs. Suddenly, she recalled, in vivid detail, a holiday. She had spent the holiday with Randal Hans, the two of them in dungarees, riding the same bike. After many hours, they dismounted, ate string cheese, and laughed about Melampus, who had announced to Melba the day before that she had decided to succeed Ann Dump as town clerk.
“But Ann Dump is so young!” laughed Randal Hans. “Younger than Melampus, and she would never give up her position. Ann Dump told me she was born to be the town clerk and that she would die as town clerk, and Ann Dump should know! She controls all the records in Dan. Melampus is very determined, and she is very beautiful and unafraid of hard work, but that will only set Ann Dump more firmly against her. Doesn’t Melampus wonder why she is named after a snail? Doesn’t she remember that she used to be named something else, something more appropriate for a beautiful girl? Who does she think changed her name to Melampus?”
Melba was laughing too hard to answer. Her mouth tasted mild and grassy with the string cheese and she was so happy!
“Melampus is stubborn and foolish!” she sputtered at last. “She says she likes the name Melampus. She says Ann Dump’s changing her name can only be considered a mark of distinction. She says only termagants and other women without desirable qualities prefer the names they were given at birth to the names they might acquire later on, through another person’s discretion. She even says she likes snails!”