"Folks can't be too neighborly," said Miz Judea.
That was a philosophy that Don knew wasn't true, at least not for him. And while he knew it was ungrateful of him, for the sake of the next year's work, he had to lay down some boundaries. "I got to tell you, ladies, I'm not a very neighborly kind of guy. I'm sort of... standoffish."
They glanced at each other. "That's all right," said Miz Judea. "Standoffish is fine."
Miz Evelyn chimed in cheerfully. "In fact, that's sort of what we—"
"Hush, Miss Evvie," said Miz Judea. "That's for later."
For the first time it occurred to Don that maybe there was more here than gregarious old ladies giving a lesson in kindness and manners to the whippersnapper working next door.
Miz Judea lifted the lid off the tureen and steam rose up into her face. She sat a little straighter, closed her eyes and breathed it in. "You smell that?" she asked.
Oh, yes, he smelled it.
"What does that smell like?" she demanded.
He didn't even have to search for an answer. "Like I've died and gone to heaven."
"Don't just smell it, Miss Judy. Serve it!"
Don would never have said anything, but he felt the same impatience. Even after a hard day's work, food always seemed like just another duty, shoveling in something out of a grease-spotted paper sack. Today was a day of unexpected pleasures. And in this case, it wasn't even a forgotten pleasure. Nobody in Don's family was really much of a cook, and certainly nobody on his wife's side. That wasn't just sour grapes after she left him, either. She managed to simultaneously undercook and scorch Kraft macaroni and cheese, and once he opened up a lunch she packed for him and found potato-chip-and-mayonnaise sandwiches. He'd almost gagged. It made him appreciate his mother's very, very plain cooking. His mother always acted as if Chef Boyardee spaghetti was maybe a little too spicy.
The stew heaped high on the ladle and Miz Judea served it without spilling a drop. She passed him his bowl. He waited as the other two bowls were served, while steam and the smell of pepper and beef and spices he'd never heard of rose around his face. Finally they each were served, and since nobody was taking a bite they must be waiting for him, as the guest, to begin. He picked up his spoon and dug in.
Miz Judea laid a hand on his arm. "Don't forget to give thanks."
He almost thanked them again, before he realized what they meant. It made him feel stupid, since he'd said grace every day as he was growing up, and he and his wife had seen to it that they raised their daughter with prayers at meals and every night before bed. But for the past couple of years, there'd been nobody to pray with and, more importantly, nobody he much wanted to pray to.
The ladies bowed their heads. "Dear Lord, for this food we give thanks," said Miz Evelyn, "and for this strong young hardworking man who earns his bread by the sweat of his face. Bless him to be smart enough to get the hell out of that house before it eats him alive."
Don wasn't the only one startled. Miz Judea gave a little cry and apparently kicked Miz Evelyn under the table, since she gave an equally sincere cry in response. "Evvie!" said Miz Judea.
Miz Evelyn steadfastly kept her eyes closed and intoned with all deliberation, "A. Men."
"Amen, you silly old tart," said Miz Judea. "Say amen yourself, young man."
Bewildered as he was, Don had nothing better to say. "Amen."
"Now eat before she says something even stupider," said Miz Judea.
Don was grateful to obey. The food was good, but there was an element of craziness about them both—no, call it simple strangeness—that disconcerted him, precisely because they didn't seem crazy at all. They seemed like his kind of people, earthy yet elegant, gracious yet plain. He liked them. They were generous. They were funny. But when it came to the Bellamy house, they were, in fact, loons.
The conversation stayed on safe subjects through the rest of dinner—how the Bestway on Walker Street was the only survivor of an onslaught of supermarket takeovers that brought in the big boys and drove out the small ones; how outraged everyone was when they changed the names of a half-dozen of Greensboro's historic old streets so that Market and Friendly would have the same names along their entire length; how ironic it was that now they couldn't even remember what the old names had been... Hogarth? Hobart? Hubert? No, that was the vice-president back in 1952, wasn't it? Or was he the one who got impeached? It was like being caught up in a history lesson in which the teacher had no notes. They remembered everything, had lived through everything, and yet they remained hopelessly vague about all the public events.
But not the private ones. They could still tell stories about their childhoods. For Miz Evelyn it was Wilkes County, not quite the heart of Appalachia after all, but still true hill country. "I learnt to smoke before I turned five, and nobody whupped me for it either, they just slapped me when they caught me filling my pipe from some grownup's stash."
"My mama caught me smoking when I was ten and I thought I'd never walk again," said Miz Judea.
"And don't it beat all—her folks was tobacco farmers, and mine raised chickens and pigs and bad corn." Miz Evelyn shook her head over that one.
"Well, it wasn't cause my mama wanted me healthy, I'll tell you that, cause her whuppings took a lot more out of me than the tobacco ever did."
"I notice you don't smoke now, either of you," said Don. If either of them did smoke, the smell would linger on everything in the house, and there wasn't a trace of it.
"Well, that's Gladys," said Miz Judea.
"Can't abide smoke," said Miz Evelyn. "Can't say as how I blame her, either, all shut up indoors like she is. Not a breath of fresh air. Can't go filling it up with smoke now, can we?"
"Gladys?"
"I should say Miz Gladys but she's younger than us so, you know," said Miz Evelyn.
"My cousin," said Miz Judea. "Six years younger."
"She lives here?"
"Upstairs," said Miz Evelyn. "Bedridden, poor thing."
"But let's not talk about Gladys," said Miz Judea. "She doesn't like being the subject of talk."
"Says it makes her ears burn," said Miz Evelyn.
After dinner, they tried to make Don sit at the table or in the parlor while they straightened up, and got Gladys's dinner tray ready, but Don insisted. "All the good company is out in the kitchen. You wouldn't make me stay alone in the parlor, now, would you?" So he ended up with a dishtowel drying while Judea washed.
"It's not right for us to make you help," she said.
"It's my pleasure," said Don again. "Beautiful china."
"Used to be in the Bellamy house," she said. "Used to be a set of twenty-four places, nine dishes per place. We've only got three complete settings left. The cereal bowls are always the first to go."
"I wasn't expecting to eat so well tonight, I'll tell you, or off of porcelain as fine as this, either."
"The laborer is worthy of his hire, that's what the Bible says. Though what that has to do with this I'm not sure, it just seemed the right passage to quote."
"If I'm the laborer, then what have you given me wages for?"
"If that was your wages, then we cheated you. You hardly made a dent in that stew."
"You made enough for a whole work crew! You'll be eating that stew for a week."
Miz Evelyn came back downstairs with Gladys's dinner tray. Don realized that she had carried up, not a bowl of stew, but the whole tureen, and now it was empty. So was the pitcher of lemonade, and there was nothing but crumbs on a plate where there'd been half a loaf at the end of dinner. Gladys couldn't have eaten it all, could she? How much appetite could a bedridden woman work up?
"Gladys is so crabby tonight," said Miz Evelyn.