with him all these weeks was what marriage might have been like. Over the summer, Claire had gotten herself hired at Marshall Field’s, in the main office, as a buyer of household goods. Supposedly, she was looking for an apartment downtown somewhere, but she’d been staying in Henry’s place now since the first of August. Henry, away much of the summer, over in England and France, continuing his lackadaisical but alluring pursuit of the inner essence of Gerald of Wales, had sent her a key. She’d made herself right at home for two and a half weeks; when he got back, many things were out of place, and she had concocted a little framed display box, into which she had put a picture of the two of them from sometime during the war (he looked ten and she looked three), along with her lace handkerchief from the 1830s (Henry couldn’t remember which virginal great-aunt had made it) and his gold dollar. And then she had placed this display box on the mantel, smack in the middle, not an interesting spot at all. But in the end, hedidn’t move it, nor did he remove his mother’s pink-and-green afghan from the back of the couch. And he ate what she cooked, including the lamb shanks and the shepherd’s pie made with ground beef. They watched the nightly news! Henry hadn’t watched the nightly news, or even had the sound of conversation in his place, for years, but now they deplored Hurricane Hugo and remembered tornado near-misses and told each other tales about mythic snowfalls. By mutual agreement, there was nothing in their present world west of DeKalb; each of the three times he had referred to Des Moines, she had shaken her head and said, “Where in the world?” in an exact imitation of their mother’s most skeptical voice. Claire maintained that, because she had spent her entire marriage listening to Dr. Paul (this is what she called her ex-husband) analyzing his childhood—painful but worth it in the end because of the result, himself—and also because she was fifty years old now, her uprooting had to be thorough and ruthless. She was in Chicago, and she only looked east. When she took him with her to check apartments, it was Henry who was dissatisfied and hard to please.
She got Henry to go with her to clubs. She didn’t care if they were gay or straight, and she didn’t care if anyone looked at her, though she dressed nicely; she wanted to see what people were wearing, how they did their hair, what sort of accessories they carried. She said it was research, and maybe it was, because maybe you didn’t buy so many pink quilts in Chicago as you did in Des Moines. Claire corrected him—you didn’t buy pink even in Des Moines, but there was a great demand for moss green. They laughed a lot, and Henry remembered that they had done that as kids—their senses of humor were as ever like two different notes that harmonized, even when no one else thought something was funny.
Claire was now rummaging through his closet in search of something interesting to wear to Buddy Guy’s, a club that had opened in the summer. Henry knew vaguely where it was—maybe Wacker, maybe Wabash. Claire maintained that, in the history of fashion, now, 1989, was a uniquely bad year, and might never be surpassed in baggy violet strangeness. Henry, standing in the doorway, said, “I didn’t know you had so many fashion rules.”
She pulled out a sweater and took it to the window. She said, “Nohigh waists, no pants with front pleats, no fake leopard skin, no lime green.” She liked everything in his closet and sometimes asked to be allowed to wear a sweater or a shirt. As her agreeable faux husband, he let her, and she looked good. She put the sweater back—a deep, winy red—and emerged a moment later with an old fedora he had from the forties—an antique when Philip gave it to him. She walked to the mirror and put it on, saying, “And no enormous shoulder pads.” The fedora looked raffish ( rif et raf , Old French, “to strip and
She got Henry to go with her to clubs. She didn’t care if they were gay or straight, and she didn’t care if anyone looked at her, though she dressed nicely; she wanted to see what people were wearing, how they did their hair, what sort of accessories they carried. She said it was research, and maybe it was, because maybe you didn’t buy so many pink quilts in Chicago as you did in Des Moines. Claire corrected him—you didn’t buy pink even in Des Moines, but there was a great demand for moss green. They laughed a lot, and Henry remembered that they had done that as kids—their senses of humor were as ever like two different notes that harmonized, even when no one else thought something was funny.
Claire was now rummaging through his closet in search of something interesting to wear to Buddy Guy’s, a club that had opened in the summer. Henry knew vaguely where it was—maybe Wacker, maybe Wabash. Claire maintained that, in the history of fashion, now, 1989, was a uniquely bad year, and might never be surpassed in baggy violet strangeness. Henry, standing in the doorway, said, “I didn’t know you had so many fashion rules.”
She pulled out a sweater and took it to the window. She said, “Nohigh waists, no pants with front pleats, no fake leopard skin, no lime green.” She liked everything in his closet and sometimes asked to be allowed to wear a sweater or a shirt. As her agreeable faux husband, he let her, and she looked good. She put the sweater back—a deep, winy red—and emerged a moment later with an old fedora he had from the forties—an antique when Philip gave it to him. She walked to the mirror and put it on, saying, “And no enormous shoulder pads.” The fedora looked raffish ( rif et raf , Old French, “to strip and
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