choice, she chose the thing that led away and let go of where she was, of who she was. And somehow that accumulation of forks in the road—all those roads not taken, thank you, Robert Frost—had given her this. This fancy house. This unfamiliar furniture. These boxes full of someone else's past, someone else's beloved
things.
“But come
on,
” she said aloud. “This is enviable.” She thought again of the interview, of her ease in talking to James and the others. It was going to work out. She went into the kitchen and rinsed her cup in the old sink. Then she got out a knife and started to slice open the first of the boxes.
When James called from the radio station at three-thirty, she had to ask him to wait a minute while she turned down the stereo—she'd gotten it set up, she'd found some of their CDs, and she had Eric Clapton on at a high volume to give herself energy.
When she picked up the phone again in the sudden silence and said hello, he said, without preamble, “Well, it's yours if you want it.”
Her heartbeat felt irregular for a second or two. “Then, yes! It's mine!” she said. “God, this is wonderful!” She jumped lightly in place. “Oh, I'm really happy.”
“Yeah, we're all really pleased too,” he said. On the phone he sounded even younger than he looked. “The thing is, of course, that we'd like you to start as soon as you can.”
Meri looked around her at the room full of boxes. “I think if you give me a couple of days to unpack, I'll be set to go. So, maybe first thing next week?”
They agreed, and then she talked to Jane and Brian, the cohosts of the show, whom she'd met briefly as part of the interview. Just before she hung up, Jane said, “You ought to be told, in all fairness, that it's an insane place to work, but we thought you'd fit right in.”
After she'd cradled the phone, she went into the living room and turned Clapton back up. He was singing “Layla.” Perfect. She danced, briefly. Her feet were bare, and she could feel grit on the old floorboards.
When the song ended, she roamed the first floor searching for her purse—it turned out she'd tossed it on the bench under the windows.
She extracted her cigarettes and a book of matches and went to sit on the back stoop.
She loved the way the sulfur smelled as she struck the match. She loved the sensation of the first drag on the cigarette. Music floated out from behind her. The sun through the sycamore leaves was warm, and the cigarette shut her off in a little circle of private pleasure from everything she still had to do. She heard a dog barking somewhere. The breeze pushed at the trees and made the sunlight dance around her. A frenzy of tiny bugs hung like a cloud in the air nearby. She closed her eyes and watched the bloody afterimages slide behind her lids. I am happy, she thought. “As a clam,” she said out loud. And then opened her eyes and corrected herself: “As a lark.”
S HE DIDN'T HEAR Nathan come in, but suddenly the music was turned down low. Meri was in the kitchen, and she'd gotten almost everything in there put away, into the shelves and drawers in the pantry, into the old bureaus under the solid-core door. The boxes were gone, broken down and stacked flat in a corner of the room. The newsprint that had been wrapped around everything was in many green plastic trash bags, bags she'd tossed with a kind of pleasurable abandon into the backyard for now. She'd put a cotton rag rug down in front of the sink. She'd even hung a few pictures—a Hopperesque painting of the deserted main street in Coleman done by a friend of hers, and a framed reprint Nathan had of a photograph of Lyndon Johnson persuading a much smaller politician of something—the helpless little man bent backward in terror, Johnson looming over him.
“Natey?” she called into the silence.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway, carrying two bags of groceries, one in each arm. He was dressed in his academic uniform—a jacket, a
things.
“But come
on,
” she said aloud. “This is enviable.” She thought again of the interview, of her ease in talking to James and the others. It was going to work out. She went into the kitchen and rinsed her cup in the old sink. Then she got out a knife and started to slice open the first of the boxes.
When James called from the radio station at three-thirty, she had to ask him to wait a minute while she turned down the stereo—she'd gotten it set up, she'd found some of their CDs, and she had Eric Clapton on at a high volume to give herself energy.
When she picked up the phone again in the sudden silence and said hello, he said, without preamble, “Well, it's yours if you want it.”
Her heartbeat felt irregular for a second or two. “Then, yes! It's mine!” she said. “God, this is wonderful!” She jumped lightly in place. “Oh, I'm really happy.”
“Yeah, we're all really pleased too,” he said. On the phone he sounded even younger than he looked. “The thing is, of course, that we'd like you to start as soon as you can.”
Meri looked around her at the room full of boxes. “I think if you give me a couple of days to unpack, I'll be set to go. So, maybe first thing next week?”
They agreed, and then she talked to Jane and Brian, the cohosts of the show, whom she'd met briefly as part of the interview. Just before she hung up, Jane said, “You ought to be told, in all fairness, that it's an insane place to work, but we thought you'd fit right in.”
After she'd cradled the phone, she went into the living room and turned Clapton back up. He was singing “Layla.” Perfect. She danced, briefly. Her feet were bare, and she could feel grit on the old floorboards.
When the song ended, she roamed the first floor searching for her purse—it turned out she'd tossed it on the bench under the windows.
She extracted her cigarettes and a book of matches and went to sit on the back stoop.
She loved the way the sulfur smelled as she struck the match. She loved the sensation of the first drag on the cigarette. Music floated out from behind her. The sun through the sycamore leaves was warm, and the cigarette shut her off in a little circle of private pleasure from everything she still had to do. She heard a dog barking somewhere. The breeze pushed at the trees and made the sunlight dance around her. A frenzy of tiny bugs hung like a cloud in the air nearby. She closed her eyes and watched the bloody afterimages slide behind her lids. I am happy, she thought. “As a clam,” she said out loud. And then opened her eyes and corrected herself: “As a lark.”
S HE DIDN'T HEAR Nathan come in, but suddenly the music was turned down low. Meri was in the kitchen, and she'd gotten almost everything in there put away, into the shelves and drawers in the pantry, into the old bureaus under the solid-core door. The boxes were gone, broken down and stacked flat in a corner of the room. The newsprint that had been wrapped around everything was in many green plastic trash bags, bags she'd tossed with a kind of pleasurable abandon into the backyard for now. She'd put a cotton rag rug down in front of the sink. She'd even hung a few pictures—a Hopperesque painting of the deserted main street in Coleman done by a friend of hers, and a framed reprint Nathan had of a photograph of Lyndon Johnson persuading a much smaller politician of something—the helpless little man bent backward in terror, Johnson looming over him.
“Natey?” she called into the silence.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway, carrying two bags of groceries, one in each arm. He was dressed in his academic uniform—a jacket, a
Similar Books
