Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (41 page)

Cody took out his handkerchief to wipe his forehead.

“See, Claudette wil be expecting me,” said Beck. “That’s the lady friend I mentioned. I figured I better go on and find a bus. Sorry to eat and run, but you know how it is with women. I— told her I’d be home before supper. She’s depending on me.”

Cody replaced the handkerchief.

“I guess she’l want to get married, after this,” said Beck.

“She knows about Pearl’s passing.

She’s sure to be making plans.”

He held up his jacket, as if inspecting it for flaws. He folded it careful y, inside out, and laid it over his arm. The lining was something silky, faintly rainbow hued, like the sheen on aging meat.

“To tel the truth,” Beck said, “I don’t much want to marry her. It’s not only that daughter; it’s me. It’s real y me. You think I haven’t had girlfriends before? Oh, sure, and could have married almost any one of them. Lots have begged me, “Write your wife. Get a divorce. Let’s tie the knot.”

“Wel , maybe in a while,”

I’d tel them, but I never did. I don’t know, I just never did.”

“You left us in her clutches,” Cody said.

Beck looked up. He said, “Huh?”

“How could you do that?” Cody asked him. “How could you just dump us on our mother’s mercy?” He bent closer, close enough to smel the camphorish scent of Beck’s suit.

“We were kids, we were only kids, we had no way of protecting ourselves. We looked to you for help. We listened for your step at the door so we’d be safe, but you just turned your back on us. You didn’t lift a finger to defend us.”

Beck stared past Cody at the traffic.

“She wore me out,” he told Cody final y.

“Wore you out?”

“Used up my good points. Used up al my good points.” Cody straightened.

“Oh, at the start,” Beck said, “she thought I was wonderful.

You ought to have seen her face when I walked into a room.

When I met her, she was an old maid already. She’d given up. No one had courted her for years; her girlfriends were asking her to baby-sit; their children cal ed her Aunt Pearl.

Then I came along. I made her so happy!

There’s my downfal , son. I mean with anyone, any one of these lady friends, I just can’t resist a person I make happy.

Why, she might be gap-toothed, or homely, or heavy set—

al the better! I expect that if I’d got that divorce from your mother I’d have married six times over, just moving on to each new woman that cheered up some when she saw me, moving on again when she got close to me and didn’t act so pleased any more.

Oh, it’s closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son—did I tel you that when you were young?

When your mother and I were first married, everything was perfect. It seemed I could do no wrong. Then bit by bit I guess she saw my faults. I’d never hid them, but now it seemed they mattered after al . I made mistakes and she saw them. She saw that I was away from home too much and not enough support to her, didn’t get ahead in my work, put on weight, drank too much, talked wrong, ate wrong, dressed wrong, drove a car wrong.

No matter how hard I tried, seemed like everything I did got muddled. Spoiled. Turned into an accident. I’d bring home a simple toy, say, to cheer you al up when I came, and it would somehow start a fight—your mother saying it was too expensive or too dangerous or too difficult, and the three of you kids bickering over who got to play with it first.

Do you recal the archery set? I thought it would be such fun, bring us al together —a family drive to the country, where we’d set up a target on a tree trunk and shoot our bows and arrows. But it didn’t work out like I’d planned.

First Pearl claims she’s not athletic, then Jenny says it’s too cold, then you and Ezra get in some kind of, I don’t know, argument or quarrel, end up scuffling, shoot off an arrow, and wing your mother.”

“I remember that,” said Cody.

“Shot her through the shoulder. A disaster, a typical disaster. Then next week, while I’m away, something goes wrong with the wound. I come home from a sales trip and she tel s me she nearly died. Something, I don’t know, some infection or other. For me, it was the very last straw. I was sitting over a beer in the kitchen that Sunday evening and al at once, not even knowing I’d do it, I said, “Pearl, I’m leaving.” his Cody said, “You mean that was when you left?”

“I packed a bag and walked out,” said Beck.

Cody sat down on the stoop.

“See,” said Beck, “what it was, I guess: it was the grayness; grayness of things; half-right-and-half-wrongness of things. Everything tangled, mingled, not perfect any more. I couldn’t take that. Your mother could, but not me.

Yes sir, I have to hand it to your mother.” He sighed and stroked the lining of his jacket.

“I’l be honest,” he said, “when I left I didn’t think I’d ever care to see you folks again.

But later, I started having these thoughts. “What do you suppose Cody’s doing now? What’s Ezra up to, and Jenny?”’ “My family wasn’t so much,” I thought, “but it’s al there real y is, in the end.” By then, it was maybe two, three years since I’d left. One night I was passing through Baltimore and I parked a block away, got out and walked to the house. Pretty near froze to death, standing across the street and waiting. I guess I was going to introduce myself or something, if anybody came out. It was you that came.

First I didn’t even know you, wondered if someone else had moved in.

Then I realized it was just that you had grown so. You were almost a man. You came down the walk and you bent for the evening paper and as you straightened, you kind of flipped it in the air and caught it again, and I saw that you could live without me. You could do that carefree a thing, you see—flip a paper and catch it. You were going to turn out fine. And I was right, wasn’t I?

Look! Haven’t you al turned out fine—leading good lives, the three of you? She did it; Pearl did it. I knew she would manage. I turned and walked back to my car.

“After that, I just stuck to my own routine. Had a few pals, a lady friend from time to time. Somebody’d start to think the world of me and I would tel myself, “I wish Pearl could see this.” I’d even write her a note, now and then. I’d write and give her my latest address, anyplace I moved to, but what I was real y writing to say was, “There’s this new important boss we’ve got who regards me very highly.” Or,

“There’s a lady here who acts extremely thril ed when I drop by.” Crazy, isn’t it? I do believe that al these years, anytime I had any success, I’ve kind of, like, held it up in my imagination for your mother to admire. Just take a look at this, Pearl, I’d be thinking. Oh, what wil I do now she’s gone?”

He shook his head.

Cody, searching for something to say, happened to look toward Prima Street and see his family rounding the corner, opening like a fan. The children came first, running, and the teen-agers loped behind, and the grownups —trying to keep pace—were very nearly running themselves, so that they al looked unexpectedly joyful. The drab colors of their funeral clothes turned their faces bright. The children’s arms and legs flew out and the baby bounced on Joe’s shoulders.

Cody felt surprised and touched. He felt that they were pul ing him toward them—that it wasn’t they who were traveling, but Cody himself.

“They’ve found us,” he told Beck. “Let’s go finish our dinner.”

“Oh, wel , I’m not so sure,” Beck said.

But he al owed himself to be helped to his feet.

“Oh, wel , maybe this one last course,” he said, “but I warn you, I plan to leave before that dessert wine’s poured.” Cody held on to his elbow and led him toward the others.

Overhead, seagul s drifted through a sky so clear and blue that it brought back al the outings of his boyhood—the drives, the picnics, the autumn hikes, the wildflower walks in the spring. He remembered the archery trip, and it seemed to him now that he even remembered that arrow sailing in its graceful, fluttering path. He remembered his mother’s upright form along the grasses, her hair lit gold, her smal hands smoothing her bouquet while the arrow journeyed on.

And high above, he seemed to recal , there had been a little brown airplane, almost motionless, droning through the sunshine like a bumblebee.

The End

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University.

Anne Tyler has written fifteen novels; her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore.