I sat with them for awhile, telling them some of my college stories (not about chasing The Bitch, though), then went outside. I raked fallen leaves in the twilight — the frosty air on my cheeks felt like a blessing — waved at the passing neighbors, and ate three of my mom’s hamburgers for supper. After, she told me she was going down to the church, where the Ladies’ Aid was preparing Thanksgiving meals for shut-ins. She didn’t think I’d want to spend my first evening home with a bunch of old hens, but I was welcome to attend the cluckfest if I wanted. I thanked her and said I thought I’d give Annmarie a call instead.
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ she said, and went out. I heard the car start and then, with no great joy, I dragged myself to the telephone and called Annmarie Soucie. An hour later she drove over in her father’s pickup, smiling, her hair down on her shoulders, mouth radiant with lipstick. The smile didn’t last long, as I guess you can probably figure out for yourself, and fifteen minutes after she came in, Annmarie was out of the house and out of my life. Be in touch, baby, seeya. Right around the time of Woodstock, she married an insurance agent from Lewiston and became Annmarie Jalbert. They had three kids, and they’re still married. I guess that’s good, isn’t it? Even if it isn’t, you have to admit it’s pretty goddam American.
I stood at the window over the kitchen sink, watching the taillights of Mr Soucie’s truck disappear down the road. I felt ashamed of myself — Christ, the way her eyes had widened, the way her smile had faded and begun to tremble — but I also felt shiftily happy, disgustingly relieved; light enough to dance up the walls and across the ceiling like Fred Astaire.
There were shuffling steps from behind me. I turned to see my dad, doing his slow turtle-walk across the linoleum in his slippers. He went with one hand held out before him. The skin on it was beginning to look like a big loose glove.
‘Did I just hear a young lady call a young gentleman a fucking jerk?’ he asked in a mild just-passing-the-time voice.
‘Well . . . yeah.’ I shuffled my feet. ‘I guess maybe you did.’
He opened the fridge, groped, and brought out the jug of red tea. He drank it without sugar.
I have taken it that same way on occasion, and can tell you it tastes like almost nothing at all.
My theory is that my dad always went for the red tea because it was the brightest thing in the icebox, and he always knew what it was.
‘Soucie girl, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, Dad. Annmarie.’
‘All them Soucies have the distemper, Pete. Slammed the door, didn’t she?’
I was smiling. I couldn’t help it. It was a wonder the glass was still in that poor old door. ‘I guess she did.’
‘You trade her in for a newer model up there t’the college, did you?’
That was a fairly complicated question. The simple answer — and maybe the truest, in the end — was no I hadn’t. That was the answer I gave.
He nodded, set out the biggest glass in the cabinet next to the fridge, and then looked like he was getting ready to pour the tea all over the counter and his own feet, anyway.
‘Let me do that for you,’ I said. ‘Okay?’
He made no reply but stood back and let me pour the tea. I put the three-quarters-full glass into his hands and the jug back in the fridge.
‘Is it good, Dad?’
Nothing. He only stood there with the glass in both hands — the way a child holds a glass
— drinking in little sips. I waited, decided he wasn’t going to reply, and fetched my suitcase out of the corner. I’d thrown my textbooks in on top of my clothes and now took them out.
‘Studying on the first night of break,’ Dad said, startling me — I’d almost forgotten he was there. ‘Gorry.’
‘Well, I’m a little behind in a couple of classes. The teachers move a lot faster than the ones in high school.’