A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [144]
Gordon’s first week of work had ended. He enjoyed the brewery’s constant racket. In here he was a cog, one more regulated, purposeful, moving part of an orderly world. All he needed was a strong back and an accurate tally of cases skimming off the conveyor belts into the trucks. The wound on his hand was almost healed but still so tender that he wore a heavy-duty glove on the job.
On Friday Delores picked him up after work. She was going to bring him to the bank to open accounts with his first paycheck. As soon as he got into the car, he looked in the envelope. They must have made a mistake, he said, showing her the slip. He watched nervously as she counted under her breath.
“No, that’s right. Fifteen dollars an hour. You worked five days. Forty hours times fifteen is six hundred gross.” She handed it back.
“A week?” He was stunned.
After they left the bank, he kept touching his pocket to make sure the checkbook and savings book were still there. Delores hadn’t stopped talking from the minute he got into her car. These last two weeks of silence had given her so much more to tell him in half the time. He felt himself sinking into her voice the way one surrendered to sleep. As they neared Clover Street, he was disappointed. He wished she’d keep driving.
“That poor thing,” she said. They sat in front of his house with the motor running. “Imagine, laying there for two days like that. Remember I said that, how awful something like that would be?”
“Yes, I remember. You did.” As long as she kept talking, he didn’t have to get out. Her range of topics was like an operatic riff skittering from the tragic to the outrageous, mesmerizing in its confluence. Lifetimes were being fleshed out, each leading into the next tale, on and on in her seamless universe where all things and everyone were not just related, but vitally connected in some ultimately fathomless yet still logical way.
Now she was telling him how much she enjoyed the dress shop. The other day Jean asked her if she might be interested in buying the business. “So I called up my sister, Linda, she’s the one, her husband sells bonds, and he goes, ‘Oh, no, that would be the worst kind of investment right now with the stock market and everything so uncertain. ’ I should have known better, he’s such a naysayer, but you know what? After I hung up I thought of Mrs. Jukas, that poor old woman. I keep thinking of her laying there like that, helpless, with no control over anything anymore, just waiting and waiting for someone to come along and help her. My God, it must have been so horrible. Can you imagine, every minute, every sound, what it must have been like? And I thought, No! I can’t let that happen. I can’t be like that. I can’t!” she said, smiling.
“No,” he said weakly. She patted his arm and he forced himself out of the car. In the late-day shade, the old woman’s dark little house seemed to have grown taller, wider. It loomed over the street.
Jada and Thurman sat on the wall in front of the old Collerton Savings and Loan. Empty for years, the cavernous granite building had recently found new life as a furniture store that specialized in massive velour sofas and chairs with a range of custom components, cup holders, footrests, heated seats, vibrators, headphones, and built-in speakers. She and Thurman had been making their voices vibrate as they tried out the massage feature until the salesman told them they