A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [132]
Rose said, “Are you kidding?”
“In part. But appearances are everything with a clause like this. If I have to, I’ll call some of your neighbors to attest to your skills, and their lawyer will call neighbors to attest to your mistakes. If you look good, they won’t be able to touch you.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Rose.
“It’s millions of dollars,” said Mr. Cartier. “Millions of dollars is never ridiculous.” He opened the glass door for us, saying, “The court date isn’t set, but it will certainly be after the harvest is in, so use it to your advantage.” And we were suddenly out of his world and in the hot asphalt parking lot of the Houston Avenue Professional Minimall. The office next door was occupied by United Parcel Service.
Ty opened the door on my side, then went around to his side and got in. I was looking at Pete. He wore a nice shirt—a sharply cut moss-green cotton twill with a pale gray tie that he loosened while he and Rose walked to their silver truck. Rose walked half a step in front of him, not looking at him, though he was blond and tall, graceful and well worth looking at. He wasn’t wearing a cap the way Ty was—he never did, in town—and he ran his hand through his hair. His hands were arresting, wide and veined, dark tan, with long fingers. As I stared at them, I could almost make myself see what they knew about melodies and harmonies and all the other musical mysteries. I dragged my gaze from his hands back to his face. Neither expertise nor confidence was visible there. He said, “It’s after four. I want to stop somewhere for a drink.”
Rose said, “Oh, for God’s sake. The girls have been waiting for three hours.”
“They’ll be fine.”
They got into the truck.
When I finally sat down in my seat, Ty said, “Need anything at the Supervalu?” I shook my head. He said, “Plenty hot after that air conditioning, huh?”
“Mmmhm.”
“Must be ninety-five.” He pulled onto the street. Rose and Pete had disappeared.
“What time is it?”
“Four-thirty or so.”
“Already? It seems like I just made dinner.”
“Well, it’s a different world in that place, huh?”
“I thought that, too.”
We passed the hospital and the enviable houses around it. I said, “Pete really isn’t going to have much more say in the farm operation, is he?”
Ty said, “Doesn’t look like it to me.”
Even so, the afternoon at Mr. Cartier’s had its effect.
I did what he said. I swept the porch, mowed the lawn, weeded the garden, canned tomatoes and pickled peppers and onions, mopped and swept and washed and dusted, and wore housedresses in the heat rather than shorts. I served up meals at six and eleven-thirty and five on the dot as if Ty were a train coming into the station. I waited for Jess Clark to run down the road, but only as you would wait for a recurring dream to seize you again. I took down the curtains, the way I did every fall, though usually after harvest, and washed and bleached and ironed them.
I was so remarkably comfortable with the discipline of making a good appearance! It was like going back to school or church after a long absence. It had ritual and measure. Tasks proliferated. Once you made a good appearance your goal, you could confidently do things like nest all the spoons and forks in the newly washed and dried silverware tray and face them in the same direction. You could spend an hour or two vacuuming the tops of the floor moldings in the house with an attachment you’d never used before, then go back over what you’d done with a sponge dampened in ammonia, then again with furniture polish. There was cleaning you could do in the bathroom with an old toothbrush that might have repelled you before. There were corners and angles and seams all over the house that could be gotten at. The outside of the house itself