Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [43]
She sang numbly, standing and sitting as ordered. She sang "Once to Every Man and Nation" and "Shall We Gather at the River." Then Mr. Nichols had the men do "Shall We Gather at the River" on their own, and then he asked the accompanist to repeat a certain passage. While this was going on, Maggie leaned toward Mrs. Britt and whispered, "Wasn't that the Moran boy? The one who came in late?" "Why, yes, I believe it was," Mrs. Britt said pleasantly.
"Didn't you tell us he'd been killed?" "I did?" Mrs. Britt asked. She looked surprised and sat back in her chair. A moment later, she sat forward again and said, "That was the Rand boy who was killed. Monty Rand." "Oh," Maggie said.
Monty Rand had been a little pale dishcloth of a person with an incongruously deep bass voice. Maggie had never much liked him.
After choir practice she gathered her belongings as quickly as possible and was first out the door, scuttling down the sidewalk with her purse hugged to her chest, but she hadn't even reached the corner when she heard Ira behind her. "Maggie?" he called.
She slowed beneath a streetlight and then stopped, not looking around. He came up next to her. His legs made a shadow like scissors on the sidewalk.
"Mind if I walk your way?" he said.
"Do what you like," she told him shortly. He fell into step beside her.
"So how've you been?" he asked.
"I'm okay." "You're out of school now, right?" She nodded. They crossed a street.
"Got a job?" he asked.
"I work at the Silver Threads Nursing Home." "Oh. Well, good." He started whistling the last hymn they had practiced: "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." He sauntered beside her with his hands in his pockets. They passed a couple kissing at a bus stop. Maggie cleared her throat and said, "Silly me! I mixed you up with the Rand boy." "Rand?" "Monty Rand; he got killed in boot camp and I thought they said it was you." She still didn't look at him, although he was near enough so she could smell his fresh-ironed shirt. She wondered who had ironed it. One of his sisters, probably. What did that have to do with anything? She tightened her hold on her purse and walked faster, but Ira kept up with her. She was conscious of his dark, hooked presence at her elbow.
"So now will you write to Monty's father?" he asked her.
When she risked a sidelong glance she saw the humorous pleat at the corner of his mouth.
"Go ahead and laugh," she told him.
"I'm not laughing." "Go ahead! Tell me I made a fool of myself." "Do you hear me laughing?" They had reached her block now. She could see her house up ahead, part of a string of row houses, the porch glowing orange beneath the bugproof light. This time when she stopped she looked directly into his face, and he returned the look without a hint of a smile, keeping his hands shoved in his pockets. She hadn't expected his eyes to be so narrow. He could have been Asian, rather than Indian.
"Your father must have split his sides," she said.
"No, he was just ... he just asked me what it could mean." She tried to think what words she had used in the letter. Special, she'd written. Oh, Lord. And worse yet: wonderful. She wished she could disappear.
"I remember you from choir practice," Ira said. "You're Josh's sister, right? But I guess we never really knew each other." "No, of course not," she said. "Goodness! We were total strangers." She tried to sound brusque and sensible.
He studied her a moment. Then he said, "So do you think we might get to know each other now?" "Well," she said, "I do go out with someone." "Really? Who?" "Boris Drumm," she said.
"Oh, yes." She looked off toward her house. She said, "We'll probably get married." "I see," he said.