Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [64]
“Well, let them in, Jerome. Won’t you all come in?”
Mrs. Stimson led the way into a tiny living room, which had heavily veiled windows and plush furniture with carved legs. Everything wore a settled look, as if it had been there for centuries. Even the seashells and gilt-framed photographs seemed immovable. “Sit down, won’t you?” Mrs. Stimson said. “Elizabeth, I declare, are you still growing? Why I remember when you were no bigger than a Coke bottle and now look. How tall are you, honey?”
“Five-nine,” Elizabeth said glumly.
“Hear that?” Mr. Stimson asked her father. “Kind of takes you by surprise, don’t it?”
“Oh, yes, yes it does. All you have to do is turn your back a minute and—”
“Now tell me about your boyfriends,” Mrs. Stimson said. “I just know you must have dozens.”
“What I really came for was to talk about the job,” Elizabeth said.
She had thrown the conversation out of rhythm. Everyone paused; then her father said, “Yes, honey, but first I just have to ask, I can’t believe my eyes. Mrs. Stimson, are those African violets? Why, you must have the greenest thumb in Ellington!”
Mrs. Stimson smiled into her lap and made tiny pleats in her print dress. “Oh, pshaw, that’s not anything,” she said. “Well, I do have this love of flowers, I guess you might call it—”
“Now, Ida, don’t go being modest,” Mr. Stimson said. “She could make an old stick bloom, Reverend, she’s got the damnedest—or, excuse me. But she does have a way with growing things.”
“I can see that,” Elizabeth’s father said. “It’s a shame that more people don’t have your talent, Mrs. Stimson.”
“Oh, nowadays, nowadays,” said her husband. “Who takes the time any more? Why, I remember back in ’48 or ’49, over Fayette Road way. Old Phil Harrow, remember him? No kin to Molly Harrow that runs the beauty parlor. He grew melons that could break the table legs, had squash and corn and his own asparagus bed. How many years it been since you see asparagus growing? I believe they make it out of nylon now. And beans. Down to the right, you see—say this rug is Fayette Road—to the right would be the corn, and then between the rows, two or maybe three rows of—”
“Jerome, he don’t want to hear about that.”
“Well, I say he does, Ida.”
“This is all very interesting,” Elizabeth’s father said. His voice had grown deeper and more southern. His face, when he turned toward Mrs. Stimson, had a kindly, faraway smile, as if he were making a mental note to relay to God everything she said. “There is something truly healing about raising little green things,” he told her.
In the bookcase behind Mrs. Stimson’s head was a line of pastel paperbacks. If she squinted, Elizabeth could just make out the titles. Nurse Sue in the Operating Room, she read. Nurse Sue in Pediatrics. The Girl in the White Cap. Nancy Mullen, Stewardess. Nurse Sue in Training. She veered to an enormous spiny conch shell, and was just deciphering what beach it commemorated when Mrs. Stimson leaned forward and said, in a whisper that stopped all conversation, “Elizabeth, I just know you want some Kool-Aid.”
“No, thank you,” Elizabeth said.
“You do, Reverend.”
“Why, that would be very nice,” said Elizabeth’s father.
“I’ll just have it ready in a jiffy, then. You want to come keep me company, honey? You don’t want to hear about farmland and all.”
Elizabeth rose and followed her out to the kitchen. Everything there was spotless, but orange cats had taken over all the windowsills and counters and the linoleum-topped table. “I’m just a fool about cats,” Mrs. Stimson said. “I guess you can tell. Eleven, at last count, and Peaches here is expecting any minute.” She opened the refrigerator door, dislodging the cat sitting on top of it. “We never had the fortune to be parents, don’t you see. I guess the Lord just didn’t will it that way. Jerome says I pour all my love out on the cats, he says I would have made just a wonderful mother if you can judge by how I treat animals.”
She went from cupboard to sink and then back again, mixing up a packet of grape Kool-Aid. Her small cushiony body