Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [116]
When Jodie hung up, she began to chew her thumbnail. She glanced up and saw her reflection in a window. She pulled her thumb away quickly; then she tried to smile at herself.
She was seated in what she considered a good spot near a window in the nonsmoking section when the woman entered the restaurant and was directed by the headwaiter to Jodie’s table. The woman was twelve minutes late. Jodie leaned back and arranged her face into a temporary pleasantness. The stranger was pregnant and was walking with a slightly prideful sway, as if she herself were the china shop. Although she was sporting an attractive watercolor-hued peacock-blue maternity blouse, she was also wearing shorts and sandals, apparently to show off her legs, which were deeply tanned. The ensemble didn’t quite fit together, but it compelled attention. Her hair was carefully messed up, as if she had just come from an assignation, and she wore two opal earrings that went with the blouse. She was pretty enough, but it was the sort of prettiness that Jodie distrusted because there was nothing friendly about it, nothing settled or calm. She was the sort of woman whom other women instinctively didn’t like. She looked like an aging groupie, a veteran of many beds, and she had the deadest eyes Jodie had ever seen, pale gray and icy.
“You must be Jodie,” the woman said, putting one hand over her stomach and thrusting the other hand out. “I’m Gleinya Roberts.” She laughed twice, as if her name itself was witty. When she stopped laughing, her mouth stayed open and her face froze momentarily, as more soundless laughter continued to emerge from her. Jodie found everything about her disconcerting, though she couldn’t say why. “May I sit down?” the woman asked.
Feeling that she had been indeliberately rude, Jodie nodded and waved her hand toward the chair with the good view. The question had struck her as either preposterous or injured, and because she felt off balance, she didn’t remember to introduce herself until the right moment had passed. “I’m Jodie Sklar,” she said.
“Well, I know that,” Gleinya Roberts said, settling herself delicately into her chair. “You must be wondering if this baby is Glaze’s. Don’t worry. I can assure you that it’s not,” she said with a frozen half grin, a grin that seemed preserved in ice. The thought of the baby’s father hadn’t occurred to Jodie until that moment. “I’m in my fifth month,” the woman continued, “and the Little Furnace is certainly heating me up these days. Bad timing! It’s much better to be pregnant in Minnesota in the winter. You can keep yourself warm that way. You don’t have any children yourself, Jodie, do you?”
Jodie was so taken aback by the woman’s prying and familiarity that she just smiled and shook her head. All the same, she felt it was time to establish some boundaries. “No, not yet,” she said, after a moment. “Maybe someday.” She paused for a second to take a breath and then said, “You know, I’m pleased to meet you and everything, but you must know that I’m … well, I’m really curious about why you’re here. Why’d you call me?”
“Oh, don’t let’s rush it. In a minute, in a minute,” Gleinya Roberts said, tipping her head and staring with her dead eyes at Jodie’s hair. “I just want to establish a friendly basis.” She opened her mouth, and her face froze again as soundless laughter rattled its way in Jodie’s direction. “Jodie, I just can’t take my eyes off your hair. You have such beautiful black hair. Men must love it. Where do you get it from?”
“From? Where do I get it from? Well, my father had dark hair. It was quite glossy. It shone sometimes.