Love Invents Us - Amy Bloom [20]
“I think it’d be nice if you met Mrs. Hill. I think she’d like to meet you. She used to teach, I think.”
“Really.”
“She said she did. Here, don’t forget, it’s the next one on the left.”
Mr. Stone said, out the window, “You know, I grew up in a place a lot like this. Mostly white, though—my God, look at those.” He pointed to twin blue-shuttered houses with orderly twin gardens and bitty porches, each with two chairs and a small plastic table set with four tall pink glasses and matching pitchers. “You smell that? That’s the smell of the South, right there. Mint, dirt, and cornstarch.”
I led him in, describing our progress so Mrs. Hill wouldn’t be surprised and pissy.
“We’re here, Mrs. Hill. I brought Mr. Stone, my English teacher. He thought he’d stop by and say hi.”
Mr. Stone didn’t look like he appreciated being shanghaied into the middle of Mrs. Hill’s blue brocade living room set. Mrs. Hill looked right at him, which was like turning her back.
“Welcome, Mr. Stone. Elizabeth’s famous English teacher. Honey, why don’t you make us some tea?”
I just stood there until Mrs. Hill flapped her hands a couple of times like I was a loose chicken, and then I backed out, watching Mr. Stone. He smiled at Mrs. Hill and flapped a hand too. I listened on the other side of the kitchen door, which was so thin I could hear Mrs. Hill sighing and Mr. Stone sighing back.
“Could you come a little closer? My eyesight’s not so good.” Mrs. Hill’s sweet-little-old-lady voice.
I heard him drag the ottoman over, which meant he was sitting a good six inches below her, putting them face-to-face. Ear to face, since Mrs. Hill was probably trying to get him in her sights.
“You’re not even a young-looking man,” she said, and I heard Mr. Stone laugh.
“No, ma’am.” He sounded different, Southern, not his classroom voice, not his smoking-in-the-car voice.
“Come a little closer,” Mrs. Hill said. “South Carolina?”
“Yes, ma’am. Kershaw. And you?”
“Mars, Alabama.”
The tip of his nose had to be denting her puddingy cheek for them to be talking so quietly.
“All the way from Kershaw. My.” For a minute, I didn’t hear anything. “And what do you want with my girl? You like girls in particular? Children?”
Mr. Stone breathed in fast. I wanted to rush in and hit her, and as she lay on the floor we would drive off to someplace pastel and foreign in our dark-red convertible.
“No, ma’am. I’m not like that. I don’t prefer girls to women. I’ve got a wife at home. And three boys.”
“Well, then,” she said, and I thought, So there, and wondered how close they were now. I could just see a sliver of his shoe tips pointed toward the recliner.
“Well, then,” he echoed. “I know it doesn’t seem right. I could lie to you, that’s what a reasonable man would do. A reasonable man, oh Jesus. I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
I heard Mrs. Hill’s wheezing and Mr. Stone’s deep cough and the clock on the mantel.
“I don’t do anything I shouldn’t,” he said.
“Except what you’re thinking, and you won’t stop that, will you?”
“Can’t, not won’t. How can I? I’m not leaving town, if that’s what you mean. And that’s what it would take, about three thousand miles. Could we throw in an ocean?”
Very softly, Mrs. Hill said, “We could throw in two oceans for all the good it’ll do you, and you know we should, because there is no glory coming from this and this is not a conversation about forgiveness. I don’t care how you end, that’s your concern, or your poor wife’s. You put one hand on that child, who thinks you love her fine mind, one hand, even when she’s more grown, and I’ll see you turning in Hell, listen to you pray for death. And don’t think I won’t know. That child tells me everything. So maybe you can keep your hands to yourself, and I won’t have to think so badly of you. Mis-tuh Stone.”
“Yes, ma’am. I don’t want you to think badly of me, and I don’t want to think badly of myself. I have no intention of harming her. You must see that whatever it looks like, it is love. And I have to say it is, in part,