Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [112]
“Listen,” Jim said. He hunched forward over his briefcase, as if about to pass on a secret. “Life is not always X-rated, Morgan.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean, generally it’s more like … oh, a low R, I’d say: part bed, part grocery-shopping. You don’t want to ruin everything for the sake of, ah …”
Morgan fished for his cigarettes. What did Jim imagine? Life with Bonny, after all, was not exactly rated G. He decided not to say that out loud. He offered Jim a cigarette. Jim, who didn’t smoke, took one and waited for Morgan to strike a match. “See, what I’m getting at—” he said.
“I know what you’re getting at,” said Morgan, “but you miss the point. I’ve already made my mind up, Jim. I’m not going to change it. I have this feeling of … swerving, like seizing my boat and wrenching it around, steering it off course and onto a whole new, unlikely one. It’s not bad! It’s not a bad feeling! You aren’t going to make me give it up!”
And as he spoke, he felt drunk with his own decisiveness. He could hardly wait for Jim to leave, so that he could go find Emily and settle this forever.
8
He had trouble coaxing the dog into the pickup. Harry didn’t like traveling. He had to be dragged across the sidewalk with his nails scritching. But Morgan couldn’t leave him behind, because Butkins had begun to sneeze. He heaved Harry into the truck, tucked his tail in, and closed the door. Then he went back to the store to tell Butkins, “I’m not sure how long I’ll be. If I’m still away by closing time, lock up, will you? And don’t let anyone bother my clothes.”
It was the time of afternoon when children were coming home from school—neat little grade-schoolers with satchels, junior-high boys in baggy Army jackets and girls with plastic combs sticking out of their jeans pockets. Teenagers milled at intersections, making driving difficult.
On Crosswell Street the mothers were waiting on their stoops. They shaded their eyes and discussed the weather, the Orioles, what they planned to serve for supper. A fat woman in a dress like a petticoat had opened a can of beer and was passing it around. Burnished lavender pigeons clustered at a sack of spilled popcorn.
Morgan pushed through the door of the Crafts Unlimited building and pulled Harry after him. Harry hung back, whining, but Morgan hauled him up the stairs with a length of rope he’d borrowed from the store. He knocked on the Merediths’ door. Emily opened it. “Good, you’re back,” he said. He walked in.
“Morgan? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to get this settled.” He paused in the hall and glanced around for Leon. “Where is he?”
“He’s picking up Gina. It’s our turn for the carpool.”
“Have you told him yet?”
“No.”
He turned to look at her. She was twisting her hands. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m scared. You don’t know what a temper he has.”
“Emily … Sit, Harry. Sit, dammit. Emily, what are you saying?” he asked. It cost him some effort, but he said, “Would you rather not do this at all? Rather go on the way you were, work it out somehow—the two of you? You should say no now, Emily, if that’s true. Just tell me what you want of me.”
“I want to be with you,” she said. “I wish we could just run away.”
“Ah,” he said. He was immediately taken with the idea. “Yes! Run away. No luggage, no fixed destination … Will Gina come willingly, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She swallowed. “It’s telling him face to face I mind. Maybe I could go to a pay phone and call him up, tell him from a distance.”
“Well, that’s a thought.”
“Or you could tell him.”
“Me?”
“You could … get behind a table or something where he couldn’t hit you and then break the news to him.”
“I preferred the running-away plan,” Morgan said.
“But taking Gina: I couldn’t do that to Leon. And I’d never leave her behind.”
“All right,” Morgan said. “I’ll tell him myself.”
He