Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [78]
“We were just saying,” Molly Collins says to her, “that honestly, Marlene, you and Ed turned out the three best kids in town.” And it’s true they are something to be proud of: Eddie Junior in the coast guard, smart the way his father was (although he is not as outgoing; there is a wariness in his dark eyes), Lee Ann studying to be a nurse, Cheryl about to graduate from high school; you never heard about any trouble they were in.
But Marlene says, “Oh, there’s lots of nice kids around,” taking the coffee that Molly hands her. Marlene’s brown eyes seem a little out of focus, the flesh of her cheeks a little more droopy. Olive sits down in a chair across from her.
“That cemetery stuff’s bad business,” Olive says, and Marlene smiles, her dimples twinkling like tiny imprints of stars high up on her cheeks.
“Oh, hello, Olive,” she says. It has taken Marlene years to stop calling her Mrs. Kitteridge, which is what happens when you have people in school. And of course the opposite is true, which is that Olive continues to see half the town as kids, as she can still see Ed Bonney and Marlene Monroe as young schoolkids, falling in love, walking home day after day from school. When they reached the Crossbow Corners, they would stand and talk, and sometimes Olive would see them there as late as five o’clock, because Marlene had to go one way and Ed the other.
Tears have appeared in Marlene’s eyes, and she blinks fast. She leans toward Olive and whispers, “Kerry says nobody likes a crybaby.”
“Hells bells,” answers Olive.
But Marlene sits back as Kerry appears, stick-thin and high-heeled, thrusting out that black-suited pelvic bone as soon as she stops walking, and it crosses Olive’s mind suddenly that maybe Kerry was bullied when she was very young, skinny little kid. Kerry asks, “You want a beer, Marlene? Instead of that coffee?” She is holding a beer herself, her elbow tucked to her waist, and her dark eyes are keen, taking it in, the still-full cup of coffee in Marlene’s hand, and the presence of Olive Kitteridge, too, who years ago sent Kerry to the principal’s office more than once, before Kerry got shipped off to live with relatives somewhere. “Or would you like a little whiskey?”
Henry might have remembered why they sent the girl away. Olive has never been one for remembering things.
“A drop of whiskey sounds good,” says Marlene. “You want any, Olive?”
“Nope. Thanks.” If she drank, she’d be a guzzler. She stays away from it, always has. She wonders if Christopher’s ex-wife might have been a secret guzzler, out there drinking all that California wine.
The house is filling up. People move down the hallway and out onto the front porch. Some of the fishermen have come over from Sabbatus Cove, all scrubbed-looking. Their big shoulders slumped, they seem sheepish, apologetic, as they move into the living room, taking the tiny brownies with their big hands. Soon the living room is so full that Olive can no longer see out to the water. People’s skirts, belt buckles move past her. “I just wanted to say, Marlene”—and here, in a sudden clearing of people, is Susie Bradford, pushing herself between the coffee table and the couch—“that he was so brave during his sickness. I never saw him complain.”
“No,” says Marlene. “He didn’t complain.” And then: “He had his basket of trips.” At least that’s what Olive thinks she’s heard. Whatever Marlene has said seems to embarrass her. Olive sees the woman’s cheeks flush, as though she has just divulged some private, very intimate secret that she shared with her husband. But Susie Bradford has spilled jelly from one of the cookies down her front, and now Marlene is saying, “Oh, Susie, go into the bathroom down the hall. Such a pretty blouse, what a shame.