Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [30]
He came after work and he stayed for supper. She made him an omelet. She set two of the least bent candles in the center of the table. “This is delicious,” he said after his first mouthful.
She said, “Oh, no, really, you caught me without any groceries. You should see what I usually fix.”
What she usually fixed was Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, but Agatha knew she didn’t mean it as a lie. It was more like a politeness. Trying to help her out, Thomas and Agatha kept their eyes on their plates and ate extra neatly.
He took the typewriter away with him when he left, but he told their mother not to feel discouraged. “Want to know what I think?” he asked. “I think someone’s going to jump at the chance to hire a gal like you. All you got to do is bide your time—that and keep your skills up. Sure you don’t want to hang onto this machine?”
“I can’t afford it,” she said.
“Tell you what: I’ll hold it for you. You liked this model, didn’t you? I’ll hold it in the showroom a while in case you change your mind.”
“Well, that’s very thoughtful,” she said.
So now she had her own machine at Rumford & Son’s, which they went regularly to visit. And at first she really did type on it. She sat down at the desk and showed the man she still remembered her pat rat sat hat. But then she started just talking about her typewriter. She asked how it was getting along without her and he said it looked mighty lonesome and she laughed and changed the subject. Today, for instance, she discussed the weather. She said how some people had all the luck, working in an air-conditioned building; how at home she slept with nothing to cool her off but a fan; how she had to slide out of her negligee halfway through every night on account of the heat. She scooted the stroller a few inches forward, a few inches backward, forward, backward, over and over, speaking in her slow, scrapy voice and every so often laughing when the typewriter man said something funny.
Thomas crawled under a desk and told Agatha it was his house. The typewriter on top was so little and cute that Agatha started punching the keys. She had to punch really hard because it wasn’t electric, and Thomas complained about the noise. He said, “This is my house. You go somewhere else.” Agatha pretended not to hear. She typed agatha dean 7 years old baltimore md usa. Thomas shouted, “Stop that racket on my roof!” and reared up and bumped his head. When their mother heard him crying she broke off her conversation and turned. “Oh, Thomas,” she said, “now what?” But the typewriter man didn’t seem cross. He said, “Why, what’s this? Two customers in need of my assistance,” and he helped Thomas out from under the desk. “Something I can show you, sir? Some question I can answer?”
Thomas stopped crying and rubbed the top of his head. “Well,” he said. He thought a moment. He said, “You know how people have those blood veins one in each arm?”
“Blood veins, ah …”
“So how come any place you prick will bleed? Wouldn’t you think there’d be places that don’t?”
“Ah, well …”
“I apologize for this,” their mother said. “They promised they’d behave. Come on, children, I’m taking you home.”
“No, Mama! I behaved!” Agatha said. She didn’t want to leave the air-conditioning.
But her mother said, “Nice talking with you, Murray.”
“Hurry back, okay?” the man said, and he walked them to the door. Agatha could tell he was sorry to see them go.
Out on the sidewalk their mother started humming. She hummed “Ramblin’ Rose” while they waited for the traffic light, and she took them to Joyner’s Drugstore for Lifesavers. Just trailed her fingers across the candy counter, brush-brush, nothing to it, and dropped the two rolls in her bag. Then she twinkled her eyes at Thomas and Agatha. They giggled and she instantly looked elsewhere as if she’d never met them.
While she collected her prescription, Agatha rocked the stroller because Daphne was starting to fuss. Thomas dawdled up and down the aisles, hunting dropped coins. At Luckman’s he’d once found a nickel