Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [38]
That summer he worked again for Sid ’n’ Ed’s A-l Movers. Lou had been fired for bleeding all over some lady’s sofa after he sat on his own whiskey flask; but LeDon was still there, along with a new man named Brewster, a rough-and-tough, prune-colored type who didn’t have two words to say from one day to the next. That was fine with Ian. He felt grateful just for someplace to escape to, some hard labor to throw himself into.
One move he helped with was obviously upward, from a tiny house in Govans to a much nicer one in Cedarcroft. Workers were swarming around the new place, patching the roof and resodding the lawn and measuring for window screens. In the kitchen he found a man installing wooden cabinets, and he stood watching as one was fitted precisely into place. The man plucked nails out of nowhere. (Maybe he had a mouthful, like Bee with her sewing pins. His back was turned so Ian couldn’t tell.) He hammered them in with quick rat-a-tats. And he didn’t act the least self-conscious, not even when Ian said, “Looks good.” In fact, he didn’t bother answering. Or maybe he hadn’t heard. Ian said, loudly, “Nice piece of work.”
Then he understood that the man was deaf. It was something about his head—the way he held it so steady, not troubling to keep alert for any sounds. Ian stepped forward and the man glanced over at him. He had a square-jawed, deeply lined face and a bristly gray crew-cut. “Looks good,” Ian repeated, and the man nodded briefly and returned to his hammering.
Ian felt a twist of envy. It wasn’t just the work he envied, although that was part of it—the all-consuming task that left no room for extraneous thoughts. It was the notion of a sealed-off world. A world where no one traded speech, and where even dreams, he supposed, were soundless.
He dreamed Danny stood in the doorway jingling a pocketful of change. “I nearly forgot,” he told Ian. “I owe you.”
Ian caught his breath. He said, “Owe me?”
“I never paid you for baby-sitting that evening. What was it—three dollars? Five?”
Ian said, “No, please,” and backed away, holding up his palms. He woke to hear his own voice saying, “No. No. Please.”
His parents drove him to school on a hot day in September. Cicely had already left for her own school, near Philadelphia, but since that was just an hour from Sumner College there had not been any big farewell scene. In fact, they were planning on meeting that weekend. And Andrew was close by too, at Temple. But none of Ian’s friends were attending Sumner, and he was glad. He liked the idea of making a new beginning. His mother said, “Oh, I hope you won’t be lonesome!” but Ian almost hoped he would be. He saw himself striding unaccompanied across the campus, a mysterious figure dressed all in black. “Who is that person?” girls would ask. Although he didn’t actually own anything black, come to think of it. Still, he had his plans.
They dropped his belongings at the freshman dorm, where the only sign of his roommate was a khaki duffel bag and a canvas butterfly chair printed to resemble a gigantic hand. (At least Ian assumed the chair was his roommate’s. All the other furniture was blond oak.) Then they walked over to the Parents’ Reception. Ian was in favor of skipping the reception and so was his father, but his mother insisted.
At the college president’s house they were given three paper cups of 7-Up with orange sherbet floating foamily on top, and they stood in a clump by a blond oak table trying to make conversation with each other. “Quite a crowd,” his father said, and his mother said, “Yes, isn’t it!” Ian started eating spice cookies from a plate on the table. He ate one after the other, frowning and chewing intently as if he could have made many interesting comments if only his mouth weren’t full. “Are these all parents of freshmen, do you suppose?” his father asked. “Well, maybe some are transfers’ parents,” his mother said.
She stood among these ruffly people in her ordinary navy dress, and her shoes were plain flat pumps because of her knees. Without high heels she