Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [32]
“I didn’t mail it till I got back to Amarillo.”
“I thought maybe you hadn’t even been there.”
“Yes, I was.”
“I thought maybe you sent it just to impress me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“So I wouldn’t think the West was just dull, open spaces.”
“Well, it wasn’t. And I did go to the Painted Desert.”
“What else did you do out there?”
“Different things.”
“Look—John Wayne’s dead. Don’t think you have to be the strong, silent type just ’cause you went out West.”
Louise wants to know about the colors of the Painted Desert, but she can’t bring herself to ask Tom about them. Tom is driving the car with his forearms loosely draped over the wheel and his elbows sticking out. He drives so casually. Louise imagines him driving all the way to Texas like this, as if he had nothing better to do.
“I did a lot of driving around,” Tom says finally, after smoking a cigarette all the way down. “Just to see what there was to see.”
“Sounds fascinating.” Louise doesn’t know why she wants to give him such a hard time. She realizes that she is shaking at the thought of him wrecking his pickup, alone in some empty landscape. The ear she hit is facing her—no sign of damage. His hair is growing over it and she can’t really see where she hit him. His sideburn, shaped like the outline of Italy, juts out onto his jaw. Tom is home and she doesn’t know what that means.
—
Herman Priddle’s house has a turret, a large bay window, and a wraparound porch, which a woman is sweeping.
“Would you say that’s a mansion?” Louise asks Tom.
“Not really.”
“Peggy said it was.”
Louise makes Tom wait in the car while she walks up to the house. She thinks the woman on the porch must be Eddy Gail Moses, but she turns out to be Priddle’s niece. She has on a turquoise pants suit and wears her hair up in sculptured curls. When Louise inquires, the woman says, “Uncle Herman’s in the hospital. He had a stroke a-Sunday and he’s real bad, but they pulled him off the critical list today.”
“I brought some pictures for him to see,” says Louise nervously.
“Watermelons, I bet,” says the woman, eyeing Louise.
“He was supposed to buy my pictures.”
“Well, the thing of it is—what are we to do with the ones he’s got? He’ll have to be moved. He can’t stay by hisself in this big old place.” The woman opens the door. “Look at these things.”
Louise follows her into the dim room cluttered with antiques. The sight of all the watermelons in the room is stunning. The walls are filled, and other paintings are on the floor, leaning against the wall. Louise stands and stares while the woman chatters on. There are so many approaches Louise has not thought of—close-ups, groupings, unusual perspectives, floral accompaniments. All her own pictures are so prim and tidy. The collection includes oils, drawings, watercolors, even a needlepoint chair cover and a china souvenir plate. The tapestry Peggy described is a zeppelin floating above the piano. Louise has the feeling that she is witnessing something secret and forbidden, something of historical importance. She is barely aware that Tom has entered and is talking to Herman Priddle’s niece. Louise feels foolish. In sixth grade the teacher had once pointed out to the class how well Louise could draw, and now—as if acting at last on the basis of that praise—Louise has spent two months concocting an elaborate surprise for an eccentric stranger. What could she have been thinking of?
“Looks like somebody’s crazy about watermelons,” Tom is saying politely.
“They won’t bring a thing at auction,” the woman replies with a laugh. In a hushed voice then, she says, “He sure had me fooled. He was here by hisself so much I didn’t know what-all was going on. Now it seems like he was always collecting these things. It suited him. Do you ever have people do you that way? You think things are