Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [94]
At home, Nancy is surprised to see balloons in the living room. The stove is blazing and Robert’s face is red from the heat.
“We’re having a party,” he says. “For Grover.”
“There’s a surprise for you in the oven,” says Jack, handing Nancy a glass of sherry. “Because you worked so hard.”
“Grover had ice cream,” Robert says. “We got Häagen-Dazs.”
“He looks cheerful,” Nancy says, sinking onto the couch next to Jack. Her glasses are fogged up. She removes them and wipes them with a Kleenex. When she puts them back on, she sees Grover looking at her, his head on his paws. His tail thumps. For the first time, Nancy feels ready to let the dog die.
When Nancy tells about the gamma globulin, the phrase has stopped rolling off her tongue so trippingly. She laughs. She is so tired she throbs with relief. She drinks the sherry too fast. Suddenly, she sits up straight and announces, “I’ve got a clue. I’m thinking of a parking lot.”
“East or West?” Jack says. This is a game they used to play.
“West.”
“Aha, I’ve got you,” says Jack. “You’re thinking of the parking lot at that hospital in Tucson.”
“Hey, that’s not fair, going too fast,” cries Robert. “I didn’t get a chance to play.”
“This was before you were born,” Nancy says, running her fingers through Robert’s hair. He is on the floor, leaning against her knees. “We were lying in the van for a week, thinking we were going to die. Oh, God!” Nancy laughs and covers her mouth with her hands.
“Why were you going to die?” Robert asks.
“We weren’t really going to die.” Both Nancy and Jack are laughing now at the memory, and Jack is pulling off his sweater. The hospital in Tucson wouldn’t accept them because they weren’t sick enough to hospitalize, but they were too sick to travel. They had nowhere to go. They had been on a month’s trip through the West, then had stopped in Tucson and gotten jobs at a restaurant to make enough money to get home.
“Do you remember that doctor?” Jack says.
“I remember the look he gave us, like he didn’t want us to pollute his hospital.” Nancy laughs harder. She feels silly and relieved. Her hand, on Jack’s knee, feels the fold of the long johns beneath his jeans. She cries, “I’ll never forget how we stayed around that parking lot, thinking we were going to die.”
“I couldn’t have driven a block, I was so weak,” Jack gasps.
“You were yellow. I didn’t get yellow.”
“All we could do was pee and drink orange juice.”
“And throw the pee out the window.”
“Grover was so bored with us!”
Nancy says, “It’s a good thing we couldn’t eat. We would have spent all our money.”
“Then we would have had to work at that filthy restaurant again. And get hepatitis again.”
“And on and on, forever. We would still be there, like Charley on the MTA. Oh, Jack, do you remember that crazy restaurant? You had to wear a ten-gallon hat—”
Abruptly, Robert jerks away from Nancy and crawls on his knees across the room to examine Grover, who is stretched out on his side, his legs sticking out stiffly. Robert, his straight hair falling, bends his head to the dog’s heart.
“He’s not dead,” Robert says, looking up at Nancy. “He’s lying doggo.”
“Passed out at his own party,” Jack says, raising his glass. “Way to go, Grover!”
A NEW—WAVE FORMAT
Edwin Creech drives a yellow bus, transporting a group of mentally retarded adults to the Cedar Hill Mental Health Center, where they attend training classes. He is away from 7:00 to 9:30 A.M. and from 2:30 to 5:00 P.M. His hours are so particular that Sabrina Jones, the girl he has been living with for several months, could easily cheat on him. Edwin devises schemes to test her. He places a long string of dental floss on her pillow (an idea he got from a mystery novel), but it remains