South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [95]
“I don’t think so.” Arbutus applied herself to her lunch, and gradually Gladys relaxed. Then Arbutus said, “Oh, by the way. I invited the fellow who wants to buy my house to brunch on Wednesday.”
“Brunch?”
“Doesn’t that sound fun? They were talking about it on the morning show the other day. It’s later than breakfast and earlier than lunch—”
“I know what it is.”
“I thought we could have that egg pie Verna brings to church.”
“Quiche,” Gladys said flatly.
“Yes, that’s right, quiche. Pete’s a friend of Madeline’s from Chicago, did I tell you?”
“And just when did all of this come about?”
“Yesterday, when you were at Mabel’s. He stopped by, and I gave him some coffee. I invited him then. I told him we’d like to have Madeline come too, it’d seem funny to him if she didn’t, and besides, I’d like her to.”
Gladys stared at her sister, speechless.
At nine thirty Wednesday the whole sorry lot of them—and Gladys included herself in this description—sat in the parlor making small talk about Madeline’s car. “It’s started making bad noises in the last few weeks,” Madeline said. “A kind of knocking.”
“Bad gas, maybe,” Pete Kinney said.
“She fills Up down in Halfway. I told her Umpteen times that gas is old, you don’t want it, but she won’t believe me.”
Madeline sighed.
“Well, I did tell you.”
“Yes you did.”
“As far as the knocking, it could be a number of things, I’d have to take a better look at it, give it a drive.”
Gladys sniffed. Obviously it was bad gas, but it was civil of Pete not to insist.
“Would you like more coffee, or some juice?” Arbutus offered, smiling prettily.
Pete gave her a keen, pleased look. The look of a man who has taken a fancy. Gladys felt both proud and vexed. Well past seventy, crippled Up, and her sister was still wrapping men around her finger quick as a wink. “I would,” he said to Butte. “More of this good coffee would be just the thing.” Then he recollected himself, included Gladys. “I’m pleased to meet the both of you, by the way. It’s good of you to have me in to eat. It’ll be a treat to have some home-cooked food, my daughter gets after me for not fixing myself better meals.”
“Speaking of which.” Gladys got Up to check on the quiche. Leave the lovebirds alone for a minute. She didn’t know whether to be glad or mad. Madeline followed to fetch Pete’s coffee. They eyed each other warily and didn’t speak. When they returned Pete had scooted down the couch close to Arbutus’s chair and they were chatting with animation. Gladys and Madeline glanced at each other and then away, but before they could stop it there’d been a flash of Understanding between them—is this what it looks like, and how nice if it is.
Pete liked the quiche, the seasoning Gladys Used, what was it? (Salt and pepper and a little paprika, nothing special, she said, frowning with pleasure.) He loved Gladys’s bread, and the wild blueberry jam. He remembered a neighbor lady from when he was a boy who’d made cardamom rolls at the holidays, he hadn’t had anything like it since. She was Scandinavian and painted her porch roof blue like the sky and swept off her sidewalks every morning with a broom. Pete patted the Formica table in an appreciating way, admired the cookstove, complimented Gladys on her flowers and the neat shape she kept her house in. He liked McAllaster, he said, he and his wife had always told each other they’d maybe retire here one day. “It was a dream of ours. Seems wrong to me still that we never did do it. We had good times here.”
Arbutus was nodding, her face sympathetic. “You miss her.”
“I do. She wouldn’t want me to mope, so I don’t. But the world’s a little lonely, on your own.”
“My Harvey, my second husband, was the same way. He couldn’t stand to think of me downhearted. And I haven’t been. But there’ve been lonely times.”
They smiled at each other in a way that left the rest of the world out.
“Thank you for a delicious meal and your kind hospitality,