The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [121]
After they landed in Baltimore, he took a shuttle bus to the parking lot and retrieved his car. It was late evening here and the sky was pale and radiant above the city. As he drove he continued to see the words from Miss MacIntosh. He continued to hear the stewardess’s gliding voice: complimentary beverages and the captain has asked us and trays in an upright position. He considered switching on the radio but he didn’t know what station it was set to. Maybe it was Muriel’s country music station. This possibility made him feel weary; he felt he wouldn’t have the strength to press the buttons, and so he drove in silence.
He came to Singleton Street and flicked his signal on but didn’t turn. After a while the signal clicked off on its own. He rode on through the city, up Charles Street, into his old neighborhood. He parked and cut the engine and sat looking at the house. The downstairs windows were dark. The upstairs windows were softly glowing. Evidently, he had come home.
nineteen
Macon and Sarah needed to buy a new couch. They set aside a Saturday for it—actually just half a Saturday, because Sarah had a class to attend in the afternoon. At breakfast, she flipped through an interior decorating book so they could get a head start on their decision. “I’m beginning to think along the lines of something flowered,” she told Macon. “We’ve never had a flowered couch before. Or would that be too frilly?”
“Well, I don’t know. I wonder about winter,” Macon said.
“Winter?”
“I mean right now in the middle of June a flowered couch looks fine, but it might seem out of place in December.”
“So you prefer something in a solid,” Sarah said.
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Or maybe stripes.”
“I’m not sure.”
“I know you don’t like plaids.”
“No.”
“How do you feel about tweeds?”
“Tweeds,” Macon said, considering.
Sarah handed over the book and started loading the dishwasher.
Macon studied pictures of angular modern couches, cozy chintz-covered couches, and period reproduction couches covered in complex fabrics. He took the book to the living room and squinted at the spot where the couch would be sitting. The old one, which had turned out to be too waterlogged to salvage, had been carted away, along with both armchairs. Now there was just a long blank wall, with the freshly plastered ceiling glaring above it. Macon observed that a room without furniture had a utilitarian feeling, as if it were merely a container. Or a vehicle. Yes, a vehicle: He had a sense of himself speeding through the universe as he stood there.
While Sarah got dressed, Macon took the dog out. It was a warm, golden morning. Neighbors were trimming their grass and weeding their flower beds. They nodded as Macon walked past. He had not been back long enough for them to feel at ease yet; there was something a little too formal about their greetings. Or maybe he was imagining that. He made an effort to remind them of how many years he had lived here: “I’ve always liked those tulips of yours!” and “Still got that nice hand mower, I see!” Edward marched beside him with a busybody waggle of his hind end.
In movies and such, people who made important changes in their lives accomplished them and were done with it. They walked out and never returned; or they married and lived happily ever after. In real life, things weren’t so clean-cut. Macon, for instance, had had to go down to Muriel’s and retrieve his dog, once he’d decided to move back home. He had had to collect his clothing and pack up his typewriter while Muriel watched in silence with her accusing, reproaching eyes. Then there were all kinds of other belongings that he discovered too late he’d forgotten—clothes that had been in the wash at the time, and his favorite dictionary, and the extra-large pottery mug he liked to drink his coffee from. But of course he couldn’t go back for them.