The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [33]
They watched the news, dutifully, and then they went out to the sun porch and sat at their grandparents’ card table. They played something called Vaccination—a card game they’d invented as children, which had grown so convoluted over the years that no one else had the patience to learn it. In fact, more than one outsider had accused them of altering the rules to suit the circumstances. “Now, just a minute,” Sarah had said, back when she’d still had hopes of figuring it out. “I thought you said aces were high.”
“They are.”
“So that means—”
“But not when they’re drawn from the deck.”
“Aha! Then why was the one that Rose drew counted high?”
“Well, she did draw it after a deuce, Sarah.”
“Aces drawn after a deuce are high?”
“No, aces drawn after a number that’s been drawn two times in a row just before that.”
Sarah had folded her fan of cards and laid them face down— the last of the wives to give up.
Macon was in quarantine and had to donate all his cards to Rose. Rose moved her chair over next to his and played off his points while he sat back, scratching the cat behind her ears. Opposite him, in the tiny dark windowpanes, he saw their reflections— hollow-eyed and severely cheekboned, more interesting versions of themselves.
The telephone in the living room gave a nipped squeak and then a full ring. Nobody seemed to notice. Rose laid a king on Porter’s queen and Porter said, “Stinker.” The telephone rang again and then again. In the middle of the fourth ring, it fell silent. “Hypodermic,” Rose told Porter, and she topped the king with an ace.
“You’re a real stinker, Rose.”
In the portrait on the end wall, the Leary children gazed out with their veiled eyes. It occurred to Macon that they were sitting in much the same positions here this evening: Charles and Porter on either side of him, Rose perched in the foreground. Was there any real change? He felt a jolt of something very close to panic. Here he still was! The same as ever! What have I gone and done? he wondered, and he swallowed thickly and looked at his own empty hands.
six
Help! Help! Call off your dog!”
Macon stopped typing and lifted his head. The voice came from somewhere out front, rising above a string of sharp, excited yelps. But Edward was taking a walk with Porter. This must be some other dog.
“Call him off, dammit!”
Macon rose, propping himself on his crutches, and made his way to the window. Sure enough, it was Edward. He seemed to have treed somebody in the giant magnolia to the right of the walk. He was barking so hard that he kept popping off the ground perfectly level, all four feet at once, like one of those pull toys that bounce straight up in the air when you squeeze a rubber bulb.
“Edward! Stop that!” Macon shouted.
Edward didn’t stop. He might not even have heard. Macon stubbed out to the hall, opened the front door, and said, “Come here this instant!”
Edward barely skipped a beat.
It was a Saturday morning in early October, pale gray and cool. Macon felt the coolness creeping up his cut-off pants leg as he crossed the porch. When he dropped one crutch and took hold of the iron railing to descend the steps, he found the metal beaded with moisture.
He hopped over to the magnolia, leaned down precariously, and grabbed the leash that Edward was trailing. Without much effort, he reeled it in; Edward was already losing interest. Macon peered into the inky depths of the magnolia. “Who is that?” he asked.
“This is your employer, Macon.”
“Julian?”
Julian lowered himself from one of the magnolia’s weak, sprawling branches. He had a line of dirt across the front of his slacks. His white-blond hair, usually