The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [82]
“Well, I said I was sorry.”
Rose smoothed the stack of napkins.
“Time creeps up on me,” he told her. “You know how it is. I mean I don’t intend to go out at all, to begin with, but then I think, ‘Oh, maybe for a little while,’ and next thing I know it’s so late, much too late to be driving, and I think to myself, ‘Well . . .’ ”
Rose turned away quickly and went over to the buffet. She started counting spoons. “I’m not asking about your private life,” she said.
“I thought in a sense you were.”
“I just need to know how much food to cook, that’s all.”
“I wouldn’t blame you for being curious,” he said.
“I just need to know how many breakfasts to fix.”
“You think I don’t notice you three? Whenever she’s here giving Edward his lesson, everyone starts coming out of the woodwork. Edging through the living room—‘Just looking for the pliers! Don’t mind me!’ Sweeping the entire front porch the minute we take Edward out for a walk.”
“Could I help it if the porch was dirty?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Tomorrow night I’ll definitely be here for supper. That’s a promise. You can count on it.”
“I’m not asking you to stay if you don’t want to,” she told him.
“Of course I want to! It’s just this evening I’ll be out,” he said, “but not late, I’m sure of that. Why, I bet I’ll be home before ten!”
Although even as he spoke, he heard how false and shallow he sounded, and he saw how Rose lowered her eyes.
He bought a large combination pizza and drove downtown with it. The smell made him so hungry that he kept snitching bits off the top at every stoplight—coins of pepperoni, crescents of mushroom. His fingers got all sticky and he couldn’t find his handkerchief. Pretty soon the steering wheel was sticky too. Humming to himself, he drove past tire stores, liquor stores, discount shoe stores, the Hot-Tonight Novelty Company. He took a shortcut through an alley and jounced between a double row of backyards—tiny rectangles crammed with swing sets and rusted auto parts and stunted, frozen bushes. He turned onto Singleton and drew up behind a pickup truck full of moldy rolls of carpet.
The next-door neighbor’s twin daughters were perched on their front stoop—flashy sixteen-year-olds in jeans as tight as sausage casings. It was too cold to sit outside, but that never stopped them. “Hey there, Macon,” they sing-songed.
“How are you, girls.”
“You going to see Muriel?”
“I thought I might.”
He climbed Muriel’s steps, holding the pizza level, and knocked on the door. Debbie and Dorrie continued to watch him. He flashed them a broad smile. They sometimes baby-sat with Alexander; he had to be nice to them. Half the neighborhood sat with Alexander, it seemed. He still felt confused by Muriel’s network of arrangements.
It was Alexander who opened the door. “Pizza man!” Macon told him.
“Mama’s on the phone,” Alexander said flatly. He turned away and wandered back to the couch, adjusting his glasses on his nose. Evidently he was watching TV.
“Extra-large combination, no anchovies,” Macon said.
“I’m allergic to pizza.”
“What part of it?”
“Huh?”
“What part are you allergic to? The pepperoni? Sausage? Mushrooms? We could take those off.”
“All of it,” Alexander said.
“You can’t be allergic to all of it.”
“Well, I am.”
Macon went on into the kitchen. Muriel stood with her back to him, talking on the phone with her mother. He could tell it was her mother because of Muriel’s high, sad, querulous tone. “Aren’t you going to ask how Alexander is? Don’t you want to know about his rash? I ask after your health, why don’t you ask about ours?”
He stepped up behind her soundlessly. “You didn’t even ask what happened with his eye doctor,” she said, “and here I was so worried about it. I swear sometimes you’d think he wasn’t your grandson! That time I sprained my ankle falling off my shoes and called to see if you’d look after him, what did you say? Said, ‘Now let me get this straight. You want me to come all the way down to your house.’ You’d think Alexander was nothing to do with you!”
Macon presented himself in front of her, holding