The Accidental Tourist

But she allowed him to take the sheet away and slip her sweat shirt over her head.

Making love to Sarah was comfortable and soothing. After all their years together, her body was so well known to him that he couldn't always tell the difference between what he was feeling and what she was feeling. But wasn't it sad that they hadn't the slightest uneasiness about anyone's walking in on them? They were so alone. He nestled his face in her warm, dusty neck and wondered if she shared that feeling as well-if she sensed all the empty air in the house. But he would never ask.

While Sarah took a shower, he shaved. They were supposed to go to Bob and Sue Carney's for supper. When he came out of the bathroom Sarah was standing in front of the bureau, screwing on little gold earrings. (She was the only woman Macon knew of who didn't have pierced ears.) He thought Renoir could have painted her: Sarah in her slip with her head cocked slightly, plump tanned arms upraised. "I'm really not in the mood to go out," she said.

"Me neither," Macon said, opening his closet door.

"I'd be just as content to stay home with a book."

He pulled a shirt off a hanger.

"Macon," she said.

"Hmm."

"You never asked me if I slept with anyone while we were separated."

Macon paused, halfway into one sleeve.

"Don't you want to know?" she asked him.

"No," he said.

He put on the shirt and buttoned the cuffs.

"I would think you'd wonder."

"Well, I don't," he said.

"The trouble with you is, Macon-"

It was astonishing, the instantaneous flare of anger he felt. "Sarah," he said, "don't even start. By God, if that doesn't sum up every single thing that's wrong with being married. 'The trouble with you is, Macon-' and, 'I know you better than you know yourself, Macon-'"

"The trouble with you is," she continued steadily, "you think people should stay in their own sealed packages. You don't believe in opening up. You don't believe in trading back and forth."

"I certainly don't," Macon said, buttoning his shirt front.

"You know what you remind me of? That telegram Harpo Marx sent his brothers: No message. Harpo."

That made him grin. Sarah said, "You would think it was funny."

"Well? Isn't it?"

"It isn't at all! It's sad! It's infuriating! It would be infuriating to go to your door and sign for that telegram and tear it open and find no message!"

He took a tie from the rack in his closet.

"For your information," she said, "I didn't sleep with anyone the whole entire time."

He felt she'd won some kind of contest. He pretended he hadn't heard her.

Bob and Sue had invited just neighbors-the Bidwells and a new young couple Macon hadn't met before. Macon stuck mainly to the new couple because with them, he had no history. When they asked if he had children, he said, "No." He asked if they had any children.

"No," Brad Frederick said.

"Ah."

Brad's wife was in transit between girlhood and womanhood. She wore her stiff navy blue dress and large white shoes as if they belonged to her mother. Brad himself was still a boy. When they all went out back to watch the barbecue, Brad found a Frisbee in the bushes and flung it to little Delilah Carney. His white polo shirt pulled loose from his trousers. Dominick Saddler came to Macon's mind like a deep, hard punch.

He remembered how, after his grandfather died, the sight of any old person could make his eyes fill with tears. Lord, if he wasn't careful he could end up feeling sorry for the whole human race. "Throw that thing here," he said briskly to Delilah, and he set aside his sherry and held out a hand for the Frisbee. Before long they had a real game going-all the guests joining in except Brad's wife, who was still too close to childhood to risk getting stuck there on a visit back.

At supper, Sue Carney seated Macon at her right. She put a hand on his and said it was wonderful that he and Sarah had worked things out. "Well, thank you," Macon said. "Gosh, you make a really good salad, Sue."

"We all have our ups and downs," she said. For a second, he thought she meant her salads weren't consistently successful. "I'll be honest," she told him, "there've been times when I have wondered if Bob and I would make it. There's times I feel we're just hanging in there, you know what I mean? Times I say, 'Hi, honey, how was your day?' but inside I'm feeling like a Gold Star mother."

Macon turned the stem of his glass and tried to think what step he'd missed in her logic.

"Like someone who's suffered a loss in a war," she said, "and then forever afterward she has to go on supporting the war; she has to support it louder than anyone else, because otherwise she'd be admitting the loss was for no purpose."

"Urn . . ."

"But that's just a passing mood," she said.

"Well, naturally," Macon said.