The Accidental Tourist

"They were ruined long ago, believe me," Sarah said.

Macon laid down his spoon. He forced himself to take a deep breath.

"Sarah," he said. "We're getting away from the point."

After a silence, Sarah said, "Yes, I guess we are."

"It's what happened to Ethan that ruined us," Macon told her.

She set an elbow on the table and covered her eyes.

"But it wouldn't have to," he said. "Why, some people, a thing like this brings them closer together. How come we're letting it part us?"

The waitress said, "Is everything all right?"

Sarah sat up straighter and started rummaging through her purse.

"Yes, certainly," Macon said.

The waitress was carrying a tray with their main dishes. She cast a doubtful look at Sarah's antipasto. "Isn't she going to eat that, or what?" she asked Macon.

"No, I guess, um, maybe not."

"Didn't she like it?"

"She liked it fine. Take it away."

The waitress bustled around the table in an offended silence. Sarah put aside her purse. She looked down at her meal, which was something brown and gluey.

"You're welcome to half my shrimp salad," Macon told her when the waitress had gone.

She shook her head. Her eyes were deep with tears, but they hadn't spilled over.

"Macon," she said, "ever since Ethan died I've had to admit that people are basically bad. Evil, Macon. So evil they would take a twelve-year-old boy and shoot him through the skull for no reason. I read a paper now and I despair; I've given up watching the news on TV. There's so much wickedness, children setting other children on fire and grown men throwing babies out second-story windows, rape and torture and terrorism, old people beaten and robbed, men in our very own government willing to blow up the world, indifference and greed and instant anger on every street corner. I look at my students and they're so ordinary, but they're exactly like the boy who killed Ethan. If it hadn't said beneath that boy's picture what he'd been arrested for, wouldn't you think he was just anyone? Someone who'd made the basketball team or won a college scholarship? You can't believe in a soul. Last spring, Macon, I didn't tell you this, I was cutting back our hedge and I saw the bird feeder had been stolen out of the crape myrtle tree. Someone will even steal food from little birds! And I just, I don't know, went kind of crazy and attacked the crape myrtle. Cut it all up, ripped off branches, slashed it with my pruning shears ..."

Tears were running down her face now. She leaned across the table and said, "There are times when I haven't been sure I could-I don't want to sound melodramatic but-Macon, I haven't been sure I could live in this kind of a world anymore."

Macon felt he had to be terribly careful. He had to choose exactly the right words. He cleared his throat and said, "Yes, um, I see what you mean but . . ." He cleared his throat again. "It's true," he said, "what you say about human beings. I'm not trying to argue. But tell me this, Sarah: Why would that cause you to leave me?"

She crumpled up her napkin and dabbed at her nose. She said, "Because I knew you wouldn't try to argue. You've believed all along they were evil."

"Well, so-"

"This whole last year I felt myself retreating. Withdrawing. I could feel myself shrinking. I stayed away from crowds, I didn't go to parties, I didn't ask our friends in. When you and I went to the beach in the summer I lay on my blanket with all those people around me, their squawking radios and their gossip and their quarrels, and I thought, 'Ugh, they're so depressing. They're so unlikable. So vile, really.' I felt myself shrinking away from them. Just like you do, Macon-just as you do; sorry.

Just as you have always done. I felt I was turning into a Leary."

Macon tried for a lighter tone. He said, "Well, there are worse disasters than that, I guess."

She didn't smile. She said, "I can't afford it."

"Afford?"

"I'm forty-two years old. I don't have enough time left to waste it holing up in my shell. So I've taken action. I've cut myself loose. I live in this apartment you'd hate, all clutter. I've made a whole bunch of new friends, and you wouldn't like them much either, I guess. I'm studying with a sculptor. I always did want to be an artist, only teaching seemed more sensible. That's how you would think: sensible.

You're so quick to be sensible, Macon, that you've given up on just about everything."

"What have I given up on?"

She refolded the napkin and blotted her eyes. An appealing blur of mascara shadowed the skin beneath them. She said, "Remember Betty Grand?"

"No."

"Betty Grand, she went to my school. You used to like her before you met me."

"I never liked anyone on earth before I met you," Macon said.

"You liked Betty Grand, Macon. You told me so when we first went out. You asked me if I knew her. You said you used to think she was pretty and you'd invited her to a ball game but she turned you down. You told me you'd changed your mind about her being pretty. Her gums showed any time she smiled, you said."