The Accidental Tourist

Late in the afternoon Susan started feeling peckish again; so they had two more breakfasts. Then they went to Independence Hall. (Macon felt they should do something educational.) "You can tell your civics teacher," he said. She rolled her eyes and said, "Social studies."

"Whatever."

The weather was cold, and the interior of the hall was chilly and bleak.

Macon noticed Susan gaping vacantly at the guide, who wasn't making his spiel very exciting; so he leaned over and whispered, "Imagine. George Washington sat in that very chair."

"I'm not really into George Washington, Uncle Macon."

"Human beings can only go 'into' houses, cars, and coffins, Susan."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

They followed the crowd upstairs, through other rooms, but Susan had plainly exhausted her supply of good humor. "If it weren't for what was decided in this building," Macon told her, "you and I might very well be living under a dictatorship."

"We are anyhow," she said.

"Pardon?"

"You really think that you and me have any power?"

"You and I, honey."

"It's just free speech, that's all we've got. We can say whatever we like, then the government goes on and does exactly what it pleases. You call that democracy? It's like we're on a ship, headed someplace terrible, and somebody else is steering and the passengers can't jump off."

"Why don't we go get some supper," Macon said. He was feeling a little depressed.

He took her to an old-fashioned inn a few streets over. It wasn't even dark yet, and they were the first customers. A woman in a Colonial gown told them they'd have to wait a few minutes. She led them into a small, snug room with a fireplace, and a waitress offered them their choice of buttered rum or hot spiked cider. "I'll have buttered rum," Susan said, shucking off her jacket.

Macon said, "Uh, Susan."

She glared at him.

"Oh, well, make that two," he told the waitress. He supposed a little toddy couldn't do much harm.

But it must have been an exceptionally strong toddy-either that, or Susan had an exceptionally weak head for alcohol. At any rate, after two small sips she leaned toward him in an unbalanced way. "This is sort of fun!"

she said. "You know, Uncle Macon, I like you much better than I thought I did."

"Why, thank you."

"I used to think you were kind of finicky. Ethan used to make us laugh, pointing to your artichoke plate."

"My artichoke plate."

She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"I didn't mean to talk about him."

"You can talk about him."

"I don't want to," she said.

She gazed off across the room. Macon, following her eyes, found only a harpsichord. He looked back at her and saw her chin trembling.

It had never occurred to him that Ethan's cousins missed him too.

After a minute, Susan picked her mug up and took several large swallows.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Hot," she explained. It was true she seemed to have recovered herself.

Macon said, "What was funny about my artichoke plate?"

"Oh, nothing."

"I won't be hurt. What was funny?"

"Well, it looked like geometry class. Every leaf laid out in such a perfect circle when you'd finished."

"I see."

"He was laughing with you, not at you," Susan said, peering anxiously into his face.

"Well, since I wasn't laughing myself, that statement seems inaccurate.

But if you mean he wasn't laughing unkindly, I believe you."

She sighed and drank some more of her rum.

"Nobody talks about him," Macon said. "None of you mentions his name."

"We do when you're not around," Susan said.

"You do?"

"We talk about what he'd think, you know. Like when Danny got his license, or when I had a date for the Halloween Ball. I mean we used to make so much fun of the grown-ups. And Ethan was the funniest one; he could always get us to laugh. Then here we are, growing up ourselves. We wonder what Ethan would think of us, if he could come back and see us. We wonder if he'd laugh at us. Or if he'd feel . . . left out. Like we had moved on and left him behind."

The woman in the Colonial gown came to show them to their table. Macon brought his drink; Susan had already finished hers. She was a bit unsteady on her feet. When their waitress asked them if they'd like a wine list, Susan gave Macon a bright-eyed look but Macon said, "No," very firmly. "I think we ought to start with soup," he said. He had some idea soup was sobering.

But Susan talked in a reckless, headlong way all through the soup course, and the main course, and the two desserts she hadn't been able to decide between, and the strong black coffee that he pressed upon her afterward.

She talked about a boy she liked who either liked her back or else preferred someone named Sissy Pace. She talked about the Halloween Ball where this really juvenile eighth-grader had thrown up all over the stereo. She said that when Danny was eighteen, the three of them were moving to their own apartment because now that their mother was expecting (which Macon hadn't known), she wouldn't even realize they were gone.