The Accidental Tourist

"Look at this," Macon told Alexander. "See that gunk? That's old, rotted packing. So take it away. Right. Now here's the new packing. You wind it around, wind even a little more than you need. Let's see you wind it around."

Alexander wrapped the thread. His fingers turned white with the effort.

Muriel said, "Usually we have a goose. My daddy brings a goose from the Eastern Shore. Or don't you care for goose. Would you rather just a turkey? A duck? What are you used to eating, Macon?"

Macon said, "Oh, well. . ." and was saved by Alexander. Alexander turned, having reassembled the faucet without any help, and said, "Now what?"

"Now make sure the screw is well in."

Alexander resumed his struggles with the screwdriver. Muriel said, "Maybe you'd rather a good hunk of beef. I know some men are like that. They think poultry is kind of pansy. Is that how you think too? You can tell me! I won't mind! My folks won't mind!"

"Oh, um, Muriel . . ."

"Now what," Alexander ordered.

"Why, now we turn the water back on and see what kind of job you've done."

Macon crouched beneath the sink and showed him where the valve was.

Alexander reached past him and twisted it, grunting. Wasn't it odd, Macon thought, how little boys all had that same slightly green smell, like a cedar closet. He rose and turned on the faucet. No leak. "Look at that!"

he told Alexander. "You've solved the problem."

Alexander fought to hold a grin back.

"Will you know how to do it the next time?"

He nodded.

"Now when you're grown," Macon said, "you can fix the faucets for your wife."

Alexander's face squinched up with amusement at the thought.

" 'Step back, dearie,' you can say. 'Just let me see to this.' "

Alexander said, "Tssh!"-his face like a little drawstring purse. " 'Let a real man take care of this/ you can tell her." "Tssh! Tssh!"

"Macon? Are you coming to my folks', or aren't you?" Muriel asked. It seemed unreasonable to say he wasn't. Somehow or other, he had got himself involved already.

Muriel's parents lived out in Timonium, in a development called Foxhunt Acres. Muriel had to show Macon the way. It was the coldest Christmas Day either of them could remember, but they drove with the windows slightly open so that Alexander, riding in back, would not be bothered by the dog hair. The radio was tuned to Muriel's favorite station. Connie Francis was singing "Baby's First Christmas."

"You warm enough?" Muriel asked Alexander. "You doing okay?"

Alexander must have nodded.

"You feel like you're wheezing at all?"

"Nope."

"No, ma'am," she corrected him.

Sarah used to do that, too, Macon remembered-give their son a crash course in manners any time they set out to visit her mother.

Muriel said, "Once I was riding Alexander uptown on some errands for George? My company? And I'd had these two cats in the car just the day before? And I didn't think a thing about it, clean forgot to vacuum like I usually do, and all at once I turn around and Alexander's stretched across the seat, flat out."

"I wasn't flat out," Alexander said.

"You were just as good as."

"I was only laying down so I wouldn't need so much air."

"See there?" Muriel said to Macon.

They were traveling up York Road now, past body shops and fast food outlets all closed and bleak. Macon had never seen this road so empty. He overtook a van and then a taxicab; nothing else. Swags of Christmas greens hung stiffly above a used car lot.

"He can get shots, though," Muriel said.

"Shots?"

"He can get shots to keep him from wheezing."

"Then why doesn't he?"

"Well, if Edward was to move in I guess that's what we'd do."

"Edward?"

"I mean if, you know. If you moved in on a permanent basis and Edward came too."

"Oh," Macon said.

Brenda Lee was singing "I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus." Muriel hummed along, tipping her head perkily left and right to keep time.

"Would you ever think of doing that?" she asked him finally.

"Doing what?" he said, pretending not to know.

"Would you ever think of moving in with us?"

"Oh, urn . . ."

"Or we could move in with you," she said. "Either way you preferred."

"With me? But my sister and my-"

"I'm talking about your house."

"Oh. My house."

His house swam up before him-small and dim and abandoned, hunkered beneath the oak trees like a woodchopper's cottage in a fairy tale.

Muriel glanced at his face and then said, quickly, "I could understand if you didn't want to go back there."

"It's not that," he said. He cleared his throat. He said, "It's just that I haven't given it much thought."

"Oh, I understand!"

"Not yet, at least."

"You don't have to explain!"

She pointed out where to turn, and they started down a winding road. The eating places grew sparser and shabbier. There were scratchy little trees, frozen fields, a whole village of different-sized mailboxes bristling at the end of a driveway.