The Accidental Tourist

“I worked on him most of yesterday,” Macon said. “It was Sunday and I had nothing to do. And then my brother’s kids were getting ready to leave and Edward was growling the way he usually does; so I tapped my foot and down he went.”

“I’m proud of both of you.”

She told Edward, “Stay,” holding out a hand. She backed into the house again. “Now, Macon, you come in too.”

They closed the front door. Muriel tweaked the lace curtain and peered out. “Well, he’s staying so far,” she announced.

She turned her back to the door. She checked her fingernails and said, “Tsk!” Tiny beads of rain trickled down her raincoat, and her hair — reacting to the damp — stood out in corkscrews. “Someday I’m going to get me a professional manicure,” she said.

Macon tried to see around her; he wasn’t sure that Edward would stay put.

“Have you ever been to a manicurist?” she asked.

“Me? Goodness, no.”

“Well, some men go.”

“Not me.”

“I’d like just once to get everything done professional. Nails, skin. My girlfriend goes to this place where they vacuum your skin. They just vacuum all your pores, she says. I’d like to go there sometime. And I’d like to have my colors done. What colors look good on me? What don’t? What brings out the best in me?”

She looked up at him. All at once, Macon got the feeling she had not been talking about colors at all but something else. It seemed she used words as a sort of background music. He took a step away from her. She said, “You didn’t have to apologize, the other day.”

“Apologize?”

Although he knew exactly what she was referring to.

She seemed to guess that. She didn’t explain herself.

“Um, I don’t remember if I ever made this clear,” Macon said, “but I’m not even legally divorced yet.”

“So?”

“I’m just, what do you call. Separated.”

“Well? So?”

He wanted to say, Muriel, forgive me, but since my son died, sex has. turned. (As milk turns; that was how he thought of it. As milk will alter its basic nature and turn sour.) I really don’t think of it anymore. I honestly don’t. I can’t imagine anymore what all that fuss was about. Now it seems pathetic.

But what he said was, “I’m worried the mailman’s going to come.” She looked at him for a moment longer, and then she opened the door for Edward.

Rose was knitting Julian a pullover sweater for Christmas. “Already?” Macon asked. “We’ve barely got past Thanksgiving.”

“Yes, but this is a really hard pattern and I want to do it right.”

Macon watched her needles flashing. “Actually,” he said, “have you ever noticed that Julian wears cardigans?”

“Yes, I guess he does,” she said.

But she went on knitting her pullover.

It was a heathery gray wool, what he believed they called Ragg wool. Macon and both his brothers had sweaters that color. But Julian wore crayon colors or navy blue. Julian dressed like a golfer. “He tends toward the V-necked look,” Macon said to Rose.

“That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t wear a crew neck if he had one.”

“Look,” Macon said. “I guess what I’m getting at—”

Rose’s needles clicked serenely.

“He’s really kind of a playboy,” he said. “I don’t know if you realize that. And besides, he’s younger.”

“Two years,” she said.

“But he’s got a younger, I don’t know, style of living. Singles and apartments and so on.”

“He says he’s tired of all that.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“He says he likes homeyness. He appreciates my cooking. He can’t believe I’m knitting him a sweater.”

“No, I guess not,” Macon said grimly.

“Don’t try to spoil this, Macon.”

“Sweetheart, I only want to protect you. It’s wrong, you know, what you said at Thanksgiving. Love is not what it’s all about. There are other things to consider besides, all kinds of other issues.”

“He ate my turkey and did not get sick. Two big helpings,” Rose said.

Macon groaned and tore at a handful of his hair.

“First we try him on a real quiet street,” Muriel said. “Someplace public, but not too busy. Some out-of-the-way little store or something.”

She was driving her long gray boat of a car. Macon sat in front beside her, and Edward sat in back, his ears out horizontal with joy. Edward was always happy to be invited for a car ride, though very soon he’d turn cranky. (“How much longer?” you could almost hear him whine.) It was lucky they weren’t going far.

“I got this car on account of its big old trunk,” Muriel said. She slung it dashingly around a corner. “I needed it for my errand business. Guess how much it cost?”

“Um. ”

“Only two hundred dollars. That’s because it needed work, but I took it to this boy down the street from where I live. I said, ‘Here’s the deal. You fix my car up, I let you have the use of it three nights a week and all day Sunday.’ Wasn’t that a good idea?”

“Very inventive,” Macon said.