Betty, October 21, 2007

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Seeing him at the grocery store—it's surprising, really, now that I look back, that there haven't been more awkward moments. We've been living here, in the same neighborhood, driving on the same streets, for twenty-five years now. Longer than that, of course, especially for him, but twenty-five years since.

"Betty," he said. "How nice to see you."

Our houses are less than a mile apart, but maybe, except for the brief period when we were actually pursuing each other, maybe we live in different worlds, move in different networks. Maybe the gradient in housing, from his sprawling brick tudor, every bedroom with its own bathroom and a few more just for the convenience of one's visitors, down the scale to my tidy bungalow with its vinyl siding—maybe that's the leading indicator of a different social ecosystem—different dry-cleaners, different auto mechanics, different florists. Different friends, that's for sure.

"Raymond," I said. "What a surprise."

And now, after twenty-five years, here in this aisle. My only indulgence—this expensive little store with its great produce section. Why did he show up now? He never did any of his own shopping, I'm know he didn't, even after his wife left him.

When did she leave? '84 maybe? No, it was at least '87. A good five years after we broke up. So I wasn't the direct cause.

"Are you still working?" he said.

Of course I always liked to think that I was more dangerous to him—to his equilibrium—than any of the others. A single woman. Perfectly happy with my lot in a modestly paid helping profession. He preferred married women, that was clear, or at least he felt more comfortable when the culpability was symmetrical.

"I still have a couple of years to go," I said.

We each had a bottle of red wine in our carts—Australian shiraz for me, Chateauneuf du Pape for him.

"Ah," he said. "About a week ago, I was having lunch with the new Superintendent..."

He paused, inviting me to interrupt. I thought for a moment, then accepted the invitation.

"You asked after me," I said. "That's nice. But the Super wouldn't know me."

He nodded, very thoughtfully, and then, like everyone else, I answered the question he hadn't even asked.

"That administrative job—" I said. "I gave it up a couple of years ago. I'm just a school nurse again. Prospect Elementary. I missed the kids."

"Good for you," he said.

"Yourself?" I said.

"Well, my name's still on the shingle," he said. "And my former partners let me use my old office. I sit on several boards, and there's an old client or two who insist on occasionally giving me a call."

He reached toward the shelf, picked up a can of Spanish olives, and studied the label, tilting his head back to position the small text in the appropriate part of his progressive lenses.

"Are these any good?" he said.

When did he become interested in ingredients? I shrugged my shoulders.

"I was reading recently," I said, "about your daughter. You're on the board of that nature center, aren't you?"

He put the olives back on the shelf.

"Yes," he said, "that was difficult. But it's a wonderful organization, still very much worthy of my support. And Lisa will certainly find a new project. I'm very grateful to her for getting me involved with the Tangled Bank in the first place."

How does he do it? He could walk out of prize fight and make it sound as if the knockout was the first step toward an amicable partnership.

"Raymond," I said, "I hate to ask you for legal advice, but there's a situation that's beginning to trouble me. It's about my father."

Arthur, September 28, 2007

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Dorothy needed someone to take her shift at the center, there was a funeral she had to go to, Louise's friend Marian or Marianne or something like that, I'd never met the woman, not much point in me going to the funeral, so I said, Sure, I'll take your shift. Volunteer Greeter, they call it, you just sit by the door and say hello to anyone who comes in, they want the center to be open to drop-bys, even the teenagers in the park, and apparently having an old fart at the door prevents vandalism, I don't know how, I sure as hell couldn't stop those teenagers from indulging their destructive tendencies if they were so inclined, but you know, it works, you just look 'em in the eye and say Welcome to the Tangled Bank, have a look around, and the kids calm right down. That's only when they come in, of course, the rest of the time you're on your own, this was the 3 to 6 p.m. shift and there was one kid playing the ecology video game for a while but then his friends came and got him and that was that. When the place was empty I walked around, straightened up a little, I wasn't going to get out the spray bottle like Dorothy does but I do my part. I found a book on one of the tables and I was going to put it back on the shelf where it belonged but it wasn't a science or nature or ecology book, it was some sort of adventure book for girls, Wilhelmina and the Cro-Magnon Cave, maybe it was Cavern, I figured it must belong to that girl, the daughter of the director, she was always hanging around reading, kind of a sullen girl, but maybe all girls are sullen at that age, about the same age Betty was when she decided the neighbor lady was her best friend, going over there every night to help her with her collections, never understood what that was about, tearing pages out of magazines and cataloging them, now I don't think that neighbor lady was a bad influence, what was her name? there were a lot of people in Terre Haute who worked at the Federal Prison, we were very tolerant of those occupations, still a forty-year-old divorced woman, what was she? A nurse? A librarian? hell, I suppose she was alright, a little eccentric, said my wife, and Betty will have plenty of time for boys later on. I read a few pages of the book, there was nothing else to do, I didn't expect it to be be my cup of tea, but they got right to the cave drawings, I've always been partial to cave drawings, and it was set in 1918, the year I was born, Austria or Switzerland or some such place, but then they came out of the cave and went back to the boarding school and started giggling and that was enough of that book for me. A few minutes later the director came down the stairs, carrying one of those white bankers boxes, I didn't have any idea she was up there in her office, she must have been working there the whole time. I offered to carry the box for her, it never hurts to make the gesture, and she stopped and looked at me funny and eventually smiled and said no, no thanks, she had it under control. So I showed her the book and she said, Yes, that would be Samantha's, and I put on top of her box for her and asked if she would be locking up at six o'clock because I didn't have any keys. Then she finally put the box down and found some keys in her pocket and handed them to me and said that I could lock up, that would be good, and she picked up her box with book balanced on top and headed for the door, kind of in a hurry I'd say, but I called after her and asked, What should I do with the keys? and she turned and said I could keep the keys, for all she cared, because she didn't work there anymore.