Small Blessings (2 page)

The Bard, ever present in Tom's head and ever willing to think the right words when he could not, pointed out that
light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile.
“Yes,” he managed. “Russ is the self-proclaimed social maven around here.” Tom was pleased with himself for using the word “maven” and then immediately uncomfortable with feeling pleased. It had been years since he'd been concerned about the impression he was making on anyone. The back of Tom's neck began to itch unbearably, and his left middle toe threatened to cramp. He wished he'd remembered to get a haircut. His brown hair became a mass of rampaging cowlicks when he put off going to the barber.

Marjory stirred by his side, letting off an unusual little pop of energy. “Why don't you come have supper with us this Friday night, Rose? We'll celebrate getting through the first week of having the students back. We live right on campus, and we'd love to have you, wouldn't we, Tom?”

Tom stopped staring at Rose Callahan and turned to stare at his wife. Marjory hadn't issued a social invitation in ten years. Was she drunk at three o'clock in the afternoon? Had she taken too many of her happy pills? A decade ago, his wife had sunk into pathological timidity and indecisiveness, especially around strange women.

“Wouldn't we, Tom?” Marjory repeated, as calmly as though there were nothing at all unusual about what she'd said.

“Of course.” The words came out rather louder than Tom would have wished. He turned back to Rose Callahan, feeling a rush of almost adolescent despair. She would think he was a dolt now, for sure. One of those moldy academics who can't really function in any world other than the one inside his own head. “Do come,” he said, hearing himself, with just those two words, sound as though he were begging.

“I'd love to,” she said, smiling at Marjory. “It's so nice of you to ask me.”

It was as though some of Rose Callahan's calm, some of her
sanity,
had flowed into Marjory by osmosis. This was the longest social interaction Tom could remember his wife having in years. “Good,” she said. “Shall we say seven o'clock? We live at the very end of Faculty Row—the big, square brick house that's a bit set back from the rest. My mother lives with us, and I'm sure she'll want to join us.”

“How very nice. It will be a treat to eat dinner again in a real house with a real family for a change,” Rose said, sounding as though the prospect of spending an evening with Marjory's mother really did fill her with pleasurable expectation. Of course, rumor could work both ways, and the stories Rose would have heard about his mother-in-law might have intrigued her. “I'll see you on Friday, then, if not before,” Rose said to Marjory. Then she turned to Tom again. “You know,” she said, almost shyly, “I've decided to go back to school and finish my degree, and I'm signed up for one of your classes—Shakespeare 402 that meets on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons?”

The light was there again, flaring out as though someone had set off a Roman candle behind Rose Callahan's head. “Oh,” Tom said. His heart did another flop, and his left middle toe seized up like an oil-less engine. “It meets from two thirty until four forty-five tomorrow.”

“Yes.” Rose Callahan smiled again, still shy, and added, “Well then, I'll see
you
tomorrow afternoon.”

Tom looked quickly at his wife to see if she minded this. Marjory had been known to start keening like an Irish mother if he so much as nodded to another woman at a party. But Marjory was smiling as though she were as normal as the next person.

*   *   *

Rose leaned against the archway that separated the coffee room from the main part of the Book Store and watched the Putnams leave. She'd been at the college for three weeks and three days and had already heard a lot about Marjory Putnam, particularly from Russell Jacobs. Everyone had said Marjory was very peculiar, but no one had said a word about how lovely she was. Or that she was so friendly. To be fair to the gossipers, Marjory was obviously a tad high-strung. There had been real effort behind her friendliness, as though it were rusty or in disrepair. And Marjory's fingers had begun to hop around like grasshoppers in the folds of her dress when Russell's name had come up. But those two things, on their own, didn't have to mean Marjory Putnam was
peculiar,
only that she was shy and the thought of bombastic Russell Jacobs made her nervous.

As Rose watched from her archway, the Putnams stopped abruptly beside one of the many glass shelves of knickknacks in the Book Store's front room. The two of them stood there, whispering together; or rather Professor Putnam whispered while Marjory lowered her head, wrung her hands, and listened. Professor Putnam then put a hand on his wife's arm in an obvious attempt to get her moving again, but Marjory shook her head like an obstinate child, took a step away from him, and turned back to look at Rose. Her body had gone rigid as a poker, and her face was a blank. She didn't wave, but Rose did wave at her, and in response Marjory lifted her hand and held it in the air. The two stood looking at each other, and Rose felt something protective rear up inside her and attach itself to the other woman. She would have sworn Marjory recognized this, for she nodded once and smiled for a beat of Rose's heart. She then went back to staring. Only it wasn't a simple stare. It was the stare of a blind woman who sees with her entire being, senses things beyond what other people are capable of noticing.

She's been potty for years,
Russell had said, with absolutely no compunction about branding someone Rose had never met as a loony.
You can ask anyone, Rose, my dear. Everyone has Marjory stories to tell. Anyone except for Tom would have fled years ago. But Professor Putnam is our campus Boy Scout, our token nice guy. The only man I know who can act truly selflessly. Although God only knows what the man
feels.
I'm sure he'd like to murder Marjory sometime, just for an hour's freedom from worrying about her.

Marjory remained wooden and still for perhaps ten more beats of Rose's heart, wearing anxious fragility like a sandwich board:
I apologize for everything I do.
Perhaps Marjory Putnam knew exactly how people talked about her and thought it entirely her fault that they did? This thought made Rose want to rear back and punch the next person who told her a story about Marjory—who would probably be Russell Jacobs—in the nose.

Now, finally, Professor Putnam put a hand gently on his wife's arm again, and this time Marjory allowed herself to be turned back. The Putnams were again on the march, and Rose saw with real regret that lovely Marjory was beginning to act more as advertised, leading her husband on an awkward zigzag course through the Book Store that was only vaguely canted toward the front door. She was like a two-year-old, drawn to every colorful knickknack she passed. And still Professor Putnam managed to smile bravely at everyone they passed, as well as smile and nod at whatever his wife was saying, his expression as set and pleasant as a bobbing-head doll's.

Rose stood there in the archway and watched them, watched all the pitying looks that passed among other faculty members and the suppressed student giggles, and found that she'd stopped concentrating on lovely Marjory and begun, instead, to study Professor Putnam. Rose didn't usually admire people who lived obviously muddled lives, but something about this man, about the way he made no effort to distance himself from his wife's noticeably odd behavior, pinged her well-defended heart. Rose, who never hesitated to change or move on if life got complicated, began to wonder if this man might have a kind of remarkable bravery. Might he be one of the rare few who had the courage to accept—without malice—other people exactly as they were, even when this meant he found himself joined for life with Marjory?

Rose folded her arms and sighed. She had never inspired anything like such loyalty from another person—except her mother, Mavis, of course. Nor had she given it. Rose hated the infrequent occasions when the impermanence of her own life left her feeling vaguely distressed instead of gloriously freewheeling. And that was exactly how Professor Putnam's dealings with his damaged wife were making her feel.

Mavis Callahan, who was never without a theory, especially about her only child, said that Rose, who was brave in every other way, had always been a coward when it came to accepting
anything
she didn't have a complete handle on. Mavis said that Rose always kept one foot out the door of wherever she was so as to be ready to move on if things got confusing. Mavis would go on to say that this was not really Rose's fault, it was the way she'd been raised. But, Mavis would add, she herself had finally managed to stick somewhere, and so Rose,
God willing and the crik don't rise
—one of Mavis's all-purpose sayings—probably had enough guts to stick somewhere, someday, as well. Her daughter was no coward, Mavis would always end with a flourish, just challenged in the acceptance department. The way she, Mavis, had been for the first forty-some years of her life. Before she'd come nose-to-nose with her professor and realized she'd better develop some staying power if she didn't want to screw up her last best chance to have a real permanent mailing address.

Her professor
 …

“So you've finally met the redoubtable Putnams, man and wife,” said a voice at Rose's elbow.

Rose turned to find Iris Benson, standing too close as usual. It was, Rose suspected, a way for her to launch any interaction as an offensive. According to Russ, Iris Benson loved all confrontation, great and small.

Rose calmly stepped away from her archway and moved back to a comfortable speaking distance. “Hello, Iris. How are you?”

Iris Benson was dressed in the color of her namesake flower, in purple from head to toe. This, too, was as usual. Iris would never be called pretty by anyone, but Rose found her quite theatrically handsome—which was certainly appropriate since she'd tried for a career as an actress during a decade of regional rep and summer stock before retreating to graduate school. Iris had wild red hair, green eyes, a strong nose, and high cheekbones that were always blushed a bright pink. All these were assembled around, and within, a delicate, heart-shaped face. She was, Rose thought, a valentine delivering a call to battle. Rose liked talking to Iris, but then, as Mavis Callahan's daughter, she would be drawn to anyone with rough edges.
I like talking to someone who's a bit of an adventure,
Rose had heard her mother say often enough from behind whatever bar Mavis was tending.

“How am I?” Iris frowned and looked fiercely at something over Rose's left shoulder. “I'm not sure. But then I don't suppose you really care.” She looked accusingly at Rose.

“I don't really have time to care now,” Rose said, calmly looking back at her and smiling. “I'm hosting an event.”

Was it her imagination or did Iris Benson flush slightly under all that blusher? “I'm sorry,” Iris said unexpectedly. “That was rude. And I have no call to be rude to you. Yet.” With that, she turned around and stalked away.

It was like Iris to attack, unlike her to apologize. Was she all right? Rose wondered. And if she weren't all right, why should she, who'd been here such a short time, be suckered into caring? Surely Iris had real friends who
liked
caring about her? Then again, and here Rose loosed another sigh, perhaps not. Being Iris's friend would be a prickly business.

A student sitting with a group at one of the tables behind her let out a shriek, which was followed by a flood of giggles from the whole group. They would be laughing
at
someone, of course; that was what students
did.
Compassion bloomed late in most people. Rose turned her back on them and allowed herself a quick break from socializing to straighten bookshelves. Books were the main reason Rose worked in bookstores, for no matter how chaotic and strange the worlds in them might be, it would always be a finite chaos, one in which you could safely immerse yourself without getting stuck. It was so different from the low-keyed, never-ending, creeping chaos of real life.

She gave a matched set of Emerson a vigorous push, so it was no longer hanging over the edge of its shelf. The simple truth was now what the simple truth had always been: Reality, with all its attendant complexities—i.e., other people—was inescapable. As Mavis had put it to her sodden customers, “Real life, darling, is the only game in town.”

*   *   *

His mother-in-law, Agnes Tattle, paid Tom a rare visit that night in his office. He'd escaped upstairs right after dinner, announcing he had to make final notes for tomorrow's inaugural meeting of his Shakespeare class. The one thing Tom remained clear about was that he was morally bound to teach as effectively as possible. Just because his home life might be difficult, that did not relieve him of the responsibility to keep things in the classroom fresh and interesting. If
he
wasn't engaged by what he was saying, how could he expect anyone else to be?

Tom had indeed made some notes about the BBC production of
Midsummer Night's Dream
with Helen Mirren as Titania.
(My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass.)
When Agnes arrived, though, he discovered he'd begun doodling roses.

“What the hell is wrong with Marjory?” Agnes demanded in her froggy voice. She'd smoked unfiltered Camels for decades, then quit cold turkey when she'd moved in with them, as her son-in-law was allergic to smoke.

Tom's office was on the third floor of the house in what was really a still-unfinished attic. The rough room he'd fashioned for himself under the eaves was hot as hell in the summer and cold as a deep freeze in the winter. The college would have insulated it fully for him if he'd asked, but he never had. He had no wish to turn it into a comfortable room in which his wife and mother-in-law might want to visit him more regularly. As the years crept by, he was turning more and more into Greta Garbo,
vanting to be alone.
Agnes glared at him from the doorway, dabbing at her damp face with a Kleenex she'd fished out of what she called her “reticule,” a kind of at-home fabric purse she carried with her from room to room. “It's hot as hell up here,” she said crossly. “I don't understand why you don't work on the second floor where it's air-conditioned.”