Wish You Were Here (3 page)

“I can't believe she's let herself go to pot like that,”
Mrs. Murphy whispered to Tucker.
“All those meat tidbits Market feeds her. Girl has no restraint.”

“Doesn't get much exercise either. Not like you.”

Mrs. Murphy accepted the compliment. She had kept her figure just in case the right tom came along. Everyone, including Tucker, thought she was still in love with her first husband, Paddy, but Mrs. Murphy was certain she was over him.
Over
in capital letters. Paddy wore a tuxedo, oozed charm, and resented any accusation of usefulness. Worse, he ran off with a silver Maine coon cat and then had the nerve to come back thinking Mrs. Murphy would be glad to see him after the escapade. Not only was she not glad, she nearly scratched his eye out. Paddy sported a scar over his left eye from the fight.

Harry and Susan ordered huge subs at Crozet Pizza. They stayed inside to eat them, luxuriating in the air conditioning. Mrs. Murphy sat in a chair and Tucker rested under Harry's chair.

Harry bit into her sandwich and half the filling shot out the other end. “Damn.”

“That's the purpose of a submarine sandwich. To make us look foolish.” Susan giggled.

Maude Bly Modena came in at that moment. She started to walk over to takeout, then saw Harry and Susan. She ambled over for a polite exchange. “Use a knife and fork. What'd you do to your hands?”

“I was cleaning stamps.”

“I, for one, don't care if my first class is blurred. Better than having you look like Lady Macbeth.”

“I'll keep it in mind,” Harry replied.

“I'd stay and chew the fat, ladies, but I've got to get back to the shop.”

Maude Bly Modena had moved to Crozet from New York five years ago. She opened a packing store—cartons, plastic peanuts, papers, the works—and the store was a smash. An old railroad lorry sat in the front yard and she would put floral displays and the daily store discounts on the lorry. She knew how to attract customers and she herself was attractive, in her late thirties. At Christmastime there were lines to get into her store. She was a sharp businesswomen and friendly, to boot, which was a necessity in these parts. In time the residents forgave her that unfortunate accent.

Maude waved goodbye as she passed the picture window. Harry and Susan waved in return.

“I keep thinking Maude will find Mr. Right. She's so attractive.”

“Mr. Wrong's more like it.”

“Sour grapes.”

“Am I like that, Susan? I hope not. I mean, I could rattle off the names of bitter divorced women and we'd be here all afternoon. I don't want to join that club.”

Susan patted Harry's hand. “You're too sensitive, as I've said before. You'll cycle through all kinds of emotions. For lack of a better term, sour grapes is one of them. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

Harry squirmed in her seat. “I feel as if there's no coating on my nerve endings.” She settled in her chair. “You're right about Maude. She's got a lot going for her. There ought to be someone out there for her. Someone who would appreciate her—and her business success too.”

Susan's eyes danced. “Maybe she's got a lover.”

“No way. You can't burp in your kitchen but what everyone knows it. No way.” Harry shook her head.

“I wonder.” Susan poured herself more Tab. “Remember Terrance Newton? We all thought we knew Terrance.”

Harry thought about that. “Well, we were teenagers. I mean, if we had been adults, maybe we'd have picked up on something. The vibes.”

“An insurance executive we all know goes home, shoots his wife and himself. My recollection is the adults were shocked. No one picked up on anything. If you can keep up your facade, people accept that. Very few people look beneath the surface.”

Harry sighed. “Maybe everyone's too busy.”

“Or too self-centered.” Susan drummed the table with her fingers. “What I'm getting at is that maybe we don't know one another as well as we think we do. It's a small-town illusion—thinking we know each other.”

Harry quietly played with her sub. “You know me. I think I know you.”

“That's different. We're best friends.” Susan polished off her sandwich and grabbed her brownie. “Imagine being Stafford Sanburne and not being invited to your sister's wedding.”

“That was a leap.”

“Like I said, we're best friends. I don't have to think in sequence around you.” Susan laughed.

“Stafford sent Fair a postcard. ‘Hang in there, buddy.' Come to think of it, that's what Kelly said to me. Hey, you missed it. Kelly Craycroft and Bob Berryman had a fight, fists and all.”

“You wait until now to tell me!”

“So much else has been going on, it slipped my mind. Kelly said it was about a paving bill. Bob thinks he overcharged him.”

“Bob Berryman may not be Mr. Charm but that doesn't sound like him, to fight over a bill.”

“Hey, like I said, maybe we don't really know one another.”

Harry picked tomatoes out of her sandwich. They were the culprits; she was sure the meat, cheese, and pickles would stay inside without those slimy tomatoes. She slapped the bread back together as Mrs. Murphy reached across the plate to hook a piece of roast beef. “Mrs. Murphy, that will do.” Harry used her commanding mother voice. It would work at the Pentagon. Mrs. Murphy withdrew her paw.

“Maybe we should rejoice that Little Marilyn's made a match at last,” Susan said.

“You don't think that Little Marilyn bagged Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton by herself, do you?”

Susan considered this. “She's got her mother's beauty.”

“And is cold as a wedge.”

“No, she isn't. She's quiet and shy.”

“Susan, you've liked her since we were kids and I never could stand Little Marilyn. She's such a momma's baby.”

“You drove your mother wild.”

“I did not.”

“Oh, yeah, how about the time you put your lace underpants over her license plate and she drove around the whole day not knowing why everyone was honking at her and laughing.”

“That.” Harry remembered. She missed her mother terribly. Grace Minor had died unexpectedly of a heart attack four years earlier, and Cliff, her husband, followed within the year. He couldn't make a go of it without Grace and he admitted as much on his deathbed. They were not rich people by any means but they left Harry a lovely clapboard house two miles west of town at the foot of Little Yellow Mountain and they also left a small trust fund, which paid for taxes on the house and pin money. A house without a mortgage is a wonderful inheritance, and Harry and Fair were happy to move from their rented house on Myrtle Street. Of course, when Harry asked Fair to leave, he complained bitterly that he had always hated living in her parents' house.

“Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton is ugly as sin, but he's never going to need food stamps and he's a Richmond lawyer of much repute—at least that's what Ned says.”

“Too much fuss over this marriage. You marry in haste and repent in leisure.”

“Don't be sour.” Susan's eyes shot upward.

“The happiest day of my life was when I married Pharamond Haristeen and the next happiest day of my life was when I threw him out. He's full of shit and he's not going to get any sympathy from me. God, Susan, he's running all over town, the picture of the wounded male. He has dinner every night with a different couple. I heard that Mim Sanburne offered her maid to do his laundry for him. I can't believe it.”

Susan sighed. “He seems to relish being a victim.”

“Well, I sure don't.” Harry practically spat. “The only thing worse than being a veterinarian's wife is being a doctor's wife.”

“That's not why you want to divorce him.”

“No, I guess not. I don't want to talk about this.”

“You started it.”

“Did I?” Harry seemed surprised. “I didn't mean to. . . . I'd like to forget the whole thing. We were talking about Little Marilyn Sanburne.”

“We were. Little Marilyn will be deeply hurt if Stafford doesn't show up, and Mim will die if he does—her event-of-the-year marriage marred by the arrival of her black daughter-in-law. Life would be much simpler if Mim would overcome her plantation mentality.” Susan drummed the table again.

“Yeah, but then she'd have to join the human race. I mean, she's emotionally impotent and wants to extend her affliction universally. If she changed her thinking she might have to feel something, you know? She might have to admit that she was wrong and that she's wounded her children, wounded and scarred them.”

Susan sat silent for a moment, viewing the remnants of the once-huge sub. “Yeah—here, Tucker.”

“Hey, hey, what about me?”
Mrs. Murphy yelled.

“Oh, here, you big baby.” Harry shoved over her plate. She was full.

Mrs. Murphy ate what was left except for the tomatoes. As a kitten, she once ate a tomato and vowed never again.

Harry strolled back to the post office, and the rest of the day ran on course. Market dropped by some knucklebones. Courtney picked up the mail while her dad talked.

After work Harry walked back home. She liked the two-mile walk in the mornings and afternoons. Good exercise for her and the cat and the dog. Once home, she washed her old Superman-blue truck, then weeded her garden. She cleaned out the refrigerator after that and before she knew it, it was time to go to bed.

She read a bit, Mrs. Murphy curled up by her side with Tucker snoring at the end of the bed. She turned out her light, as did the other residents of Crozet ensconced behind their high hedges, blinds, and shutters.

It was the end of another day, peaceful and perfect in its way. Had Harry known what tomorrow would bring, she might have savored the day even more.

2

Mrs. Murphy performed a somersault while chasing a grasshopper. She never could resist wigglies, as she called them. Tucker, uninterested in bugs, cast a keen eye for squirrels foolish enough to scamper down Railroad Avenue. The old tank watch, her father's, on Harry's wrist read 6:30
A
.
M
. and the heat rose off the tracks. It was a real July Virginia day, the kind that compelled weathermen and weatherwomen on television to blare that it would be hot, humid, and hazy with no relief in sight. They then counseled the viewer to drink plenty of liquids. Cut to a commercial for, surprise, a soft drink.

Harry reflected on her childhood. At thirty-three she wasn't that old but then again she wasn't that young. She thought the times had become more ruthlessly commercial. Even funeral directors advertised. Their next gimmick would be a Miss Dead America contest to see who could do the best work on the departed. Something had happened to America within Harry's life span, something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but something she could feel, sharply. There was no contest between God and the golden calf. Money was God, these days. Little pieces of green paper with dead people's pictures on them were worshipped. People no longer killed for love. They killed for money.

How odd to be alive in a time of spiritual famine. She watched the cat and dog playing tag and wondered how her kind had ever drifted so far away from animal existence, that sheer delight in the moment.

Harry did not consider herself a philosophical woman, but lately she had turned her mind to deeper thoughts, not just to the purpose of her own life but to the purpose of human life in general. She wouldn't even tell Susan what zigzagged through her head these days, because it was so disturbing and sad. Sometimes she thought she was mourning her lost youth and that was at the bottom of this. Maybe the upheaval of the divorce forced her inward. Or maybe it really was the times, the cheapness and crass consumerism of American life.

Mrs. George Hogendobber, at least, had values over and above her bank account, but Mrs. Hogendobber vainly clung to a belief system that had lost its power. Right-wing Christianity could compel those frightened and narrow-minded souls who needed absolute answers but it couldn't capture those who needed a vision of the future here on earth. Heaven was all very fine but you had to die to get there. Harry wasn't afraid to die but she wouldn't refuse to live either. She wondered what it must have been like to live when Christianity was new, vital, and exciting—before it had been corrupted by collusion with the state. That meant she would have had to have lived before the second century
A
.
D
., and as enticing as the idea might be, she wasn't sure she could exist without her truck. Did this mean she'd sell her soul for wheels? She knew she wouldn't sell her soul for a buck, but machines, money, and madness were tied together somehow and Harry knew she wasn't wise enough to untangle the Gordian knot of modern life.

She became postmistress in order to hide from that modern life. Majoring in art history at Smith College on a scholarship had left her splendidly unprepared for the future, so she came home upon graduation and worked as an exercise rider in a big stable. When old George Hogendobber died, she applied for the post office job and won it. Odd, that Mrs. Hogendobber had had a good marriage and that Harry was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the opposite sex. She wondered if Mrs. Hogendobber knew something she didn't or if George had simply surrendered all hope of individuality and that was why the marriage had worked. Harry had no regrets about her job, small though it might seem to others, but she did have regrets about her marriage.

“Mom's pensive this morning.”
Mrs. Murphy brushed up against Tucker.
“Divorce stuff, I guess. Humans sure make it hard on themselves.”

Tucker flicked her ears forward and then back.
“Yeah, they seem to worry a lot.”

“I'll say. They worry about things that are years away and may never happen.”

“I think it's because they can't smell. Miss a lot of information.”

Mrs. Murphy nodded in agreement and then added,
“Walking on two legs. Screws up their backs and then it affects their minds. I'm sure that's the source of it.”

“I never thought of that.”
Tucker saw the mail driver.
“Hey, I'll race you to Rob.”

Tucker cheated and tore out before Mrs. Murphy could reply. Furious, Mrs. Murphy shot off her powerful hindquarters and stayed low over the ground.

“Girls, girls, you come back here.”

The girls believed in selective hearing and Tucker made it to the mail truck before Mrs. Murphy, but the little tiger jumped into the vehicle.

“I won!”

“You did not,”
Tucker argued.

“Hello, Mrs. Murphy. Hello, Tucker.” Rob was pleased at the greeting he'd received.

Harry, panting, caught up with the cat and the dog. “Hi, Rob. What you got for me this morning?”

“The usual. Two bags.” He rattled around in the truck. “Here's a package from Turnbull and Asser that Josiah DeWitt has to sign and pay for.” Rob pointed out the sum on the front.

Harry whistled. “One hundred and one dollars duty. Must be a mess of shirts in there. Josiah has to have the best.”

“I was reading somewhere, don't remember where, that the mark-up in the antiques business can be four hundred percent. Guess he can afford those shirts.”

“Try to get him to pay for anything else.” Harry smiled.

BoomBoom Craycroft, Kelly's pampered wife, drove east, heading toward Charlottesville. BoomBoom owned a new BMW convertible with the license plate
BOOMBMW
. She waved and Harry and Rob waved back.

Rob gazed after her. BoomBoom was a pretty woman, dark and sultry. He came back to earth. “Today I'll carry the bags in, miss. You can save women's liberation for tomorrow.”

Harry smiled. “Okay, Rob, butch it up. I love a man with muscles.”

He laughed and hauled both bags over his shoulders as Harry unlocked the door.

After Rob left, Harry sorted the mail in a half hour. Tuesdays were light. She settled herself in the back room and made a cup of good coffee. Tucker and Mrs. Murphy played with the folded duffel bag and by the time Harry emerged from the back room, Mrs. George Hogendobber was standing at the front door and the duffel was moving suspiciously. Harry didn't have the time to pull Mrs. Murphy out. She unlocked the front door and as Mrs. Hogendobber came in, Mrs. Murphy shot out of the bag like a steel ball in a pinball machine.

“Catch me if you can!”
she called to Tucker.

The corgi ran around in circles as Mrs. Murphy jumped on a shelf, then to the counter, ran the length of the counter at top speed, hit the wall with all four feet and shoved off the wall with a half turn, ran the length of the counter, and did the same maneuver in the opposite direction. She then flew off the counter, ran between Mrs. Hogendobber's legs, Tucker in hot pursuit, jumped back on the counter, and then sat still as a statue as she laughed at Tucker.

Mrs. Hogendobber gasped, “That cat's mental!”

Harry, astonished at the display of feline acrobatics, swallowed and replied, “Just one of her fits—you know how they are.”

“I don't like cats myself.” Mrs. H. drew herself up to her full height, which was considerable. She had the girth to match. “Too independent.”

Yes, many people say that, Harry thought to herself, and all of them are fascists. This was a cherished assumption she would neither divulge nor purge.

“I forgot to tell you to watch Diane Bish Sunday night on cable. Such an accomplished organist. Why they even show her feet, and last Sunday she wore silver slippers.”

“I don't have cable.”

“Oh, well, move into town. You shouldn't be out there at Yellow Mountain alone, anyway.” Mrs. Hogendobber whispered, “I hear Mim dumped off the wedding invitations yesterday.”

“Two boxes full.”

“Did she invite Stafford?” This sounded innocent.

“I don't know.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Hogendobber couldn't hide her disappointment.

Josiah came in. “Hello, ladies.” He focused on Mrs. Hogendobber. “I want that bed.” He frowned a mock frown.

Mrs. Hogendobber was not endowed with much humor. “I'm not prepared to sell.”

Fair came in, followed by Susan. Greetings were exchanged. Harry was tense. Mrs. Hogendobber seized the opportunity to slip away from the determined Josiah. Across the street Hayden McIntire, the town physician, parked his car.

Josiah observed him and sighed, “Ah, my child-ridden neighbor.” Hayden had fathered many children.

Fair quietly opened his box and pulled out the mail. He wanted to slip away, and Harry, not using the best judgment, called him back.

“Wait a minute.”

“I've got a call. Cut tendon.” His hand was on the doorknob.

“Dammit, Fair. Where's my check?” Harry blurted out from frustration.

They had signed a settlement agreement whereby Fair was to pay $1,000 a month to Harry until the divorce, when their joint assets would be equally divided. While not a wealthy couple, the two had worked hard during their marriage and the division of spoils would most certainly benefit Harry, who earned far less than Fair. Fortunately, Fair considered the house rightfully Harry's and so that was not contested.

She felt he was jerking her around with the money. Typical Fair. If she didn't do it, it didn't get done. All he could concentrate on was his equine practice.

For Fair's part, he thought Harry was being her usual nagging self. She'd get the goddamned check when he got around to it.

Fair blushed. “Oh, that, well, I'll get it off today.”

“Why not write it now?”

“I've got a call, Harry!”

“You're ten days late, Fair. Do I have to call Ned Tucker? I mean, all that does is cost me lawyer's fees and escalate hostilities.”

“Hey,” he yelled, “calling me out in front of Susan and Josiah is hostile enough!” He slammed the door.

Josiah, transfixed by the domestic drama, could barely wipe the smile off his face. Having avoided the pitfalls of marriage, he thoroughly enjoyed the show couples put on. Josiah never could understand why men and women wanted to marry. Sex he could understand, but marriage? To him it was the ball and chain.

Susan, not transfixed, was deeply sorry about the outburst, because she knew that Josiah would tell Mim and by sunset it would be all over town. The divorce was difficult enough without public displays. She also guessed that Fair, good passive-aggressive personality that he was, was playing “starve the wife.” Husbands and their lawyers loved that game . . . and quite often it worked. The soon-to-be-ex wife would become dragged down by the subtle battering and give up. Emotionally the drain was too much for the women, and they would kiss off what they had earned in the marriage. This was made all the more difficult because men took housework and women's labor for granted. No dollar value was attached to it. When the wife withdrew that labor, men usually didn't perceive its value; instead they felt something had been done to them. The woman was a bitch.

After the sting wore off, Susan knew Fair would immediately set about to find another woman to love, and the by-product of this love would mean that the new wife would do the food shopping, juggle the social calendar, and keep the books. All for love.

Did Susan do this for Ned? In the beginning of the marriage, yes. After five years and two kids she had felt she was losing her mind. She balked. Ned was ripshot mad. Then they got to talking, really talking. She was fortunate. So was he. They found common ground. They learned to do with less so they could hire help. Susan took a part-time job to bring in some money and get out of the house. But Susan and Ned were meant for each other, and Harry and Fair were not. Sex brought them together and left them together for a while, but they weren't really connected emotionally and they certainly weren't connected intellectually. They were two reasonably good people who needed to free themselves to do what came next, and sadly, they weren't going to free themselves without anger, recrimination, and dragging their friends into it.

Susan's thoughts were abruptly short-circuited.

A siren echoed in the background, growing louder until the Crozet Rescue Squad ambulance flashed down the road, effectively ending the Harry versus Fair reverberation. They all ran out in front of the post office.

Harry, without thinking, touched Josiah's arm. “Not old Dr. Johnson.” He had been her childhood physician and was becoming stooped and frail.

“He'll live to be one hundred. Don't worry.” Josiah patted her hand.

The ambulance turned south on the Whitehall Road, also known as Route 240.

Big Marilyn Sanburne's Volvo sped to Shiflett's Market. She stopped and slammed the door of her car.

She thumped over to the group. “I damn near got run off the road by the Rescue Squad. They probably scare to death as many people as they save.”

“Amen,” Josiah agreed. He started to leave.

Harry called him back. “Josiah, you've got to sign and pay for a Turnbull and Asser package.”

“It came.” He beamed and then the glow went into remission. “How much?”

“One hundred and one dollars,” Harry answered.

Josiah bore the blow. “Well, some things one cannot postpone from motives of economy. Consider the people I am compelled to meet.”

“Di and Fergie,” Harry solemnly intoned.

In fact, Josiah was in the vicinity of the Royals whilst in London buying up George III furniture before taking a hovercraft across the channel to acquire more of his beloved Louis XV.

Mim wheeled on Josiah, her constant escort whenever she could dump husband Jim. “Still dining out on that story.”