The Accidental Tourist

“Well, you’ve been under a strain, you two,” Julian said. “Shoot, with what happened and all. She’ll be back, once she’s gotten over it. Or not gotten over it of course but, you know…”

“Maybe so,” Macon said. He felt embarrassed for Julian, who kept jiggling one Docksider. He said, “What did you think of those first two chapters?”

Julian opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by the dog. Edward had flown to the hall and was barking furiously. There was a clang that Macon recognized as the sound of the front door swinging open and hitting the radiator. “Hush, now,” he heard Rose tell Edward. She crossed the hall and looked into the living room.

Julian got to his feet. Macon said, “Julian Edge, this is my sister Rose. And this,” he said as Charles arrived behind her, “is my brother Charles.”

Neither Rose nor Charles could shake hands; they were carrying the groceries. They stood in the center of the room, hugging brown paper bags, while Julian went into what Macon thought of as his Macon Leary act. “Macon Leary with a sister! And a brother, too. Who’d have guessed it? That Macon Leary had a family just never entered my mind, somehow.”

Rose gave him a polite, puzzled smile. She wasn’t looking her best. She wore a long black coat that drew all the color from her face. And Charles, rumpled and out of breath, was having trouble with one of his bags. He kept trying to get a better grip on it. “Here, let me help you,” Julian said. He took the bag and then peered into it. Macon was afraid he’d go off on some tangent about Macon Leary’s groceries, but he didn’t. He told Rose, “Yes, I do see a family resemblance.”

“You’re Macon’s publisher,” Rose said. “I remember from the address label.”

“Address label?”

“I’m the one who mailed you Macon’s chapters.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’m supposed to send you some more, but first I have to buy nine-by-twelve envelopes. All we’ve got left is ten-by-thirteen. It’s terrible when things don’t fit precisely. They get all out of alignment.”

“Ah,” Julian said. He looked at her for a moment.

Macon said, “We wouldn’t want to keep you, Rose.”

“Oh! No,” she said. She smiled at Julian, hoisted her groceries higher, and left the room. Charles retrieved his bag from Julian and slogged after her.

“The Macon Leary Nine-by-Twelve Envelope Crisis,” Julian said, sitting back down.

Macon said, “Oh, Julian, drop it.”

“Sorry,” Julian said, sounding surprised.

There was a pause. Then Julian said, “Really I had no idea, Macon, I mean, if you’d let me know what was going on in your life…”

He was jiggling a Docksider again. He always seemed uneasy when he couldn’t do his Macon Leary act. After Ethan died he’d avoided Macon for weeks; he’d sent a tree-sized bouquet to the house but never again mentioned Ethan’s name.

“Look,” he said now. “If you want another, I don’t know, another month—”

Macon said, “Oh, nonsense, what’s a missing wife or two, right? Ha, ha! Here, let me get what I’ve typed and you can check it.”

“Well, if you say so,” Julian said.

“After this there’s only the conclusion,” Macon said. He was calling over his shoulder as he made his way to the dining room, where his latest chapter lay stacked on the buffet. “The conclusion’s nothing, a cinch. I’ll crib from the old one, mostly.”

He returned with the manuscript and handed it to Julian. Then he sat on the couch again, and Julian started reading. Meanwhile, Macon heard Porter come in the back way, where he was greeted by explosive barks from Edward. “Monster,” Porter said. “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?” The phone rang over and over, unanswered. Julian looked at Macon and raised his eyebrows but made no comment.

Macon and Julian had met some dozen years ago, when Macon was still at the bottle-cap factory. He’d been casting about for other occupations at the time. He’d begun to believe he might like to work on a newspaper. But he’d had no training, not a single journalism course. So he started the only way he could think of: He contributed a freelance article to a neighborhood weekly. His subject was a crafts fair over in Washington. Getting there is difficult, he wrote, because the freeway is so blank you start feeling all lost and sad. And once you’ve arrived, it’s worse. The streets are not like ours and don’t even run at right angles. He went on to evaluate some food he’d sampled at an outdoor booth, but found it contained a spice he wasn’t used to, something sort of cold and yellow I would almost describe as foreign, and settled instead for a hot dog from a vendor across the street who wasn’t even part of the fair. The hot dog I can recommend, he wrote, though it made me a little regretful because Sarah, my wife, uses the same kind of chili sauce and I thought of home the minute I smelled it. He also recommended the patchwork quilts, one of which had a starburst pattern like the quilt in his grandmother’s room. He suggested that his readers leave the fair no later than three thirty, since you’ll be driving into Baltimore right past Lexington Market and will want to pick up your crabs before it closes.

His article was published beneath a headline reading CRAFTS FAIR DELIGHTS, INSTRUCTS. There was a subhead under that. Or, it read, I Feel So Broke-Up, I Want to Go Home. Until he saw the subhead, Macon hadn’t realized what tone he’d given his piece. Then he felt silly.

But Julian Edge thought it was perfect. Julian phoned him. “You the fellow who wrote that hot dog thing in the Watchbird?”

“Well, yes.”

“Ha!”

“Well, I don’t see what’s so funny,” Macon said stiffly.

“Who said it was funny? It’s perfect. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

They met at the Old Bay Restaurant, where Macon’s grandparents used to take the four children on their birthdays. “I can personally guarantee the crab soup,” Macon said. “They haven’t done a thing to it since I was nine.” Julian said, “Ha!” again and rocked back in his chair. He was wearing a polo shirt and white duck trousers, and his nose was a bright shade of pink. It was summer, or maybe spring. At any rate, his boat was in the water.

“Now, here’s my plan,” he said over the soup. “I own this little company called the Businessman’s Press. Well, little: I say little. Actually we sell coast to coast. Nothing fancy, but useful, you know? Appointment pads, expense account booklets, compound interest charts, currency conversion wheels. And now I want to put out a guidebook for commercial travelers. Just the U.S., to begin with; maybe other countries later. We’d call it something catchy, I don’t know: Reluctant Tourist… And you’re the fellow to write it.”

“Me?”

“I knew the minute I read your hot dog piece.”

“But I hate to travel.”

“I kind of guessed that,” Julian said. “So do businessmen. I mean, these folks are not running around the country for the hell of it, Macon. They’d rather be home in their living rooms. So you’ll be helping them pretend that’s where they are.”

Then he pulled a square of paper from his breast pocket and said, “What do you think?”

It was a steel engraving of an overstuffed chair. Attached to the chair’s back were giant, feathered wings such as you would see on seraphim in antique Bibles. Macon blinked.

“Your logo,” Julian explained. “Get it?”

“Um…”

“While armchair travelers dream of going places,” Julian said, “traveling armchairs dream of staying put. I thought we’d use this on the cover.”

“Ah!” Macon said brightly. Then he said, “But would I actually have to travel myself?”

“Well, yes.”

“Oh.”

“But just briefly. I’m not looking for anything encyclopedic, I’m looking for the opposite of encyclopedic. And