“Look for the steeple, remember.”
She nodded and drove away.
Macon swung up three granite steps to the brick mansion that housed the Businessman’s Press. The door was made of polished, golden wood. The floor inside was tiled with tiny black and white hexagons, just uneven enough to give purchase to Macon’s crutches.
This wasn’t an ordinary office. The secretary typed in a back room while Julian, who couldn’t stand being alone, sat out front. He was talking on a red telephone, lounging behind a desk that was laden with a clutter of advertisements, pamphlets, unpaid bills, unanswered letters, empty Chinese carryout cartons, and Perrier bottles. The walls were covered with sailing charts. The bookshelves held few books but a great many antique brass mariners’ instruments that probably didn’t even work anymore. Anybody with eyes could see that Julian’s heart was not in the Businessman’s Press but out on the Chesapeake Bay someplace. This was to Macon’s advantage, he figured. Surely no one else would have continued backing his series, with its staggering expenses and its constant need for updating.
“Rita’s bringing croissants,” Julian said into the phone. “Joe is making his quiche.” Then he caught sight of Macon. “Macon!” he said. “Stefanie, I’ll get back to you.” He hung up. “How’s the leg? Here, have a seat.”
He dumped a stack of yachting magazines off a chair. Macon sat down and handed over his folder. “Here’s the rest of the material on England,” he said.
“Well, finally!”
“This edition as I see it is going to run about ten or twelve pages longer than the last one,” Macon said. “It’s adding the business
“I’ll talk it over with Marvin,” Julian said, flipping through the manuscript.
Macon sighed. Julian spent money like water but Marvin was more cautious.
“So now you’re on the U.S. again,” Julian said.
“Well, if you say so.”
“I hope it’s not going to take you long.”
“I can only go so fast,” Macon said. “The U.S. has more cities.”
“Yes, I realize that. In fact I might print this edition in sections: northeast, mid-Atlantic, and so forth; I don’t know…” But then he changed the subject. (He had a rather skittery mind.) “Did I tell you my new idea? Doctor friend of mine is looking into it:
“Oh, not a Merck Manual away from home!” Macon said. “Every hangnail could be cancer, when you’re reading a Merck Manual.”
“Well, I’ll make a note of that,” Julian said (without so much as lifting a pencil). “Aren’t you going to ask me to autograph your cast? It’s so white.”
“I like it white,” Macon said. “I polish it with shoe polish.”
“I didn’t realize you could do that.”
“I use the liquid kind. It’s the brand with a nurse’s face on the label, if you ever need to know.”
Macon could tell he was about to start his Macon Leary act. He got hastily to his feet and said, “Well, I guess I’ll be going.”
“So soon? Why don’t we have a drink?”
“No, thanks, I can’t. My sister’s picking me up as soon as she gets done with her errand.”
“Ah,” Julian said. “What kind of errand?”
Macon looked at him suspiciously.
“Well? Dry cleaner’s? Shoe repair?”
“Just an ordinary errand, Julian. Nothing special.”
“Hardware store? Pharmacy?”
“No.”
“So what is it?”
“Uh… she had to buy Furniture Food.”
Julian’s chair rocked so far back, Macon thought he was going to tip over. He wished he would, in fact. “Macon, do me a favor,” Julian said. “Couldn’t you just once invite me to a family dinner?”
“We’re really not much for socializing,” Macon told him.
“It wouldn’t have to be fancy. Just whatever you eat normally. What
“Edward.”
“Edward. Ha! And I’ll come spend the evening.”
“Oh, well,” Macon said vaguely. He arranged himself on his crutches.
“Why don’t I step outside and wait with you.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Macon said.
He couldn’t bear for Julian to see his sister’s little basin hat.
He pegged out to the curb and stood there, gazing in the direction Rose should be coming from. He supposed she was lost again. The cold was already creeping through the stretched-out sock he wore over his cast.
The trouble was, he decided, Julian had never had anything happen to him. His ruddy, cheerful face was unscarred by anything but sunburn; his only interest was a ridiculously inefficient form of transportation. His brief marriage had ended amicably. He had no children. Macon didn’t want to sound prejudiced, but he couldn’t help feeling that people who had no children had never truly grown up. They weren’t entirely… real, he felt.
Unexpectedly, he pictured Muriel after the Doberman had knocked her off the porch. Her arm hung lifeless; he knew the leaden look a broken limb takes on. But Muriel ignored it; she didn’t even glance at it. Smudged and disheveled and battered, she held her other hand up. “Absolutely not,” she said.
She arrived the next morning with a gauzy bouffant scarf swelling over her hair, her hands thrust deep in her coat pockets. Edward danced around her. She pointed to his rump. He sat, and she bent to pick up his leash.
“How’s your little boy?” Macon asked her.
She looked over at him. “What?” she said.
“Wasn’t he sick?”
“Who told you that?”
“Someone at the vet’s, when I phoned.”
She went on looking at him.
“What was it? The flu?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, probably,” she said after a moment. “Some little stomach thing.”
“It’s that time of year, I guess.”
“How come you phoned?” she asked him.
“I wanted to know why Edward wouldn’t lie down.”
She turned her gaze toward Edward. She wound the leash around her hand and considered him.
“I tap my foot but he never obeys me,” Macon said. “Something’s wrong.”
“I told you he’d be stubborn about it.”
“Yes, but I’ve been practicing two days now and he’s not making any—”
“What do you expect? You think I’m magical or something? Why blame me?”
“Oh, I’m not blaming—”
“You most certainly are. You tell me something’s wrong, you call me on the phone—”
“I just wanted to—”
“You think it’s weird I didn’t mention Alexander, don’t you?”
“Alexander?”
“You think I’m some kind of unnatural mother.”
“What? No, wait a minute—”
