The Accidental Tourist

“A little while before supper.”

“Supper. You mean today.”

“He’s just running an errand,” Macon said. “Not lost in any permanent sense.”

“Where was the store?”

“Someplace on Howard Street,” Charles said. “Rose needed hinges.”

“He got lost on Howard Street.”

Macon stood up. “I’ll go help Rose,” he said.

Rose was setting their grandmother’s clear glass coffee mugs on a silver tray. “I hope he doesn’t take sugar,” she said. “The sugar-bowl is empty and Edward’s in the pantry where I keep the bag.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Maybe you could go to the pantry and get it for me.”

“Oh, just give him his coffee straight and tell him to take it or leave it.”

“Why, Macon! This is your employer!”

“He’s only here because he hopes we’ll do something eccentric,” Macon told her. “He has this one-sided notion of us. I just pray none of us says anything unconventional around him, are you listening?”

“What would we say?” Rose asked. “We’re the most conventional people I know.”

This was perfectly true, and yet in some odd way it wasn’t. Macon couldn’t explain it. He sighed and followed her out of the kitchen.

In the living room, Charles was doggedly debating whether they should answer the phone in case it rang, in case it might be Porter, in case he needed them to consult a map. “Chances are, though, he wouldn’t bother calling,” he decided, “because he knows we wouldn’t answer. Or he thinks we wouldn’t answer. Or I don’t know, maybe he figures we would answer even so, because we’re worried.”

“Do you always give this much thought to your phone calls?” Julian asked.

Macon said, “Have some coffee, Julian. Try it black.”

“Why, thank you,” Julian said. He accepted a mug and studied the inscription that arched across it. “CENTURY OF PROGRESS 1933,” he read off. He grinned and raised the mug in a toast. “To progress,” he said.

“Progress,” Rose and Charles echoed. Macon scowled.

Julian said, “What do you do for a living, Charles?”

“I make bottle caps.”

“Bottle caps! Is that a fact!”

“Oh, well, it’s no big thing,” Charles said. “I mean it’s not half as exciting as it sounds, really.”

“And Rose? Do you work?”

“Yes, I do,” Rose said, in the brave, forthright style of someone being interviewed. “I work at home; I keep house for the boys. Also I take care of a lot of the neighbors. They’re mostly old and they need me to read their prescriptions and repair their plumbing and such.”

“You repair their plumbing?” Julian asked.

The telephone rang. The others stiffened.

“What do you think?” Rose asked Macon.

“Um…”

“But he knows we wouldn’t answer,” Charles told them.

“Yes, he’d surely call a neighbor instead.”

“On the other hand…” Charles said.

“On the other hand,” Macon said.

It was Julian’s face that decided him — Julian’s pleased, perked expression. Macon reached over to the end table and picked up the receiver. “Leary,” he said.

“Macon?”

It was Sarah.

Macon shot a glance at the others and turned his back to them. “Yes,” he said.

“Well, finally,” she said. Her voice seemed oddly flat and concrete. All at once he saw her clearly: She wore one of his cast-off shirts and she sat hugging her bare knees. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you at home,” she said. “Then it occurred to me you might be having supper with your family.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

He was nearly whispering. Maybe Rose understood, from that, who it was, for she suddenly began an animated conversation with the others. Sarah said, “What? I can’t hear you.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Who’s that talking?”

“Julian’s here.”

“Oh, Julian! Give him my love. How’s Sukie?”

“Sukie?”

“His boat, Macon.”

“It’s fine,” he said. Or should he have said “she”? For all he knew, Sukie was at the bottom of the Chesapeake.

“I called because I thought we should talk,” Sarah said. “I was hoping we could meet for supper some night.”

“Oh. Well. Yes, we could do that,” Macon said.

“Would tomorrow be all right?”

“Certainly.”

“What restaurant?”

“Well, why not the Old Bay,” Macon said.

“The Old Bay. Of course,” Sarah said. She either sighed or laughed, he wasn’t sure which.

“It’s only because you could walk there,” he told her. “That’s the only reason I suggested it.”

“Yes, well, let’s see. You like to eat early; shall we say six o’clock?”

“Six will be fine,” he said.

When he hung up, he found Rose embarked on a discussion of the English language. She pretended not to notice he had rejoined them. It was shocking, she was saying, how sloppy everyday speech had become. How the world seemed bound and determined to say “the hoi polloi,” a clear redundancy in view of the fact that “hoi” was an article. How “chauvinist” had come to be a shorthand term for “male chauvinist,” its original meaning sadly lost to common knowledge. It was incredible, Charles chimed in, that a female movie star traveled “incognito” when any fool should know she was “incognita” instead. Julian appeared to share their indignation. It was more incredible still, he said, how everyone slung around the word “incredible” when really there was very little on earth that truly defied credibility. “Credence,” Macon corrected him, but Rose rushed in as if Macon hadn’t spoken. “Oh, I know just what you mean,” she told Julian. “Words are getting devalued, isn’t that right?” She tugged handfuls of her gray tube skirt over her knees in a childlike gesture. You would think she had never been warned that outsiders were not to be trusted.

To enter the Old Bay Restaurant, Macon had to climb a set of steps. Before he broke his leg he hadn’t even noticed those steps existed — let alone that they were made of smooth, unblemished marble, so that his crutches kept threatening to slide out from under him. Then he had to fight the heavy front door, hurrying a bit because Rose had taken a wrong turn driving him down and it was already five after six.

The foyer was dark as night. The dining room beyond was only slightly brighter, lit by netted candles on the tables. Macon peered into the gloom. “I’m meeting someone,” he told the hostess. “Is she here yet?”

“Not as I know of, hon.”

She led him past a tankful of sluggish lobsters, past two old ladies in churchy hats sipping pale pink drinks, past a whole field of empty tables. It was too early for anyone else to be eating; all the other customers were still in the bar. The tables stood very close together, their linens brushing the floor, and Macon had visions of catching a crutch on a tablecloth and dragging the whole thing after him, candle included. The maroon floral carpet would burst into flames. His grandfather’s favorite restaurant — his greatgrandfather’s too, quite possibly — would be reduced to a heap of charred metal crab pots. “Miss! Slow down!” he called, but the hostess strode on, muscular