The Accidental Tourist

“This girl was not but thirteen years old,” Mrs. Dugan said, “when all at once it seemed boys of the very slipperiest character just came crawling out of the woodwork. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since.”

“Well, I don’t know why not,” Muriel told her. “That was years and years ago.”

“Seemed every time we turned around, off she’d gone to the Surf’n’Turf or the Torch Club or the Hi-Times Lounge on Highway Forty.”

“Ma, will you please open up you and Daddy’s Christmas present?”

“Oh, did you bring us a present?”

Muriel rose to fetch it from under the tree, where Claire sat with Alexander. She was helping him set up some little cardboard figures. “This one goes on the green. This one goes on the blue,” she said. Alexander jittered next to her, impatient to take over.

“Claire was the one who picked that game for him,” Mrs. Dugan said, accepting the package Muriel handed her. “I thought it was too advanced, myself.”

“It is not,” Muriel said (although she hadn’t even glanced at it). She returned to Macon’s chair. “Alexander’s just as smart as a tack. He’ll catch on in no time.”

“Nobody said he wasn’t smart, Muriel. You don’t have to take offense at every little thing a person says.”

“Will you just open your present?”

But Mrs. Dugan proceeded at her own pace. She took off the ribbon and laid it in a box on the coffee table. “Your daddy has a bit of cash for your Christmas,” she told Muriel. “Remind him before you go.” She examined the wrapping. “Will you look at that! Teeny little Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeers all over it. Real aluminum foil for their noses. I don’t know why you couldn’t just use tissue like I do.”

“I wanted it to be special,” Muriel told her.

Mrs. Dugan took off the paper, folded it, and laid it aside. Her gift was something in a gilded frame. “Well, isn’t that nice,” she said finally. She turned it toward Macon. It was a picture of Muriel and Alexander — a studio portrait in dreamy pastels, the lighting so even that it seemed to be coming from no particular place at all. Muriel was seated and Alexander stood beside her, one hand resting delicately upon her shoulder. Neither of them smiled. They looked wary and uncertain, and very much alone.

Macon said, “It’s beautiful.”

Mrs. Dugan only grunted and leaned forward to lay the photo beside the box of ribbons.

Dinner was an industrious affair, with everyone working away at the food — goose, cranberry relish, two kinds of potatoes, and three kinds of vegetables. Mr. Dugan remained spookily quiet, although Macon offered him several openers about the basement plumbing. Muriel devoted herself to Alexander. “There’s bread in that stuffing, Alexander. Put it back this instant. You want your allergy to start up? I wouldn’t trust that relish, either.”

“Oh, for Lord’s sake, let him be,” Mrs. Dugan said.

“You wouldn’t say that if it was you he kept awake at night with itchy rashes.”

“Half the time I believe you bring on those rashes yourself with all your talk,” Mrs. Dugan said.

“That just shows how much you know about it.”

Macon had a sudden feeling of dislocation. What would Sarah say if she could see him here? He imagined her amused, ironic expression. Rose and his brothers would just look baffled. Julian would say, “Ha! Accidental Tourist in Timonium.”

Mrs. Dugan brought out three different pies, and Claire scurried around with the coffeepot. Over her jeans now she wore an embroidered dirndl skirt — her gift from Muriel, purchased last week at Value Village. Her layers of clothing reminded Macon of some native costume. “What about the liqueur?” she asked her mother. “Shall I set out Macon’s liqueur?”

“Maybe he wants you to call him Mr. Leary, hon.”

“No, please, Macon’s fine,” he said.

He supposed there’d been a lot of discussion about his age. Oh, no doubt about it: He was too old, he was too tall, he was too dressed up in his suit and tie.

Mrs. Dugan said the liqueur was just about the best thing she’d ever drunk. Macon himself found it similar to the fluoride mixture his dentist coated his teeth with; he’d envisioned something different. Mr. Dugan said, “Well, these sweet-tasting, pretty-colored drinks are all very well for the ladies, but personally I favor a little sipping whiskey, don’t you, Macon?” and he rose and brought back a fifth of Jack Daniel’s and two shot glasses. The mere weight of the bottle in his hand seemed to loosen his tongue. “So!” he said, sitting down. “What you driving these days, Macon?”

“Driving? Oh, um, a Toyota.”

Mr. Dugan frowned. Claire giggled. “Daddy hates and despises foreign cars,” she told Macon.

“What is it, you don’t believe in buying American?” Mr. Dugan asked him.

“Well, as a matter of fact—”

As a matter of fact his wife drove a Ford, he’d been going to say, but he changed his mind. He took the glass that Mr. Dugan held out to him. “I did once have a Rambler,” he said.

“You want to try a Chevy, Macon. Want to come to the show-room sometime and let me show you a Chevy. What’s your preference? Family-size? Compact?”

“Well, compact, I guess, but—”

“I’ll tell you one thing: There is no way on earth you’re going to get me to sell you a subcompact. No sir, you can beg and you can whine, you can get down on bended knee, I won’t sell you one of those deathtraps folks are so set on buying nowadays. I tell my customers, I say, ‘You think I got no principles? You’re looking here before you at a man of principle,’ I tell them, and I say, ‘You want a subcompact you better go to Ed Mackenzie there. He’ll sell you one without a thought. What does he care? But I’m a man of principle.’ Why Muriel here near about lost her life in one of them things.”

“Oh, Daddy, I did not,” Muriel said.

“Came a lot closer than I’d like to get.”

“I walked away without a scratch.”

“Car looked like a little stove-in sardine can.”

“Worst thing I got was a run in my stocking.”

“Muriel was taking a lift from Dr. Kane at the Meow-Bow,” Mr. Dugan told Macon, “one day when her car was out of whack, and some durn fool woman driver swung directly into their path. See, she was hanging a left when —”

“Let me tell it,” Mrs. Dugan said. She leaned toward Macon, gripping the wineglass that held her liqueur. “I was just coming in from the grocery store, carrying these few odds and ends I needed for Claire’s school lunches. That child eats more than some grown men I know. Phone rings. I drop everything and go to answer. Man says, ‘Mrs. Dugan?’ I say, ‘Yes.’ Man says, ‘Mrs. Dugan, this is the Baltimore City Police and I’m calling about your daughter Muriel.’ I think, ‘Oh, my God.’ Right away my heart starts up and I have to find someplace to sit. Still have my coat on, rain scarf tied around my head so I couldn’t even hear all that good but I never thought to take it off, that’s how flustered I was. It was one of those hard rainy days like someone is purposely heaving buckets of water at you. I think, ‘Oh, my God, now what has Muriel gone and—’ ”

“Lillian, you are getting way off the subject here,” Mr. Dugan said.

“How can you say that? I’m telling him about Muriel’s accident.”

“He don’t want to hear every little oh-my-God, he wants to know why he can’t have a subcompact. Lady hangs a left smack in front of Dr. Kane’s little car,” Mr. Dugan told Macon, “and he has no choice but to ram her. He had the right of way. Want to know what happened? His little car is totaled. Little bitty Pinto. Lady’s big old Chrysler barely dents its fender. Now tell me you still want a subcompact.”

“But I didn’t—”

“And the other thing is that Dr. Kane never, ever offered her another ride home, even after he got a new car,” Mrs. Dugan said.

“Well, I don’t exactly live in his neighborhood, Ma.”

“He’s a bachelor,” Mrs. Dugan told Macon. “Have you met him? Real good-looking, Muriel says. First day on the job she says, ‘Guess what, Ma.’ Calls me on the phone. ‘Guess what, my boss is single and he’s real good- looking, a professional man, the other girls tell me he isn’t even engaged.’ Then he offers her that one lift home and