Muriel was wearing what she called her “paratrooper look” — a coverall from Sunny’s Surplus — and her hair was concealed beneath a wildly patterned silk turban. A ballpoint pen mark slashed across one cheekbone. “We’re entering this contest,” she told Julian. “Write a country-music song and win a trip for two to Nashville. We’re working on it all together. We’re going to call it ‘Happier Days.’ ”
“Hasn’t that already been written?”
“Oh, I hope not. You know how they always have these photographs of couples in magazines? ‘Mick Jagger and Bianca in happier days.’ ‘Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, in—’ ”
“Yes, I get it.”
“So this man is talking about his ex-wife. ‘I knew her in another time and place…’ ”
She sang it right out, in her thin scratchy voice that gave a sense of distance, like a used-up phonograph record:
“Very catchy,” Julian said, “but I don’t know about ‘shared every pain.’ ”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I mean, in happier days they had pain?”
“He’s right,” Bernice told Muriel.
“Rain, brain, drain,” Julian reflected. “ ‘When our lives were more sane,’ ‘When we used to raise Cain…’ ”
“Let it be, why don’t you,” Macon told him.
“ ‘When I hadn’t met Jane,’ ‘When she didn’t know Wayne…’ ”
“Wait!” Bernice said, scribbling furiously.
“I may have tapped some hidden talent here,” Julian told Macon.
“I’ll see you to the door,” Macon said.
“ ‘When our love had no stain,’ ‘When she wasn’t insane…’ ” Julian said, trailing Macon through the living room. “Don’t forget the wedding!” he called back. He told Macon, “If she wins, you could cover Nashville free for your next U.S. edition.”
“I think she’s planning on taking Bernice,” Macon told him.
“ ‘When we guzzled champagne…’ ” Julian mused.
“I’ll be in touch,” Macon said, “as soon as I start on the Canada guide.”
“Canada! Aren’t you coming to the wedding?”
“Well, that too, of course,” Macon said, opening the door.
“Wait a minute, Macon. What’s your hurry? Wait, I want to show you something.”
Julian set down the West Coast material to search his pockets. He pulled out a shiny, colored advertisement. “Hawaii,” he said.
“Well, I certainly see no point in covering—”
“Not for you; for me! For our honeymoon. I’m taking Rose.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Look,” Julian said. He unfolded the ad. It turned out to be a map — one of those useless maps that Macon detested, with out-sized, whimsical drawings of pineapples, palm trees, and hula dancers crowding the apple-green islands. “I got this from The Travel People Incorporated. Have you heard of them? Are they reliable? They suggested a hotel over here on…” He drew a forefinger across the page, hunting down the hotel.
“I know nothing at all about Hawaii,” Macon said.
“Somewhere here…” Julian said. Then he gave up, perhaps just at that moment hearing what Macon had told him, and refolded the map. “She may be exactly what you need,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“This Muriel person.”
“Why does everyone call her—”
“She’s not so bad! I don’t think your family understands how you’re feeling.”
“No, they don’t. They really don’t,” Macon said. He was surprised that it was Julian, of all people, who saw that.
Although Julian’s parting words were, “ ‘When we stuffed on chow mein…’ ”
Macon shut the door firmly behind him.
He decided to buy Alexander some different clothes. “How would you like some blue jeans?” he asked. “How would you like some work shirts? How would you like a cowboy belt with ‘Budweiser Beer’ on the buckle?”
“You serious?”
“Would you wear that kind of thing?”
“Yes! I would! I promise!”
“Then let’s go shopping.”
“Is Mama coming?”
“We’ll surprise her.”
Alexander put on his spring jacket — a navy polyester blazer that Muriel had just paid a small fortune for. Macon didn’t know if she would approve of jeans, which was why he’d waited till she was off buying curtains for a woman in Guilford.
The store he drove to was a Western-wear place where he used to take Ethan. It hadn’t changed a bit. Its wooden floorboards creaked, its aisles smelled of leather and new denim. He steered Alexander to the boys’ department, where he spun a rack of shirts. How many times had he done this before? It wasn’t even painful. Only disorienting, in a way, to see that everything continued no matter what. The student jeans were still stacked according to waist and inseam. The horsey tie pins were still arrayed behind glass. Ethan was dead and gone but Macon was still holding up shirts and asking, “This one? This one? This one?”
“What I’d really like is T-shirts,” Alexander said.
“T-shirts. Ah.”
“The kind with a sort of stretched-out neck. And jeans with raggedy bottoms.”
“Well, that you have to do for yourself,” Macon said. “You have to break them in.”
“I don’t want to look new.”
“Tell you what. Everything we buy, we’ll wash about twenty times before you wear it.”
“But nothing
“No, no.”
“Only nerds wear prewashed.”
“Right.”
Alexander chose several T-shirts, purposely too big, along with an assortment of jeans because he wasn’t sure of his size. Then he went off to try everything on. “Shall I come with you?” Macon asked.
“I can do it myself.”
“Oh. All right.”
That was familiar, too.
Alexander disappeared into one of the stalls and Macon went on a tour of the men’s department. He tried on a leather cowboy hat but took it off immediately. Then he went back to the stall. “Alexander?”
“Huh?”
“How’s it going?”
“Okay.”
In the space below the door, Macon saw Alexander’s shoes and his trouser cuffs. Evidently he hadn’t got
