research. You know who does seem like ideal wife material?” He pointed toward me.
“You’re ridiculous,” I said.
“How is it that a woman as—as
as you hasn’t been snapped up by now?”
“Maybe I don’t want to be snapped up,” I said. “Did that occur to you?” Needless to say, I wanted it very much: I wanted to get married and sleep in a bed with a man at night, I wanted to hold his hand while walking downtown, to prepare the meals for him that were too much trouble for one person—roast beef, and lasagna. I wanted children, and I knew I would be a good mother, not perfect but good, and I’d already decided I wouldn’t let my daughters have hair longer than chin-length because I’d seen in my students how it made them vain, the maintenance of one’s locks as a family project. Still, despite all this, it felt gratifying to lie to Charlie Blackwell.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those feminists,” he said. “You couldn’t be, because you’re too pretty.”
I stared at him. “That’s not even worth dignifying, and frankly, I’m not sure why my romantic status is your business.”
“Oh, it’s most definitely my business. It’s my business because I’m bewitched by you.”
Part of the reason he was frustrating was that his comments were so close to what I wanted to hear from a man, but I wanted them to be real. I yearned for genuine emotion, not this banter and jest.
When we arrived in front of the house where I lived, Charlie said, “I think you ought to invite me in for a cup of coffee. There’s a rumor that I’m drunk.”
I shook my head in exasperation and let him follow me into the small entry hall and up the carpeted stairs to the second floor. He stood behind me as I unlocked the door to my apartment. In the kitchen, I went to turn on the coffeemaker when he said, “You got any beer? Because if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer it.”
I pulled two cans of Pabst from the refrigerator and passed him one. When we’d pulled the tabs off, he tipped his can toward mine. “To Alice,” he said. “A woman of beauty, virtue, and outstanding taste in alcohol.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re relentless?” I asked, and then I watched in horror as he walked out of the kitchen, down the hall, and toward the bedroom where I worked on my book characters.
“Please don’t go in—” I started to say, but he was well ahead of me and obviously not listening. Besides, the door to the room was open. When I caught up with him, he was standing in the room’s center, turning to look at the papier-mache figures one by one.
“They’re for the library where I work,” I said, and my voice was loud in the silence. I couldn’t imagine how he’d react to the characters or even how I wanted him to. He was not, I reminded myself, the intended audience. He was quiet for a full minute, and then, in a completely serious tone, he said, “These are amazing.”
I swallowed.
“I recognize Ferdinand.” He pointed to the bull with flowers woven around his horns. “And that’s Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Anne.”
“They’re not exactly to scale,” I said.
“I was madly in love with Mary Anne.” He grinned. “I just knew they’d be able to dig that cellar in one day. Oh, and Eloise—I always thought she was a pain in the ass.”
“Girls like her more than boys.”
“Who’s that?” He motioned with his chin toward the corner of the room, where bright green leaves—I’d cut them from a bolt of lurid silk fabric—hung atop a brown trunk.
“
” I said. “It’s a book published when we were in high school, assuming—Well, how old are you?”
“Thirty-one,” he said. “Class of 1964.”
“Me, too. That’s the year
came out. It’s my favorite book. I’ve probably read it seventy times, and the end still always makes me cry.” Just describing the book, I could hear my voice thickening with emotion, and I felt embarrassed.
“Why would you want to cry seventy times?” Charlie said, but his tone was sweet, not mocking. He gestured to his right. “Who’s the Chinaman?”
“That’s Tikki Tikki Tembo. He’s a boy who falls down a well, and everyone who tries to get help for him has to repeat his name, which is really long. Tikki Tikki Tembo is actually the short version. His whole name is—Trust me, it’s long.”
“Now you have to say it.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
I took a breath. I rarely talked about my job when I was out on dates—though this was not, of course, a date. “Tikki Tikki Tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo,” I said, and when I finished, we were smiling at each other.
“One more time,” he said. I complied, and he said, “That’s most impressive.”
I bowed.
