The New Yorker Stories

“Yes,” the doctor said. Again, she seemed surprised.

Nelson had been the one who speculated that Dr. Anna McCambry might be the wife of Brian McCambry. Dale, herself, had read only a few pieces by McCambry, though Nelson—as she told the doctor—had read her many others.

“I’ll pass on the compliment,” the doctor said. “Now back to the real world.”

What a strange way to announce the transition, Dale had thought, though her symptoms sometimes were the real world for her, crowding out any other concerns. What was more real than telescoping vision, things blurring and swarming you, so that you had no depth perception, no ability to stand? The doctor talked to her about alterations in her diet. Prescribed diuretics. Said so many things so fast that Dale had to call the nurse later that afternoon, to be reminded what several of them had been. The doctor had overheard the call. “Bring your husband and come for drinks and I’ll go over this with you while they talk,” the doctor had said. “ ‘Drinks’ in your case means seltzer.”

“Thanks,” Dale said. No doctor had ever asked to see her out of the office.

She opened the Fume Blanc but left the bottle of Saint-Emilion corked. How did she know? Maybe Jerome would decide to go directly to the white French burgundy. What hadn’t seemed fussy and precious before did now, a little: people and their wine preferences. Still, she indulged the vegetarians in their restrictions, knew better than to prepare veal for anyone, unless she was sure it wouldn’t result in a tirade. Her friend Andy liked still water, her photography student Nance preferred Perrier. Dale’s mind was full of people’s preferences and quirks, their mystical beliefs and food taboos, their ways of demonstrating their independence and their dependency at table. The little tests: would there happen to be sea salt? Was there a way to adjust the pepper grinder to grind a little more coarsely? A call for chutney. That one had really put her over the top. There was Stonewall Kitchen Roasted Onion and Garlic Jam already on the table. She had sent Nelson for the chutney, since Paul was more his friend than hers.

She went into the downstairs bathroom and brushed her hair, gathering it back in a ponytail. She took off the white shirt and changed back into her cashmere sweater, giving it a tug she knew she shouldn’t give it to make sure it fell just right. She looked at her boots and wished it was still summer; she’d be more comfortable barefoot, but it wasn’t summer, and her feet would freeze. She remembered that Julia Roberts had been barefoot when she married Lyle Lovett. Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett: not as strange as Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley.

Brenda came in first, shaking her thick mane of prematurely white hair. She was full of enthusiasm about the trip to the Wedding Cake House. It was amazing, beautiful, somehow sort of weird—a little creepy, some woman living inside her wedding cake like the old woman who lived in a shoe. Then Brenda began apologizing: she had insisted they drive down the longest dirt road in history, to get a basket of apples. Nelson put the basket down on the kitchen island, which Dale would soon need every inch of to do the final dinner preparations. She could no longer eat apples, or anything excessively sweet. She was sick of explaining to people what she couldn’t eat, and why. In fact, she had started to say she was diabetic, since everyone seemed to know that that meant you couldn’t eat sugar. There was also the possibility that the apples might be Brenda and Jerome’s, to take back to New York, so she said, “Nice,” rather than “Thank you.”

The real owners of the house obviously must have loved to cook. The kitchen was well laid out, with the exception of the dishwasher being to the left of the sink. Dale had become so adept at using her left hand to load the dishwasher that she thought it might be amusing to be both diabetic and left-handed. By the time she left the house, she might be an entirely different person.

“It’s great to see you. Did you get my note? You didn’t go to a lot of trouble, did you?” Jerome said, squeezing Dale, then letting go.

Brenda was still in a dither. “We didn’t mess you up, did we?” she said.

“Not at all,” Dale said.

“I shouldn’t ask, but I’ve been cooped up in the plane, and then in the car. Would there be time to take a walk? A quick walk?”

“Sure,” Dale said. She had just put the roast in the oven to bake. There was plenty of time.

“Would you mind if Nelson and I take a look at that wiring problem? I’m much better when there’s natural light,” Jerome said.

“Oh, he’s on his kick again about how he can’t see or hear!” Brenda said. She added, as if they didn’t know, “He’s sixty-four.”

“What wiring problem?” Dale said. She wanted to be barefoot. She wanted to be Julia Roberts, with a big, dazzling smile. Instead, she could feel the skin between her eyebrows tightening. Wiring problem? The way Brenda talked got into her brain; in her presence, she started thinking in concerned italics.

“I was trying to hook up speakers in the upstairs hallway. I can get one of them going but not the other. Might be a bad speaker,” Nelson said.

Nelson had spent a good portion of his book advance on new sound equipment. His compromise with Dale was: when guests arrived, there would be no music. So far, the day had consisted of bluegrass, Dylan’s first electric album, Japanese ceremonial music, an hour or so of La Boheme, and Astor Piazzolla. Dale had listened to the weather report and one cut from a Lou Reed CD that she imagined might be Jerome’s theme song. She was fond of Jerome, but he did think he was God’s gift to women.

“You’ll come on a walk with me, won’t you?” Brenda said. She was wearing shoes that would have been inappropriate for a walk, if she hadn’t been Brenda: brown pointy-toed boots with three-inch heels. This year’s hip look, while Dale’s had become the generic. Brenda had shrink-wrapped herself into a black leather skirt, worn over patterned pantyhose. On top was a sweater with a stretched-out turtleneck that Dale thought must be one of Jerome’s. He had kept his collection of French handknit sweaters for twenty-some years.

“Just down the road?” Dale said, gesturing to the dirt road that went past the collapsed greenhouse behind the garage. She liked the road. You could usually see deer this time of the evening. Also, because of the way the road dipped, it seemed like you were walking right into the sky, which had now turned Hudson River School radiant. Dale’s friend Janet Lebow was the only year-rounder at the end of the road. When the nasty summer people left, taking their Dobermans and their shiny four-wheel drives with them, Janet was happy not only to let Dale walk the No Trespassing/Danger/Posted/Keep Out road; Janet usually sent her dog, Tyrone (who was afraid of the summer dogs), out to exercise with Dale. Janet was divorced, fifty going on twenty-five, devoted to tabloids, late-night movies, astrological forecasts, and “fun” temporary tattoos of things like unicorns leaping over rainbows. She was not a stupid woman, only childish and a little too upbeat, traumatized by her ex-husband’s verbal abuse. Janet shuddered when she mentioned her ex-husband’s name and rarely talked about the marriage. Tyrone was a smart