The New Yorker Stories

“She didn’t!”

“She did. She went looking for you.”

“But I’m here,” Ray says. “I’m right here with my Sugar and my May. Honey, we’ve made our own peanut butter, and we’re going to have peanut butter and apple butter, and a beer, too, if you want it, and go walking in the surf. We’ve got boots—you can have my boots—and at night we can walk through the surf.”

May looks at Sugar. Sugar’s face is set in a wide smile. Her hair is white. She has dyed her hair white. She is smiling.

Ray hugs May. “I want to know every single thing that’s happened,” he says.

“I’ve just been, I’ve just been sitting around Wanda’s.”

“I figured that’s where you were. At first I assumed you were with your mother, but I remembered the other time, and then it hit me that you had to be there. I told Sugar that—didn’t I, Sugar?”

Sugar nods. Her hair has blown across her face, almost obscuring her vision. The traffic light in front of them changes from yellow to red, and May falls back against her father as the car speeds up.

Sugar says that she wants to be called by her real name. Her name is Martha Joanna Leigh, but Martha is fine with her. Ray always calls her all three names, or else just Sugar. He loves to tease.

It’s a little scary at Sugar’s house. For one thing, the seabirds don’t always see that the front wall is glass, and sometimes a bird flies right into it. Sugar’s two cats creep around the house, and at night they jump onto May’s bed or get into fights. May has been here for three days. She and Ray and Sugar swim every day, and at night they play Scrabble or walk on the beach or take a drive. Sugar is a vegetarian. Everything she cooks is called “three”-something. Tonight, they had three-bean loaf; the night before, they had mushrooms with three-green stuffing. Dinner is usually at ten o’clock, which is when May used to go to bed at Wanda’s.

Tonight, Ray is playing Gus’s zither. It sounds like the music they play in horror movies. Ray has taken a lot of photographs of Sugar, and they are tacked up all over the house—Sugar cooking, Sugar getting out of the shower, Sugar asleep, Sugar waving at the camera, Sugar angry about so many pictures being taken. “And if Gus comes back, loook out,” Ray says, strumming the zither.

“What if he does come back?” Sugar says.

“Listen to this,” Ray says. “I’ve written a song that’s about something I really feel. John Lennon couldn’t have been more honest. Listen, Sugar.”

“Martha,” Sugar says.

“Coors beer,” Ray sings, “there’s none here. You have to go West to drink the best—Coooors beeeer.”

May and Sugar laugh. May is holding a ball of yarn that Sugar is winding into smaller balls. One of the cats, which is going to have kittens, is licking its paws, with its head against the pillow Sugar is sitting on. Sugar has a box of rags in the kitchen closet. Every day she shows the box to the cat. She has to hold the cat’s head straight to make it look at the box. The cat has always had kittens on the rug in the bathroom.

“And tuh-night Johnny’s guests are . . .” Ray is imitating Ed McMahon again. All day he has been announcing Johnny Carson, or talking about Johnny’s guests. “Ed McMahon,” he says, shaking his head. “Out there in Burbank, California, Ed has probably got a refrigerator full of Coors beer, and I’ve got to make do with Schlitz.” Ray runs his fingers across the strings. “The hell with you, Ed. The hell with you.” Ray closes the window above his head. “Wasn’t there a talking horse named Ed?” He stretches out on the floor and crosses his feet, his arms behind his head. “What do you want to do?” he says.

“I’m fine,” Sugar says. “You bored?”

“Yeah. I want Gus to show up and create a little action.”

“He just might,” Sugar says.

“Old Gus never can get it together. He’s visiting his old mama way down in Macon, Georgia. He’ll just be a rockin’ and a talkin’ with his poor old mother, and he won’t be home for days and days.”

“You’re not making any sense, Ray.”

“I’m Ed McMahon,” Ray says, sitting up. “I’m standing out there with a mike in my hand, looking out on all those faces, and suddenly it looks like they’re sliding down on me. Help!” Ray jumps up and waves his arms. “And I say to myself, ‘Ed, what are you doing here, Ed?’ ”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Sugar says. “Do you want to take a walk?”

“I want to watch the damned Johnny Carson show. How come you don’t have a television?”

Sugar pats the last ball of wool, drops it into the knitting basket. She looks at May. “We didn’t have much for dinner. How about some cashew butter on toast, or some guacamole?”

“O.K.,” May says. Sugar is very nice to her. It would be nice to have Sugar for a mother.

“Fix me some of that stuff, too,” Ray says. He flips through a pile of records and picks one up, carefully removes it, his thumb in the center, another finger on the edge. He puts it on the record player and slowly lowers the needle to Rod Stewart, hoarsely singing “Mandolin Wind.” “The way he sings ‘No, no,’ ” Ray says, shaking his head.

In the kitchen, May takes a piece of toast out of the toaster, then takes out the other piece and puts it on her father’s plate. Sugar pours each of them a glass of cranberry juice.

“You just love me, don’t you, Sugar?” Ray says, and bites into his toast. “Because living with Gus is like living with a mummy—right?”

Sugar shrugs. She is smoking a cigarillo and drinking cranberry juice.

“I’m your Marvin Gardens,” Ray says. “I’m your God-damned Park Place.”

Sugar exhales, looks at some fixed point on the wall across from her.