The New Yorker Stories

“When Reddy Fox and I were putting the dishes away. We had the radio on.” He doubles up his pillow, pushes it under his neck. “Boom goes everything,” he says. “Bam. Crash. Poof.” He looks at me. “You look shocked.” He closes his eyes. Then, after a minute or two, he murmurs, “Hurricanes upset you? I’ll try to think of something nice.”

He is quiet for so long that I think he has fallen asleep. Then he says, “Cars that run on water. A field of flowers, none alike. A shooting star that goes slow enough for you to watch. Your life to do over again.” He has been whispering in my ear, and when he takes his mouth away I shiver. He slides lower in the bed for sleep. “I’ll tell you something really amazing,” he says. “Tucker told me he went into a travel agency on Park Avenue last week and asked the travel agent where he should go to pan for gold, and she told him.”

“Where did she tell him to go?”

“I think somewhere in Peru. The banks of some river in Peru.”

“Did you decide what you’re going to do after Mark’s birthday?” I say.

He doesn’t answer me. I touch him on the side, finally.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning. Let’s talk about it another time.”

“You picked the house, Frank. They’re your friends downstairs. I used to be what you wanted me to be.”

“They’re your friends, too,” he says. “Don’t be paranoid.”

“I want to know if you’re staying or going.”

He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and continues to lie very still.

“Everything you’ve done is commendable,” he says. “You did the right thing to go back to school. You tried to do the right thing by finding yourself a normal friend like Marilyn. But your whole life you’ve made one mistake— you’ve surrounded yourself with men. Let me tell you something. All men—if they’re crazy, like Tucker, if they’re gay as the Queen of the May, like Reddy Fox, even if they’re just six years old—I’m going to tell you something about them. Men think they’re Spider-Man and Buck Rogers and Superman. You know what we all feel inside that you don’t feel? That we’re going to the stars.”

He takes my hand. “I’m looking down on all of this from space,” he whispers. “I’m already gone.”

Waiting

“It’s beautiful,” the woman says. “How did you come by this?” She wiggles her finger in the mousehole. It’s a genuine mousehole: sometime in the eighteenth century a mouse gnawed its way into the cupboard, through the two inside shelves, and out the bottom.

“We bought it from an antique dealer in Virginia,” I say.

“Where in Virginia?”

“Ruckersville. Outside of Charlottesville.”

“That’s beautiful country,” she says. “I know where Ruckersville is. I had an uncle who lived in Keswick.”

“Keswick was nice,” I say. “The farms.”

“Oh,” she says. “The tax writeoffs, you mean? Those mansions with the sheep grazing out front?”

She is touching the wood, stroking lightly in case there might be a splinter. Even after so much time, everything might not have been worn down to smoothness. She lowers her eyes. “Would you take eight hundred?” she says.

“I’d like to sell it for a thousand,” I say. “I paid thirteen hundred, ten years ago.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “I suppose I should try to tell you it has some faults, but I’ve never seen one like it. Very nice. My husband wouldn’t like my spending more than six hundred to begin with, but I can see that it’s worth eight.” She is resting her index finger on the latch. “Could I bring my husband to see it tonight?”

“All right.”

“You’re moving?” she says.

“Eventually,” I say.

“That would be something to load around.” She shakes her head. “Are you going back South?”

“I doubt it,” I say.

“You probably think I’m kidding about coming back with my husband,” she says suddenly. She lowers her eyes again. “Are other people interested?”

“There’s just been one other call. Somebody who wanted to come out Saturday.” I smile. “I guess I should pretend there’s great interest.”

“I’ll take it,” the woman says. “For a thousand. You probably could sell it for more and I could probably resell it for more. I’ll tell my husband that.”

She picks up her embroidered shoulder bag from the floor by the corner cabinet. She sits at the oak table by the octagonal window and rummages for her checkbook.

“I was thinking, What if I left it home? But I didn’t.” She takes out a checkbook in a red plastic cover. “My uncle in Keswick was one of those gentleman farmers,” she says. “He lived until he was eighty-six, and enjoyed his life. He did everything in moderation, but the key was that he did everything.” She looks appraisingly at her signature. “Some movie actress just bought a farm across from the Cobham store,” she says. “A girl. I never saw her in the movies. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“Well, Art Garfunkel used to have a place out there,” I say.

“Maybe she bought his place.” The woman pushes the check to the center of the table, tilts the vase full of phlox, and puts the corner of the check underneath. “Well,” she says. “Thank you. We’ll come with my brother’s truck to get it on the weekend. What about Saturday?”