Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler Page 0,42

She gestured in the direction of the used-clothing store. Then she set a hand on his arm and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. This close, he could smell the lemony scent of her shampoo or her soap or something. “It was good to see you,” she said, “even under the circumstances. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” he told her.

He stood back, hands jammed in his rear pockets, and watched her set off toward the street. From behind she could be any run-of-the-mill career woman, except that something about her walk seemed a little hesitant, a little lacking in briskness. It almost seemed that she wasn’t quite sure where she was going. But soon enough, she turned to the right and disappeared from view.

* * *

—

B. R. Monroe’s printer was just plain kaput, Micah found. It still responded to the Print command, but the pages it spewed forth were blank. “And now that I think back,” Mr. Monroe said, “it was giving me these warning signs for the past couple of weeks or so. The printouts were getting paler and paler. I switched out all the cartridges but it didn’t make the least bit of difference.”

He was a middle-aged man in sweats, with a skinny gray braid down his back and a three-day growth of beard—your typical work-at-home type. His office was a disaster, empty coffee mugs everywhere and leaning stacks of pamphlets. The wrappings from the new cartridges were strewn across his desk.

“How long have you had this?” Micah asked him.

“Well, my daughter was still living at home when I bought it, I remember, because I passed my old printer on to her. And she has finished college by now and is working in New York.”

Micah said, “It’s got to be way out of warranty. And I can tell you right off that I’m not equipped to fix it; this is a job for the manufacturer. Even packing it up and shipping it to them would cost you more than it’s worth. You’re better off buying a new one.”

“Shoot,” Mr. Monroe said.

“Printers are cheap nowadays. You’ll be surprised.”

“Do I still owe you for coming out?” Mr. Monroe asked.

“Well, sure.”

“You didn’t do anything, though.”

“I still have to charge you the minimum. I told you that on the phone.”

Mr. Monroe sighed and padded off to get his checkbook, the soles of his rubber flip-flops smacking his bare heels.

* * *

—

On his way home, Micah stopped at an ATM to deposit Mr. Monroe’s check. Then he picked up a few groceries at the supermarket—peanut butter and ground beef and the makings of a salad—and continued down York Road. As he turned onto his own street, he glanced reflexively toward the front stoop of his building. But no one was there, of course.

He took a right at the alley, parked in the parking lot, retrieved his groceries from the trunk, and descended the steps to his back door.

He had cleaned up from breakfast before he left on his call, but the kitchen still smelled of eggs and coffee. Lorna’s chair was neatly pushed in opposite his own chair, and the table was blank and gleaming. The place gave off a kind of hollow sound, it seemed to him.

Nobody said, “You’re home!” Or “Welcome back!”

He unpacked his groceries and put the peanut butter in the cabinet, the ground beef in the fridge. The salad makings he set on the counter, because it was time for lunch. But instead of starting work on that, he turned and wandered off to the living area. He still had not straightened things there. He stared bleakly at the crumpled afghan and the clutter on the coffee table—the beer cans and the junk mail. Under the surface, he thought, maybe he was more like his family than he cared to admit. Maybe he was one skipped vacuuming day away from total chaos.

He had a sudden vision of himself as he’d been the previous evening, slumped on the couch drinking too many beers and playing too many games of