how I play,” she said, and dropped a stitch.
Ben was with her. I don’t know why. He must have been thirteen at the time. He was sitting near the window, scowling at Robert Graves’ Greek Myths. “Ben, say hello to Daddy’ new secretary, Miss Denham,” Nancy shouted.
Ben mumbled something.
“What was that?” Nancy called, so that people turned. “E-nun-ci-ate.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Ben screamed.
“No need to shout.”
“It’ not my fault that you can’t hear under that thing.” He returned to his book. In those days there was still an old-fashioned drugstore on Calibraska Avenue, with a lunch counter. Those customers who happened to have appointments at Minnie’ over the lunch hour made it their habit to order in cheeseburgers, BLTs, and the like, and eat them under the dryers. Now a delivery boy came through the door, bearing bags of food, and Minnie called out our orders.
“Chicken salad?”
Ben and I raised our hands simultaneously and were each handed a sandwich in wax paper. Already addled by Nancy’ interrogation, I unwrapped mine without ceremony and started gobbling.
Suddenly Ben put his sandwich down.
“What is it?” his mother asked.
“It’ not on toast,” Ben said.
“Well, the drugstore must have forgotten,” Nancy said.
“These things happen.”
“But I ordered it on toast.”
“Now Ben—”
“She has my sandwich!” he cried, pointing at me. I stopped chewing. And it was true; on closer examination, I saw that my sandwich was toasted. Clearly Minnie had mixed up our orders.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Here"—and realized that I had already eaten half.
What I didn’t know—what I wouldn’t learn until a few months later—was that among the many food phobias from which Ben suffered at the time was an irrational aversion to untoasted bread; he simply refused to eat untoasted bread, which he claimed was “germy.” Nor was he remotely gracious during the fretful parrying that followed. I apologized; he sulked. Despite his mother’ remonstrances, he would neither accept the remaining half of my sandwich, nor allow a new one to be ordered for him. “I’m so sorry,” Nancy said. “Go ahead and finish your lunch.” But of course mortification and pride forbade me from taking so much as a bite. Nancy couldn’t finish her grilled cheese, either. I wondered if I’d have to quit my job, or ask to be transferred to a different department.
Afterwards, she tried to make it up to me. “He’ a sensitive boy,” she said. “He writes poetry.”
“How nice,” I answered. In truth, I was thinking only that as soon as I could decently ask to be unplugged from the dryer, I would get out of Minnie’, never to return. Yet Nancy was not about to let me off so easily; she could be assaultive in her generosity, especially if she felt that she had a debt to repay. “Let’ do play together,” she urged. “You could come over on Saturdays, when you’re off work. I’ll make lunch afterward. Where are you from, by the way?”
“North Florida.”
“Do you live alone? Are you going home for Thanksgiving?
Come for Thanksgiving.”
“But—”
“Unless you have other plans. Are you going back East? To your family?”
I didn’t feel like explaining that I had no family, so I just said, “No.”
“Then it’ settled.” She wrote the address down on one of Minnie’ business cards. “Oh, and if you come early, we can try some four-hand. Too-da-loo.”
They left. I thought that I would wait a few days and then call to say I couldn’t come; that I had “forgotten” a previous invitation. But the next day at work, Ernest said, “So happy you’ll be coming to Thanksgiving. Nancy told me about running into you, and she’ tickled pink.” (Such locutions as “tickled pink” often slipped through the veneer of old-world severity that he affected, recalling his Midwestern childhood.)
“Dr. Wright,” I said, “really, it’ very sweet of you, but I wouldn’t want you to feel—from a sense of duty—”
“Do you often feel people ask you places from a sense of duty?”
“Yes. No.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, think about it,” he said. “And perhaps we can talk about it more on Thanksgiving, hmm?”
Thanksgiving was the following Thursday. Per Nancy’ instructions, at eleven o’clock in the morning I made my way down the brick path to the front door, and rang the bell.
Daphne let me in. She was in her nightgown. Her long blond hair—which she rarely bothered to comb—gave her a look of careless prettiness, or pretty carelessness. “Mom, someone’ here,” she said through a yawn. “Come in.” And she led me through to the kitchen.
From the stove, Nancy waved