Hex - Rebecca Dinerstein Knight Page 0,53

humanely, from my sour theoretics into her totally wholesome daylight.

“What kind of flowers you got, Ma,” I said. This was already the longest conversation we’d had in I don’t know how long and it astonished me.

“Well,” I could see the little frown between her eyebrows, “daffodils, but I know that isn’t interesting.”

Heaven bless Kansas, I thought, what is interesting?

“They’re going to come up nicely,” said my father. “Nicely nicely Johnson.”

“I’m planting monkshood,” something at the depth of my knees rose up and said completely without my permission.

“You’re kidding,” my mother said, and I thought she was definitely right. “Ellen told me not yesterday that she wanted to plant a patch of monkshood for the color of them, you know, just a little blue here and there,” I looked up from the floor out the window into dilated purple Red Hook and thought Just a little blue here and there, “but she’s frightened of them, you know, because they say they’ve got such poison.”

“They do,” I said, gently, which felt to me like saying Happy Birthday Ma, You’re a Very Nice Lady. “But she can plant them for the color no problem,” I said, “no problem, tell her only not to eat any.”

“Eat any!” said my mother.

“She can call you,” my father said, “can’t she Nell? Ellen Bailey? I’ve already gone and told her you’re the expert in such things.”

I must be getting very, very old now. I took a long drink of coffee. It had come to this: my father’s recommending my services to his neighbor was without question the most gratifying thing that had ever happened to me in my life.

“You bet,” I said. I wondered if in my father’s mind’s eye I still had turquoise rubber bands on my braced buck teeth, or my signature jumbo forehead and girl-mullet and man-socks, and whether he had ever considered me beautiful. I wondered if he had ever seen me kissing a photograph of Kevin Bacon in the back of our barn, and I found myself hoping he had. I wondered if he had ever wished unattainable things for me, like prosperity and a sweetheart. All at once I couldn’t remember a single conversation we’d ever had. I could remember my mother’s red winter gloves.

“Always thought you were good at talking to folks,” said my father. “Always thought you’d grow up a talking doctor, you know, a psychiatrist? Psychologist.”

“What’s with everyone and the psychologists?” I said. I could still see Chardonnay’s mauve lipstick mouthing Melt your head.

“Well they’re reckoned to be good for your health,” said my father.

“I’ll talk to Ellen Bailey,” I said.

“That’s fine,” said my mother.

“Nicely nicely Johnson,” said my father, his expression of choice. I laughed and spilled coffee all over my arms. I could remember Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando and a woman whose name I never felt the need to know, on the cover of a VHS tape of Guys and Dolls, on top of their TV credenza.

“Oh and Nell, your cousin Richard is going in for his surgery, they can’t put it off any longer,” my mother said as I was trying to lick the coffee off my elbow. “Would you write to him? A card, a postcard,” she said. There, I thought, and despised myself, a regular elbow licker, for making Richard sick, for making him sick by assuming that somebody had to be sick. It could have just been her garden she was calling about. It couldn’t have just been her garden.

“Oh sure,” I said. “A card.”

“He’s all right,” said my father. It wasn’t true, for as much as he meant it.

“That’s fine,” my mother said.

After the call I went out and bought a rug. A small rug to put on the floor under the windows. I sat down there a long time and thought—we come from somewhere, we really do.

KALLAS

I told Joan’s father no coffee, none for me, I’d already had coffee at home thanks. He didn’t remember who I was and asked if I’d rather have tea.

“All right,” I said.

“Gray?”

“Lemon?”

“You got it.” He was an old man who put his entire enthusiasm into expressions like You got it, into events like a lemon tea. I could tell I was going to have a great time with him and that I would probably cry. When he came back with my cup I wanted to keep him at my end of the counter—five stools down an elderly woman ate scrambled eggs and didn’t require any immediate attention.

I said, “What’s the diner business like