The Pull of the Moon_ A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,19

did I look like and she said I looked like the type that went down and volunteered at some suicide prevention center in order to save my own life. Handed over my Joan and Davids to the Goodwill with a sense of regret that they would not be recognized as the great shoes they were. I stood stock-still for a minute, trying to figure this out, because it was so surprising, and because although it was pretty nasty, it was said in such a friendly way. I thought, where did this woman come from? How did she end up here?

She lit a cigarette and offered me one, and though I don’t smoke, I took one. Salem. An awful mix of foul and mint. I had a sudden urge to get my hair dyed platinum.

We sat at her little picnic table and she said, Not much of a smoker either, are you, Nan? I said no, but that I’d always wanted to be, that it always looked pretty good to me, sexy, too. She said it was sexy, watch this, and she French-inhaled while she stared me straight in eye.

Then all of a sudden I asked her, I said, what did you want to do? Oh hell, she said, and stared off into the distance. Then, looking back at me, “Everything.” I asked her name and she said Susan Littletree and I said is that your married name and she said yes; and no, her husband was not Native American. What he was, was gone. I said well. She said you’d like to see inside the trailer, wouldn’t you? I said yes, I would. She said come ahead but don’t get freaked out at the statues of Mary, it’s just a joke. Then, looking over her shoulder as she climbed the steps up, No offense if you’re a Mary fan. A believer, one of them. More power to you if you are, she said. You got something.

It was amazing how when you got in that trailer, it seemed like a house. It was clean in there, which surprised me—I’d expected dirty dishes all over, newspapers on the floor. She gave me a tour, showed me her blue bedroom—flowered wallpaper, pink sweetheart roses in a vase at the bedside, along with six or seven Mary statues. The bathroom had gold fixtures, and a magazine rack discreetly off to the side, I saw Bon Appetit in there. She had burnt-orange kitchen counters, dark wooden cabinets, a little window over the sink with white ruffled curtains. There was a booth to eat in, striped brown and white fabric. She looked at her watch, asked me would I like a tuna sandwich, it was close enough to dinnertime. I said I would, but to let me help make it, and I stood at her tiny counter chopping celery and sweet pickles and hard-boiled eggs while she mixed the tuna with the mayonnaise. I was so glad it was Hellmann’s, the real thing, none of that mincing fake stuff that you always try so hard to pretend is fine, even though your taste alarm is going berserk.

I said it was awfully nice of her, me just showing up and her offering me a meal. Oh well, she said, she’d always thought that was the way it should be, some people wandering around and other people taking care of them, think of Jesus. I said pardon me? and she said think of Jesus, how he wandered around and people fed him. Washed his feet, too, I said. Come to bad end, though, didn’t he, she said, and I’m afraid we started laughing, which made me feel badly and also a little superstitious because if there is all that heaven and hell and accounting stuff, God was shaking his head.

We sat at her table for a while after we ate and she told me her husband had left her three years ago, took off with her best friend. Susan sold their house and bought this trailer, thinking she’d live here a little while, then move on. Only she hadn’t left yet. She worked as a receptionist at a car dealership, got hit on by the salesmen, brought one home occasionally, kicked him out the next morning or even that same night, depending on his level of skill and/or his marital status. She’d heard that Trudy, the woman her husband ran off with, had gotten ovarian cancer. I said that must feel very odd, that probably she felt a