Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare) - Anne Tyler Page 0,38

them. He always seemed to be blinking at something, as if he were trying to get his mind around the most ordinary human behavior, and in the nonministerial, short-sleeved yellow shirt that he was wearing tonight he had a peeled, defenseless look.

“Aren’t you excited?” Aunt Thelma asked him.

“Excited,” he repeated in a worried way.

“We’re marrying off our Kate! You are a dark horse, aren’t you?” she said to Kate as she settled herself in an armchair. Pyotr, meanwhile, dragged the rocker he had been sitting on closer to Aunt Thelma. He still had his eyes trained expectantly on her face; he was still beaming. “We didn’t even know you had a beau,” Aunt Thelma told Kate. “We were afraid Bunny might beat you to the altar.”

“Bunny?” Dr. Battista said. “Bunny’s fifteen years old.” The corners of his mouth were turned down, and he still hadn’t taken a seat. He was standing in front of the fireplace.

“Sit, Father,” Kate said. “Aunt Thelma, what can I get you to drink? Uncle Theron’s having ginger ale.”

She mentioned the ginger ale because she had just learned that her father had picked up only one bottle of wine—her mistake, entrusting him with the errand—and she was hoping no one would ask for any wine until dinner. But her aunt said, “White wine, please,” and then turned to Pyotr, who was still waiting with bated breath for any pearls that might drop from her lips. “Tell us, now,” she said, “how—?”

“We only have red,” Kate said.

“Red it will have to be, then. Pyoder, how—?”

“Uncle Barclay?” Kate said.

“Yes, I’ll have some red.”

“How did you and Kate meet?” Aunt Thelma finally managed to ask.

Pyotr said promptly, “She came to Dr. Battista’s lab. I expected nothing. I thought, ‘Living at home, no boyfriend…’ Then she appeared. Tall. Hair like Italian movie star.”

Kate left the room.

When she returned with the wine, Pyotr had moved on to her inner qualities and Aunt Thelma was smiling and nodding and looking charmed. “She is somewhat like the girls at home,” he was saying. “Honest. Tells what she is thinking.”

“I’ll say,” Aunt Thelma murmured.

“But in truth she is kindhearted. Thoughtful.”

“Why, Kate!” Aunt Thelma said in a congratulatory tone.

“Takes care of people,” Pyotr went on. “Tends small children.”

“Ah. And will you continue with that?” Aunt Thelma asked Kate as she accepted her wine.

Kate said, “What?”

“Will you continue at the preschool once you’re married?”

“Oh,” Kate said. She had thought Aunt Thelma was asking how long she could keep up her charade. “Yes, of course.”

“She does not need to,” Pyotr said. “I can support her,” and he flung out one arm in a grand gesture, nearly knocking over his glass. (He too had opted for wine, unfortunately.) “If she likes, she may retire now. Or go to college! Go to Hopkins! I will pay. She is my responsibility now.”

“What?” Kate said. “I’m not your responsibility! I’m my own responsibility.”

Aunt Thelma tut-tutted. Pyotr just smiled around the room at the others, as if inviting them to share his amusement.

“Good girl,” Uncle Barclay said unexpectedly.

“Well, once you have children that will be a moot point anyhow,” Aunt Thelma said. “May I ask what wine we’re drinking, Louis?”

“Eh?” Dr. Battista was giving her a distressed look.

“This wine is delicious.”

“Oh,” he said.

He didn’t seem all that thrilled to hear it, even though it might have been the first compliment Aunt Thelma had ever paid him.

“Tell me, Pyoder,” Aunt Thelma said, “will any of your family be coming to the wedding?”

“No,” Pyotr said, still beaming at her.

“Old classmates, then? Colleagues? Friends?”

“I do have friend from my institute, but he is in California,” Pyotr said.

“Oh! Are you close?” Aunt Thelma asked.

“He is in California.”

“I mean…is he someone you’d want at your wedding?”

“No, no, that would be ridiculous. Wedding is five minutes.”

“Oh, surely it will last longer than that.”

Uncle Theron said, “Take his word for it, Thelma; they’ve asked for the stripped-down version.”

“My kind of ceremony,” Uncle Barclay said approvingly. “Short and sweet.”

“Hush, Barclay,” Aunt Thelma told him. “You don’t mean that. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event! That’s why I can’t believe that you and I are not invited.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally Aunt Thelma’s own social instincts got the better of her; she was the one who spoke up. “Tell us, Kate, what will you wear?” she asked. “I would love to take you shopping.”

“Oh, I think I’m set,” Kate said.

“I know you couldn’t have hoped to fit into the dress your poor mother wore to her wedding…”

Kate wished that, just once,