Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare) - Anne Tyler Page 0,61

felt a little muzzy. It had been a mistake to drink beer in the daytime.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Instead of answering, he said, “Why you didn’t rest on your bed?” Then he slapped the side of his head, nearly losing control of the peony bush. “The sheets,” he said. “I bought new sheets, and new sheets have toxic chemicals perhaps, so I washed them. They are down in Mrs. Murphy’s dryer.”

This was absurdly heartening to hear. Kate reached for her shoes and slipped them on. “Did you tell the police?” she asked.

“Tell them what?” he said, infuriatingly. He was setting the peony bush on the floor, standing back to dust his hands off. “Oh,” he said in a nonchalant tone. “Mice are back.”

“They’re…back?”

“After you say it is Eddie,” he said, “I think, ‘Yes. Makes sense. It is Eddie.’ So I get in my car and I drive to his house and I pound on his door. ‘Where my mice are?’ I ask him. ‘What mice?’ he says. False surprised look, I can see right away. ‘Just tell me you didn’t loosen them in the streets,’ I say. ‘In the streets!’ he says. ‘Do you really think I’d be that cruel?’ ‘Tell me they are caged,’ I say, ‘wherever they are. Tell me you did not expose them to any common, downtown mice.’ He gets pouty dark look on his face. ‘They’re safe in my room,’ he says. His mother is shouting at me, but I do not pay heed. ‘I’m calling the police!’ she is shouting, but I run straight upstairs and find out which is his room. Mice are still in cages, stacked high.”

“Whoa,” Kate said.

“This is why I am gone so long. Making Eddie move mice back to lab. Your father was in lab. He hugged me! He had tears behind his glasses! Then Eddie became arrested, but your father is not, how they say? Pushing charges.”

“Really!” Kate said. “Why not?”

Pyotr shrugged. “Long story,” he said. “We decided after detective came. Detective answered his phone, this time! Very nice man. Lovely man. Plant is from Mrs. Liu.”

“What?” Kate said. She was feeling as if she’d been spun in circles with a blindfold on.

“She asked that I carry it to you. Wedding present. Something for backyard.”

“So she’s okay now?” Kate asked.

“Okay?”

“She was in such a temper.”

“Oh, yes, she is always talking mean when I lose my keys,” he said blithely. He walked over to the window and lifted the sash with no apparent effort. “Ah!” he said. “Is lovely outside! Are we not late?”

“Excuse me?”

“Was reception not at five?”

Kate glanced at her watch: 5:20. “Oh, God,” she said, and she leapt to her feet.

“Come! We drive fast. You can phone your aunt from car.”

“But I’m not changed. You’re not changed.”

“We go as we are; it is family.”

Kate spread her arms to reveal the wrinkles across the front of her dress from her nap, and the mayonnaise stain near her hem. “Just give me half a second, okay?” she said. “This dress is a disaster.”

“Is a beautiful dress,” he said.

She looked down at it and then dropped her arms. “Fine, it’s a beautiful dress,” she said. “Have it your way.”

But he was already out on the landing now, heading toward the stairs, and she had to run to catch up with him.

Aunt Thelma answered the door in a floor-length, flowered hostess gown. Kate could smell her perfume even from where they stood. “Hello, my dears!” she cried. There was no way she could not have been taken aback by what they were wearing, but she hid it well. She stepped out onto the veranda to press her cheek to Kate’s and then to Pyotr’s. “Welcome to your wedding banquet!”

“Thank you, Aunt Sel,” Pyotr said, and he flung his arms around her in an enthusiastic hug that nearly knocked her over.

“Sorry we’re so late,” Kate told her. “Sorry we didn’t have time to dress.”

“Well, you’re here; that’s all that matters,” her aunt said—a much milder reaction than Kate would have predicted. She patted down the side of her hairdo that Pyotr had disarranged. “Come on out back; everyone’s having drinks. Aren’t we lucky the weather’s so nice!”

She turned to lead them through the entrance hall, which was two stories high. A giant crystal chandelier hung at its center like an upside-down Christmas tree, and Pyotr slowed to gaze up at it for a moment with a dazzled expression. In the living room, sectional couches lumbered through the vast space like a