White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,42
it. He’d compromised one time too many, and he’d become a compromise rather than a man. He saw that she knew this, and they parted. But not before she saw the question mark on his face.
She knew what he was asking, and she answered with a quick kiss on his cheek. “You’re a wonderful man,” she said. “But no.”
To the right of the Presidential Hotel, an old man sat on a flattened cardboard box. His shirt was disintegrating, his pants held up by a piece of twine. He was making tin boxes out of large sheets of metal that sounded like thunder when he cut and shaped them. His hands were as twisted as trees braced against gales. Near him, a young man sitting on a blanket was selling wormy wood sculptures.
Alice headed to the co-op, where most items she had in mind wouldn’t be on the shelves. She walked down the aisles, looking for canned cranberry sauce. It was a long shot. All of a sudden, there was Lawrence, standing in front of a can of peaches, studying the label. She thought of rushing for the door, but she told herself not to be a coward.
“I wouldn’t buy those peaches,” she said over his shoulder. “Probably been there since the Boer War.”
He whirled around. His face said I thought you’d left the country. And then he smiled and kept smiling. He couldn’t stop smiling. They talked about their work, about his mother who’d been sick.
“You probably thought I’d left by now,” she said. “I have no immediate plans. How about you?” It sounded as though she thought Gaborone wasn’t big enough for the two of them.
“No plans beyond the end of my contract next year,” he said. “Then we’ll see.”
We? Then she remembered he’d always had trouble with the word “I.”
He picked up the can of the peaches he’d been staring at, thought better of it, and put it back. “Good to see you. You look well.” He started down the aisle and turned and took a step back toward her. “I’m sorry, Alice.”
“I’m sorry too.” It came out sounding as though she blamed him, not what she felt. For a millisecond, she thought of asking him for Thanksgiving dinner, but she thought it would only make them both miserable. She watched him walk the rest of the way down the aisle and through the door and out into the sunshine. Whatever food he’d come for, he’d decided against, or forgotten.
She dropped the can of peaches into her basket. Nearby was some ancient pumpkin pie filling which she grabbed along with four cans of fish for the cats. She paid at the cash register and came out into the furnace of sun. She passed a man selling ostrich egg necklaces and bought one for her mother, and then filet mignon at the butcher, all the time replaying the words Lawrence had spoken. The heat had flattened the mall into dust. Her eyes shimmered and wobbled. Her bearings were gone, her head pounded. She felt drunk, disoriented, as raw as the meat wrapped in butcher paper.
When she noticed her friend Peter Daigle walking ahead of her, she hesitated.
“Peter!” she finally called out. He didn’t hear.
“Peter!” she called again.
He turned. He was wearing a khaki-colored safari suit, one kneesock slipped down around his ankles, his bald head burned by the sun.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m down for a couple days. Here for the big city lights.”
“Where? Where are they?”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he laughed.
“Happy Thanksgiving back.”
“I’m having canned herring in my hotel room,” he said. “… unless you’d like to join me for dinner.”
“Why don’t you come over to my place? I’m cooking. By the way, had you heard that Lawren …”
“I heard from Muriel and Eric.”
“He and I just ran into each other in the co-op. First time in a couple of months.”
She thought his eyes said, Yeah, and you look like crap. “I’d love to come,” he said. “What can I bring?”
“Your own handsome self.”
When he arrived that evening, he kissed her on the cheek and handed her a bottle of wine. He’d changed into a shirt and pulled up his socks for the occasion. “Okay, I’ll just say it and get it over with,” he said. “I never thought the two of you belonged together.” They walked toward the living room and paused in the wide doorway. “I don’t want to trash him.”