Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Read online

  "Huh?" "Slow down! I'm not sure we're going to make it. See, here the seven comes, rolling up, up ... and where's the sign? Where's the sign! Come on, sign! We're losing! We're too far ahead! We're-" The sign popped into view. "Ah," she said. The seven settled into place at exactly the same instant, so precisely that she almost heard it click.

  "Whew!" she said. She sank back in her seat. "That was too close for comfort." "They do set all our gauges at the factory, you know," Ira said.

  "Sure, years and years ago," she told them. "I'm exhausted." Ira said, "I wonder how long we should keep to Route One?" "I feel I've been wrung through a wringer," Maggie said.

  She made little plucking motions at the front of her dress.

  Now collections of parked trucks and RVs appeared in clearings at random intervals-no humans around, no visible explanation for anybody's stopping there. Maggie had noticed this on her earlier trips and never understood it. Were the drivers off fishing, or hunting, or what? Did country people have some kind of secret life?

  "Another thing is their banks," she told Ira. "All these towns have banks that look like itty-bitty brick houses, have you noticed? With yards around them, and flower beds. Would you put your faith in such a bank?" "No reason not to." "I just wouldn't feel my money was secure." "Your vast wealth," Ira teased her.

  "I mean it doesn't seem professional." "Now, according to the map," he said, "we could stay on Route One a good deal farther up than Oxford. Serena had us cutting off at Oxford, if I heard you right, but. . . Check it for me, will you?" Maggie took the map from the seat between them and opened it, one square at a time. She was hoping not to have to spread it out completely. Ira would get after her ^ for refolding it wrong. "Oxford," she said. "Is that in Maryland or Pennsylvania?" "It's in Pennsylvania, Maggie. Where Highway Ten leads off to the north." "Well, then! I distinctly remember she told us to take Highway Ten." "Yes, but if we ... Have you been listening to a word I say? If we stayed on Route One, see, we could make better time, and I think there's a cutoff further up that would bring us directly to Deer Lick." "Well, she must have had a reason, Ira, for telling us Highway Ten." "A reason? Serena? Serena Gill have a reason?" She shook out the map with a crackle. He always talked like that about her girlfriends. He acted downright jealous of them. She suspected he thought women got together on the sly and gossiped about their husbands. Typical: He was so self-centered. Although sometimes it did happen, of course.

  "Did that service station have a snack machine?" she asked him.

  "Just candy bars. Stuff you don't like." "I'm dying of hunger." "I could have got you a candy bar, but I thought you wouldn't eat it." "Didn't they have potato chips or anything? I'm starving." "Baby Ruths, Fifth Avenues ..." She made a face and went back to the map.

  "Well, I would say take Highway Ten," she told him.

  "I could swear I saw a later cutoff." "Not really," she said.

  "Not really? What does that mean? Either there's a cutoff or there isn't." "Well," she said, "to tell the truth, I haven't quite located Deer Lick yet." He flicked on his turn signal. "We'll find you someplace to eat and I'll take another look at the map," he said.

  "Eat? I don't want to eat!" "You just said you were starving to death." "Yes, but I'm on a diet! All I want is a snack!" "Fine. We'll get you a snack, then," he said.

  "Really, Ira, I hate how you always try to undermine my diets." "Then order a cup of coffee or something. I need to look at the map." He was driving down a paved road that was lined with identical new ranch houses, each with a metal toolshed out back in the shape of a tiny red barn trimmed in white. Maggie wouldn't have thought there'd be any place to eat in such a neighborhood, but sure enough, around the next bend they found a frame building with a few cars parked in front of it. A dusty neon sign glowed in the window: NELL'S GROCERY & CAFE. Ira parked next to a Jeep with a- Judas Priest sticker on the bumper. Maggie opened her door and stepped out, surreptitiously hitching up the crotch of her panty hose.

  The grocery smelled of store bread and waxed paper. It reminded her of a grade-school lunchroom. Here and there women stood gazing at canned goods. The cafe lay at the rear-one long counter, with faded color photos of orange scrambled eggs and beige link sausages lining the wall behind it. Maggie and Ira settled on adjacent stools and Ira flattened his map on the counter. Maggie watched the waitress cleaning a griddle. She sprayed it with something, scraped up thick gunk with a spatula, and sprayed again. From behind she was a large white rectangle, her gray bun tacked down with black bobby pins. "What you going to order?" she asked finally, not turning around.

  Ira said, "Just coffee for me, please," without looking up from his map. Maggie had more trouble deciding. She took off her sunglasses and peered at the color photos. "Well, coffee too, I guess," she said, "and also, let me think, I ought to have a salad or something, but-" "We don't serve any salads," the waitress said. She set aside her spray bottle and came over to Maggie, wiping her hands on her apron. Her eyes, netted with wrinkles, were an eerie light green, like old beach glass. "The onliest thing I could offer is the lettuce and tomato from a sandwich." "Well, maybe just a sack of those taco chips from the rack, then," Maggie said happily. "Though I know I shouldn't." She watched the waitress pour two mugs of coffee. "I'm trying to lose ten pounds by Thanksgiving. I've been working on the same ten pounds forever, but this time I'm determined." "Shoot! You don't need to lose weight," the woman said, setting the mugs in front of them. The red stitching across her breast pocket read Mabel, a name Maggie had not heard since her childhood. What had become of all the Mabels? She tried to picture giving a new little baby that name. Meanwhile the woman was telling her, "I despise how everybody tries to look like a toothpick nowadays." "That's what Ira says; he likes me the weight I am now," Maggie said. She glanced over at Ira but he was deep in his map, or else just pretending to be. It always embarrassed him when she took up with outsiders. "But then anytime I go to buy a dress it hangs wrong, you know? Like they don't expect me to have a bustline. I lack willpower is the problem. I crave salty things. Pickly things. Hot spices." She accepted the sack of taco chips and held it up, demonstrating.

  "How about me?" Mabel asked. "Doctor says I'm so overweight my legs are going." "Oh, you are not! Show me where you're overweight!" "He says it wouldn't be so bad if I was in some other job but waitressing; it gets to my veins." "Our daughter's been working as a waitress," Maggie said. She tore open the sack of taco chips and bit into one. "Sometimes she's on her feet for eight hours straight without a break. She started out in sandals but switched to crepe soles soon enough, I can tell you, even though she swore she wouldn't." "You are surely not old enough to have a daughter that grown up," Mabel said.

  "Oh, she's still a teenager; this was just a summer job. Tomorrow she leaves for college." "College! A smarty," Mabel said.

  "Oh, well, / don't know," Maggie said. "She did get a full scholarship, though." She held out the sack. "You want some?" Mabel took a handful. "Mine are all boys," she told Maggie. "Studying came about as natural to them as flying." "Yes, our boy was that way." " 'Why aren't you doing your homework?' I'd ask them. They'd have a dozen excuses. Most often they claimed the teacher didn't assign them any, which of course was an out-and-out story." "That's just exactly like Jesse," Maggie said.

  "And their daddy!" Mabel said. "He was forever taking up for them. Seemed they were all in cahoots and I was left out in the cold. What I wouldn't give for a daughter, I tell you!" "Well, daughters have their drawbacks too," Maggie said. She could see that Ira wanted to break in with a question (he'd placed a finger on the map and was looking at Mabel expectantly), but once he got his answer he'd be ready to leave, so she made him hold off a bit. "For instance, daughters have more secrets. I mean you think they're talking to you, but it's small talk. Daisy, for in- stance: She's always been so quiet and obedient. Then up she pops with this scheme to go away to school. I had no idea she was plotting that! I said, 'Daisy? Aren't you happy here at home?' I mean of course I knew
she was planning on college, but I notice University of Maryland is good enough for other people's children. 'What's wrong with closer to Baltimore?' I asked her, but she said, 'Oh, Mom, you knew all along I was aiming for someplace Ivy League.' I knew no such thing! I had no idea! And since she got the scholarship, why, she's changed past recognition. Isn't that so, Ira. Ira says-" she said, rushing on (having regretted giving him the opening), "Ira says she's just growing up. He says it's just growing pains that make her so picky and critical, and only a fool would take it to heart so. But it's difficult! It's so difficult! It's like all at once, every little thing we do is wrong; like she's hunting up good reasons not to miss us when she goes. My hair's too curly and I talk too much and I eat too many fried foods. And Ira's suit is cut poorly and he doesn't know how to do business." Mabel was nodding, all sympathy, but Ira of course thought Maggie was acting overemotional. He didn't say so, but he shifted in his seat; that was how she knew. She ignored him. "You know what she told me the other day?" she asked Mabel. "I was testing out this tuna casserole. I served it up for supper and I said, 'Isn't it delicious? Tell me honestly what you think.' And Daisy said-" Tears pricked her eyelids. She took a deep breath. "Daisy just sat there and studied me for the longest time," she said, "with this kind of ... fascinated expression on her face, and then she said, 'Mom? Was there a certain conscious point in your life when you decided to settle for being ordinary?' " She meant to go on, but her lips were trembling. She laid aside her chips and fumbled in her purse for a Kleenex. Mabel clucked. Ira said, "For God's sake, Maggie." "I'm sorry," she told Mabel. "It got tcune." "Well, sure it did," Mabel said soothingly. She slid Maggie's coffee mug a little closer to her. "Naturally it did!" "I mean, to me I'm not ordinary," Maggie said.

  "No indeedy!" Mabel said. "You tell her, honey! You tell her that. You tell her to stop thinking that way. Know what I said to Bobby, my oldest? This was over a tuna dish too, come to think of it; isn't that a coincidence. He announces he's sick to death of foods that are mingled together. I say to him, 'Young man,' I say, 'you can just get on up and leave this table. Leave this house, while you're at it. Find a place of your own,' I say, 'cook your own durn meals, see how you can afford prime rib of beef every night.' And I meant it, too. He thought I was only running my mouth, but he saw soon enough I was serious; I set all his clothes on the hood of his car. Now he lives across town with his girlfriend. He didn't believe I would really truly make him move out." "But that's just it; I don't want her to move out," Maggie said. "I like to have her at home. I mean look at Jesse: He brought his wife and baby to live with us and I loved it! Ira thinks Jesse's a failure. He says Jesse's entire life was ruined by a single friendship, which is nonsense. All Don Burnham did was tell Jesse he had singing talent. Call that ruining a life? But you take a boy like Jesse, who doesn't do just brilliantly in school, and whose father's always at him about his shortcomings; and you tell him there's this one special field where he shines-well, what do you expect? Think he'll turn his back on that and forget it?" "Well, of course not!" Mabel said indignantly.

  "Of course not. He took up singing with a hard-rock band. He dropped out of high school and collected a whole following of girls and finally one particular girl and then he married her; nothing wrong with that. Brought her to live in our house because he wasn't making much money. I was thrilled. They had a darling little baby. Then his wife and baby moved out on account of this awful scene, just up and left. It was nothing but an argument really, but you know how those can escalate. I said, 'Ira, go after her; it's your fault she went.' (Ira was right in the thick of that scene and I blame him to this day.) But Ira said no, let her do what she liked. He said let them just go on and go, but I felt she had ripped that child from my flesh and left a big torn spot behind." "Grandbabies," Mabel said. "Don't get me started." Ira said, "Not to change the subject, but-" "Oh, Ira," Maggie told him, "just take Highway Ten and shut up about it." He gave her a long, icy stare. She buried her nose in her Kleenex, but she knew what kind of stare it was. Then he asked Mabel, "Have you ever been to Deer Lick?" "Deer Lick," Mabel said. "Seems to me I've heard of it." "I was wondering where we'd cut off from Route One to get there." "Now, that I wouldn't know," Mabel told him. She asked Maggie, "Honey, can I pour you more coffee?" "Oh, no, thank you," Maggie said. In fact, her mug was untouched. She took a little sip to show her appreciation.

  Mabel tore the bill off a pad and handed it to Ira. He paid in loose change, standing up to root through his pockets. Maggie, meanwhile, placed her damp Kleenex in the empty chip sack and made a tidy package of it so as not to be any trouble. "Well, it was nice talking to you," she told Mabel.

  "Take care, sweetheart," Mabel said.

  Maggie had the feeling they ought to kiss cheeks, like women who'd had lunch together.

  She wasn't crying anymore, but she could sense Ira's disgust as he led the way to the parking lot. It felt like a sheet of something glassy and flat, shutting her out. He ought to have married Ann Landers, she thought. She slid into the car. The seat was so hot it burned through the back of her dress. Ira got in too and slammed the door behind him. If he had married Ann Landers he'd have just the kind of hard-nosed, sensible wife he wanted. Sometimes, hearing his grunt of approval as he read one of Ann's snappy answers, Maggie felt an actual pang of jealousy.

  They passed the ranch houses once again, jouncing along the little paved road. The map lay between them, crisply folded. She didn't ask what he'd decided about routes. She looked out the window, every now and then sniffing as quietly as possible.

  "Six and a half years," Ira said. "No, seven now, and you're still dragging up that Fiona business. Telling total strangers it was all my fault she left. You just have to blame someone for it, don't you, Maggie." "If someone's to blame, why, yes, I do," Maggie told the scenery.

  "Never occurred to you it might be your fault, did it." "Are we going to go through this whole dumb argument again?" she asked, swinging around to confront him.

  "Well, who brought it up, I'd like to know?" "I was merely stating the facts, Ira." "Who asked for the facts, Maggie? Why do you feel the need to pour out your soul to some waitress?" "Now, there is nothing wrong with being a waitress," she told him. "It's a perfectly respectable occupation. Our own daughter's been working as a waitress, must I remind you." "Oh, great, Maggie; another of your logical progressions." "One thing about you that I really cannot stand," she said, "is how you act so superior. We can't have just a civilized back-and-forth discussion; oh, no. No, you have to make a point of how illogical I am, what a whifflehead I am, how you're so cool and above it all." "Well, at least I don't spill my life story in public eating places," he told her.

  "Oh, just let me out," she said. "I cannot bear your company another second." "Gladly," he said, but he went on driving.

  "Let me out, I tell you!" ' He looked over at her. He slowed down. She picked up her purse and clutched it to her chest.

  "Are you going to stop this car," she asked, "or do I have to jump from a moving vehicle?" He stopped the car.

  Maggie got out* and slammed the door. She started walking back toward the caf. For a moment it seemed that Ira planned just to sit there, but then she heard him shift gears and drive on.

  The sun poured down a great wash of yellow light, and her shoes made little cluttery sounds on the gravel. Her heart was beating extra fast. She felt pleased, in a funny sort of way. She felt almost drunk with fury and elation.

  She passed the first of the ranch houses, where weedy flowers waved along the edge of the front yard and a tricycle lay in the driveway. It certainly was quiet. All she could hear was the distant chirping of birds-their chink! chink! chink! and video! video! video! in the trees far across the fields. She'd lived her entire life with the hum of the city, she realized. You'd think Baltimore was kept running by some giant, ceaseless, underground machine. How had she stood it? Just like that, she gave up any plan for returning. She'd been heading toward the cafe with some vague notion of asking for th
e nearest Trailways stop, or maybe hitching a ride back home with a reliable-looking trucker; but what was the point of going home?

  She passed the second ranch house, which had a mailbox out front shaped like a covered wagon. A fence surrounded the property-just whitewashed stumps linked by swags of whitewashed chain, purely ornamental-and she stopped next to one of the stumps and set her purse on it to take inventory. The trouble with dress-up purses was that they were so small. Her everyday purse, a canvas tote, could have kept her going for weeks. ("You give the line 'Who steals my purse steals trash' a whole new meaning," her mother had once remarked.) Still, she had the basics: a comb, a pack of Kleenex, and a lipstick. And in her wallet, thirty-four dollars and some change and a blank check. Also two credit cards, but the check was what mattered. She would go to the nearest bank and open the largest account the check would safely cover-say three hundred dollars. Why, three hundred dollars could last her a long time! Long enough to find work, at least. The credit cards, she supposed, Ira would very soon cancel. Although she might try using them just for this weekend.

  She flipped through the rest of the plastic windows in her wallet, passing her driver's license, her library card, a school photo of Daisy, a folded coupon for Affinity shampoo, and a color snapshot of Jesse standing on the front steps at home. Daisy was double-exposed-it was all the rage last year-so her precise, chiseled profile loomed semitransparent behind a full-face view of her with her chin raised haughtily. Jesse wore his mammoth black overcoat from Value Village and a very long red fringed neck scarf that dangled below his knees. She was struck- she was almost injured-by his handsomeness. He had taken Ira's one drop of Indian blood and transformed it into something rich and stunning: high polished cheek- bones, straight black hair, long black lusterless eyes. But the look he gave her was veiled and impassive, as haughty as Daisy's. Neither one of them had any further need of her.