White Dog Fell from the Sky

17



The next day, Muriel stopped by to ask how she was doing and to invite her to Thanksgiving dinner that night. “We’re having a few people over. Just a spur of the moment thing.”

She pictured herself there solo, wearing some brave little festive outfit, surrounded by couples. “Thanks, dearie, but I think I won’t.” She wanted to tell Muriel why, but it felt too wearisome to explain. Some shred of dignity she was trying to hang onto, and she’d lose it in the process of explaining.

She left work early and drove to the co-op for food. This would be the first Thanksgiving in her life that she wouldn’t celebrate in some fashion. In the street, she ran into Hasse.

“What are you doing out of work so early?” Those eyes, full of irony and sparkle.

“I suddenly had an impulse to cook something resembling a Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I’d invite you to join us, but I don’t think you’d enjoy yourself.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“How are you?”

“I’m on my own now,” she said. But he already knew. She saw it in his eyes.

“You’re okay?”

“Yes,” she said. “How about you?”

“I’m well enough,” he said. But he wasn’t, and he knew 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.”

“Oh, go ahead.”

“I never could imagine the two of you in bed.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re way higher intensity than he is,” he said. “He seems half asleep most of the time. And there’s something a little slippery about him. I never can figure out what he’s really thinking. Anyway, the single life suits you. You’re looking well.”

“Thanks.” But he was lying. She’d aged ten years in the months since Lawrence had departed. “Want to open the wine?” They went into the kitchen, and she passed him the corkscrew and a couple of glasses. She’d cooked a stroganoff with beef, bacon, white wine, sour cream. The rice was done. She turned on the burner under the frozen peas. He stuck his nose into the stroganoff pot. “Smells great.”

“Sorry it’s not turkey.”

“I don’t even like turkey. How did we ever get stuck with that for Thanksgiving? Did you know that the Pilgrims ate swans?”

“I’m glad we don’t. By the way, I have no appetizer. We’ll just eat, okay?”

“Are you apologizing?”

“No. Yes.” She stood over the stove, about to dish up the food, made a sudden movement, and knocked her wineglass to the floor. The glass shattered, and red wine splashed over his shoes and her bare feet.

“Don’t move,” he said. He put his arms around her and lifted her away from the shards and set her down. He swept up, grabbed a sponge and paper towels and mopped up. “There might still be some. You’d better get shoes.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“That’s not a pumpkin pie I see …”

“It is.”

“You made it? I can’t remember when I last had pumpkin pie.” They sat down at the table. Conversation was halting, awkward. Not knowing what else to talk about, she asked how he’d come to Botswana.

“I was a religious nut,” he said, smiling.

“As in converting the pagan masses?”

“More or less. I was sent out here for two years, in the grand missionary tradition, with a small band of believers.” He took a gulp of wine.

“And?”

“And after two months, I thought, I don’t even like these people. And this whole concept of salvation. Suddenly it made no sense. So I bailed and found a job with Shell Oil. I’ve been here ever since. Strange isn’t it, the way things can change overnight?”

“Yes.”

“So what about you?” he asked. “Have you moved on?”

She’d always thought of Peter as a bit of a galoot, but it wasn’t true. He was more like a seatmate on a Greyhound bus who has kind eyes and is willing to listen. It surprised her.

“Not really. But I will in time.” They finished up the first course, and she poured him coffee and gave him a slab of pie.

“So what happened?” he asked.

“I don’t really know how to explain it. Everything revolved around Lawrence and his work. I became bored, inattentive. His attentions turned elsewhere … I guess you’d say it was mutual, although it didn’t feel like it at the time.”

“Well, let me say it—I never really liked the guy. It’s hard to put a finger on. You’ll be grateful for this someday. Great pie, by the way.”

“Are you with someone, Peter?”

“No, I’ve tried. Both sexes. It’s not going to happen in this lifetime.”

“Maybe that’ll change.”

“I doubt it.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for it either,” she said. She felt no sparks with Peter, doubted that she’d ever feel that way again.

“You’ll have a happy life and be better for this.”

“You’re sweet to say so.”

“I mean it.” He got up to go shortly after that. “I’m on the road early tomorrow. Can I help with the dishes?”

She thanked him and told him no. His face when he bent to kiss her good night contained a deep, wide loneliness. He thanked her, and she shut the door, thinking of something she’d read in a Philip Larkin poem she’d taken out of the library: how in everyone there sleeps a life unlived as it might be lived if one were loved.

She went to the sink and soaped up the dishes. A life as it might be lived if one were loved. She thought of Lawrence’s pasted on smile, his eagerness to get away. And his step toward her, and his surprisingly tender, I’m sorry, Alice. Once upon a time, she would have said there was nothing in her life she really regretted. Now, she wouldn’t say that, but what she regretted was hard to name. Not the years with Lawrence, not even the end. It was not being awake enough: being half asleep when she met him, half asleep when she read his distant letters. He’d asked so little of her, and she’d responded with half herself. His emotional vagueness, which drove her crazy, had been in her too—like a disease passed between them. Never mind what he did. She needed to account for her own half there–ness, for the deprivation and narrowness of that life with him, and the rage that followed when she woke.

A wolf spider sat on the wall by the kitchen pipes, hairy, fanged, as big as a small plate. She clapped a pot over it and slid the top on. She felt brave, capable. Out in the garden, she set the pot down, took the lid off and made a run for it. As she headed for the house, she heard a cat yowl behind her. She turned, and the ghost of Horse walked toward her on rangy, long legs. He was twice as gaunt as before. “Where the hell have you been?” Horse followed her into the kitchen, inhaled a can of sardines, and another, before settling into a rattling purr. “Where were you?” But he only purred and purred. Mr. Magoo came into the kitchen to investigate, hissed and put his back up. Then some ancient memory surfaced. His tail went up, and he dragged it under Horse’s nose.