Vinegar Girl

by Anne Tyler

  There were so many logistics they hadn’t thought to discuss.

  Next to the shower stall, a used-looking towel and washcloth hung on a chrome rod, and on another rod next to the toilet were another towel and washcloth, brand new. Those must be meant for her. The sight partly assuaged the injury of the bare mattress in her bedroom.

  It was after 3:00 now. She took her phone from her tote and checked it, just in case she’d somehow missed his call, but there were no messages. She put the phone back. She would just go ahead and eat on her own. All at once she was hungry.

  In the kitchen she scooped a bit of egg salad onto a chipped white plate. She got herself a fork and a paper towel, since she couldn’t find any napkins, and she settled herself at the table. But when she looked down at her lunch she caught sight of a fleck of bright red on a piece of yolk: her own blood. She spotted another fleck, and another. In fact, her egg salad as a whole looked effortful and not quite clean—overhandled. She stood up and scraped her serving into the garbage bucket, and she added the rest of the egg salad from the bowl and then concealed the whole mess beneath the paper towel. The kitchen had no dishwasher, so she rinsed her dishes under the tap and dried them with another paper towel and put them away. Destroying the evidence.

  It occurred to her that life in the coed dorm had been a lot more fun than this. Also (looking down at her left hand) that white gold and yellow gold really didn’t go together. What had she been thinking, listening to her father on matters of fashion? In fact, people shouldn’t wear rings at all if their nails were short and ragged and rimmed with garden soil.

  From the fridge she took a beer, and she opened it and tossed back a good portion of it before she went out to the landing again, still carrying the can. She wandered toward Pyotr’s room. His door was shut, but what the hell; she turned the knob and walked in.

  The room was sparsely furnished, like the rest of the apartment, and very neat. The only thing out of place was the ironing board that had been set up at the room’s center, with an iron standing on top of it and a crisp white dress shirt draped over its narrower end. This had the same effect on her as the new towel and washcloth. She felt more hopeful.

  The double bed beneath the window was covered with a red satin quilt stitched with fraying gold thread, like something in a cheap motel, and a reading lamp was clamped precariously to the headboard. On the nightstand was a bottle of aspirin and a gilt-framed photo of Kate. Of Kate? She picked it up. Oh, of Kate and Pyotr, except that since Kate’s stool was higher than Pyotr’s chair she filled more of the scene. The startled expression she wore wrinkled her forehead unbecomingly, and the T-shirt beneath her buckskin jacket was streaked with dirt. It was not a picture to be proud of. All that distinguished it from the others her father had snapped—some at least marginally more flattering—was that it was the very first one, the one he’d taken on the day that she and Pyotr had met.

  She thought about that a moment and then set the picture back down on the nightstand.

  The bureau was topped with a dusty cutwork dresser scarf, probably Mrs. Liu’s contribution, and a saucer that contained a few coins and a single safety pin. Nothing else. The walnut-framed mirror above it was so old that Kate seemed to be looking at herself through gauze—her face suddenly pale and her cloud of black hair almost gray. She took another swig of beer and opened a drawer.

  It was her superstitious belief that people who snooped in other people’s private spaces were punished with hurtful discoveries, but Pyotr’s drawers revealed just a paltry collection of clothing, carefully folded and stacked. There were two long-sleeved jerseys she had seen a dozen times, two short-sleeved polo shirts, a small pile of socks rolled in pairs (all ribbed white athletic socks except for one pair of navy dress socks), several pairs of white knit underpants like the ones the little boys in Room 4 wore, and several foreign-looking, tissue-thin undershirts with uncommonly close-set straps. No pajamas. No accessories, no doodads, no frivolities. The only thing she learned about him was the touching meagerness of his life. The meagerness and the…rectitude, was the word that came to her mind.

  In his closet she found the suit he must have been planning to wear to the wedding—a shiny navy—along with two pairs of jeans, one still threaded with a belt. A vivid purple tie splashed with yellow lightning bolts was looped over the rod, and his brown Oxfords sat on the floor beside his sneakers.

  Kate took another swig of beer and left the room.

  Back in the kitchen, she polished off her beer and tossed the can into the paper bag that Pyotr appeared to be using for recycling. She got another beer from the fridge and returned to her own room.

  She went directly to her closet and unzipped the garment bag and lifted out the dress she planned to wear to Aunt Thelma’s. It was the one piece of clothing she owned that seemed suitable for a party—red cotton with a scoop neck. She hung it from the hook on the closet door and stepped back to assess it. Should she give it a touch-up with Pyotr’s iron? That seemed like a lot of work, though. She took a meditative sip of beer and gave up on the idea.

  The walls here in her bedroom were as bare as the others. She had never realized how bleak a place looked without pictures. For a few minutes, she entertained herself by contemplating what she might hang. Some things from her room at home, maybe? But those were so outdated—faded posters featuring rock groups she no longer listened to, and team photos from her basketball days. She should find something new. Start fresh.

  But this time, the thought of a project failed to perk her up. She was feeling very tired, all at once. It might have been the beer, or it might have been because she had slept poorly the night before, but she wished she could take a nap. If there had been sheets on the bed, she would have taken a nap. As it was, she sat down in the armchair in the corner, and she kicked her shoes off and stretched her legs out on the ottoman. Even through the closed window, she could hear birds singing. She focused on those. “Terwhilliker, whilliker, whilliker!” they seemed to be saying. Gradually, her eyelids grew heavy. She set her beer can down on the floor and let herself drift into sleep.

  —

  Footsteps coming up the stairs, slap-slap-slap. “Khello?” Footsteps across the landing. “Where are you?” Pyotr called. A giant peony bush arrived in her doorway, with Pyotr somewhere behind it. “Oh. You are resting,” he said.

  She couldn’t see his face because it was hidden by the bush, which stood in a green plastic nursery pot and already had some buds on it. White, they were going to be. She sat up straighter. She 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 herd of rhinos, and both coffee tables were the size of double beds. “Kate’s father has been telling us what an eventful day you’ve had, Pyoder,” Aunt Thelma said.

  “Was very eventful,” Pyotr said.

  “He’s been quite talkative, for him. We’ve all learned the most amazing amount about mice.”

  She opened the French doors to the patio. It was a long while yet till sunset, but paper lanterns glowed in the trees and netted candles flickered palely on all the tables. When Kate and Pyotr stepped out onto the flagstones, the guests turned as a group, which made it seem as if there were considerably more of them than there really were. Kate felt the force of their attention like a wind that suddenly smacked her in the face. She stopped short, holding her tote low in front of her to hide the mayonnaise stain. “Here they are!” Aunt Thelma caroled, and she flung out one arm majestically. “Introducing…Mr. and Mrs. Cherbakov and Cherbakova! Or however they do it.”

  There was a general “Ah!” and a smattering of applause, most people just patting the insides of their wrists with their fingertips in order to accommodate their wineglasses. Kate’s girlhood friend Alice had put on a little weight since Kate had last seen her, and her husband held a baby perched in the crook of his arm. Uncle Theron was wearing a defiantly unchurchy outfit of khakis and a Hawaiian shirt, but all the other men wore suits, and the women were in spring dresses that showed their winter-white arms and legs.

  Dr. Battista was clapping the loudest. He had set his glass on a table to free his hands, and his face was shining with emotion. Bunny, at the far end of the patio, wasn’t clapping at all. She clenched a Pepsi can in her fist and glared at Pyotr and Kate belligerently.

  “All right, everybody, we’re switching to champagne,” Uncle Barclay called. He arrived in front of Pyotr and Kate with two foam-topped flutes. “Drink up; it’s the good stuff,” he told them.

  “Thanks,” Kate said, accepting hers, and Pyotr said, “Thank you, Uncle Bark.”

  “Looks like you just got out of bed, Pyoder,” Uncle Barclay said with a sly chuckle.

  “This is the latest fashion,” Kate told him. She’d be damned if she would offer any more apologies. “He bought it at Comme des Garçons.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  She took a hefty sip of champagne.

  “Could you and Pyoder stand closer together?” her father asked her. He was holding his cell phone in both hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of the wedding. I know I had a lot on my mind, but…Maybe your uncle could restage the ceremony for us.”

  “No,” Kate told him flatly.

  “No? Oh, well,” he said, squinting down at his phone. “Whatever you say, darling. This is such a joyous day! And you are the one we have to thank, pointing us toward the Mintz boy. I never would have suspected him.”

  He was snapping more photographs as he spoke; he’d begun to look less incompetent at it. But there was no hope that the results would be any better, because Kate had her nose buried in her glass and Pyotr was turning away to snag a canapé from the tray Aunt Thelma was offering. “Maybe I take two,” he was saying. “I have not had breakfast or lunch.”

  “Oh, you poor thing! Take three,” Aunt Thelma said. “Louis? Caviar?”

  “No, never mind that. Barclay, could you snap a picture of me with the bride and groom?”

  “Be glad to,” Uncle Barclay said, at the same time that Aunt Thelma told him, “First you have to see to everybody’s champagne. Kate’s already drinking hers, and we haven’t even had the toast yet.”

  Kate lowered her glass guiltily, although really it was Uncle Barclay’s fault. He was the one who had told her to drink up.

  Her father said, “The thing that gets me is, I still don’t understand why this happened. This thing with the animal people, I mean. My mice lead enviable lives! More healthful than many humans’ lives, in fact. I’ve always had a very good relationship with my mice.”

  “Well, better with them than with no one, I suppose,” Aunt Thelma said, and she sailed off with her tray.

  Aunt Thelma’s son, Richard, was making his way toward them with his wife, a pale, icy blonde with poreless skin and pearly pink lips. Kate tugged at her father’s sleeve and whispered, “Quick: what’s Richard’s wife’s name?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “It starts with an L. Leila? Leah?”

  “Cuz!” Richard said jovially. He wasn’t usually so friendly. “Congratulations! Congratulations, Pyoder,” he said, slapping him jarringly on the back. “I’m Kate’s cousin, Richard. This is my wife, Jeannette.”

  Dr. Battista raised his eyebrows at Kate. Pyotr said, “Rich, I am glad to meet you. Jen, I am glad to meet you.”

  Kate waited for Richard to draw one of his nose-breaths in protest, but he let it pass. “Can’t believe we’re finally marrying this gal off,” he said. “Whole family’s beside themselves with relief.”

  Since this confirme
d Kate’s worst suspicions, she felt stabbed to the heart. And Jeannette said, “Oh, Richard,” which somehow made it worse.

  Pyotr said, “I too am relieved. I did not know if Kate would like me.”

  “Well, sure she would! You’re her own kind, right?”

  “I am her kind?”

  Richard suddenly looked less sure of himself, but he said, “I mean you’re in that same milieu or whatever. That science milieu she was raised in. Right, Uncle Louis?” he asked. “No normal person could understand you people.”

  “What exactly do you find difficult to understand?” Dr. Battista asked him.

  “Oh, you know, all that science jargon; I can’t offhand—”

  “I am researching autoimmune disorders,” Dr. Battista said. “It’s true that ‘autoimmune’ has four syllables, but perhaps if I broke the word down for you…”

  Kate felt somebody slip an arm around her waist, and she started. She turned to find Alice standing next to her, smiling and saying, “Congratulations, stranger.”

  “Thanks,” Kate said.

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. How’ve you been?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Have you seen my little lambie pie over there?”

  “Yes, I noticed. Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Alice frowned. “She’s a girl, of course,” she said. Then she brightened and said, “Hurry up and have one of your own now, so they can be playmates.”

  “Oh, gosh,” Kate said. She looked around for the canapés, but they were clear across the patio.

  “So tell me about your guy! Where’d you meet him? How long have you known him? He’s very sexy.”

  “He works in my father’s lab,” Kate said. “We’ve known each other three years.” This was beginning to feel like the truth, she realized. She could almost summon up some concrete memories from their long acquaintance.

  “Are those two over there his parents?”

  “What? Oh, no, that’s the Gordons,” Kate said. “Our neighbors from two doors down. Pyotr doesn’t have any parents. He doesn’t have any family at all.”