The Cost of Lunch, Etc.: Short Stories

by Marge Piercy

  Whispering. Low sluttish whispers and a stench of fish. A cat scuttles past him with some live thing in its mouth. An old woman in black is watching him, and the beads of the portiere over her door click in her seeking hand. An open sewer dribbles down the winding stairs of street. Whispering again. Who? Awake at once, he sits up with a jagged hammering against his breastbone. No, not whispering. Just rain.

  She stirs, far on her side of the gullied sheet. Just spring rain slithering down the windows, rain with a queasy smell of upturned earth. Something that should have been done has been forgotten. Something owed is coming due. His anxiety feels almost comfortable, accustomed. He knows that she is holding her breath like a silenced alarm, listening. To the rain? To his breathing?

  He says, “You were out very late at your girlfriend’s. What time did you get in?”

  Pretending sleep, she imitates soft noises of coming to.

  More loudly he asks, “What time did you come home? What were you doing?”

  “Just talking. I didn’t notice the time. Oh, hours ago.”

  Two on the green-eyed clock. He is quite sure if he reached out his hand, her hair would be wet, freshly wet, with the rain.

  The window is open on the mild leafy night and the shade taps and taps in the small late spring wind. He rises, gathers his pillow, yanks the spread off. Awake beside him from his tossing and the churning of her own thoughts, she sits up on an elbow and watches him go dragging his bedding down the dark corridor toward the cot in the living room.

  Tonight he accused her of being unfaithful, and she laughed. Faithful, unfaithful to what, she wonders. He does not believe she has been with her friend, talking. He withdraws, withholds, makes himself scarce to punish her. She is already moving in another direction. She watches him go, then stretches out again. And says nothing. She imagines a bed that will be all her own in a place that will be tiny but light and hers alone.

  She has been making plans with her friend who knows a couple of available rentals. She made a list tonight. Saturday, the first day she doesn’t work, she will look for that space behind some rented door.

  What Remains

  Intensely purple flowers in the shape of steeples appeared at the back fence of my vegetable garden last year. I didn’t know where they came from. After a week, I looked them up in one of my gardening books. Loosestrife. Although some nurseries still sell it, it’s widely condemned as an invasive weed. But it was pretty. I knew I would let it grow and then regret it in two years and spend several more trying to eradicate it. I’ve gone through this cycle before. But the flowers were attractive and lasted a long time in a vase.

  The honey locust I planted outside my bedroom window the year I moved here with my then-husband, that gave me welcome light shade with its delicate leaves, was dying. In fear of it falling on the house in a nor’easter or hurricane, I had it cut down. Expensive, but what could I do? Underground it did not die but continued to sprout baby trees all over the place, even in the center strip of the driveway beside my little house. Its vitality amazed me. I cut them down but they simply pushed out of the ground in another place. Again, sometimes I let them be. But usually they died, as if the energy was only sufficient for a sapling but not nearly enough to make a tree.

  My sister was sick with cancer of the small intestine. I didn’t know what to think of all this fecundity. Was it a mad growth similar to what was eating her from the inside? Was it proof that something goes on after death? My sister Sandra was very sick 700 miles away in Buffalo. I couldn’t move there. I work for a living and I’m glad to have two jobs. If I quit either, I could not survive. As it was, I had to do without health insurance for two years until the State mandated a nice cheap policy. Sandra had insurance. She had a better job than I do, but when she got cancer, they said she could no longer work enough hours to do the job and they let her go. It’s lucky she had insurance, believe me.

  I drove out to see her whenever I dared get away. I drove all night on Friday after work. That way I could spend Saturday and most of Sunday with her and then drive all night to get back for work on Monday. I drank a lot of coffee, even more than I usually do. Working two jobs, I try to stay caffeinated.

  She’d finished another round of chemo four weeks before, so it sounded like a good time to visit. She would still be fagged out but able to spend time and talk. Sometimes when she was on chemo, she just wanted to sleep and I felt like I was more of a nuisance than a help. I brought her vegetables from my backyard garden. She liked that. She only wanted to eat organic. I thought it was a little late to worry about that, but if it made her feel better, why not?

  I’m divorced for nine years, my son Rick finally moved out and is living with his girlfriend in Charlotte, North Carolina, and both our parents were dead. Basically my sister Sandra was the main person my life, the one I always talked with three evenings a week and emailed almost every day. My son sends me text messages it takes me five minutes to decipher. I hate text messages. They have no flavor. They could be sent by anybody. All those stupid emoticons. Smiley face. Frowny face. LOL. IMHP. I could be trying to communicate with a robot.

  I thought Rick and I were close, especially after his father took off with a massage therapist and moved to Arizona. I like Rick’s girlfriend okay, but he has disappeared into that relationship. I suppose that’s good. It took him long enough to settle down. But this was a time when I needed him. I have local friends, but working two jobs, I don’t get to see a lot of them. We have an occasional brunch on Sundays or go to the movies or have a meal together in a moderately priced restaurant or just share a beer in my backyard, sitting in the Adirondack chairs that I bought when I was still married. But everybody’s busy. Sheila still has the twins at home; Carlie is very married; Nita is having an affair with a landscaper who lives in West Roxbury. We all live in Roslindale. It’s part of Boston but kind of separate. I live like most women my age, a bit tired, a bit shabby, a bit lonely, more than a bit worried. When I watch TV, which I admit I do most evenings, all the women seem so shiny and put together. If I get to wash my hair a couple times a week, that’s the best I can do for upkeep. I’ve given up expecting Prince Charming to come by in a white convertible. I have my work outfits, a couple of dressy things that have lasted me for almost a decade. I treat my clothes well; I have to.

  So I managed to get out half an hour early on Friday from the real estate office where I work in Dedham three days a week. My boss was showing a house and said she wouldn’t be back. I had packed the old Ford with my suitcase, some veggies from the garden and was ready to head for Buffalo. I packed a sandwich to eat on the way and a thermos of coffee. It was September and still light when I passed Springfield on the Turnpike. Too bad I was driving into the sunset, so the flaws in my windshield almost blinded me, but I’m used to squinting and I never speed. I think my old car would fly apart if I tried.

  Finally the damned sun sank into a cloudbank and I could take off my sunglasses, reach over and put on my regular glasses. Prescription bifocals and they cost me too much, but what can I do? I hate driving into the sun as much as I hate driving into other people’s brights, but night driving is how I got to Sandra. I was hoping the doctor had given her news of remission after her CRI last week. They always took so long to give her results, as if she could think about anything else until she found out.

  I was sorry to be driving through the Berkshires at night because the Mass Turnpike is pretty by day, but I had to make time. I called her just after I crossed into New York to let her know I’m arriving approximately when.

  “Don’t sit up for me. I know where the key is. I’ll let myself in and get some shut eye on the couch.”

  “I’ll open it up and put sheets on for you. I couldn’t stay awake even if you wanted me to. I’ll be glad to see you.”

  Like me, Sandra was divorced but she never had children. She worked for a ladies magazine and then various newspapers in the ad department, good pay and she liked the work. I always felt she ha
d done much better than me. I went to college too at U Mass Boston, but I got married and had my son and never did have a professional job, the way Sandra had. I had a little girl baby too but she died of meningitis when she was only three. It broke my heart, but after that I poured everything into my son.

  I took the key from under the pot of dead geraniums on her porch and let myself in. It was sad to see the dead flowers, Sandra had always loved geraniums, not the red ones but pastels. She had opened up the daybed for me and made it with sheets bright with umbrellas in various colors dancing across them. I assumed she was asleep, so I undressed, crept into bed and turned off the light. I was exhausted but all the coffee kept me awake until faint grey light was leaking through the windows.

  I did sleep for a while until I heard her moving around in the kitchen. I jumped up then, put on my bathrobe and joined her. I did not like the way she looked, grey and much thinner than the last time I saw her, yet kind of puffy.

  But I said, “You’re looking better. What did the doctor say?”

  She rose and opened a cabinet, took out kibble and shook it into three bowls. Two black sleek cats and one grey long-haired tabby were circling her feet, rubbing and make little noises. She got them settled and returned to the table.

  “Tell me how you are?” I repeated.

  She sat down at the table and was eating an apple, very slowly. She pointed toward the refrigerator. “Why don’t you make yourself some eggs? I don’t have bacon or sausage, but there’s bread for toast.”

  “That’s fine. Or I could just have cereal.”

  “In the cabinet there. It might be stale.” She pushed her fine pale brown hair with its streak of grey out of her eyes. I was afraid her hair would have fallen out, but it just looked a bit lank. “Help yourself.”

  I ate the cereal with a banana. The cereal was stale, but I hadn’t come all this way to eat breakfast. “So how are you doing?”

  She put down the apple as if it had grown heavy. “The cancer has metastasized. It’s in my liver.”

  “Can’t they operate?”

  “It’s too far along.” She looked into my eyes with hers that were so like my own. “I’m dying, sis. They give me maybe two months. I’m putting my affairs in order.”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing can be done? Did you get a second opinion? In Boston, there’s great doctors.”

  “It’s the way it is.” She picked up the apple and looked at it. “There are things that must be settled.”

  I put down my spoon. My stomach felt filled with cement. I could not swallow. “Don’t they offer any hope?”

  She shook her head. “I’m too far gone.”

  “Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

  “I don’t want to die there. It would all be pain for nothing. In five days I go into hospice. It’s all arranged.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You could come and stay with me.”

  “In the hospice they can give me morphine for the pain. It’s settled … but so much isn’t. I put the house on the market. I reduced the price until it sold. I’m leaving the money to you, after my bills are paid. There won’t be much but maybe it will help.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to. Who else would I leave it to? Besides, I’m going to ask you a favor and that will help pay for it.”

  “Anything.” Perhaps to arrange her funeral or her burial? I blinked back the burning in my eyes. To cry felt self-indulgent. She was being so brave and practical.

  “Come into my bedroom.” She walked so slowly it took us five minutes just to cross the kitchen and pass through the dining room to her bedroom. It smelled like a sickroom, of medicine and decay. My eyes burned with tears I held back. I snuffled as quietly as I could. I longed to hug her but was afraid it would be painful for her frail body.

  She opened a jewelry box on her vanity. “Here’s my diamond ring. It ought to be worth something. And solitaire earrings, two karats. I had them appraised. You should get a couple of thousand for them, at least. These are real pearls. You might want to keep them. You should go through and see if there’s anything else you might like. The rest is just costume jewelry. I gave a bunch to my cleaning lady.” She held the pearls to the light, almost caressing them, then dropped them warm from her touch into my palm.

  “Whatever you want.” I was never one for jewelry. I suppose I could give the pearls to Rick’s girlfriend. Or maybe Nita would like them. Yet I was not sure I would be able to give away anything that had belonged to Sandra. Even if I never wore those pearls, they had touched her skin often and they retained some essence of her. The diamonds meant less to her. I’d sell or pawn them as she suggested.

  “You should look through my closet. See if there’s anything that might fit you. I’m pretty sure my cashmere winter coat will. I bought it big so I could wear sweaters or suit jackets under it.”

  “Sandra, stop! I want you, not all this stuff.”

  “I’m going into hospice and the people who bought the house will be moving in shortly afterward. I’m leaving the furniture. They can do with it whatever they decide.”

  She insisted I go through her closet and gave me a suitcase with wheels, the sort of thing people who travel a lot own. I’m too heavy for most of her things—not that I’m fat, just broader than Sandra ever was. I ended up with some oversized sweaters, the coat, a couple of jackets and a silk bathrobe. What would I ever do with a silk robe? It brought home to me how different our lives had been.

  She insisted I take a food processor and some fancy pots, a peacock vase she was proud of, a platter in the shape of a fish, her silverware. Then at last she sank into a chair in the living room. “If there’s anything else you see that you want, just take it.”

  I could not bear it. I shook my head.

  “Please look around. It makes me sad to think of strangers throwing all my nice things out, giving them to the Salvation Army or whatever … Now for the favor.”

  The big grey tabby had climbed in her lap and she was petting it absently. “I want you to take the cats. If you don’t, they’ll go to the shelter and be killed. I can’t stand that. I just can’t.”

  “Three cats? But I work two jobs. I’m not around much.”

  “They keep each other company. They kept me company. They’ve been loyal friends to me no matter how ill I became. I cannot send them to be executed just because I’m dying. Will you do this for me?” Her voice rose. “Please!”

  I couldn’t imagine what I’d do with three cats, but I said, “Of course. Just tell me what they need.”

  Tears crept down her face and I found myself weeping along with her. We sat facing each other, both with tears rolling down our faces. I hated the thought that this might be the last time I ever saw my sister.

  Visibly she pulled herself together, sitting up, still stroking the grey tabby. “We’ll load their scratching post, their litter box, their toys and food. Mitzi and Cleo—the two blacks—they go in one carrying case. Merlin goes in his own case.”

  So Sunday around two I loaded my car with various clothes, a lamp she pressed on me, the pots, the dishes, a quilt and all the accoutrements of three cats who began to yowl piteously as soon as they were loaded into their carrying cases. Merlin had to be dragged out from under her bed.

  All seven hundred miles back to Roslindale, they yowled. I had to pull over a couple of times because my tears blinded me. Every mile, every hour took me farther from Sandra. I was tempted to turn around and call in sick, but I knew she really did not want me there. As she kept saying, she had a lot to settle before she went into the hospice.

  When I brought them in, the two black cats ran away terrified into nether reaches of my smallish house. Merlin stood his ground and growled at me. I put down food for them in the bowls she had packed, put the litter box in my bathroom and filled it, put down water, set up their scratching pad. I did not see the black cats again but all the food was gone in the morning.

  I called Sand
ra to give a report. By evening, all the cats came out of hiding and stood waiting for food. They would not let me touch them, but they ate, they used the litter box, and that night, Merlin climbed into my bed and lay against me. He even began to purr. It was oddly comforting. I felt as if the four of us were in mourning. Perhaps we could mourn together.

  I had a lot to learn about cats. If I didn’t scoop out their leavings from the litter boxes every morning, they deposited little complaints on the bathroom rug. Each of them had different food habits, and Merlin had to be fed up on the kitchen counter away from the girls, or he would raid their dishes. If I didn’t play with them, they’d make games of knocking things over and chasing each other around the house at night. I took a book out of the library on cat behavior. It said cats could be trained, but I found that I could be trained far more easily.

  A year has passed since Sandra died. I flew back for her funeral. Carlie fed the cats. I have no reason to go to Buffalo again. The money from the house and the jewelry I keep in the bank for emergencies. Me and my five cats live happily together. Friends pity me silently, but I know better. I got one more from the MSPCA, an orange three-year old male I call Pumpkin. Then somebody dumped a skinny female on my porch in a box from a liquor store. She turned out to be pregnant, but the vet said she was too starved to carry the kittens to term. No problem with an abortion for a cat. My new vet is a 70-year-old guy who loves animals. When I commented on the abortion, he laughed and said that when he started to practice, abortions were illegal for women but perfectly fine for cats. I named her Lucky. I don’t think she stopped eating for two months.

  When I come home from work, they greet me at the door. We dine together. We watch TV. Each cat has a specific place in my bed. They purr me to sleep and they wake me in the morning. Each one is a strong personality; each is affectionate with me and they get along pretty well with each other. They are better company than my husband ever was. I’m cutting back on my gardening to spend time with them. They’re more entertaining. I am letting the loosestrife take over that bed and letting the locust babies grow (except in the driveway). I miss my sister and probably always will. I still work two jobs, I am often exhausted, I am still shabby and somewhat overweight and without male companionship, but I am no longer lonely. I have a family of five—and perhaps I will adopt more. I lost my sister and I still miss her desperately, but she left me a destiny: the cat lady of my neighborhood in Roslindale. It’s something that works for me. I think she knew what she was doing when she bequeathed me her cats. We had always taken care of each other and now I have a little family to fuss over.