Sinister Shorts

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Like always, she slept on her side of the bed, even though Gene had been gone a year now. He wouldn't like her spreading out too much on the bed, wanton and sloppy. Her side was big enough to hold her, and that was all the space she needed. She groaned a little settling in, and remembered it was the only sound she had made all day. At least she didn't talk to herself. She would call someone tomorrow, maybe the doctor about her stiff neck, or the technician at ComputerFix to talk about the keys sticking.

  Gene had once handled such outside business for her. She had grown used to staying home, taking care of him, letting him handle all the little hassles other people represented. As he got sicker, though, he had gotten meaner, and she hadn't much wanted to deal with him, either. At the dinner table, toward the end, they had read, the business section for him and a murder mystery for her. His funeral service had been hard on her, having to socialize with relatives Gene wouldn't speak to when he was alive. It was a relief when he was finally laid in the ground and she could go home and shut the damn door on all of them.

  The next day, after she finished the billing and she'd had her nap and cup of coffee, she took some paper bags out back and started picking lemons. You couldn't just let them rot on the tree. It would be a ridiculous waste. The lemons had grown so ripe they tore at the base as she plucked them, so a little skin came off. They would have to be used quickly. She picked two large sacks, but only one fit into the refrigerator, so she set one sack out front until she could figure out what to do with it.

  That night, she couldn't get to sleep. Her neck and shoulders ached. Early in the morning she rolled herself out of bed and took a hot shower, letting the scalding spray loosen up the tight muscles in her shoulders. She skipped brushing her teeth and looked for a long time into the foggy mirror. Not much to see, just the same old face looking back. She could hardly believe she'd ever been young. What was the point of getting dressed?

  The point was-she had forgotten the point. She shook her head, chastising herself for the interior blabberings, watching the woman in the mirror straighten up, push her chin out, and firm up her mouth, but could do nothing about something furious in her eyes.

  At four o'clock, as she locked up and picked up her briefcase, she saw the old couple walking up the street, just like they always did. Ten years before, they had come to the door to introduce themselves when she and Gene were moving in, but Gene had made it plain he and Doris were not the kaffeeklatsch type. They had better things to do than sit around with geezers nattering about the weather. The couple walked downtown every day, just like she did, and sometimes she couldn't avoid passing them. Then the old woman would say “Hello there,” and she would answer with a half-smile that meant she was trying to be polite but after all she was a busy woman, and continue on her way.

  This particular afternoon Doris stood back in the shadows of her front porch and watched them. Where did they live, anyway? To her surprise they turned into the driveway of the house two doors farther up the hill.

  That night, she found herself thinking about the old couple. She had snubbed them about a hundred times, and they still said “Hello there.”

  Maybe she would give them the extra sack of lemons. They would be thrilled at her friendly action, and ask her to stay for a cup of tea, and they would all have a nice chat about something or other. Visualizing herself holding a china teacup, sitting in their armchair, telling them about the lemons, made her notice something tight and hard in her throat that made it hard to swallow.

  The next day it rained, and the old people didn't go for a walk as usual. Doris watched some nature shows on TV, but she couldn't stay interested. She was feeling anxious about the lemons. She could just set them out on the curb and somebody who knew what to do with them would pick them up, and she would be done with the problem. She actually hauled the sack out there, but with the rain falling on the sack she had a bad feeling no one would take the lemons after all, so she brought them right back and set them by the front door.

  On Friday at four fifteen, at the post office, she looked at the smooth hands of the woman postal clerk, wondering if she would like the lemons. “Fifty-eight cents,” the clerk said, and Doris stared with fascination at her face, which resolved just for an instant from the general blur, so that she could see the clerk was a soft-skinned woman of about forty, motherly somehow, with chapped lips and long dark eyelashes. As she got out the exact change, Doris lowered her eyes, feeling as though she had been intrusive to look so closely. “Have a good day,” the woman clerk said, and Doris could just make out as she turned quickly away that the clerk was smiling.

  Rain gave way to a gray overcast which faded into darkness by the time she finished her supper, and here they came, the old couple, walking slowly past, toward their house. She felt like running out with the sack and giving it to them, but at the same time she had begun to feel very worried about actually talking to them after all these years. What if they were pests, and started coming to her door all the time? She would have to move, which would involve moving men and having her references checked by cold-eyed bankers… These thoughts were very frightening, so she stayed inside, watching them turn into their driveway, watching their lights flick on at the top of the hill, bright in the dusk.

  The house had grown cold but she didn't feel like making a fire just for herself. She had her smoke and finished her novel by about seven, and then there was nothing to do. Should she have a hot bath or turn on the TV? Dismayed, she looked around for some activity to grab her and involve her, but it was all so familiar, she had used it all up, seen thousands of programs, read thousands of pages… she stepped outside into the cold night without her jacket and pulled the door shut without locking it, picked up the sack of lemons, and sped up the hill.

  No bell or buzzer, a locked screen door. She stood there, waiting, as though they must feel her presence, the loud unseemly emotion rediating from her, but they didn't come, so she rapped her knuckles against the screen. An interior light came on and before she could run away the old lady was standing there surprised as hell and a commotion erupted, with Doris holding out the heavy bag and the old man's face popping up behind the screen and the three of them saying things she was too upset to register.

  Then the door swung open and she was drawn inside. She stood in their living room, which was smaller than hers and shocking, so modern and cheerful with its white walls and bright pillows. The first clear thing she noticed was the old man's hat on his bald head, a shapeless tan golf hat he usually wore outside. He was awfully tall; his head seemed to scrape the low ceiling. His wife had put on some slipper socks. She was so close, Doris had to look right into her wide blue eyes, with the wispy eyebrows raised high above them, which made Doris feel dizzy and like running away. “Sit down! Sit down!” the old lady was saying.

  “I have supper in the oven and I have to get back in a minute,” Doris said. Or that was what she meant to say, she wasn't sure how the words came out with the roaring in her ears.

  “Well, we're…”

  “I have a lemon tree and lots of lemons and I thought you might like some.” She offered the bag.

  They looked at each other. “We have a tree, too,” the old man said. “Over by the side of the house. Boxes and boxes of 'em. Look!” He disappeared through a swinging door and came out a moment later with a wooden crate. Tenderly, he lifted out a lemon as large and deep-colored as her lemons and showed it to her.

  The old lady had taken the paper bag and was holding it uncertainly. “But it's so nice to see you,” she said. They were sitting down on the pretty pillows now, but what Doris wanted was to go. All she had to offer was the lemons and they didn't need them, and she had to get out before they started engulfing her with pity, kindness, all sorts of sticky messy feelings. Just then the phone rang in the kitchen, and the old man pushed through a swinging door to answer it.

  “I should have realized you had a couple of trees,” Doris said. “You can see them from the street, but I don't w
alk that way. I have to go now.” She pushed herself up and smoothed down her skirt. The old man came in and both women looked at him. In a very low and gentle voice he said to his wife, “It's your sister. She's wondering if she can come over with a movie she just recorded, so we can all watch it together.”

  “Oh, no! Thank you, but I really couldn't!” Doris said, interrupting in her panic, thinking, now they were starting; they were trying to keep her, and she couldn't endure hours and hours with them; it was too painful and too powerful to feel their closeness. They looked at her, embarrassed.

  “I only meant… you understand… just me and my wife and her sister…” he said.

  “Oh, of course!” she cried, her cheeks flaming, grinning idiotically, “What a great idea! You really must! And I'll be going…” With such tumult inside her, she could hardly keep track of what she was saying. Her hands kept smoothing down her clothes as if they wished they might somehow erase her horrible gaffe. Including herself where she wasn't invited! She would never forgive herself!

  “Tell her no,” the old lady said with surprising firmness to her husband. “Maybe we could come see it tomorrow at her house. Tell her I'm working on a project.”

  And now, realizing she had butted in and commanded them to do something they didn't even want to do, Doris felt utter despair. She was hopeless. She had to get out of there quickly, and then she would never see them again.

  “You're always working on a project,” the old man said. “When could we go over tomorrow? We've got the laundry, and that church deal in the afternoon.”

  “Just tell her,” she said. He disappeared again, and the old lady turned back to her, saying, “We have such a small place. The TV's in the bedroom. We would all have to sit on the bed. It's real inconvenient.”

  The old man came back out, this time carrying a plastic sack with frozen muffins in it. “We freeze the juice in muffin tins,” he said. “You should try it. It keeps forever that way. Only problem is, it's hard to pop them out. I tried a hair dryer but that melted them too fast, then after a couple years I tried setting the pan over the pilot light on the stove just for a minute or two. That worked fine.”

  “Then they all fell out of the pan onto the floor,” his wife said.

  “Got her floor spic-and-span for once. No complaints from the lady of the house that time. Ha, ha.”

  They didn't seem disgusted by her, or angry at her. In fact, they hardly seemed to be paying any attention to her. Timidly, she asked, “What do you do with the muffins?”

  “Put one in a big glass of orange juice in the morning. Makes it taste better. Do you have a juicer?”

  “No, but maybe I'll get one. That's what I'll do. I have so many lemons going to waste in my backyard. All that vitamin C. Since my husband died. Nobody to take care of the tree, and lemons lying on the ground…” A very big and long sigh flowed out of her.

  “I know what we'll do with your lemons,” said the old lady brightly. “We'll pass them on to Mrs. Floyd on the corner. She'd like them, wouldn't she, Gus? We'll tell her they're from…”

  “ Doris. I just couldn't stand seeing them go to waste.”

  “Sure,” Gus said. “It was nice of you to drop by, Doris. We'll take good care of your lemons.”

  “ Doris,” she repeated. “Thirty-two years I was married. My husband's name was Gene. A mean man, through and through. And one day for no reason he says, ‘That's it, I'm sick of that old thing, all that mess in the yard,' and he goes out there to the lemon tree and starts chopping away at the trunk.”

  Now she had their attention.

  “I damn near took his head off,” Doris said. “Luckily, they thought he fell on his axe.”

  Then she was free, running back to her house through a heavy shower down the slick street, past the garbage bags set out at the curb in front of each house that crouched in pools, water streaming off their deep black plastic, as thick and viscous-looking as blood. Well, her lemons wouldn't be out there. She lingered on the front porch a long time, even though she was shivering, thinking Gus sure could use a new hat. The lights at their house had gone out; the street was peaceful. She had gotten away with it, said what had to be said, and they hadn't believed her, or the police would be here by now.

  At ten, Doris peeked out to the backyard through the curtains. She couldn't really see the lemon tree. But she could cry, so she did, standing at the kitchen sink, gripping the side, bawling about something or other for a long time, until she was all tired out and went to bed.

  And out in the backyard, all that spring night long, the fragrance of lemons suffused the mist, and the leaves of the lemon tree trembled joyfully under the cool droplets of water.

  A Grandmother's Tale

  The world has gotten as hard-boiled as an egg forgotten on the stove, I'll grant you that, but magic still lurks in the corners, and sometimes even fairy tales come true. It happened to my grandmother, Jane Noonan, who told me this story of her life in Ireland long ago, and I tell it to you just as she told it to me.

  He came to her on a night drifting with a fog that softened the brick of the old Irish seaside town where she grew up. Jane Kelly was her name then, plain Jane because she was tall and rawboned, not the kind of girl the boys want to be seen with, a strong, angular woman as she grew older, with straight bangs and lank hair. Her parents were long dead; and who else would have guessed that behind that flat chest and those thin cheeks hid a mild and loving soul?

  Her shoulders and back washing and ironing at the laundry paid her bills, and the years passed in good health, even if she lived a meager life centered in her rooms, filled with the green plants she tended. When she was forty, she gave up on the dream that had sustained her for so long, of a husband and children coming along for her to take care of. Gray appeared in her hair as she decided to leave her youth, and she spoke less and less. She didn't have to say it to herself, that she had nothing to live for anymore.

  And it was soon after that he came to her, on a Friday night in April when she had gone to visit her sick employer, the old lady who owned the laundry, bringing flowers from the pots at home and a book or two. Her employer lived not three blocks away, so she walked down the cobbled streets of the town under the yellow lamps, carrying her packages. It was late, and she kept glancing around anxiously, because two fearsome murders of women had occurred in the town within the past year.

  As she labored up the short hill with her packages, a man came toward her. He was hard to see in the fog; she had the impression of a long coat and a real man's hat, a fedora or something like that. He lifted it as he passed, and she thought, Why, I've never seen him here. Just then he said from behind her, Pardon me, and she hastened forward, as it was never a good idea to talk to strange men, but he said pardon me again in such a gentle voice that she couldn't help turning around and asking, What is it?

  I'm lost, he said in a smiling self-effacing voice. I'm new in this place, and I'm looking for the Grant Hotel.

  You walked right past it, Jane said. It's at the top of the hill. I'm going that way myself-and then she stopped. Thank you, ma'am, he said, very politely, and he went on, and she thought Oh well, it's only two hundred feet, am I going to trail along behind him like a ninny? You can walk with me, she said.

  Under the lights of the hotel she had a good look at him. He was a short man with a bit of a potbelly, a large head furred with curly reddish hair, and a full beard of a somewhat darker shade. He would be fifty years along or even older, and an unkind person might call him bowlegged. Not a handsome man at all, but his brown eyes were kind, she could see that. Well then, many thanks for being my guide, he said, and she was about to go on her way, when he said in a hesitating voice, I know you'll probably say no, but I can't help asking if you might come in and have a cup of tea with me.

  Through the carved wooden door he held open, a warm breeze drifted, bringing savory dinner smells and the clinking of dishes and the laughter of strangers. Human life seemed to have retreated into
the hotel, leaving only poor forsaken souls to wander outside. He was looking down bashfully, about to say good night, when she answered with the same shyness, I suppose I could spare five minutes.

  In they went, up the carpeted stairs to the dining room, where they sat down near the fireplace. A young waiter with big ears under his clipped red hair, wearing an overstarched shirt, brought them a heavy tray of tea and bread and jam, which was all they asked for, the hour being late.

  They began to talk, and it was as if they'd never stop. His name was Francis Noonan and he had just moved from County Armagh to work in the slaughterhouse down the road. His wife had died the year before and the young ones were grown, so he had closed his shoemaker's shop and left the sad memories.

  Yet sadness was never a minute stamped on him. He had a basic cheer which she liked very much, and a way of listening like he was a priest with only one parishioner. No one had ever listened so closely to her.

  The warmth of the fire, the soothing tea, and his own kind way worked on her like a spell; she felt a drowsy contentment she hadn't felt since childhood and wondered where her nervousness had flown.

  After an hour she said good-bye, and he asked if he could walk with her the next afternoon, to see more of the town. She said yes and ran off to see the old lady, whom she had forgotten about until then, dropping off her packages and leaving after five minutes, then wandering home under the saffron lamps trying to remember every single thing that had been said.

  The next day they did walk. Sea-fog still ran along the streets, but it didn't steal her pleasure. Francis was fifty-five, he said, clearly a lonely man as she was a lonely woman. He did have a merry set of eyes, and though the rest of him reminded her a bit of a troll, she knew that she herself was no trophy, and all her old dreams came creeping up on her again.