My Wife and My Dead Wife

by Michael Kun

  There are some pants, too, thirty-four pairs in all, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. They either need to be lengthened or shortened, or let out in the waist, all quick jobs.

  Then there are the dresses. Seven dresses, all winter weight, none of the thin and flowery summer material, but still softer than the cloth for the men’s suits. Most of the seven have to be hemmed, bringing the material up to cut across the knee, which is most nearly the same as putting cuffs on slacks, only it’s a more delicate job with dresses. No one looks at a man’s cuffs. Everyone looks at the cut of a woman’s dress. The stitching has to be straight, perfectly straight, and as invisible as a sound.

  The dresses. They haven’t been touched in four days, and a lady by the name of Mrs. Broquette is due to pick hers up tomorrow morning. At least that was the date on the ticket. March 14. One of us will have to tell her she was mistaken, that the four is really a nine, that her dress won’t be ready until next Tuesday. Monday afternoon at the earliest.

  Lately, almost everything has become a nine, thanks to Palmeyer’s sloppy handwriting. It’s worse than any doctor’s handwriting you’ve ever seen. Bobbie Jean had complained about that: ones were nines, and fours were nines, and sevens were nines, and nines were nines. And sometimes a three becomes an eight. There isn’t much you can do with two, fives and sixes, though, except to get the job done on time.

  x

  At twelve-thirty, Palmeyer clears a spot on his table and opens his lunch sack. He unwraps a tuna salad sandwich and puts it on top of the wax wrapper, then pulls an orange out and places it on the table. It rolls until it hits the sandwich. He takes a small carton of milk out of the sack, then unfolds a paper napkin and lays it across his lap.

  Palmeyer presses the carton open, brings it to his lips, and drinks some milk. Only he doesn’t really drink it. He makes a face and spits the milk back into the container. A string of saliva hangs from his chin like tinsel from a Christmas tree.

  “Dammit!” he says.

  And I say, “What?”

  And he says,”The milk’s spoiled.”

  So I say, “So go take it back and get another.”

  “It’s not worth the time.” He drops the carton into the waste basket beside the table, along with the napkin he’d used to wipe his lips. “I’m just going to go out for a walk.” He begins to wrap the sandwich again, then holds it out toward me and says, “Do you want this?”

  “What’s it on?”

  “White.”

  “Is it toasted?”

  “No.”

  “I only like sandwiches on toast,” I say, which is the way my mother used to make sandwiches for me. Shellie, too.

  “Well, it’s not on toast.”

  “Then I don’t want it, thanks.”

  Palmeyer pushes the sandwich and the orange off his table and into the trash, then leaves. I wait a couple minutes, then I lock up the shop and go to get some lunch myself at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s. There are two women and three men sitting at the counter, each separated by a seat. I take a seat at the end of the counter where I can look at the front door. A teenaged girl gives me a menu, and I pretend to browse through it, but what I’m really doing is looking at the front door. A lady comes in, then a boy. I see Palmeyer pass by the window. He sees me, too. He makes an obscene gesture with his middle finger, which makes me laugh.

  When the girl comes back, I order coffee and a roast beef sandwich on toast. I fold the menu closed and hand it to the girl, then watch the door, pretending I’m not watching it at all.

  x

  Bobbie Jean never shows up like I’d hoped she would.

  I don’t know why I thought she might. She doesn’t work anywhere near here anymore. She probably eats at the food court in the expensive mall. They have a place where they cook fresh pasta for you with whatever sauce you like. And the whole thing only takes a minute or two.

  When I’m finished eating, I take some money out of my wallet and leave it on the counter. The girl who’d served me wipes off the countertop with the dish towel she has tucked in the waistband of her skirt.

  I smooth the front of my shirt.

  “Say,” I say, “you wouldn’t happen to be acquainted with Bobbie Jean Krueger, would you?”

  She says, “No.”

  I hold my hand across the bridge of my nose and I say, “She’s about this tall. Brown hair, very curly. She used to work over at the tailor shop. She’d come in here for lunch all the time.”

  The girl says, “Sorry.”

  And I say, “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

  I walk outside, and I walk over to a pay phone right outside the door. I find Bobbie Jean’s telephone number on an old alteration ticket in my wallet, and I dial it. There’s no answer, which is good because I don’t know what I would say.

  The answering machine answers after four rings. It’s Bobbie Jean’s voice: “Hi, we’re not in right now. Leave your name and number, and if you’re someone we like, we’ll call you back.” She lives alone, but she says “we” on the message so people will think there’s a man living there and leave her alone. It’s a pretty clever idea, unless you already know she lives alone.

  At the beep, I wait a second before I say, “Bobbie Jean, it’s Salami. It’s been a while since you left, and I just wanted to see how things were going. I’ll be at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s tomorrow to grab a bite, if you can stop by.” Then, before I can stop myself, I say, “I really miss you.” I’d meant to say, “WE really miss you.”

  Then I return to the shop. When I get there, I give Palmeyer the same obscene gesture that he gave me. And he says, “Well, I never,” then laughs.

  x

  Minnifield’s suit is on the rack, covered in plastic, when he comes by to pick it up.

  “You boys been outside today?” he says. “It’s cold as a refrigerator out there today.”

  “Sure is,” I say, hunched over the table, reading the sports page. It’s forty degrees. People in Atlanta think that’s cold. When it snows here, even a little, people act like it’s the end of the world. There are long lines at the supermarket to buy bread and milk, and toilet paper. Because if the world is going to end, these are the things you’d want to take with you into the afterlife, I suppose. Bread, milk, and toilet paper.

  Palmeyer walks to the rack and pulls the Minnifield suit down, then removes the plastic and hands the suit to him.

  As Minnifield changes in the dressing room, Palmeyer calls out to him, “So, when’s the big day?”

  Minnifield says, “What’s that?”

  And Palmeyer says, “The big day. The wedding. When is it?” Palmeyer winks at me. He knows there’s no wedding.

  “Oh, sure,” Minnifield says. “This Sunday.”

  Palmeyer says, “Nothing’s nicer than a wedding. All the pretty dresses and the dancing and the food. There’s not a thing in the world that I enjoy more, no matter what time of year it is.”

  I fold my newspaper into thirds and put in on the shelf, then start to mend a tear in a pair of gray wool slacks. Tears are tough to fix. You either have to put on a patch, which looks terrible, or you have to reweave the material around it, which takes FOREVER. As I work, I try to guess what Renée’s cooking for dinner. It’ll probably be macaroni and meatballs. She’s good with macaroni and meatballs. That’s what it’ll be. Probably. I picture her in her red underwear, fixing macaroni and meatballs. Then I picture Guitar Walter coming into the room carrying a microphone, which ruins everything.

  Minnifield steps out of the dressing room and stands in front of the mirror. He’s smiling. It’s hard to tell if he’s admiring himself or the suit.

  “A good-looking fellow?” Palmeyer asks.

  Minnifield says, “Who?”

  And Palmeyer says, “The groom.”

  Minnifield pauses for a moment, then says, “Oh, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met him.”

  Palmeyer gets down on one knee and tugs at Minnifield’s pants leg, pulling i
t tight over his shoetop. “Good job?”

  Minnifield says, “Hmm? The pants?”

  “No, no. The boy. Does the boy have a good job?”

  Minnifield pulls at the front of his suit jacket and turns to face the mirror sideways. “Sure,” he says. “Works in a bank. Manages the place, to tell you the truth.”

  I turn in my chair and switch down the volume on the radio. I hate it when people lie, like Minnifield’s doing right now. I hate it how they don’t think they’ll get caught. So I say to him, “Whereabouts?”

  And he says, “What?”

  And I say, “Where’s the bank that he manages?”

  And he says, “Up by the river.”

  And I say, “Which bank? I happen to do my banking up there, maybe I know him.”

  Minnifield pretends he doesn’t hear me. He pulls at the material at the seat of his slacks, and Palmeyer smiles into the mirror to let him know that there’s more than enough room back there.

  Up by the river.

  Minnifield didn’t have to say, “Up by the river.” He could have said anything, anywhere, considering that there is no niece, and there is no wedding, and there is no bridegroom, and there is no bank. At least not one where the bridegroom works. He could have said the bank was near the highway or out by the airport. As a matter of fact, it didn’t even have to be in the area. He could have said that the boy managed a bank in Peru. Or Rhode Island.

  But “up by the river” is near where Bobbie Jean lives. Bobbie Jean, who I just told I miss.

  Minnifield raises his arms like a bird spreading its wings. The bottom of his jacket rises to his belt, and Palmeyer smiles in the mirror again.

  “Interesting place, up by the river,” I say before returning to work. I turn the volume up again and think of macaroni and meatballs with tomato sauce.

  x

  I’m considering starting on one of the dresses when the phone rings. I haven’t taken one of the dresses from the racks yet, but at least I’m thinking about it, and that’s a start.

  I answer the phone on the third ring. “Palmeyer’s Tailor Shop,” I say.

  Someone with a thin, scratchy voice says, “Hello, is this the tailor shop?”

  I say, “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “I’m calling about the position in the paper.”

  Thank God, I think, maybe we’ll finally get some help.

  I reach for my pen, then grab an alteration ticket to write on. “Yes,” I say. “Are you interested in applying?”

  There’s a pause.

  “Hello, are you still there?” I say.

  “Yes, I am, but I can’t make out a word you’re saying. Would it be possible for you to call me back?”

  And I say, “Sure. What’s your number?”

  “Pennsylvania 6-5000.”

  There’s laughter, and then the click of the phone.

  It’s lunch break at the high school. Worse, Palmeyer was right: everyone knows Glenn Miller. Even high school kids. “Pennsylvania 6-5000” is the name of one of Glenn Miller’s songs. It’s the one he’s famous for.

  I tell Palmeyer that it was just another prank call, but I don’t tell him about Pennsylvania 6-5000. And I don’t tell him that I’d written PENN6 before I’d figured out the joke.

  It’s not fifteen minutes before the phone rings again, and I answer it, turning my machine off and lowering the volume on the radio.

  “Tailor shop,” I say.

  “Who is this?” It’s a woman’s voice.

  And I say, “Ham. Ham Ashe.”

  And she says, “Is that you, handsome?”

  And I say, “Yes.”

  And my heart is beating fast.

  And she says, “I called to ask a favor. Could you pick up some ground beef at the grocery on the way home?”

  It isn’t Bobbie Jean after all. That’s what I’d been thinking.

  It’s Renée.

  And there’s a good chance it’ll be macaroni and meatballs.

  So I say, “I’ll make a note of it.”

  I turn the radio up again, catching an advertisement for Wonder bread. On the back of one of the alteration tickets I write GROUND BEEF, then tack the ticket to the bulletin board and flick my machine on.

  When another advertisement comes on, I glance up at the ticket. It looks like GRAND BLIP.

  I pick up the phone and dial home. “You didn’t say how much you needed,” I say.

  Renée says, “A pound.”

  I write 1 POUND on the ticket.

  Only the 1 looks like a 9.

  x

  With the racks full, there’s every reason to work late, but we clear off our tables and are ready to leave by six o’clock. I don’t want to go home, but I don’t want to stay either.

  The suits we’ve been working on are folded over the backs of our chairs. There are strips of white tape holding down the ends of thread, in part so we’ll remember where we left off, mostly to keep the stitches from popping loose.

  There’s a vacuum in the closet, but it’s hardly been touched in weeks. Not since Bobbie Jean left. Even when she was here, we’d have to beg her to vacuum. Snippets of thread, mostly black and gray, are scattered about the floor, along with jagged strips of cloth and neat rings clipped from pants legs.

  Palmeyer is out the door first, waving a hand to say good night. We used to say, “See you in the morning,” or “Have a pleasant evening.” Sometimes I would say, “Give my best to Louise,” which is the name of his wife, or he would say, “Give my best to Renée,” which is NOT the name of my wife.

  But not anymore.

  Now it’s just a quick hand wave, and only by the first one out.

  I pull my coat on, flick the lights off, then lock the door. I drive to the grocery store to get the ground beef for Renée. Once I get there, I walk directly to the meat freezer. I pull a package of ground beef out of the freezer and walk to the express checkout lane, then take a chocolate bar off the rack, setting it down beside the meat on the conveyor belt. On the rack beside the belt are a lot of magazines. Newsweek. People. The Star. Redbook. Women’s Day. The women’s magazines have the best headlines.

  “I LOST 64 POUNDS OF UGLY FAT!”

  “LOSE WEIGHT—AND EAT, EAT, EAT!”

  “I WAS A TEENAGE FATTY!”

  “18 SPECIAL WAYS TO SHOW HIM YOU LOVE HIM.”

  “THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL WAS THE REFRIGERATOR!”

  “MY SISTER’S A PANTY THIEF!”

  What’s THAT story about?

  Does the woman’s sister steal underwear from her? Does she steal it from other people? Does she steal it from department stores?

  When I reach the front of the line, the girl at the cash register points to the ground beef and asks, “Just that?”

  I say, “The candy, too.”

  She says, “I got it.”

  I hand the girl three dollars, take my change, and watch as the girl slips the package into a small plastic bag. It’s funny how little the slab of meat resembles meatballs.

  I pull the wrapper from one end of the candy bar and hold it out to offer the girl a piece. She pats her stomach and shakes her head no.

  With the ground beef tucked under my arm, I walk out to the sidewalk. I walk past my car, passing the bakery, the pharmacy, and the appliance store before stopping in front of Thompson’s Jewelers. The display case is empty. No rings, no bracelets, no necklaces, only black velvet cubes where they usually put the jewelry boxes. Whenever I walk past the store with Renée, she’ll point to something and say, “Someday my husband’s going to get that ring for me.”

  My nose is getting cold. I sniff, then walk into the florist shop next door. The shop is warm with perfume. I walk a circle around it, pausing to look at some of the larger arrangements.

  The man behind the counter approaches me. He’s wearing a white smock, and his hands are clasped together behind his back. “Could I be of any assistance?” he says.

  I say, “Maybe. Maybe you could tell me how muc
h a dozen long-stemmed red roses would cost.”

  He says, “I could check.” He goes into a back room, and when he comes back a few minutes later he says, “Thirty-eight dollars.”

  And I say, “Is it extra for deliveries?”

  And he says, “An extra five.”

  I open my wallet. I have a twenty, three tens, and six ones. It’s all I have left from my last paycheck, but it’s only two more days until payday.

  “Let’s take a dozen,” I say.

  And he says, “Yes, sir,” then moves back to the counter. “And you’re sending these to —?”

  I think for a moment.

  I think for a moment about sending them up by the river.

  “No,” I say, “I’ll take them with me. I was just curious about the cost of sending flowers.”

  The man wraps a dozen roses in green-and-white paper, and I fill out a card to go with them. I use my best handwriting, and it still looks like something Palmeyer wrote.

  I tear the card up. “Would you mind writing out the card for me?” I ask. I hold up the calloused hand.

  And the man says, “I’d be happy to.” He takes another card from the rack and holds a pen above it. “What would you like it to say?”

  If it wouldn’t be too embarrassing, I’d ask him to write something about macaroni and meatballs. Or something about how we should forget about the tape recorder and the microphone. Instead, I say, “To Renée. I liked the song about the umbrella. Ham.”

  And he says, “Ham, like the meat?”

  And I say, “Yes.”

  And he says, “H-A-M?”

  And I say, “Yes. YES. H-A-M, like the meat. Like the salty meat.”

  CHAPTER 6: THE SUITCASE WITH THE STICKERS ON IT

  The apartment smells like tomato sauce. There’s a large pot on the stove, and Renée is sitting at the kitchen table with her tape recorder and some cassette tapes and some big, manila envelopes. She has them all laid out like a production line.

  I carry the flowers behind my back so she can’t see them while I put the plastic grocery bag on the counter.

  “Did you get the ground beef?” she says.

  And I say, “Sure did. I got something for you, too.” When she turns around, I hand her the flowers.