After Gregory by Austin Wright

Author:Austin Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

TWENTY FOUR

One bright sloppy day in early March, with melting ice folded into the mud foretelling spring and the ground soaked, in the afternoon a Volkswagen crossed the bridge. Mrs. Heckel called up the stairwell, Lady to see you Steve.

Lady was a young woman with loose black hair over her coat, studying the stained glass panels beside the front door. She was tall with round and healthy face, brown eyes large like the robin you knew so well. Holding out her hand, Hi Steve, knowing you. You knew her too, after a moment. She was the one at the top of the Rome Building who led you to the deep chair where she asked you please to wait Mr. Rome’ll be right in. Now in your own house under the big curving stairway, saying, Hi there, my name’s Sharon Trace.

Trace. Like you. Sharon Trace. We’re related.

I doubt it. She giggled.

I like your house. I like those stained glass panels. Mr. Rome thought you might have a job for me.

A job? I don’t have any jobs.

Sharon Trace in her brown coat in the middle of the hall. You, irritated by Rome’s officiousness, though you liked her looks, her eager big bird eyes, unadorned natural face, as if she had gifts for you. What’s wrong with your present job?

It’s all right. Can I take off my coat?

Sure, sorry, come sit down. You went into the living room with its big windows and upholstered Victorian chairs. In Rome’s office she wore black and white dresses; now jeans and a furry blue sweater. Slim.

Jack Rome said you wanted a wife.

Such a thing has to be said twice before it can be heard.

Jack Rome said you wanted a wife.

Is that the job you’re applying for? Joke. No joke. He suggested I suggest it, she said.

Sharon Trace. If Stephen Trace marries Sharon Trace, her name will still be Sharon Trace. No one said anything for a while. She, looking at the fireplace, the new antique andirons. You, looking at her untinted lips, eyelashes, loose black hair. Forehead and brain, pale cheek, long fingers, jeans and sweater, intelligence, flesh, skin, and fingernails.

If you would be interested in a wife or, specifically, me. Looked at him now, the genuine robin’s eye, eye to eye, brown, but though bright and amused, she couldn’t hold it, and in a moment her look slid off under the weight of civilization.

Spend your life with her. Advice and breakfast. Travel and old age. I don’t know you. You and I, we’re strangers.

I think that’s the point. I’m to remind you how pioneers in the old west ordered their wives out of the mail order catalogues. Fathers in ancient Russia betrothed their eight-year old daughters to unknown princes and counts on distant estates. Kings gave their daughters to Persian potentates to keep the royal blood pure. I think the idea is, like everything else, we start from scratch.

Do you want to be my wife?

I don’t know. What are your bad habits? Do you smoke? Neither do I.

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