Silver by Hilma Wolitzer

Author:Hilma Wolitzer [Wolitzer, Hilma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-8787-3
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-12-17T13:59:00+00:00

20

IT WAS MY DAY off from the studio, and I’d planned to hang around the house and do some yard work, blow my sax a little, and just relax. But I couldn’t stay with anything very long, even lying in bed and listening to music. I realized that I was talking to the dog more than usual, which wasn’t very different from talking to myself. “Want to hear a little Bix?” I asked him in the middle of the morning. “Or are you more in the mood for Coltrane?” Later, I said, “What should we have for lunch, boy? Something healthy or something good?” Shadow didn’t answer, of course. But he made three heroic attempts to get onto the bed with me—I guess arthritis was slowing him down—and I hoisted him up and continued our one-sided conversation. “It sure is boring around here,” I said. “It’s a dog’s life, isn’t it?” I knew it wasn’t exactly boredom I was feeling, but the kind of restless anxiety I’d had years ago right after I’d bought the extra life insurance. This time it probably had something to do with witnessing Gil’s and Sharon’s wills, with the fact that death didn’t get more attractive just because you weren’t particularly enjoying life.

I ended up back in bed with a two-sandwich lunch: peanut butter on whole wheat and pastrami on a roll, as a compromise between healthy and good. And I compromised further by eating only half of each and feeding the rest to Shadow. I wasn’t that hungry, anyway. “What do you say we go for a ride?” I said.

Shadow’s ears pricked up, and he struggled to get his footing on the rumpled quilt. This was language he understood: the words “ride” or “walk,” the jingling of his chain lead or the sound of the garage door lifting.

In the car he sat erectly beside me, like a navigator, although he didn’t give a damn where we went as long as we were rolling. At that moment, neither did I. I drove through the development and down to Northern Boulevard, where I headed west for a few miles, and then made a U-turn and went east. The last time I drove around aimlessly like this, I was young and single, and cruising for action. Now it seemed pointless, as if I was only going in circles, and fifteen or twenty minutes later I was actually back in Port Washington, not very far from home. I pulled off onto a side road, in another development, and tried to decide what to do next. A woman in the house across the street peered through her curtains at me and then disappeared. A couple of minutes later a big, beefy-looking guy came out and walked over to the car. “You looking for somebody, buddy?” he said. He put his hand on the roof and I felt the car rock.

“No,” I said. “I’m just a little lost. I’m trying to get my bearings.” To back myself up, I took a map from the glove compartment and started opening it.

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