Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler

Author:Anne Tyler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307788399
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-01-26T10:00:00+00:00

11

The Dorothea Whitman Home was a mansion on a hill, landscaped, framed by trees. “Sheesh!” Jake said, peering at it through the windshield. We had parked at the gateposts, which were topped with spongy stone balls. It was six o’clock in the morning, and both of us were half asleep and chilled through. Also, we hadn’t had breakfast yet. We could have, but Jake had spent the time shaving instead. He had shaved without water and his face had a new, raw, inadequate look. I thought we’d have done much better going to a Toddle House. And there wasn’t a sign of Mindy Callender.

“Now, here is what she told me,” said Jake. “Said, ‘Park at the gatepost and I’ll come on down.’ Well, ain’t this a gatepost? Ain’t it?”

“Looks like one to me,” I said.

“Maybe she meant the front door.”

“Why would she call the front door a gatepost?”

“But if she has to make a fast getaway, see. Then we ought to be parked a mite nearer.”

“I would stay by the gatepost,” I said.

“Well, I tell you this much,” said Jake. “Five minutes more and I’m going. I can think of lots of places I’d rather be than here.”

High on the hill, the great scrolled door of the mansion opened and someone stepped out. From this far away she looked like one of those little figures in a weather house. Her stomach was circular, flower-shaped, preceding the rest of her by a good two feet. She wore a straw hat and a pink dress, and carried a suitcase and a bundle of something dark. While she was walking toward us she never once looked in our direction, but picked her way carefully with her head lowered so that all we saw was the crown of her hat. “Is that Mindy?” I asked Jake.

“Naw, it’s the warden.”

“Well, I don’t know what Mindy looks like.”

“It’s Mindy, all right,” he said. “She never did dress like she had any common sense.”

For she was close enough now so that we could see what she was wearing: a print sundress not meant for anyone so pregnant, with straps as thin as the joint lines on a Barbie Doll’s shoulders. Her hat was ringed with little embroidered hearts. The bundle in her arms turned out to be a cat. “Cripes, a cat!” Jake said.

Mindy raised her head then and looked at us. She had a childish round face with a pointed chin, and white-blond hair that streamed to her waist. Some ten feet from the car she stopped and set her suitcase down, not smiling. “Well,” Jake sighed, and he opened the door and got out. “Hey there, Mindy,” he called.

“Who’s that you got with you.”

“Hmm?”

“Who’s that lady, Jake?”

“Oh, why, she’s just going to ride with us a spell,” Jake said. “Get on in, now.”

“How’m I going to get in with the doors chained shut?”

“Use my side. Move it, Mindy, they’ll be after you.”

“Oh, everybody’s still sleeping,” Mindy said. She came around the car, lugging the suitcase stiff-armed and just barely hanging on to her cat.

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