727: “I would tell . . .”
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 39 begins
39
“I WOULD TELL HIM all these ideas of mine, my suggestions, what I’d found in my research, usually in the kitchen, while I was cooking, or sometimes, while something was simmering, when we were sitting at the table on the back porch, with the door closed and whispering, and then I’d send him upstairs with a tray and something to say.”
She had a wistful look. I thought I knew why.
“And you didn’t know what kind of reception your work would get. Would my grandmother enjoy her dinner?”
“She didn’t have much of an appetite, you know. She ate very little of what I made.”
“And would she enjoy the tidbits of Rarotonga you’d prepared for her?”
“Yeah. That I was really doing for her. I tried to get John to say to her the things I would have liked to hear myself. I’d become entranced with Rarotonga and I offered him bits of things, phrases from the guidebooks. And some of it surprised even John, even though he thought that he had read them all and hadn’t missed a word. I told him, ‘There are things that appeal to women more than men.’ And lots of times I would say to him, ‘Tell her this, she’ll like this.’ But after he’d finished talking to her, when he came downstairs, brought the tray down, he was—so tired. I found it very hard to ask him what he had said, or how she had responded. If she had responded at all.”
“So, one night,” I said, not looking at Ariane, just looking straight ahead, leaning with my elbows on my knees, holding my drink with both hands, improvising, “when you were about to leave, after you had tiptoed through the kitchen, opened the back door, and were about to step onto the back porch, your curiosity overwhelmed you.”
“Yes,” she said. “I had to know—what it was like.”
“To hear him.”
“Yes. I was on my way out, and I heard John’s footsteps on the stairs, that heavy tread, the sadness in his step, and I—couldn’t leave. I told myself—and I remember this, telling myself this—that I was—well, I guess worried would be the way to put it. I told myself that I was worried that he might not manage to make the night’s story convincing.”
“But—”
“But—I have to admit, Peter, that I was more worried for him than for your grandmother. In fact—okay, here’s the whole truth—I wasn’t thinking of your grandmother at all.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t mean ever. I just mean at that moment.”
“I understand.”
“I closed the door—”
“—the back door, the door from the kitchen to that little porch—”
“—slowly, quietly.”
“And you were careful not to let the latch clatter shut. You held the knob so that the latch stayed open, then closed it silently by letting the knob turn slowly back into place, that worn knob, seasoned the way an iron frying pan becomes seasoned with use, made of steel, with a raised edge around the rim where the two pressed steel pieces—like two hemispheres of a globe, but flattened—were joined and folded together, making a rim like the rim where the cylinder and top of a can are joined, so that if you gripped it tightly, and you probably did, it made an impression in your hand—”
“I don’t remember all that,” she said.
“I do,” I said. “I do.”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop?
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.