are fine. Your arteries are fine. Look at you. You want another one? I’m thinking of having another one.”
“No. No thank you. Don’t you find it impossible to cook anything decent on an electric stove?”
“Don’t you have an electric stove?”
“There’s one in the house I’m renting. That’s why I ask.”
“What about in your real place?” he asked.
Your real place. That’s what it is, Rebecca thought. Isn’t it? My real place. Oh.
“I have a gas stove there.” A six-burner cast-iron white-enameled gas stove that, at this moment in her life, Rebecca could not quite believe she had once paid six thousand dollars to acquire. And that figure did not include the cost of having it disassembled and then assembled again, since naturally it was too large to fit through the door of the kitchen. It was a common problem in Manhattan, the subject of many amused stories at parties and lunches. We bought this couch/armoire/desk/stove. And it wouldn’t fit through the door.
Using the lens of this place, much of her past seemed so improbable. She could imagine this man saying, “You can get a perfectly good stove for six hundred dollars. You can measure it first to make sure you can get it in the house. I’ve got a tape measure in the truck.”
“My mother cooked pretty decent meals almost every night on an electric stove until I was eighteen,” Jim Bates said, flipping his second sandwich. “I’d put her meat loaf up against anybody’s.”
“And after you were eighteen?”
“She died. That’s when I started making grilled cheese for my sister.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rebecca.
“It was a long time ago,” Jim Bates said, sitting down. “You still have your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Both?”
“Yes.” After a fashion, Rebecca wanted to add, picturing her mother playing “Für Elise” on a plastic cafeteria tray after sweeping the food to the floor amid the cries of the staff.
“You’re lucky,” he said, with his mouth full.
He seemed like a nice man, Rebecca thought, but she knew better than to use those words. Ever since Hallie Cohen—third of four, older brother and sister, younger brother who admittedly was a bit of a brat—had sat in Rebecca’s airless and noiseless bedroom and said, “You’re lucky,” Rebecca had been suspicious of the sentiment, and the intervening years had proved her correct. You’re so lucky, to the couple at an anniversary party who, in private, scarcely spoke. You’re so lucky, to the young mother who heard a stirring and cry at night from the crib and swore she would lose her mind. Lucky from the outside was an illusion. Jim Bates had lost his mother when she still walked upright, when she still took word retrieval and continence for granted, when she cared for him and not the other way around.
Had all that feeling rippled across her still face? All she knew was that once he swallowed and swabbed his mouth with a paper towel, Jim Bates added, “I probably shouldn’t assume, right? My father used to say you should never assume.”
“Because it makes an ass out of you and me,” Rebecca said.
“So my old man wasn’t the only guy who said that, huh?”
“Until this very moment, I assumed—oh, goodness, there I go, see?—I assumed my father was the only person on earth who actually used that expression. In fact when I was a child I may have even assumed he invented it.”
“I’m pretty sure not. We were in one of those tourist shops byNiagara Falls and we saw some kind of plaque that had it on it. I wanted to buy it but my mom said it was too expensive. Your father ever tell you there’s no
I
in
team
? My father loved that one, too.”
Rebecca shook her head. “No. But sometimes he would whisper,
‘Mann tracht und Gott lacht.’
‘Man plans, God laughs.’ ”
“Your father spoke German?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Right,” Jim Bates said, eating the end of his sandwich. “You sure you don’t want another
“No. No thank you. Don’t you find it impossible to cook anything decent on an electric stove?”
“Don’t you have an electric stove?”
“There’s one in the house I’m renting. That’s why I ask.”
“What about in your real place?” he asked.
Your real place. That’s what it is, Rebecca thought. Isn’t it? My real place. Oh.
“I have a gas stove there.” A six-burner cast-iron white-enameled gas stove that, at this moment in her life, Rebecca could not quite believe she had once paid six thousand dollars to acquire. And that figure did not include the cost of having it disassembled and then assembled again, since naturally it was too large to fit through the door of the kitchen. It was a common problem in Manhattan, the subject of many amused stories at parties and lunches. We bought this couch/armoire/desk/stove. And it wouldn’t fit through the door.
Using the lens of this place, much of her past seemed so improbable. She could imagine this man saying, “You can get a perfectly good stove for six hundred dollars. You can measure it first to make sure you can get it in the house. I’ve got a tape measure in the truck.”
“My mother cooked pretty decent meals almost every night on an electric stove until I was eighteen,” Jim Bates said, flipping his second sandwich. “I’d put her meat loaf up against anybody’s.”
“And after you were eighteen?”
“She died. That’s when I started making grilled cheese for my sister.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rebecca.
“It was a long time ago,” Jim Bates said, sitting down. “You still have your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Both?”
“Yes.” After a fashion, Rebecca wanted to add, picturing her mother playing “Für Elise” on a plastic cafeteria tray after sweeping the food to the floor amid the cries of the staff.
“You’re lucky,” he said, with his mouth full.
He seemed like a nice man, Rebecca thought, but she knew better than to use those words. Ever since Hallie Cohen—third of four, older brother and sister, younger brother who admittedly was a bit of a brat—had sat in Rebecca’s airless and noiseless bedroom and said, “You’re lucky,” Rebecca had been suspicious of the sentiment, and the intervening years had proved her correct. You’re so lucky, to the couple at an anniversary party who, in private, scarcely spoke. You’re so lucky, to the young mother who heard a stirring and cry at night from the crib and swore she would lose her mind. Lucky from the outside was an illusion. Jim Bates had lost his mother when she still walked upright, when she still took word retrieval and continence for granted, when she cared for him and not the other way around.
Had all that feeling rippled across her still face? All she knew was that once he swallowed and swabbed his mouth with a paper towel, Jim Bates added, “I probably shouldn’t assume, right? My father used to say you should never assume.”
“Because it makes an ass out of you and me,” Rebecca said.
“So my old man wasn’t the only guy who said that, huh?”
“Until this very moment, I assumed—oh, goodness, there I go, see?—I assumed my father was the only person on earth who actually used that expression. In fact when I was a child I may have even assumed he invented it.”
“I’m pretty sure not. We were in one of those tourist shops byNiagara Falls and we saw some kind of plaque that had it on it. I wanted to buy it but my mom said it was too expensive. Your father ever tell you there’s no
I
in
team
? My father loved that one, too.”
Rebecca shook her head. “No. But sometimes he would whisper,
‘Mann tracht und Gott lacht.’
‘Man plans, God laughs.’ ”
“Your father spoke German?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Right,” Jim Bates said, eating the end of his sandwich. “You sure you don’t want another
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