Free Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh Page B

said.
    Perry laughed. “Lovely it ain’t,” he said, “but it’s a pretty good time.”

I t was nearly dark when Charlie got home, heavy clouds low in the sky. A wind had started. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He’d been playing in the woods; the house felt small to him, hot and airless. His sister sat in front of the television, stacking wooden blocks.
    “Where’s Mama?” he asked.
    “Where Mama?” she repeated.
    He knocked at the bathroom door.
    “Come in,” his mother called. She stood in front of the mirror in a pale yellow dress. Her face looked strange to him: mouth painted red, eyebrows plucked thin. An empty glass sat on the edge of the bathtub.
    “Do I look pretty?” she asked.
    “Yes’m,” said Charlie.
    She sprayed a cloud of perfume into the air and walked into it; Charlie tasted it, flowery, in his mouth.
    “A little scent goes a long way,” she said.
    The doorbell rang. “That’s Dinah,” she said. “Button, go and let her in.”
    Charlie ran to the door. He’d forgotten she was coming. They hadn’t had a baby-sitter in a long time.
    “Remember what I told you,” his mother called after him.
    “Yes’m,” said Charlie. If possible he was not to say anything about his father. If Dinah asked—and only if she asked—he could say his father was visiting in Missouri and would be back soon.
    Charlie opened the door. Dinah came in holding a grocery bag. Pizzas, he thought. Last time she’d made them frozen pizzas.
    “Hi, buddy,” she said, messing his hair. “Long time no see.” She looked around the room. “What happened to the pictures?”
    “I don’t know,” said Charlie. His mother had taken them down from the wall; the plaster was dotted with bare hooks.
    His mother came out of the bedroom holding a string of pearls. “Can you help me with this?” she asked Dinah.
    She turned her back and lifted her hair; Dinah clasped the pearls behind her neck.
    “You look nice, Mrs. Kimble,” said Dinah. “Is it a special occasion?”
    “I think I hear my ride,” said his mother. She bent to Charlie and Jody and gave them each a kiss. “You be good now. You listen to Dinah.”
    She rushed out the front door, leaving a trail of perfume. Dinah went to the living room window and peered out from behind the curtain.
    “What are you looking at?” Charlie asked.
    “Nothing,” said Dinah.
     
    T HE WIND had stopped; the evening was still and muggy, the sky clouded over with gray. Birdie stood on the front step waiting forBuck Perry. It was the Saturday before Labor Day, the last wearing of the white shoes. She smelled meat cooking, a charcoal fire. The neighbors were having a barbecue.
    Through the open windows she heard the children laughing; they wouldn’t miss her at all with Dinah Whitacre there. Poor Dinah, she thought; poor homely child. She felt bad for the girl, so timid and awkward; Dinah who would have been pretty if it weren’t for her birthmark. It was so ugly Birdie could barely look at her, a jagged purple stain that covered half her face.
    Birdie had called her at the last minute; she’d had the phone reconnected after her first paycheck. She dreaded the obligatory chitchat with the girl’s mother. Married to the president of the college, Grace Whitacre knew all the faculty comings and goings; she would know Birdie’s husband had quit his job and might even know why. Luckily, Dinah herself had answered the phone. She was a mannerly girl, raised properly, not like some others Birdie could name. (That girl on the downtown bus, draped all over the college boy; Moira Snell, braless in her peasant blouse.) Dinah’s shyness seemed appropriate to her age; in her presence Birdie felt like an adult, a sensation she rarely felt.
    She breathed deeply; the yellow dress felt tight across her chest. She’d picked it off a sale rack three years ago when she was pregnant with Jody; that morning she’d cut off the price tag still dangling from the armpit. The dress was a