“Did I,” says Mrs. Yeung, but it’s not a question.
Twenty
Clemence takes her work outside because it’s warm out, and it might be one of the last autumn days on which she can sit on the balcony. She needs to finish up her edits on those love poems. She’s thinking about the seasons, and wondering if the editing work has infected her brain, if she’ll still feel as amorous when she’s moved on to her next project, which is indexing a book calledLove Means Having to Say You’re Sorry, written by a feminist psychologist colleague of Grace’s who’s hoping to make it big with a marriage counselling podcast. Clemence expects such a project will extinguish her sex drive like a snuffer, but then the snuffer is an image that makes her think of sudden dark, the room under the stairs, and what she’d done there with Toby that morning. Slowly, so slowly, Toby always tentative, setting the tone, and she respects these boundaries, whereas usually she’d rush into the whole thing sidelong. Clemence is too impulsive,she knows, and so this is an interesting experiment, one thing leading to another, waiting to see what happens next, her eyes closed so she can almost anticipate where he’s going to touch her. His hand under her top, cool against her skin, and the way he whispers, “Your skin is so soft.”
Reaching under her shirt now, just to feel what he felt, which is a curious kind of intimacy. And she’s keeping her eye on the street down below, waiting for Charles, or notforCharles, exactly, but it’s the same thing, another experiment. She wants to see what happens, clearly, because Charles could come and go and she’d never even know he’d been here, and no doubt this has happened several times since September. Which she’s fine with, Charles living his own life, teaching his classes, living up there in the suburbs with his fine doctor wife, and Clemence only knows him because of this brief moment when their worlds collided. Amisunderstanding on her part. Perhaps they could have been friends, but maybe even that is a stretch. She’s a tenant in his mother’s rooming house. It wouldn’t be the sexiest set-up, even without a wife.
And perhaps this is just where she is these days, erotic love poems or not. If you put any man in front of Clemence right now, she’ll probably fall in love. She’s vulnerable, which is why she’s continuing to steer clear of Toad and his lawyer. It’s been such a tender time. And if ever there was a gamut, Charles to Toby is it, so her feelings are likely not about either of these men at all, and Clemence is reading far too much into everything. As she is prone to doing. Part of the appeal of Toad, to be honest.Toad was an easy read—short works, large print, with plenty of white space. There had been a time when she’d thought this was good for her, but then she’d forgotten how to feel things or even that she could.
Was life better when it was complicated? Impossibly knotted up with the feelings and experiences of others? And this thought brings to Clemence’s mind an image of a macramé wall hanging someone donated to the jumble, a treasure in a bag that was otherwise mouldy bath mats. The question has her thinking of jumble in general, its chaos and messiness, all those awful things that nobody wants, but here and there is something perfect, like it had been waiting for her. The macramé owl was like that. And what were the odds of it finding its way into her hands? Such remarkable serendipity. How could you not love a world that could set you up in this way?
The question is still hanging in Clemence’s mind as Charles’s car, still familiar, appears on the street. He stops out front and pops the trunk, emerging from the vehicle like a vision. She’d wondered in the last few months if she’d just imagined that he looked this good, but no. He’s at a distance now, but she’d seen him up close, and it was real. Or so she’d thought. Clemence had also thought he was available, and interested in her, so it’s possible she knows nothing at all. Except that she can’t take her eyes off him. Willing him to look up at her, and then willing him not to, because what’s she even doing? Would he understand that she’s simply out here enjoying the weather?
Maybe. Because he does look up, as though he’s heard her longing, and he breaks into a smile that might bethe easiest, most beautiful expression she’s ever seen. As though maybe everything doesn’t have to be so complicated after all, and easy-to-read is preferable. Charles raises his hand to wave, and she waves back, and she stands up so he doesn’t think she is hiding.
But he has a wife. Charles Yeung has a wonderful wife, who at this moment is likely saving somebody’s life in an intensive care unit. And Clemence has Toby, anyway, her unsuitable attachment, even though he’s more suitable than she’d initially supposed. Certainly suitable for her purposes right now, which is the important thing. Clemence doesn’t want to marry Toby, but Clemence doesn’t want to marry anyone, and shouldn’t that mean there’s no reason why she can’t go downstairs and see Charles?
This is not big deal, and yet—she’d dressed up for this, put on lipstick. She would have changed her clothes, anyway, after spending the morning in the bookshop and the meeting sorting jumble at the church, with all the grime inherent. The last thing she needs is Charles Yeung picking another dust bunny off her body, and she’s recalling the tension of that moment as she goes outside. She can’t decide if it had been wonderful or awful. She knows she looks good, though, and she can tell he thinks so too by the way he takes her in, head to toe, as she walks down the steps to the street where he’s been unloading his car.
He says, “Hello, stranger,” and here she’d been wondering if she’d merely imagined his allure, the dazzling effect his presence had on her. Turns out no. Which means thatit’s a terrible idea after all, her coming all the way down here to greet him. That wave from the balcony should have sufficed, and it wouldn’t have got her into this kind of trouble, tangled up in feelings for a guy who’s married, when she’d spent a good forty minutes earlier that afternoon kissing somebody else.
To Charles, however, she simply says, “You’ve got jumble.” And has a stupider sentence ever been said by a human being in all of history? Absolutely not, and for some reason she even has to surpass it: “Of all the jumble sales in all the towns in all the world, you had to donate to mine.”
“So it’s your jumble sale now, eh?” Charles has closed his trunk, and reaches to pick up the boxes he’s unloaded. Clemence comes over to take on some of the load—the boxes aren’t as heavy as others they’ve carried together. She helps bring them up to the porch. He says, “Ithink my mother might have something to say about that.”
“Well, Iamin charge of publicity.” Her tone is joking, but as she’s speaking, she realizes it actually means something to her, this responsibility. Except that Charles has spent his entire life around the churchwomen and knows too much to be impressed. Besides, Charles is a teacher. He’s somebody’s husband. His whole life is rife with purpose, and so whatever Clemence has going on seems paltry in comparison.
“So is that where you’ve been hiding, then?” They leave the boxes by the door and sit down at the top of the steps. “At the jumble sale? Busy with publicity?”
“I’ve been around,” says Clemence. “I’d say you’re the one who’s disappeared.”
“We’re like ships in the night, I guess,” says Charles. “I’ve been missing you.” The kind of remark that Clemence might have read a lot into before she knew about his wife, Dr. Wonderful. Charles Yeung, it turns out, is just remarkably warm and effusive—he must get it from his dad’s side. He says, “My mom’s been keeping me up to date, though. You’ve got a hot Italian boyfriend.” Clemence doesn’t know how to respond to that—neither the adjectives nor the noun having any bearing on her reality. What has Mrs. Yeung been saying? “She made him soup, she said. Aguy named Tony. You know, my mom’s not going to make her soup for just anyone. He must be a special kind of fellow.”
Or just one who looks as though he’s severely in need of vitamins and nutrients.And Clemence says, “Oh,Toby.” As though it had been the name that threw her. She can’t tell Charles that Toby isn’t actually her boyfriend, since he only thinks he is because Clemence told his mother so. Clemence is surprised that Mrs. Yeung has found her remarkable enough to mention to Charles at all. “He did like her soup,” she says.
“Everyone likes her soup.”
“Well, Toby’s pretty particular.”
Charles says, “Oh, really.”
And Clemence wonders if she and Charles are capable of having a conversation that isn’t borderline flirtatious; if he is like this with everyone. Why are they talking about Toby? She changes the subject. “How’s your wife?” But now this is even worse than what she’d said about the jumble sale.
Charles regards her strangely, confused. “She’s fine,” he says, more a question than an answer.
“Ibet she also likes your mother’s soup.”
“Actually, she doesn’t,” says Charles.
“Ah, the exception that proves the rule.”
Charles says, “She and my mother don’t get along too well, to be honest. Not a lot of love lost. Or soup exchanged.”
“Oh,” says Clemence. “That must be—difficult.” It’s surprising.
Charles shrugs. “It is what it is.” Fiddling with his hands. “Anyway, I’ve got the stuff for donation.” He gestures toward the boxes. “So at least there’s that. Nice to pare things down. It feels good, you know?” And Clemence nods because he seems to expect her to. “It’s important to just get on with things.”
“Things like jumble sales,” says Clemence. She wonders if he’s making fun of the slightness of her life.
