The other thing I thought was, it is such a beautiful fall day in 1961 and this day will never be repeated. And it hurt me good but I was also squeezed by happiness. And I rose up from my kitchen chair and I called Terrence to me and I kissed him hard. He flushed, oh can you imagine, but that’s the kind of man he was, he flushed and I kissed him again even better and then we repaired upstairs. I hope it doesn’t embarrass YOU, me telling you such a thing. But after all we were married. Married down to the pores in our skin, is what I’d say. And I’d also say we knew we were lucky, whatever came our way, we knew it all the time.
Flo is standing at the bedroom window, her mind pleasantly vacant. There is the tree on the boulevard in front of her house, its leaves turning from side to side in the breeze like little boats in rough waters, and that is all. The green, the air, the day.
She looks at the empty street and a memory comes to her from long ago, a time when she knew everyone on the block. Most people were her age—in her forties, then—and in summer kids ran all over the place from morning until the streetlights came on. People seemed much happier then, and more giving. Morewilling. They all watched the same three channels on television, and they all talked about who Jack Paar had had on his show the night before.
One summer Saturday, Flo and Terrence were sitting on the porch getting ready to go grocery shopping—Flo had just finished making out her list—when Terrence up and said something strange. He said, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you go out in the middle of the street and bark like a dog.”
Flo looked at him, her eyes little slits.
“You know I’m serious,” he said.
Flo sighed. He would do things like that sometimes, challenge her to do silly things for a reward of some sort. Recently, when they’d gone to a park for a picnic on top of a gently sloping hill, he’d said, “If you roll down that hill real fast, I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.” Flo had said, “It would have to be a hot fudge sundae,” and he offered his hand to shake on the deal, and so she did roll down the hill real fast and he did buy her a hot fudge sundae. He had wanted to buy himself one, too, butFlo said no fair, he hadn’t done anything to earn it. He said she was right and then looked at her all sad while she was eating so she gave him a good half of hers. He wasfun,Terrence! But on that day when he told her to bark like a dog, she thought he had gone a bit beyond the pale. She looked out at the street. Ten dollars was not an insignificant amount. She thought of a few things she could buy with it: cold cream, those new nylons that came in an egg—she wanted to try those. She said, “All right, I’ll do it. I will. But wait until nighttime so nobody can see me.”
“Nope,” he said. “It has to be right now.”
Flo looked at the street again, blinked a few times, and then rose and walked outside. In the middle of the street, she barked a few times—soft, yippy things—and then she started back for home. One thing she wanted was a new lipstick; she might be able to get two. But from the porch Terrence said, “Nope, it has to be louder so everyone can hear.”
Flo stopped walking, her hands on her hips. Then she walked back to the middle of the street and barked loudly:WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!
Children in the vicinity stopped playing and came over to stare. And then Edith Peterson came down from her front porch to stand on the curb, and she said, “Whatever are youdoing, Flo?”
“Why, I’m standing in the middle of the street and barking like a dog.”
“What for?”
“Because Terrence told me if I did it, he’d give me ten dollars. So I’m doing it.”
Edith shaded her eyes and looked over at Flo’s porch. “If I do it, will he give me ten dollars, too?”
“Only one way to find out,” Flo said. She was beginning to have fun. This was much better than grocery shopping.
So Edith came over and stood next to Flo and started barking, and then here came Sally Bensen in her ruffly apron and Ed LaLonde in his battered old slippers and blue cardigan. Next it was Paul and Betty Early, and Paul had actually stopped washing his car to join in and heneverstopped washing his car once he’d started. But they all just stood there barking and barking and then the little kids joined in, some of them howling like coyotes. And then—Flo could hardly believe it—one of the adults put their arm around another and started a kick line and then they all did that, all except the little kids, who thought it might be more fun just to run around all the adults.
Oh, it was a funny thing. Fun and funny. Someone came out and filmed them with a movie camera; Flo hopes that footage still exists somewhere, all of them so giddy and fully entertained by this impromptu event. Flo doesn’t guess that kind of thing would happen now, everyone so busy and locked inside and kind of scared of each other. Why, they would call the police now, if someone stood barking in the middle of the street. People are too serious now, they’re all too serious and kind of sad. Well, God bless them. Times are hard now, they are harder than they were before because people are so against each other. Oh, may that come to change. And may it happen soon, before people forget how itcanbe.
She hears the phone ringing and goes down to the kitchento answer it. A strange thing happens on her way down the stairs: everything suddenly goes black and white. No color. She blinks a few times—no change. But then the color comes back. Huh,she thinks. I wonder what that was. The body is ever a mystery.
When Flo answers the phone, it is Teresa asking if she can stopby.
“Of course,” Flo says. And then, “Do you have a cold?”
“No,” Teresa says.
“Well, then…are you crying?”
“Not now. I was.”
“Why?” Flo squeezes the phone cord. She hopes nothing has gone wrong with Jim.
“I’ll come over. I’ll tell you then.”
Flo heads for the rocker on the front porch, which seems to be her and Teresa’s favorite place for talking. Right away, she sees Teresa coming down the sidewalk, her head lowered.
”What happened?” Flo asks as Teresa climbs the steps.
Teresa sits down in the other rocker. “I just…I sat this morning with someone whose death was very hard for me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Flo says.
