Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh Read Free Book Online

her, the girls Reverend Kimble had not chosen. At school she had enjoyed their jealousy; she felt as though she’d been singled out for a prize. Now no one envied her. She spent her days caring for Ken’s paralyzed father, bathing and feeding and reading to him. She and her husband slept in his boyhood room, the wallpaper printed with pictures of cowboys. They ate at the family table like two grown siblings.
    The waitress sat at the counter and lit a cigarette. “Lord,” she said to no one in particular. “It’s good to sit.”
    Birdie smiled. She’d never learned how to strike up conversations with strangers. Her father did it naturally, casually; he made friends with every waitress, cashier, and salesman in the county. Her mother had been more reserved. Without anyone telling her so, Birdie understood that certain things, while fine for men, were unbecoming to women.
    “Lord,” the waitress said again. She was a different type of woman, the kind who talked to strangers all day long. It occurred to Birdie that the world was full of these women: girls who stood behind candy counters, shoveling cashews into tiny bags with an aluminum scoop; salesladies in lingerie departments, who wrapped up your new underclothes in layers of tissue. She had never paid much attention to such women; but suddenly, inexplicably, she envied them.
    She glanced at the luncheonette window, at the HELP WANTED sign affixed with yellowed tape, the letters barely discernible, faded by the sun. She tried to imagine herself smiling at customers, taking down their orders with a pad and pencil. It seemed almost possible.
    The men got to their feet. The older one took out his wallet and left a bill on the counter. “Take it easy, Fay,” he called over his shoulder.
    The waitress stubbed out her cigarette. “See you Monday,” she called back. She stacked their dirty dishes on a tray, then reached for the bill the man had left and tucked it into her apron. No, Birdie thought. She could learn to take orders and serve food, but she hadn’t been raised to take strange men’s money. Her mother, if she weren’t dead already, would have died from shame.
    Birdie finished her pie and left a dollar on the counter. Outsidethe sky was bottle-blue, clear as glass; the sidewalks were busy with shoppers. She caught the bus, crowded now, at the corner. She found a seat next to a stout woman in a flowered hat.
    Birdie settled into her seat. The bus was stifling; next to her the woman radiated heat. Across the aisle sat a young couple: the girl buxom and olive-skinned, like an Italian; the fellow blond and husky, a college boy. He leaned over and whispered something in the girl’s ear, making her laugh. His hand rested on her suntanned thigh.
    Birdie looked away, at the pedestrians waiting for the light to change, the mannequins gesturing in shop windows. She could almost feel the boy’s hand warming her thigh, his mouth at her ear, his warm breath activating the nerves beneath her skin. Her husband had never touched her in public. He came to her silently at night, careful not to wake his parents on the other side of the wall. She remembered his cold hands under her nightgown, his breath hurried and shallow. Eyes shut tight, he seemed to disappear inside himself like a turtle retracting its limbs. The first few times, at Hambley, he’d withdrawn from her, making a mess on the floor; once they were married he simply left the mess inside her. Afterward he collapsed on the bed, exhausted, his skin perfectly cool and dry. She was mystified by his persistent interest in the act, which amounted to five minutes of intense concentration and a brief spasm that didn’t appear pleasurable. She decided it was hopelessly beyond her, like geometry or algebra, yet another part of life she had failed to grasp.
    Birdie glanced back at the couple. They were kissing now, the boy’s hand tangled in the girl’s dark hair. Birdie had never seen, up close, what kissing looked