The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams Read Free Book Online

go in because they hadn’t brought their shoes, but Constance climbed through the hole and went up the staircase. There was a wonderful expectancy to the tight climb upward through the whitewashed gyre. She was a little breathless when she reached the top. Powering the light, in a maze of cables and connectors, were eighteen black, heavy-duty truck batteries. For a moment, Constance’s disappointment concealed her surprise. She saw the Atlantic fanning out without a speck on it, and her little family on the beach below, sitting on a striped blanket. Constance inched out onto the catwalk encircling the light. “I love you!” she shouted. Ben looked up and waved. She went back inside and began her descent. She did not know, exactly, what it was she had expected, but it had certainly not been eighteen black, heavy-duty truck batteries.
    —
    In bed that night, Constance dreamed of people laughing. She opened her eyes. “Ben,” she whispered.
    “Hi.” He was wide awake.
    “I dreamed of laughing,” Constance said. “I want to laugh.”
    “We’ll laugh tomorrow,” Ben said. He turned her away from him and held her. She felt his mouth smiling against her ear.

Preparation for a Collie
    T here is Jane and there is Jackson and there is David. There is the dog.
    David is burying a bird. He has a box that once held tea and he is digging a hole beneath the kitchen window. He mutters and cries a little. He is spending Sunday morning doing this. He is five.
    Jackson comes outside and says, “That hole is far too big.”
    Jackson is going to be an architect. He goes to school all day and he works as a bartender at night. He sees Jane and David on weekends. He is too tired in the morning to have breakfast with them. Jane leaves before nine. She sells ornaments in a Christmas shop, and Jackson is gone by the time she returns in the afternoon. David is in kindergarten all day. Jackson tends bar until long after midnight. Sometimes he steals a bottle of blended whiskey and brings it home with him. He wears saddle shoes and a wedding ring. His clothes are poor but he has well-shaped hands and nails. Jane is usually asleep when Jackson gets in bed beside her. He goes at her without turning on the light.
    “I don’t want to wake you up,” he says.
    Jackson is from Virginia. Once, a photograph of him in period dress appeared in
The New Yorker
for a VISIT WILLIAMSBURG advertisement. They have saved the magazine. It is in their bookcase with their books.
    Jackson packs his hair down hard with water when he leaves the house. The house is always a mess. It is not swept. There are crumbs and broken toys beneath all the furniture. There are cereal bowls everywhere, crusty with soured milk. There is hair everywhere. The dog sheds. It is a collie, three years older than David. It is Jane’s dog. She brought him with her into this marriage, along with her Mexican bowls and something blue.
    Jane could be pretty but she doesn’t know how to arrange her hair. She has violet eyes. And she prefers that color. She has three pots of violets in the living room on Jackson’s old chess table. They flourish. This is sometimes mentioned by Jackson. Nothing else flourishes as well here.
    Whenever Jackson becomes really angry with Jane, he takes off his glasses and breaks them in front of her. They seem always to be the most valuable thing at hand. And they are replaceable, although the act causes considerable inconvenience.
    Jane and David eat supper together every night. Jane eats like a child. Jane is closest to David in this. They are children together, eating junk. Jane has never prepared a meal in this house. She is as though in a seasonal hotel. This is not her life; she does not have to be this. She refuses to become familiar with this house, with this town. She is a guest here. She has no memories. She is waiting. She does not have to make anything of these moments. She is a stranger here.
    She is waiting for Jackson to become an architect.