Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page A

ice,” Pyotr said. “Freezes enzymes in middle of ducts.”
    “Have you ever heard this theory?” Dr. Battista asked his daughters. He looked delighted.
    Kate thought it was a pity he couldn’t just marry Pyotr himself, if he was so set on adjusting the man’s status. The two of them seemed made for each other.
    On Tuesdays, Kate varied their menu by setting out tortillas and a jar of salsa so that they could have meat-mash burritos. Pyotr didn’t bother with the tortillas, though. He ladled an avalanche of salsa over his serving and then dug in with his spoon, nodding intently as he listened to Dr. Battista ponder why it was that autoimmune disorders affected more women than men. Kate pushed her food around her plate; she wasn’t as hungry as she had thought. And Bunny, across the table from her, seemed lukewarm about her tofu. She cut a corner off with her fork and took an experimental taste, chewing with just her front teeth. Her green vegetable—two pallid stalks of celery—lay untouched, so far. Kate predicted her meat-free phase would last about three days.
    Dr. Battista was telling Pyotr that sometimes it seemed to him that women were just more…skinless than men, but he stopped speaking suddenly and looked at Bunny’s plate. “What’s that?” he asked.
    “It’s tofu?”
    “Tofu!”
    “I’ve given up eating meat?”
    “Is that wise?” her father asked.
    “Is ridiculous,” Pyotr said.
    “See there?” Kate told Bunny.
    “Where would be her B-twelve?” Pyotr asked Dr. Battista.
    “I suppose it could come from her breakfast cereal,” Dr. Battista mused. “Providing the cereal’s fortified, of course.”
    “Is still ridiculous,” Pyotr said. “Is so American, subtracting foods! Other countries, when they want healthiness they add foods in. Americans subtract them.”
    Bunny said, “How about, like, canned tuna? That doesn’t have a face per se. Could I get B-twelve from canned tuna?”
    Kate was so surprised at Bunny’s tossing off that “per se” that it took her a moment to realize their father was way, way overreacting to the suggestion of tuna. He was holding his head in both hands and rocking back and forth. “No, no,
no
, no, no!” he groaned.
    They all stared at him.
    He raised his head and said, “Mercury.”
    “Ah,” Pyotr said.
    Bunny said, “Well, I don’t care; I refuse to eat little baby calves that are kept in cages all their lives and never touch their feet to the ground.”
    “You are so far off topic,” Kate told her. “That’s veal you’re talking about! I never put veal in meat mash!”
    “Veal, beef, soft woolly lambs…” Bunny said. “I don’t want any of them. It’s wicked. Tell me, Pyoder,” she said, wheeling on him, “how can you live with yourself, making little mousies suffer?”
    “Mousies?”
    “Or whatever animals you’re torturing over there in that lab.”
    “Oh, Bun-Buns,” Dr. Battista said sorrowfully.
    “I do not torture mice,” Pyotr said with dignity. “They live very good lives in your father’s lab. Recreation! Companionship! Some of them have names. They live better than in outdoors.”
    “Except that you stick them with needles,” Bunny said.
    “Yes, but—”
    “And those needles make them sick.”
    “No, at current time they do
not
make them sick, which is interesting, you see, because—”
    The telephone rang. Bunny said, “I’ll get it!”
    She scraped back her chair and jumped up and ran to the kitchen, leaving Pyotr sitting there with his mouth open.
    “Hello?” Bunny said. “Oh, hi-yee! Hi, there!”
    Kate could tell it was a boy she was talking to because of the breathy, shallow voice she put on. Amazingly, their father seemed able to sense it too. He frowned and said, “Who
is
that?” Then he turned and called, “Bunny? Who is that?”
    Bunny ignored him. “Aww,” they heard her say. “Aww, that’s so sweet! Aren’t you sweet to say so!”
    “Who is she talking to?” Dr. Battista asked