Lynne Taetzsch
WE NEED LISTINGS
"Fool," said Martha. "Don't know his arse from--"
"Cut that," said Jake. "It don't help none."
"Dumb as a doornail."
Martha had made up her mind about Rutherford, and Jake knew he'd not be able to change her way of thinking on it.
"Goin' to wash up," he said, leaving her to fuss over the pot of stew instead of fussing at him about Rutherford.
Jake rolled up his sleeves and waited for the water to get warm. He hated washing up in cold water, and now that he didn't have to anymore he would wait as long as it took for the water to get steamy hot before he lathered up his hands and face.
When he got back to the kitchen, Rutherford was already setting at the table, waiting for Martha to serve him. Jake had learned long ago how Martha hated that--how you could make her an enemy or friend for life just by--
"Rutherford," he said, "you best wash up." It was a warning the man should have taken, most any would, but Rutherford just stuck out his hands in front of him, turned them over like he was a health inspector, and said he was satisified with the state of things as they were.
Jake went to the cupboard and took out three yellowed melmac plates. He set them in front of Martha, next to the pot of stew. When she was ready, she would put a big dollop of stew in the middle of each plate. Jake took out a half-full jar of applesauce from the ice-box and set it on the table. Martha liked to serve applesauce with beef stew.
"They sets each other off in my taste buddies," she would say, but not in front of Rutherford, of course.
Jake smelled a touch of burning, like the biscuits were over-browning. Ever since Martha'd got that new electric oven, she was always over-browning. Jake motioned her aside, grabbed a towel, and got the pan out quick.
Martha plopped the plate of stew in front of Rutherford so awkwardly the stew slid menacingly close to falling off onto the table. Jake set down an unmatched knife and fork beside each of their plates. He put the pot of butter equidistant between Martha and Rutherford's places, so as to show no favoritism.
They ate quickly, nobody talking but Rutherford, with a grunt here and there from Jake just to be polite. Martha poured the coffee and tore Rutherford's plate away from him before he was near done--a bite of red potato dripping gravy still balancing on his fork waiting for a sentence to be completed so that it could be shovelled into his mouth.
Rutherford never paid any mind to Martha's indignities. Martha was probably right in saying he was a fool, or maybe just too ignorant to tell how his company was received.
On the other hand, it could be that Rutherford did not like Martha's beef stew and was simply eager to get to the rhubarb pie. He ate three slices in spite of Martha's grimace each time he took another piece.
She had to be secretly pleased that somebody--anybody--liked her rhubarb pie. Jake could not eat it. He had told her long ago it was due to allergies he had to rhubarb, but in truth his stomach rebelled at the sourness of it. When Martha got the recipe from her travelling aunt that visited two years ago, the aunt had forgotten to mention sugar.
You just can't make an edible rhubarb pie without sugar.
"Jake," said Martha, as Rutherford washed his last bite of pie down with a swallow of coffee, "you take Rutherford out of my kitchen now."
Jake felt the heat rise to his face. He would always be embarrassed by the way Martha talked about Rutherford and hardly ever to Rutherford.
The fire on the hearth was dying down and Jake went to build it up, though they hardly needed it anymore now that the central heat and air conditioning had been installed. The fire was good to look at still, but Jake felt a sadness in it. A terrible waste.
"No," he said to Rutherford, "I didn't know that." Rutherford was telling Jake about what he was reading in the newspaper. Sometimes he would read the article out loud as if Jake and Martha could not read it for themselves. Martha hated that. She and Jake found no reason to go on about what they read in the newspaper. It was there. They each read it and knew they each read it. My god, it was only six or eight pages altogether including the classified ads and pictures of babies having their first birthdays. What could the town newspaper that come out only twice a week tell you that you didn't already hear from your neighbor anyway? You probably got more of the true facts of an event from your neighbor, too.
Jake hadn't read Friday's newspaper yet and was a mite annoyed at Rutherford for reading from it to him before Jake had had a chance to read it himself. Spoiled the pleaure when he did get ahold of it. Rutherford was reading from the obituaries--he always did that--it was one of the things annoyed Martha so, especially when, as she pointed out, Rutherford did not know any of the people who had died, like Jake and Martha did.
Jake had not been paying attention, but when Rutherford held up the paper to point at the picture of a pretty woman, Jake sat up and stared.
"Let me see that," he said, taking the paper from Rutherford.
The picture showed a touched-up version of Emma Chalmers. What it was doing under the obituaries, Jake had no idea. He'd just seen Emma that afternoon down at the Dollar store looking a bit peaked but unmistakably alive.
"Oh, this isn't her dead," he said, searching the words underneath the photo.
Jake held up his hand to indicate Rutherford should remain silent, then read the article three times in a row trying to make sense of it.
"Martha," he said as she came into the parlor drying her hands on her skirt, "you'd best look at..." he handed her the paper.
Martha set down in her old wood rocker. Even Rutherford knew enough not to ever take that chair.
"Emma Chalmers," said Martha. "Looking better than I seen her in--"
"Saw her this afternoon," said Jake. "She's alive."
"Of course she's alive," said Martha. "It's Jimmy that's dead."
"No." Jake wasn't saying that Jimmy wasn't dead, just that Jake found it hard to believe. Yet there was Emma's tribute to Jimmy Bluestone, thanking him for all he had done for her, saying she'd love him forever with that sad "good bye" at the end it, right along with all the other "cards of thanks" on the obit page. Seems the only mistake the paper made was putting Emma Chalmer's picture there instead of Jimmy's.
"No, I'm wrong," said Martha. "Jimmy's not dead neither."
"Let me see that again," said Jake. He grabbed at the paper, but Martha wasn't giving it up and all he managed to get from her was a torn piece of Frank Kegley's real estate ad saying "WE NEED LISTINGS!" Frank needed listings. As if that was going to motivate anybody to do business with him.
Martha was smiling like the cat and Jake wanted to know what she was so smart about.
"You goin' to tell me?" he said.
"Nope," she said, "it's women's business," and handed the paper back to him.
Rutherford then commenced upon his own theories of why Emma Chalmers' picture was in the paper. It was truly annoying since Rutherford did not know Emma Chalmers or Jimmy Bluestone. Or that Jimmy Bluestone's wife had come back from Cincinnati and reclaimed him, leaving Emma Chalmers pretty much on her own again with those four children. Jake thought it pretty decent of Emma, in fact, to be thanking Jimmy for all he'd done for her when he just up and dumped her for the returning wife. Could have done that without putting the picture in, though. Damn pretty picture.
Jake would have liked for Martha to explain to him the workings of that--what she called women's business--and she would have, too, if Rutherford had not been there.
Martha packed up and went to bed in the middle of Rutherford's speculations. "Good night," she said. That was all.
Jake wished to join her, but felt an obligation to make up for her rudeness by staying with Rutherford until Rutherford showed he was ready to go to bed.
The fire had died out, but Rutherford did not seem to care. Jake continued to make the fire simply out of habit, and because he liked the sense of order it gave him to chop wood. And what would they do otherwise with the trees downed in last Spring's storm?
There was hardly any purpose now to so many things, he thought. Cousin Rutherford had bought his way into their home with promises of a better life. Electric heat and hot water. The new Kenmore refrigerator and stove for Martha. An addition put on the house so Rutherford could have his own private quarters which he hardly ever used save the six or seven hours a night he slept.
Jake knew Martha wanted to turn Rutherford out.
"We didn't sign no papers," she had said to Jake in a passion one night as his hand lay upon her breast.
What had Rutherford taken from him without even knowing he was taking it?
Jake thought again of Emma Chalmers and Jimmy Bluestone--of the way you could always count on seeing Emma setting in Jimmy's truck as he made his rounds, unless one of her children was sick. Must have galled the wife come back from Cincinnati to see that purty picture in the paper. Jake wanted to go to Martha then, but it was very late.
The house was still, finally, as even Rutherford began to doze in his chair.
Jake got up and poked at the ashes. Then he nudged Rutherford's shoulder.
"Go to bed, cousin."