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  “Oh,” she said in reply. “I was just practicing for the—Are you here to check the fuse box?”

  “Yes,” said the landlord, wondering who it was these days he was renting his houses out to.

  Jane had once, briefly, lived in western Oregon but had returned to the Midwest when she and her boyfriend out there had broken up. He was a German man who made rocking horses and jungle gyms and who had been, like her, new to the community. His English was at times halting and full of misheard vernacular, things like “get town” and “to each a zone.” One time, when she’d gotten all dressed up to go to dinner, he told her she looked “hunky-dorky.” He liked to live dangerously, always driving around town with his gas tank on E. “Pick a lane and do stay in it,” he yelled at other drivers. He made the worst coffee Jane had ever tasted, muddy and burned, but she drank it, and stayed long hours in his bed on Sundays. But after a while he took to going out without her, not coming home until two a.m. She started calling him late at night, letting the phone ring, then driving around town looking for his car, which she usually found in front of a tavern somewhere. It had not been like her to do things like this, but knowing that the town was small enough for her to do it, she had found it hard to resist. Once she had gotten into the car and started it up, it was as if she had crashed through a wall, gone from one room with rules into another room with no rules. When she found his car, she would go into the tavern, and if she discovered him at the bar with his arm flung loosely around some other woman, she would tap him on the shoulder and say, “Who’s the go-go girl?” Then she’d pour beer onto his legs. She was no longer herself. She had become someone else, a wild West woman, bursting into saloons, the swinging doors flipping behind her. Soon, she thought, bartenders might fear her. Soon they might shout out warnings, like sailors facing a storm: Here she comes! And so, after a while, she left Oregon and came back here alone. She rented a house, got a job first at Karen’s Stout Shoppe, which sold dresses to overweight women, then later at the cheese store in the Marshall Field’s mall.

  For a short time she mourned him, believing he had anchored her, had kept her from floating off into No Man’s Land, that land of midnight cries and pets with too many little toys, but now she rarely thought of him. She knew there were only small joys in life—the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through—and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off. You could put the pressure aside, like a child’s game, its box ripped to flaps at the corners. You could stick it in some old closet and forget about it.

  Jane pulled into the vet’s parking lot at ten after eight. She lifted the cat up into her arms, pushed the car door shut with one hip, and went inside. Although the air of the place was slightly sour—humid with animal fear, tense with medicine, muffled howls drifting in from the back—the waiting room felt pleasant to her. Hopeful with ficus trees. There were news-magazines on the tables, and ashtrays made from Italian glass. There were matted watercolors on the wall and a silk-screened sign in a white metal frame saying, ANIMALS MUST BE LEASHED OR HELD. Jane walked up to the large semicircular counter ahead of her and placed the cat down on it. Behind her was a man seated with a leashed and lethargic golden Labrador, and Jane’s cat peered around back at it, shivering a little. On the other side of the waiting room was a large poodle with the fierce look of a Doberman. His ears were long and floppy, uncut, and his owner, a young woman in her twenties, kept saying, “Come here, Rex. Lie down, baby.”

  “Can I help you?” asked the woman behind the counter. She had been staring at a computer screen, tapping at a keyboard and bringing up fiery columns of numbers and dates.

  “I’m here to bring my cat in for grooming,” said Jane. “My last name is Konwicki.”

  The woman behind the counter smiled and nodded. She tapped something into the computer. “And the cat’s name?” she asked.

  “Fluffers,” said Jane. She had once thought she would name the cat Joseph, but then she had changed her mind.

  The woman rolled her chair away from the computer screen. She picked up a large silver microphone and spoke into it. “Fluffers Konwicki here to be groomed.” She set the microphone back down. “The groomer will be out in a minute,” she said to Jane. “You can wait over there.”

  Jane pulled the cat to her chest and went and sat in a fake leather director’s chair opposite Rex the poodle. A woman and her two children came in through the front entrance wheeling a baby carriage. The woman held open the door and the little boy and girl pushed the carriage through, all the while peering in and squeaking concerned inquiries and affectionate names. “Gooby, are you OK?” asked the boy. “Gooby knows he’s at the doctor’s, Mom.”

  “You kids wait right here,” said the mom, and she approached the counter with a weary smile. She brushed her bangs off her head, then placed her hands flat out on the countertop and stared at them momentarily, as if this had been the first opportunity all morning to observe them empty. “We’re bringing a cat in for surgery,” she said, looking back up. “The name is Miller.”

  “Miller,” said the woman behind the counter. She tapped something into the computer. She shook her head, then got up and looked at a clipboard near the cash register. “Miller, Miller, Miller,” she said absently. “Miller. All righty! Here we are!” She smiled at Mrs. Miller. The world was again the well-oiled machine she counted on it to be: All things could eventually be found in it. “You want to wheel the cat back around here?”

  Mrs. Miller turned toward her children. “Kids? Wanna bring the kitty back around here?” The little boy and girl pushed the baby carriage forward, their steps solemn and processional. The woman behind the counter stepped out from her usual post and held the door to the back part, the examination room, open. “Wheel the cat right in there,” she said. She wore white shoes. You could see that now.

  They were all in there for no more than a minute before they returned, the children dragging the empty baby carriage behind them and Mrs. Miller sighing and smiling and thanking the woman in the white shoes, who told her to call sometime after three this afternoon. The anesthesia would be worn off by then, and the doctor would know better what to tell them.

  “Thanks again,” said Mrs. Miller. “Kids?”

  “Mom, look,” said the little girl. She had wandered over to where Jane was sitting and had begun to pet Jane’s cat, occasionally looking up for permission to continue. “Mom, see—this lady has a cat, too.” She called to her mother, but it was her brother who came up and stood beside her. The two of them stuck their tiny, star-like hands deep into the cat’s fur and squished them around there.

  “You like that?” said Jane to her cat, and the cat looked up at her as if he really couldn’t decide. She made Fluffers’ head nod a bit, as if he were answering the question.

  “What is his name?” asked the little girl. Her hand had found the scruff of the cat’s neck and was kneading it. The cat stretched his throat up in enjoyment.

  “Fluffers,” said Jane.

  The girl’s voice went up an octave into cat range. “Hi, Fluffers,” she half sang, half squeaked. “How are you feeling today, Fluffers?”

  “Is he sick?” asked the boy.

  “Oh, no,” said Jane. “He just comes here for a special kind of bath.”

  “You getting a bath, Fluffers?” cooed the girl, looking directly into the cat’s eyes.

  “Our cat is having an operation,” said the boy.

  “That’s too bad,” said Jane.

  The boy looked at her crossly. “No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s a good thing. Then he’ll be all better.”

  “Well, yes, that’s true,” said Jane.

  “Fluffers licked my finger,” said the girl.

  Their mother now appeared behind them, placing a palm on each of their heads. “Time to go, kiddos,” she said. “Beautiful cat,” she said to Jane.

  THE CHEESE SHOP Jane worked at, in the new mall outside of town, was called Swedish Isle, and she had recent
ly been promoted to assistant manager. There were always just two of them in the shop, Jane and an older woman named Heffie, who minded the register while Jane stood out in front with the cheese samples, usually spreads and dips placed in small amounts on crackers. Once the manager had come by and told her that Heffie should be doing the samples and Jane should be minding the register and doing the price sheets, but the store manager was also the assistant district manager for the chain and was too busy to come by all that often. So most of the time Jane simply continued doing the samples herself. She liked the customer contact. “Care to try our chive-dill today?” she would ask brightly. She felt like Molly Malone, only friendlier and no cockles or mussels; no real seafood for miles. This was the deep Midwest. Meat sections in the grocery stores read: BEEF, PORK, and FISH STICKS.

  “Free?” people would ask and pick up a cracker or a bread square from her plastic tray.

  “Sure is.” She would smile and watch their faces as they chewed. If it was a man she thought was handsome, she’d say, “No. A million dollars,” and then giggle in the smallest, happiest way. Sometimes the beggars—lost old hippies and mall musicians—would come in and line up, and she would feed them all, like Dorothy Day in a soup kitchen. She had read a magazine article once about Dorothy Day.

  “A little late, aren’t you?” said Heffie today. She was tugging at the front strap of her bra and appeared generally disgruntled. Her hair was thinning at the front, and she had it clipped to the top with barrettes she was too old for. “Had to open up the register myself. It’d be curtains if the manager’d come by. Lucky I had keys.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jane. “I had to take my cat into the vet’s this morning, way over on the west side. Any customers?” Jane gave Heffie an anxious look. It said “Please forgive me.” It also said “What is your problem?” and “Have a nice day.” Pleasantness was the machismo of the Midwest. There was something athletic about it. You flexed your face into a smile and let it hover there like the dare of a cat.

  “No, no customers,” said Heffie, “but you never can tell.”

  “Well, thanks for opening up,” said Jane.

  Heffie shrugged. “You doing the samples today?”

  “Thought I would, yes,” said Jane, flipping through some papers attached to a clipboard. “Unless you wanted to.” She said this with just a hint of good-natured accusation and good-natured insincerity. Heffie wasn’t that interested in doing the samples, and Jane was glad. It was just that Heffie didn’t much like doing anything, and whatever Jane did apparently seemed to Heffie like more fun, and easier, so sometimes the older woman complained a little by means of a shrug or a sigh.

  “Nah, that’s OK,” said Heffie. “I’ll do them some other time.” She slid open the glass door to the refrigerated deli case and grabbed a lone cheese curd, the squiggly shape and bright marigold color of it like a piece from a children’s game. She popped it into her mouth. “You ever been surfing?” she asked Jane.

  “Surfing?” Jane repeated incredulously. She would never figure out how Heffie came up with the questions she did.

  “Yeah. Surfing. You know—some people have done it. The fiberglass board that you stand on in the water and then a wave comes along?” Heffie’s face was a snowy moon of things never done.

  Jane looked away. “Once a couple of summers ago I went water-skiing on a lake,” she said. “In Oregon.” Her lover, the daredevil toymaker, had liked to do things like that. “Khem on, Jane,” he had said to her. “You only live at once.” Which seemed to her all the more reason to be careful, to take it easy, to have an ordinary life. She didn’t like to do things where the trick was to not die.

  “Water-skiing, poohf,” said Heffie. “That’s nothing like surfing. There’s not the waves, the risk.” Jane looked up from her clipboard and watched as Heffie waddled away, the tops of her feet swelling out over the straps of her shoes like dough. Heffie walked over to the Swiss nut rolls, put a fist down lightly on top, and gazed off.

  “CARE TO TRY some of our horseradish cheddar today?” Jane smiled and held out the tray. She had placed little teaspoonfuls of spread on some sickly-looking rice crackers, and now she held them out to people like a caterer with the hors d’oeuvres at a fancy party. Horses’ douvers, her mother used to call them, and for years Jane had had her own idea about what a douver was. “Care to try a free sample of our horseradish cheddar spread, on special today?” At least it wasn’t spraying perfume at people. Last month she had met the girl who did that next door at Marshall Field’s. The girl, who was from Florida originally, said to her, “Sometimes you aim for the eyes. It’s not always an accident.” Malls, Jane knew, were full of salesgirls with stories. Broken hearts, boyfriends in jail. Once last week two ten-year-old girls, one pudgy, one thin, had come up to Jane, selling chocolate bars. They looked at her as if she were just a taller version of themselves, someone they might turn into when they grew up. “Will you buy a chocolate bar?” they asked her, staring at her samples. Jane offered them a cracker with a big clump of spread, but they politely declined.

  “Well, what kind of chocolate bars are you selling?”

  “Almond or crisp.” The pudgy girl, wearing a purple sweatshirt and lavender corduroys, clutched a worn-out paper bag to her chest.

  “Is this for the Girl Scouts?” asked Jane.

  The girls looked at each other. “No, it’s for my brother,” said the pudgy one. Her friend slapped her on the arm.

  “It’s for your brother’s team,” the friend hissed.

  “Yeah,” said the girl, and Jane bought a crispy bar and talked them into a sample after all. Which they took with a slight grimace. “D’you got a husband that drives a truck?” asked the one in purple.

  “Yeah,” said the other. “Do you?” And when Jane shook her head, they frowned and went away.

  A man in a blue sweater like one her father used to wear stopped and gently plucked a cracker from her tray. “How much?” he asked, and she was about to say, “A million dollars,” when she heard someone down the mall corridor call her name.

  “Jane Konwicki! How are you?” A woman about Jane’s age, wearing a bright-red fall suit, strode up to her and kissed her on the cheek. The man in the blue sweater like her father’s slipped away. Jane looked at the woman in the red suit and for a minute didn’t know who she was. But the woman’s animated features all stopped for a moment and fell into place, and Jane realized it was Bridey, a friend from over fifteen years ago, who used to sit next to her in high school chorus. It was curious how people, when they stood still and you just looked, never really changed that much. No matter how the fashions swirled about a girl, the adult she became, with different fashions swirling about her, still contained the same girl. All of Bridey’s ages—the child, the old woman—were there on her face. It was like an open bird feeder where every year of her, the past and the future, had come to feed.

  “Bridey, you look great. What have you been up to?” It seemed a ridiculous question to ask of someone you hadn’t seen since high school, but there it was.

  “Well, last year I fell madly in love,” Bridey said with great pride. This clearly was on the top of her list, and her voice suggested it was a long list. “And we got married, and we moved back to town after roughing it on the South Side of Chicago since forever. It’s great to be back here, I can tell you.” Bridey helped herself to a cheddar sample and then another one. The cheese in her mouth stuck between her front teeth in a pasty, yellowish mortar, and when she swallowed and smiled back at Jane, well, again, there it was, like something unfortunate but necessary.

  “You seem so … happy,” said Jane. Heffie was shuffling around noisily in the shop behind her.

  “Oh, I am. I keep running into people from school, and it’s just so much fun. In fact, Jane, you should come with me this evening. You know what I’m going to do?”

  “What?” Jane glanced back over her shoulder and saw Heffie testing the spreads in the deli case with her finger. She wo
uld stick her finger in deep and then lick it slowly like an ice cream.

  “Oh,” said Bridey in a hushed and worried tone. “Is that a customer or an employee?”

  “Employee,” said Jane.

  “At any rate, I’m going to try out for Community Chorus,” continued Bridey. “It’s part of my new program. I’m learning German—”

  “Learning German?” Jane interrupted.

  “—taking a cooking class, and I’m going to get back into choral singing.”

  “You were always a good singer,” said Jane. Bridey had often gotten solos.

  “Ach! My voice has gone to pot, but I don’t care. Why don’t you come with me? We could audition together. The auditions aren’t supposed to be that hard.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Jane, though the thought of singing again in a chorus suddenly excited her. That huge sound flying out over an audience, like a migration of birds, like a million balloons! But the idea of an audition was terrifying. What if she didn’t get in? How could she ever open her mouth again to sing, even all by herself at home? How would her own voice not mortify her on the way to work in the morning, when she listened to the radio. Everything would be ruined. Songs would stick in her throat like moths. She would listen to nothing but news, and when she got to work she would be quiet and sad.

  “Listen,” said Bridey, “I’m terrible. Truly.”