It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. It was cold this week and windy. At the Mercantile, Clifford hung blue Christmas lights around the front window, draped blue cloth behind it, and on Charlotte, his old mannequin, whom he has given new brown hair, he hung a cool green satin dress. It made an elegant picture on Main Street. Everyone traipsed by and looked at it, even Senator K. Thorvaldson, who has been holed up with a book for weeks. The dear old man gets in a mood sometimes and disappears with an armload of literature. In September, at the school rummage sale, he purchased a boxful of paperbacks by Ramona Jean Jensen, the romance queen of Sweden, and since has been engulfed in a tide of liquid prose about the lissome, nubile, and (thus far) chaste (but barely) Dianne Dahl, including scenes that made the old gent blush and wipe his glasses.
There on her lingonberry plantation south of Göteborg, one suave nobleman after another has made a play for Dianne and nothing was left between her and disgrace but some gossamer-thin fabric and a dim recollection of something her mother told her before she kicked the bucket. Senator K. said, “I never thought I’d like it and now I hate myself for liking it as much as I do.” But it made him think of a lady in Maine and soon he was on the telephone, ringing up more than fifty dollars in long-distance, according to people who know.
That was one piece of news, the other was that Darlene is leaving her job at the Chatterbox Cafe as of January 1, after thirteen years of waitressing. The news hit the old guys at the lunch counter hard because she is like a second wife to them. She pours their first coffee in the morning, brings their eggs and hash browns. Maybe they woke up and got in a fight with the old lady and she said, “I’m not fixing your breakfast, you fix it yourself, you big dummy,” and he said, “I’m not hungry. Things you say to me, you make me so upset, I could no more eat than I could I don’t know what,” and slam the door and go to the Chatterbox; there’s Darlene; she says, “Hi, honey—coffee? How about a sweet roll? Fresh baked, made em myself. You still take your eggs sunny side up? You want those basted a little or real runny—okay. Bacon, ham, or sausage? Say, how you been? I missed you yesterday. It’s good to see ya.” No wonder they’ll miss her. She’s the girl of their dreams. A little heavy and she oughta do something about her hair, but she’s young and that’s the main thing: thirty-eight. A peach.
She sets down $1.15 change in front of Mr. Darling and gives his old hand a pat and the tremor stops—the old goat is healed for a second—with a steady hand he reaches for her but she’s gone, she pours coffee for Chuck, her hand brushes against his, and he trembles.
No wonder they always inquire about her husband, Arlen.
“So,” they say, “how’s Arlen?”
“All right, I suppose.”
“Don’t you see him?”
“Not lately.”
“Hmmmm. You’re still married, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“When’d you see him last?”
“I donno. Last time he was up. Last Christmas maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Hmmmm. Ya miss him?”
“Not lately.”
It’s hard to remember Arlen, it was hard to remember him when he was here. If he were missing and the police needed a description, she wasn’t sure she could give one. Medium height, brown hair, two eyes, nose. He was a sweet man but vacant. He never noticed things, didn’t say much, was content to just be around. Once they were watching a Perry Como special and during a commercial break she asked, “How come we never do anything or go anywhere?” “Well,” he said, “what do you want to do? Nothing stopping you, it’s a free country.” Then the special started again and she remembered thinking to herself: Maybe we oughta get a divorce.
Arlen was from a religious family but he and Darlene never went to church. Sometimes he mentioned it on Sunday morning, but then there was the Sunday paper all fresh and colorful, and he was a slow reader, and pretty soon it was dinnertime. His brother Erling was an evangelist and once they drove all the way to Moorhead in a red Pontiac with no muffler to see him preach.
He preached in a parking lot between a Red Owl supermarket and a liquor store, standing on a flatbed trailer behind his old van with a green neon cross behind him. He kept his engine running because the loudspeaker was hooked up to the battery. It was sunset, and beyond them was flat prairie for a thousand miles, and around them were seven people listening to the sermon, but Erling didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t preaching to this bunch, he was talking to the world. He said: “For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? You are the light of the world! So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Afterward he wrapped the cross in a plastic bag and shut off the engine and they went to Perkins Pancake House for dinner. Erling talked about the world being in the last days, signs all around pointing to Christ’s imminent return, maybe tonight—though tonight he was driving to Williston. His family lived in Oak Park, Illinois, and he said he didn’t see them as often as he liked. Darlene didn’t ask how often he’d like to see them. Erling didn’t seem like a homebody. He was restless just sitting eating a burger and fries, he wanted to go. He said to Darlene, “I’m praying for you,” and she wanted to tell him to stick around and see if they’re answered. He was the opposite of Arlen, maybe Erling got all the juice in that family and Arlen was left with the pulp.
He was from north Minneapolis and that’s where he went back to after he lost his warehouse job at the Co-op. She planned to go with him, but she was waiting for him to bring it up and ask her to, and he didn’t, he just stood by the car looking at the tires, so she said, “Well, see ya,” and he said, “Yeah, see ya,” and drove away. He came up on weekends for a few months and then not so often and then it didn’t seem important.
She’s been married to him for thirteen years, as long as she’s had this job. This job is like being married to Arlen: you wait for something that isn’t going to come. It’s taken her too long to find this out. Fifteen years ago she got up the courage to go to Minneapolis and try to find something for herself, and what did she find? Arlen. Came back home with him, and now, thirteen years later, she’s right where she started from.
“Oh honey,” her mother said, “why don’t you do something with yourself? You could do so many things if you’d try.” So she went to Minneapolis and got Arlen. She met him at the Bon Ton Scandinavian Snackshop on Johnson Street N.E., where her uncle Bob got her a job through his sister-in-law Myrtice, that was in 1971. Darlene moved into a furnished studio apartment over the Snackshop and went to work, 6:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M., Tuesday through Saturday, $1.56/hour, and first day at work in came Arlen. She didn’t notice him but he saw her and started coming to the Bon Ton every morning for some doughnuts, some scones, a bismarck, a piece of pie—he weighed 176 at the time, and eight pounds later he asked what her name was, and when he tipped 195 he took her to a movie at the Hollywood Theater, put his arm around her in the pale light off the big screen, and he kept coming back for more, as they say. Back to the Bon Ton day after day, and when she said, “Have another slice of pie? Care for some cake? Fry you up a burger?” he’d say, “Sure,” and when he reached 200 he kissed her, and he got to 204, and 208, and somewhere between 200 and 210 he proposed, and he married her at 218 and her dad got him a job at the Coop.
When they moved home, Darlene felt bad. She’d been in Minneapolis eight months, working her tail off, and had never been to the top of the Foshay Tower, never saw Lake Harriet or the Como Zoo, never made it out to Southdale, got a Penney’s charge card and hadn’t even used it. Back in Lake Wobegon, they moved into her parents’ basement, to a rollaway under the stairs with a hot plate next to the laundry tubs, and the bathroom upstairs. Her mother would come down and iron, Arlen would go up and watch TV with her dad.
“Oh honey,” her mother said, “why don’t you do something with yourself? There’s so many things you could do.” Other people have said the same and she’s thought about it herself, but—everything she’s thought of doing, she knows of somebody who did exactly that thing and isn’t happy at all. Thought of going to California but she knows two girls who went and they say it isn’t at all like what you expect and the people act creepy, especially men. Thought of going into hairdressing but her friend Denise knows a couple girls who did and they say they don’t really make all that much money. Thought of going to college but her girlfriend Therese went and look at her, she’s all confused and stuck-up on top of it, a unique combination. So Darlene stuck to waitressing. “Better the devil you know,” they say. No sense going looking for trouble. The grass is always greener. Learn from other people’s mistakes.
“Oh honey,” her mother said, “why don’t you do something with yourself?” But what? It’s a jungle out there. Just look at a newspaper and you’ll see the tragedy that comes from making a wrong choice: people who made the mistake of going on that plane—walking down that street right then, driving across that bridge—it ought to teach you to be careful.
And then after Thanksgiving her mother said, “Oh honey, why didn’t you ever do something with yourself? You could have done so many different things.”
It was only a change of tense but it felt like a door shut, and Darlene got up and went in her room and bawled. The next morning she got up at four and went to work at the Chatterbox and she took out her pack of Alpines and nailed it alongside the door to the cooler. She wasn’t so nice to the old guys, she said, “Yeah? What you want?” After lunch she gave notice to Dorothy and last week she drove down to the Cities to look for a job in a department store.
Last Sunday morning at Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, when Pastor Ingqvist looked out over the faces and said, “Any additional announcements this morning?” (which, of course, there wouldn’t be, because you’re supposed to tell him if you’re going to stand up and make one, and nobody had), Darlene’s mother stood up in the third row and turned around and faced the congregation and said, “I have an announcement of a personal nature.”
She was nervous and reached to brace herself on Earl’s shoulder but he was bent over low in a prayerful position. She said, “My daughter Darlene, a member of this church, will be leaving after Christmas to accept a position of employment in Minneapolis, and since there isn’t much time and this is such a busy season for everyone, I have decided that in lieu of a going-away shower, those who wish to go in on a nice gift for her can see me after church. I would like to send her to Minneapolis with at least one nice dress. There is no pressure put on anyone to do this, it is purely a matter of individual choice, but if you’d like, you may see me after church. Thank you.”
She sat down, breathing hard. Several women in that church could’ve shot her on the spot, they were so furious. To stand up and announce a collection for your own daughter!—hard to believe. But those Lutherans were nailed and they knew it. She planted herself by the exit, where you couldn’t miss her, and she said good morning to everyone on their way out, and if you didn’t want to give, you had to be pretty determined.
She got the cool green satin dress. It needs letting out a little bit, but it does look wonderful on Darlene, and she feels lovely in it. She’ll wear it for Christmas and take it with her to Minneapolis, where she will find Arlen and wind up her business with him and start something with somebody else, she hopes.