Mrs. Teacher was so eager for the fishing season to begin that by the time the tourists hit town, she had acquired a whole new spring and summer wardrobe, and had everything ironed and hanging, perfectly coordinated, in her closet. New shoes were stacked neatly in their boxes on the floor, her hair was freshly colored and permed and she’d bought new combs to keep the curls out of her face.
The locals began to arrive with the snow melt, coming up on weekends to open their cabins and air out the bedding. They repaired the damage the squirrels had done during the fall and winter, and checked to make sure their pipes hadn’t frozen. They flushed the toilets and inspected the roofs and checked in on their garages, full of boats, fishing equipment, jet skis and dirt bikes. This was recreation country and Mrs. Teacher was ready for a little recreation.
Easter Sunday she put on a new frock and hat and shoes and went to church. She sneaked out a little early to beat the crowd, such as it was—Pastor Porter never quite filled the sanctuary—and headed directly to Margie’s.
Margie rolled her eyes when she saw Mrs. Teacher come in, but Mrs. Teacher was above that and politely ignored her. She also ignored the warning glance that Margie threw her way. Margie didn’t understand. She didn’t know what it was like to be a widow. Margie may have lost a son, but that wasn’t the same. She still had Jimbo to warm her bed at night. Mrs. Teacher had nothing but a fading memory.
She successfully ignored Margie’s scorn with head held high as she scanned those assembled. At a table for two, over by the window, a man in a ball cap was sitting by himself. He had his coffee and some kind of a tabloid newspaper, which meant his breakfast hadn’t arrived yet. Mrs. Teacher made a beeline.
“Excuse me,” she said politely, putting a hand on the empty chair opposite him. “May I join you?”
He wasn’t a local; at least Mrs. Teacher had never seen him before.
He looked around as if prepared to see that the restaurant was packed; that there was no place else for this woman to sit except at his table, but that was not the case. “Sure,” he said, then returned to his paper, then put it down, then picked it up, then finally folded it and set it next to his silverware.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Teacher said. She held out her hand. “I’m Emily Teacher. I so dislike eating alone. Especially on Easter.”
“Fred Kramer,” he said, shaking her hand. “Is it Easter?”
She nodded. “Have you ordered yet?”
Just then, Margie came with his ham and eggs. “What can I get for you, Emily?”
“Oatmeal and tea, please,” Mrs. Teacher said without looking up. Margie whirled and was gone.
“I don’t recall seeing your face before,” Mrs. Teacher said.
“I’m just up checking on my brother’s place,” Fred said, and dug into his breakfast.
“Please go ahead,” Mrs. Teacher said, disappointed in his manners. “Who’s your brother?”
“Tom Kramer,” Fred said behind a mouthful of eggs.
“I see your parents weren’t much with names,” she said.
He stopped chewing and squinted at her for a moment, then washed down his mouthful with a swig of coffee, white with cream.
“And what do you do?”
“I’m a friggin’ brain surgeon,” he said.
She laughed. “Me, too!”
He scowled. “Actually, I work for a concrete sawing company down in Moline.”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m a retired switchboard operator. I live here all year round.”
“Through the winter?”
“Yes,” she said with a little pride. She knew not too many people lived in the northwoods year round, and almost all of those who did were young, hardy outdoorsmen. “It takes a little planning, is all. That’s why we love spring so much.”
“Huh,” he said, and went back to his breakfast.
“So will you be in town for a long time?”
He shook his head, and then swallowed. “Just the weekend. My brother and his family will be up in a couple of weeks.” His eyes kept straying toward his newspaper.
Margie brought Mrs. Teacher’s oatmeal and tea at the same time she brought Fred Kramer’s check. He stood up immediately, put two dollars on the table, and smiled down at her. “Have a nice day,” he said.
My ass, she thought. She waited until he was out of the parking lot, and then disappointment weighing her down, she paid for her oatmeal and went home to her lonely house.
She didn’t want romance, she just wanted someone to talk with. She would have been desperately happy for the rest of the day if Fred Kramer had only asked her a question about herself. Shown a smidgen of interest. Or if they had made some kind of a human connection. Couldn’t he see how starved she was?
She threw her keys into the bowl on the table by the door and, without taking off her coat, sank down onto her overstuffed chintz chair. Everybody thought she was out husband hunting, but that was not it, and if anybody ever took the time to ask her, she’d tell them. “I just want someone to talk to,” she said out loud. “Someone to do for. Some to laugh at David Letterman’s show with.” And then the tears came again, and ran mascara rivulets down her powdered cheeks. She was glad Henry wasn’t peeking in the windows to see what had become of her. She was a disgrace. Starving and ashamed of it.
Eventually, she slid out of her coat, and then out of her clothes, leaving them in a puddle on the floor, and climbed back into bed, pearl earrings and necklace still in place. She didn’t care.
Sometime in the mid-afternoon, a call to the bathroom roused her, and as she walked through the living room, it struck her. “There’s no room for a man in this house,” she said. Over the course of the ten years since Henry’s death, she had feminized the place and filled it up with fancy crap. A man needed to be comfortable. A man needed a recliner and a remote control. If she bought one, maybe a man would come to fill the space.
Maybe a man like Yul Brynner.
~~~
Yul Brynner had been the man of Emily Teacher’s dreams since she saw him in The King and I when she was still a girl with youthful lusts. She liked a bald head on a man. Some men wore them better than others, but she had always found it to be an attractive look.
She put on the kettle, took off the pearls, and got to work, filling boxes with candy dishes, figurines, glass animals, and trinkets. She rearranged a few things in the living room and made a pile in the spare bedroom for the Goodwill. Then she got out the JCPenney catalog and made a phone call.
The delivery truck came before the neighbors arrived for the season, so she didn’t have any explaining to do. The men carried in the big leather recliner and the large-screen television set, then installed the dish on her roof and ran all the wires. She rushed around fussing after them, but they had no time to talk with her, either, and they declined her offers of tea and cookies. They just made man conversation between them, while Mrs. Teacher luxuriated in the smell of men in her home.
When they left, she was surprised to discover that she was not at all inclined to turn the television on. She knew she got lots and lots of stations, especially sports, but she had been so used to just the two stations, one of them snowy, that she didn’t even know what was on to watch. So she left it dark. A big, dark, blank presence.
When she went to bed that night, exhausted from all the unaccustomed activity, she felt a disappointment she was ashamed to admit, even to herself. Somehow, she had it in her head that with the leather recliner and big-screen television, she’d get something else. A new life, maybe.
But no.
She washed her face and got into her nightie and tried hard to say her prayers, but there weren’t any words for how she felt inside. She didn’t know what she wanted, so she didn’t know how to ask. It was a difficult time, but she curled up under her down comforter that didn’t warm her, and waited for blessed unconsciousness.
The light woke her. The unmistakable blue light that comes from even a color television set, even a big-screen television set, bounced off her open bedroom door and shone right into her face. For a moment she felt disoriented, then she remembered the huge television that sat like a monolith in her living room. There must be some sort of a timing device on it, she figured, and it had turned itself on.
She got up, pulled her robe over her nightie, stuck feet into slippers, and wondered if she’d be able to figure out how to turn it off. She could always pull the plug if there wasn’t a simple power button on the remote control.
But the television hadn’t turned itself on. Yul Brynner sat in the leather recliner watching Letterman.
“Did I wake you?” he asked when she came into the room. “I turned it down.”
“No,” she lied. “I was awake.”
“Oh,” he said, then clicked up the volume.
“Can I get you something?”
“Do you have any popcorn?”
“No, but I can get some in the morning.”
“Okay,” he said, and went back to the television.
“How about a sandwich?”
“Sure.”
She went to the kitchen and made him a peanut butter and honey sandwich with raisins and sprinkled cinnamon, poured a big glass of milk, added two cookies to the plate for fun, and took it out to him. There was no place to set it, so he put the plate in his lap, and set the milk on the floor.
“I’ll get some TV trays while I’m out tomorrow.”
“That’s good, dollface,” he said, and switched it over to Jay Leno.
She watched him for a time, amazed beyond words, and then she went back to bed.
~~~
In the morning, the plate and empty glass were in the sink, the television was off, and there was no sign of Yul. In spite of herself, she smelled the headrest of the new recliner, and while it smelled mostly of new leather, she could detect the presence of aftershave. Old Spice, if she wasn’t mistaken, and strong enough for her to believe that it wasn’t just a handprint from the delivery guy. Yul Brynner had been there, had watched her television, eaten her sandwich, drunk her milk. And he wanted popcorn. Well, by god, he’d have it.
She dressed and drove all the way to Wal-Mart.
~~~
By the time she had all her purchases unloaded and set up, she was exhausted. But the house had been transformed. A lava lamp sat atop the television; there was a TV tray on each side of the recliner. She had beer mugs and cold can keepers. She had beer and pretzels and chips and popcorn and cheese and chili and hot dogs and salsa and onion dip. She had frozen pizzas and man-sized bulky sweaters and slippers and fresh towels. She decided against buying cigarettes, Yul’s history being what it was, and for the same reason she passed on cigars and pipes. But she bought lollipops and candy canes. The candy canes had been on sale.
She arranged everything, and then carefully bathed, powdered, shaved and perfumed, and despite her efforts to stay awake to welcome him, she fell asleep on the sofa, cozied up in her afghan.
When she woke, he was there, watching Letterman.
“Hi,” she said, sleepy-eyed.
He laughed at Letterman’s monologue.
“I got popcorn.”
“Got any cheese and crackers?”
“Sure,” she said, and got up to prepare it. On the way past him, she couldn’t help herself, but reached down and touched his shoulder. He was warm. Solid. Muscular. And his head shone in the light of the television.
She made him a big plate of three different types of sliced cheese and crackers, and included a cold beer, then put it all down on the new oak tray table between their chairs. Then she sat down in hers, pulled the afghan over her lap, and they laughed at Letterman together.
It was the closest Emily Teacher got to heaven since Henry had died.
When Letterman signed off, Yul picked up the remote control, looked at her and said. “Thanks, sweet cheeks.” He clicked the button. The picture on the screen flashed off, and he disappeared as well.
Emily rubbed her eyes. She looked at the decimated tray of food, at the half-gone glass of beer. She looked at the impression his body had made in the chair, and then she wrapped the afghan tighter around herself and snuggled up as tiny as she could.
She was losing her mind.
Loneliness was giving her hallucinations.
~~~
And then as if to prove it, he didn’t come again for a week. Heartbroken, she let the food spoil in the refrigerator, and left the cracker box open, so the crackers went stale. No fool like an old fool she said to herself over and over again a thousand times a day. She thought about calling her daughter who lived down in Tampa to come get her and put her in an old folks’ home.
Yul Brynner. Good lord. What had she been thinking?
And yet . . . who drank half of that beer? She hadn’t. She didn’t like beer.
Just as she was about to call the Goodwill to come and get the television and the recliner, Regina Porter called and invited her to lunch. Emily knew that Regina called her out of parish obligation, but she was just as happy to have something to look forward to, so she accepted, and they met at Margie’s the following Sunday after service.
“How have you been?” Regina asked.
Mrs. Teacher regarded the odd young woman sitting across the table from her. She yearned to bare her soul—to cry and wail and talk about Henry and his passing and how lonely she was, how that terrible, debilitating loneliness had led her to accost tourists regularly in Margie’s diner, how she, in her wanton desperation for companionship, had conjured up a beer-drinking apparition which couldn’t exactly be a Christian thing.
But Regina would never understand that kind of loneliness. Regina had her husband and their church. All Mrs. Teacher had was a new leather recliner and a big-screen TV.
“I’ve been well,” she answered.
“We’ve worried about you,” Regina said. “We’d like you to come to a potluck now and then. Maybe help out with Vacation Bible School this summer.”
“Maybe,” Mrs. Teacher said, already wanting to get home just in case her mysterious visitor decided to pay a day visit. Yet that was ludicrous. She ought to get involved with local things, but she never had. She’d had Henry, then she’d taken care of Henry, then she’d mourned Henry in solitude. And now . . . and now she had her insanity to keep her company.
“It’s not good to be so alone,” Regina said. “Trust me on that. Things happen inside your head.”
Mrs. Teacher smiled. “I’m fine, but I appreciate your concern and will consider your invitation.”
That night, she tried to wait up for Letterman, but dozed off, and when she awoke, it was to Yul’s hearty laughter in the chair next to her. She was so grateful she felt like crying.
She fixed him a snack, and watched while he ate, strong jaw muscles chewing, sensuous lips smiling, piercing dark eyes full of humor as he watched television.
When Dave’s musical guest came on, Mrs. Teacher grabbed the remote and found the mute button. “We have to talk,” she said.
“Already?” he said. “Usually, I get a year’s worth before this crap.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Teacher was offended and justifiably so.
He took a long, exaggerated sigh. “What is it?”
“Are you going to keep coming around?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Maybe?”
“I don’t seem to have much to say about it.” His eyes strayed back to the television, and he reached for the remote.
She pulled it away from him. “Who does? Who has the say?”
He shrugged. “You, probably.”
This was not the answer she had expected, yet it rang with truth. She handed him the remote. He blew her a kiss, and turned up the volume.
Mrs. Teacher went to bed and left him alone. In the morning, she cleaned up his dishes then sat in his recliner and did some serious thinking.
Ever since Henry’s death, all she thought she wanted was someone to watch Letterman with. That was what she said, what she thought. That was what she thought she missed the most—doing for someone and laughing with someone.
However, that wasn’t exactly the case.
She wanted more.
The following night, she stroked his tan, muscular forearm while they watched TV and he stayed through Conan O’Brien. The following night she massaged his shoulders and kissed the top of his smooth head. He didn’t seem to mind. She moved the TV tray from between their chairs and began holding his hand. He allowed it.
But he didn’t respond. Didn’t react. Didn’t pick her up and carry her to the bedroom for a wild, passionate romp. He never returned the affection. The closest he got was to ask her to pick up a jar of pickled herring the next time she went to the store. And then he called her “Babycakes” as if that made up for it.
She began to understand that her influence was limited. He was what he was, he did what he did, and that was that.
Well, fine. It wasn’t enough.
So one night she fixed him a pizza and followed it up with a hot fudge sundae, and when Letterman was signing off, she took the remote and turned off the TV. Yul looked at her in surprise, with those soft lips and those penetrating dark eyes under thick brows and she almost lost her resolve. But he wasn’t what she wanted. She thought he was, but he wasn’t.
“It’s over,” she said.
He frowned. “You sure?”
She nodded.
He reached over with one finger and touched her face. “Bye, cutie pie,” he said, and was gone.
Typical, she thought. Not even a thank-you.
~~~
In the morning, she donated the TV and recliner to the Goodwill. Then she started making a list of what she really wanted.
When it was all down in black and white, and all the details were firmly cemented in her mind, she bought champagne, caviar, a cabinet full of expensive imported cheeses, a wide array of expensive wines, a special edition Scrabble game and fresh sheets for the bed. Then she sat down to wait for Alex Trebek.