To be truthful, I did not know from where the dish had originally come, although it had fallen to me secondhand by way of Norman Lang's wife, an inveterate frequenter of yard sales who regularly cleared her shelves to make room for more of the cast-offs of other people. Edith Lang had set up a table in Norm's hardware store and displayed a number of items with a sign that read
Make an offer
. Thomas had paid two dollars for the ceramic dish and brought it home.
The decision was made in a trice. I would give Birdie the casserole dish as a Christmas gift. Of no matter that it was used merchandise. Indeed, the fact that it had been my own could serve, I suppose, to increase its value by the suggestion of sacrifice.
I quickly greased the bread pan, rolled up the rectangle of dough, folded its ends, and placed it in the pan to rise again. After cleaning up and putting things away, I took the casserole dish into my bedroom and set about finding a suitable box and wrapping paper.
The doorbell sounded at 4:02, a single, feeble chime. Thomas opened the door and welcomed Birdie and Mickey with a great display of cordiality, as if greeting old comrades. I came into the living room from the kitchen and stood on the far side next to the piano. The gift, which I had wrapped in glossy green paper and adorned with a large bow of white crinkle-ribbon, sat in full view upon the wooden chair beside the telephone. Thomas had seen it, I was quite sure, but had not inquired about it.
Birdie stepped inside first, looked around, and emitted a sigh of admiration. “Oh, I just knew your house would be neat as a pin! Look, Mickey, there's the bonsai I gave her. Why, look at the buds! It's getting ready to bloom again, isn't it? Everything sure is trim and pretty, Margaret.” If the truth were told, I had begun to view the interior of our duplex as empty and lackluster in comparison to the occupied corners and vivid colors of Birdie's house. Our home appeared to be constructed of logic, whereas hers vibrated with imagination.
Mickey was bearing a large box wrapped in gold foil. From his posture and the strain of his smile, it appeared to be quite heavy. I was suspicious, however, for Mickey Freeman was capable of elaborate playacting. He could very well have persuaded Birdie to wrap one of his nut figurines in the enormous box as a joke.
“Got a match?” Thomas asked him.
“Sure, both my shoes are just alike!” Mickey said, and the two of them laughed, though Mickey's laugh broke off as he shifted the weight of the box.
“Here, let's put that thing down,” Thomas said, and he helped Mickey set the box gently beside the couch. A moment of awkward silence followed, during which the four of us stared at one another by turns.
Then, “Here, here, take a load off your feet.” This was from Thomas, who motioned to the couch.
“Take their coats,” I said, and he made a gesture as if aiming a firearm at his head.
“What am I thinking of?” he said. “You can tell I'm out of practice at this, can't you? Here, let me have your coats.” I sincerely hoped that they would refuse to relinquish their coats and be on their way. After all, Birdie had stated that their visit would be short. My wish was not to be granted, however, for Mickey helped Birdie remove her coatânot the short blue one she wore to school but a longer, fuller one, a nubby tan tweed in an old-fashioned flared cut with enormous brown buttonsâand then took off his own light blue jacket, which could scarcely have afforded sufficient protection against the December cold.
Birdie was wearing a royal blue sweater with a cowl neck. The fabric had a furry loose pile like mohair. She looked misplaced inside the large, fussy garment, though she seemed unaware of its ill fit. I noticed also at this point that the bottoms of her two front teeth were smeared with orange lipstick. I glanced impatiently at Mickey. He should have told her of this. Husbands could perform so many useful services if only they were more alert.
Thomas disappeared into his bedroom with the coats, and Mickey and Birdie sat down tentatively upon the edge of the couch. Birdie told me later that she was quite nervous at this point. “You were standing there so still and
solemn
by the piano,” she said.
“Getting a lot colder than the forecast said it would,” Mickey said to me, rubbing his hands together in what I considered a womanish sort of way.
“Yes,” I said.
From next door there was a sudden blast of sound from the television, then Nick Purdue's voice rising in protest. “Turn that cotton-pickin' thing down, Thelma!” Then came the heavy tread of footsteps crossing the floor, followed by a decrease in the volume of the television. “What's it gonna take to make you wear that hearing aid I bought you?” Nick shouted.
Thomas reentered, grinning. “See what you're missing out on livin' way out there by that graveyard?” he said. “Bet
your
neighbors don't carry on like ours.”
Birdie laughed politely, and Mickey shook his head. “You kidding? The folks in that lot next to ours are a noisy bunchâalways croaking, kicking buckets, and what have you.” Again, he and Thomas laughed with gusto.
“Actually, we do hear the Lackeys who live back behind us a little ways,” Birdie said when their laughter had subsided. “When Delores goes shopping, Mervin turns up his stereo full blast. He likes big band music from the forties mostly, so it gets real lively out at our place sometimes.”
“Yep, it's enough to wake the dead,” Mickey said. Thomas laughed so hard that he began coughing. After several hacks, he cleared his throat and sat down in his recliner, swiveling it to face Mickey and Birdie.
Before the tasteless humor could proceed, I picked up the gift on the chair beside me and took it to Birdie. I would be first, and I would dispatch the business quickly. I wanted nothing more than to see Birdie and Mickey on their way. “This is for you,” I said.
She looked up at me stunned. “For me? Oh, Margaret, whateverâ¦? I sure didn't come over here expecting you to give me anything!” Her expression of bewilderment turned to one of great delight as she studied the package. “Why, isn't that the prettiest thing? I always did love that kind of ribbon. Mickey used to call it corduroy ribbon, didn't you, Mickey? I used to buy it in all different colors.”
Mickey nodded and smiled at Birdie. “I don't imagine Margaret meant for you to just sit there and look at it, honey bun. Go ahead and open it. I can't stand the suspenders, I mean suspense.”
I retreated to sit on the small chair beside the telephone table, a distance from the others. Birdie began to unwrap the present, first unwinding the length of white ribbon, then removing the bow itself, then slowly prying the cellophane tape from one end of the package.
Mickey picked up the bow and began pulling at the ringlets of ribbon. “I used to love to watch Birdie make these little curlicues on the ends,” he said. “She'd just whip out her scissors, zip, zip, zip, and prestoâ¦she had her a whole bunch of little Shirley Temple curls.”
I frowned at Mickey. The thought of a husband finding pleasure in watching his wife curl ribbon seemed to me an aberrant form of behavior. Meanwhile, Birdie was making headway with the unwrapping.
“I just don't know
what
this could be,” she kept saying. “What did you go and do this for, Margaret? Here, Mickey, hold the paper while I pull the box out.” Together the two of them succeeded. Mickey was left with a cocoon of glossy green wrapping paper while Birdie, a look of awe upon her face, held the white box.
“Just like always,” Thomas said, looking at me and jerking a thumb at Mickey. “The men get left holding the bag!” This was not the first time in recent days that Thomas had said something to me in a teasing manner concerning differences between men and womenâthings that he never would have said a year ago.
“Knowing Birdie, she'll probably want to save the paper, won't you, plumcake?” Mickey said, and Birdie nodded. Mickey began flattening the paper.
Birdie closed her eyes as if steeling herself for a breath-stopping surprise, then slowly removed the box lid and handed it to Mickey. She opened her eyes, and for several moments she gazed down into the box, her face filled with wonder. She lifted her hands and poised them midair as if preparing to clap them together, but then she brought them slowly to rest upon her cheeks. I had wrapped the dish in a deep square box that I had found in the hall closet and had set the lid upside down in the bowl, cushioning it well with tissue paper.
With great care Birdie at last reached into the box and lifted out the casserole dish, emitting cheeping cries that could have been interpreted as signifying either extreme pain or speechless joy. Her words settled the question, however. “Oh, Margaret! This isâ¦oh, I just can't believe you've given me thisâ¦this exquisite piece ofâoh, Mickey,
look
, it's a serving dish in the Morning Glory pattern just exactly likeâ¦well, just like the one she brought to our house that night, remember? Look at the cunning little handlesâand the lid!”
She broke off effervescing to gaze at me rapturously, her eyes shimmering. “Margaret, I know I carried on over yours, but I sure didn't mean for you to go and
give
me one of my own. But I'm just soâ¦oh, so deeply grateful! And really, it's all so
funny
when you think about it.” I saw nothing funny whatsoever and was bewildered at the expressions on their faces as she and Mickey exchanged glances.
She held the bowl up like a trophy. “Won't my friends at church think I'm the fancy one at our next covered-dish supper?” She smiled at each of us in turn.
Then, handing the dish to Mickey, she rose from the couch and with an almost reverential timidity, as if approaching a shrine, moved toward the chair where I sat. Before I could ready myself, she had thrown her arms about my neck and resumed her speech of thanksgiving. “What a dear, dear thing for you to do! You just don't know how much this means to me, Margaret! Why, that dish cost a lot of money! I'll think of you every time I use it, and believe me, I'll use it over and over and over! Thank you, Margaret, oh, thank you for your gift!”
As soon as I could gather my wits, I stood up, thus stanching her words of gratitude and forcing her to release her hold upon my neck. Smoothing my skirt, I spoke briskly. “Yes, well, you are most welcome. And as for the cost, it was nothingâliterally. The dish is not only exactly like the dish I took to your house, it is the very dish itself.”
To which she promptly replied, “Well, then it's all the more special to me! Yes, all the more special.” Looking back at Mickey, she beamed. “And isn't she going to be surprised when she opens our present?” she said.
“Maybe so if she ever gets a chance to,” he said, smiling. Assuming a comical grimace, he addressed Thomas. “Women can drag out the simplest things, can't they? Now, if you and me were the ones giving each other presents, it'd be over and done with by now.” But to me he said, “That's a mighty nice dish you gave Birdie, Margaret. She'll sure enjoy using it, and I'll sure enjoy eating whatever she puts in it!”
Birdie gestured to me. “Come on over here and sit on the couch, Margaret,” she said. “Here, Mickey, can you put the present up here beside her?” As Mickey feigned great physical exertion and asked Thomas if he knew of a good doctor for hernia operations, Birdie grasped my hand and led me across the room.
Seated upon the couch, I felt as though I had been shoved onto stage without knowing my lines. The three pairs of eyes watching me might have been three thousand for the discomfort they caused me.
“Go on, open it,” Birdie said. She took a seat on the couch also, on the other side of the gift. Mickey sat on the edge of the rocking chair where I often read at night. He leaned forward expectantly, his hands clasped together. Thomas watched me from his recliner with a sympathetic cast of eye, his head to one side as if trying to judge my frame of mind, a cautionary crease in his brow, probably hoping that I would behave courteously.
I am certain that by now my reader has seen where this gift exchange was leading. I, however, was altogether oblivious to the O. Henry-like twist of events preparing to spring itself upon me. Somehow I managed to unpeel the yards of gold foil paper from around the box. It was a thick cardboard box approximately the size of a large microwave oven, and I found that it was indeed very heavy. Mickey had not been playing a prank after all.
Outcomes are always more easily foretold by the spectator than by the participant, you must remember. Though the reader has undoubtedly divined the contents of the box, for my part I was utterly incredulous when I lifted the cardboard flaps and saw what was inside.
I do not know what expression finally settled upon my face, but I clearly remember the turmoil of confusion and disbelief within me. Without speaking, I lifted the dishes from the box one by one, unwrapping them from their foam protectors, and gingerly setting each cup, each saucer, plate, and bowl upon the piano bench Thomas had placed in front of me.
As I emptied the box, never taking my eyes from the dishes, Mickey was the first to speak. “Well, she hasn't thrown any of them yet,” he said gravely, no hint of mischief in his voice.
Silence for several more moments, then from Thomas, “Maybe she's waitin' till she's got all her ammunition out of the case and stacked up ready to use.”
“If I was you, I'd get down on the floor behind your chair before she gets through unwrapping them,” Mickey said.
“Can you stay and help bandage me up after it's all over?” asked Thomas.
They continued in this vein for the duration.
As I proceeded with the unwrapping of the dishes, Birdie took each foam pad from me, laying them in her lap one atop the other. She said nothing, nor did she give any sign of hearing our husbands' words of jest.
At last an entire eight-place setting of Morning Glory dinnerware was neatly displayed before me. The men had fallen silent. Only the muffled sounds of the Purdues' television set and the sporadic yipping of the Jansens' dog, Pedro, from across the street could be heard. Still I had not spoken, yet I knew that the moment could be delayed no longer.