The Corrections

“The brochure said no pressure, no expectation, no strings attached.”

“I am dubious,” Alfred said.

“Mary Beth says there’s a wonderful winery near Bordentown that we can tour. And we can all swim in Lake Fond du Lac! And the brochure says there are paddleboats and a gourmet restaurant.”

“I can’t imagine a Missouri winery in mid-July is going to be appealing,” Alfred said.

“You just have to get in the spirit of things,” Enid said. “The Dribletts went last October and had so much fun. Dale said there was no pressure at all. Very little pressure, he said.”

“Consider the source.”

“What do you mean?”

“A man who sells coffins for a living.”

“Dale’s no different than anybody else.”

“I said I am dubious. But I will go.” Alfred added, to Denise: “You can take the bus home. We’ll leave a car here for you.”

“Kenny Kraikmeyer called this morning,” Enid told Denise. “He wondered if you’re free on Saturday night.”

Denise shut one eye and widened the other. “What did you say?”

“I said I thought you were.”

“You what?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had plans.”

Denise laughed. “My only plan at the moment is to not see Kenny Kraikmeyer.”

“He was very polite,” Enid said. “You know, it doesn’t hurt to go on one date if somebody takes the trouble to ask you. If you don’t have fun, you don’t have to do it again. But you ought to start saying yes to somebody. People will think nobody’s good enough for you.”

Denise set down her fork. “Kenny Kraikmeyer literally turns my stomach.”

“Denise,” Alfred said.

“That’s not right,” Enid said, her voice trembling. “That’s not something I want to hear you saying.”

“OK, I’m sorry I said that. But I’m not free on Saturday. Not for Kenny Kraikmeyer. Who, if he wants to go out, might consider asking me.”

It occurred to Denise that Enid would probably enjoy a weekend with Kenny Kraikmeyer at Lake Fond du Lac, and that Kenny would probably have a better time there than Alfred would.

After dinner she biked over to the oldest house in the suburb, a high-ceilinged cube of antebellum brick across the street from the boarded-up commuter rail station. The house belonged to the high-school drama teacher, Henry Dusinberre, who’d left his campy Abyssinian banana and gaudy crotons and tongue-in-cheek potted palms in his favorite student’s care while he spent a month with his mother in New Orleans. Among the bordelloish antiques in Dusinberre’s parlor were twelve ornate champagne glasses, each with an ascending column of air bubbles captured in its faceted crystal stem, that he allowed only Denise, of all the young thespians and literary types who gravitated to his liquor on Saturday nights, to drink from. (“Let the little beasts use plastic cups,” he would say as he arranged his wasted limbs in his calfskin club chair. He had fought two rounds against a cancer now officially in remission, but his glossy skin and protuberant eyes suggested that all was not well oncologically. “Lambert, extraordinary creature,” he said, “sit here where I can see you in profile. Do you realize the Japanese would worship you for your neck? Worship you.”) It was in Dusinberre’s house that she’d tasted her first raw oyster, her first quail egg, her first grappa. Dusinberre steeled her in her resolve not to succumb to the charms of any (his phrase) “pimpled adolescents.” He bought dresses and jackets on approval in antique stores, and if they fit Denise he let her keep them. Fortunately, Enid, who wished that Denise would dress more like a Schumpert or a Root, held vintage clothing in such low esteem that she actually believed that a spotless embroidered yellow satin party dress with buttons of tiger-eye agate had cost Denise (as she claimed) ten dollars at the Salvation Army. Over Enid’s bitter objections she’d worn this dress to her senior prom with Peter Hicks, the substantially pimpled actor who’d played Tom to her Amanda in The Glass Menagerie. Peter Hicks, on prom night, had been invited to join her and Dusinberre in drinking from the rococo champagne glasses, but Peter was driving and stuck with his plastic cup of Coke.

After she watered the plants, she sat in Dusinberre’s calfskin chair and listened to New Order. She wished she felt like dating someone, but the boys she respected, like Peter Hicks, didn’t move her romantically, and the rest were in the mold of Kenny Kraikmeyer, who, though bound for the Naval Academy and a career in nuclear science, fancied himself a hipster and collected Cream and Jimi Hendrix “vinyl” (his word) with a passion that God had surely intended him to bring to building model submarines. Denise was a little worried by the degree of her revulsion. She didn’t understand what made her so very mean. She was unhappy to be so mean. There seemed to be something wrong with the way she thought about herself and other people.

Whenever her mother pointed this out, though, she had no choice but to nuke her.