The Stories of John Cheever

The image of a cleanly, self-possessed man exploiting his solitude was not easy to come by, but then he had not expected that it would be. On the next night, he practiced the two-part variations until eleven. On the night after that, he got out his telescope. He had been unable to solve the problem of feeding himself, and in the space of a week had lost more than fifteen pounds. His trousers, when he belted them in around his middle, gathered in folds like a shirt. He took three pairs of trousers down to the dry cleaner’s in the village. It was past closing time, but the proprietor was still there, a man crushed by life. He had torn Mrs. Hazelton’s lace pillowcases and lost Mr. Fitch’s silk shirts. His equipment was in hock, the union wanted health insurance, and everything that he ate—even yoghurt—seemed to turn to fire in his esophagus. He spoke despairingly to Mr. Estabrook. “We don’t keep a tailor on the premises no more, but there’s a woman up on Maple Avenue who does alterations. Mrs. Zagreb. It’s at the corner of Maple Avenue and Clinton Street. There’s a sign in the window.”

It was a dark night and that time of year when there are many fireflies. Maple Avenue was what it claimed to be, and the dense foliage doubled the darkness on the street. The house on the corner was frame, with a porch. The maples were so thick there that no grass grew on the lawn. There was a Sign—ALTERATIONS—in the window. He rang a bell. “Just a minute,” someone called. The voice was strong and gay. A woman opened the door with one hand, rubbing a towel in her dark hair with the other. She seemed surprised to see him. “Come in,” she said, “come in. I’ve just washed my hair.” There was a small hall, and he followed her through this into a small living room. “I have some trousers that I want taken in,” he said. “Do you do that kind of thing?”

“I do everything,” she laughed. “But why are you losing weight? Are you on a diet?”

She had put down her towel, but she continued to shake her hair and rough it with her fingers. She moved around the room while she talked, and seemed to fill the room with restlessness—a characteristic that might have annoyed him in someone else but that in her seemed graceful, fascinating, the prompting of some inner urgency.

“I’m not dieting,” he said.

“You’re not ill?” Her concern was swift and genuine; he might have been her oldest friend.

“Oh, no. It’s just that I’ve been trying to cook for myself.”