Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare)(48)

Kate rolled her eyes at the ceiling, and neither one of them spoke again.

Dr. Battista’s plan had been for Kate to start wearing her mother’s wedding ring after the ceremony, and she had brought it with her to the church. But it had not been mentioned during the vows—a sign, perhaps, that Uncle Theron was more flustered by the general tumult than he had let on—and so now she bent and drew her billfold from her tote and took the ring out of the coin compartment. The wedding ring was yellow gold and her engagement ring was white gold, but her father had told her that was perfectly acceptable. She slipped it onto her finger and returned her billfold to her tote.

They zipped down North Charles, somehow managing to hit every intersection just as the traffic light was turning red. Pyotr never once stopped. They whizzed past cherry trees and Bradford pear trees in full bloom, each with a puddle of pink or white petals on the ground underneath. When they reached the construction mess around the Johns Hopkins campus, Pyotr took a snappy turn off Charles without bothering to signal, nearly mowing down a crowd of young people carrying picnic baskets. It was almost one o’clock now, and the whole world seemed to be heading out for lunch—everyone laughing, calling to friends, strolling aimlessly with no sense of urgency. Pyotr cursed under his breath and cranked his window shut.

In front of Mrs. Murphy’s house, Pyotr scraped his tires alongside the curb and cut the engine. He opened his door and got out and nearly shut it on Kate’s ankles, because she was in the act of sliding past the stick shift and across the driver’s seat. “Watch it!” she told him. At least he had the grace then to stand back and wait for her to emerge, but he still didn’t speak, and he closed the door with unnecessary firmness once she was out.

They smushed a layer of pale pink blossoms carpeting the sidewalk. They climbed the three brick steps and came to a stop on the stoop. Pyotr slapped his front pockets. Then he slapped his rear pockets. Then he said, “Hell damn,” and put his finger on the doorbell and held it there.

It seemed at first that no one would answer. Finally, though, a creaking sound came from inside, and then Mrs. Liu flung the door open and demanded, “Why you ring?”

She was wearing what appeared to be the same clothes she had worn when Kate first met her, but she was no longer all smiles. Without giving Kate so much as a glance, she scowled fiercely at Pyotr and said, “Mrs. Murphy having her nap.”

“I don’t want Mrs. Murphy; I want to get into house!” Pyotr shouted.

“You have key to get into house!”

“I locked key in car!”

“Again? You do this again?”

“Do not quack at me! You are very rude!” And Pyotr shoved his way past her and strode directly to the staircase.

“Sorry,” Kate told Mrs. Liu. “We didn’t mean to disturb you. Monday I’m getting an extra key made, so this shouldn’t happen again.”

“He is the one is very rude,” Mrs. Liu said.

“He’s had a really hard day.”

“He has many hard days,” Mrs. Liu said. But she stepped back, finally, and let Kate enter the house. Belatedly, she asked, “You got married?”

“Right.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Kate said.

She hoped Mrs. Liu wasn’t feeling sorry for her. Before, she had acted so fond of Pyotr, but now it seemed they disliked each other.

Pyotr had reached the second flight of stairs before she caught up with him. She bypassed him and started toward the room that was going to be hers, where she planned to deposit her tote. Behind her, Pyotr said, “Where my extra keys are?”

She paused and turned. He had stopped on the landing, and he was gazing all around him. Since the landing was entirely bare, without a stick of furniture or a picture or so much as a hook on the wall, it seemed an unlikely place to look for his keys, but there he stood, wearing a baffled expression.

She censored the first response that came to her, which was “How should I know where your extra keys are?” She set her tote on the floor and asked, “Where do you keep them?”

“In kitchen drawer,” he said.

“Let’s look in the kitchen drawer, then, why don’t we,” she said. She spoke more slowly and evenly than usual, so that she wouldn’t come across as exasperated.

She led the way to the kitchen and began opening the cranky white metal drawers beneath the counter: one drawer containing dime-store knives and forks and spoons, one containing an assortment of cooking utensils, one containing dishcloths. She returned to the utensil drawer. That seemed to have the most possibilities, even if it wasn’t where she herself would have kept keys. She rattled through several spatulas, a whisk, a hand-cranked eggbeater…Pyotr stood watching with his arms hanging limp, offering no help.

“Here you go,” she said finally, and she held up an aluminum shower-curtain ring bearing a house key and a Volkswagen key.

Pyotr said, “Ah!” and lunged for them, but she took a step back and hid the keys behind her.

“First you have to call the police,” she said, “and tell them you made a mistake about Bunny. Then you get the keys.”

“What?” he said. “No. Hand me keys, Katherine. I am husband and I say hand me keys.”

“I am wife and I say no,” she said.