Nobody's Fool

She might even be smart enough to realize it.”
    â€œMaybe you and your mom can come visit me sometime,” Miss Beryl said to the child, who continued staring at the puzzle without exhibiting any inclination to touch it. “I’m an old lady, and I don’t get very many visitors, except that lady down the street I told you about.”
    Was it a smile that began to form on the child’s lips? A smile, Miss Beryl realized, became an ambiguous thing when the eyes were not in harmony. “Snail,” the little girl whispered.
    â€œRight,” Miss Beryl said, cheered by this response. “The one who ate the snail.”
    Ruth smiled. “So that’s where the snail came from. Snails are all we’ve heard about for two weeks.”
    â€œWell, if you come back and visit me, we’ll call up the lady who ate the snail and ask her to come over so you can meet her. She even looks like somebody who’d eat a snail,” Miss Beryl said, then glanced at Ruth. “Grandma’d be welcome too if she felt like coming.”
    â€œGrandma will be back to work by then,” Ruth said, leaning forward, running the backs of her fingers along her granddaughter’s calf. “Besides. If I started coming over here regular, people would think I was visiting someone else.”
    At this reference to Sully, Miss Beryl felt guilt rise in her throat like illness. “Donald will be moving the first of the year,” she said. “He didn’t tell you?”
    â€œWe’re on the outs at the moment,” Ruth admitted. “I’d heard a rumor, though.”
    â€œI’m going to miss him. Clive Jr., star of my firmament, is convinced he’s a dangerous man, but he’s wrong. Donald is careless, but he’s always been his own worst enemy.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” Ruth said. “I’ve finally given up, though. I’m going to be fifty on my next birthday. Which means some damn thing, I’m not sure what. That I’m too old for all this foolishness, I guess. And I’ve got a feeling I’m going to inherit a responsibility soon”—she noddedalmost imperceptibly at the little girl—“and responsibility is not our mutual friend’s long suit.”
    â€œHe might fool you,” Miss Beryl said, regretting this observation immediately. In truth, Miss Beryl, who was simply inclined to think well of Sully, had long been waiting for him to redeem himself somehow, but it was beginning to look like his stubbornness was going to outlast her faith. It had always been her belief that people changed when life made them change, a belief Sully’s dogged daily struggles—what he himself called “shoveling shit against the tide”—seemed designed to challenge.
    â€œHe might.” Ruth smiled sadly. It was a wonderful open smile that transformed her appearance completely, softening it, making her almost beautiful, and Miss Beryl thought she saw what must have kept Sully interested all these years, because otherwise she was a very plain-looking woman. The mystery of affection, in particular Clive Sr.’s affection for her, was one of life’s great mysteries. What, she had often wondered, had made her the center of his life? Miss Beryl had always been realistic about her odd physical appearance, and even as a young woman she’d concluded that Clive Sr. must have possessed the special gift of being able to see past that appearance. She remembered her mother’s slender consolation to her unpopular child: “Don’t you worry. You have what’s called inner beauty, and the right man will see it.” Ruth’s remarkable smile offered a subtle variation on her mother’s clichéd wisdom.
    â€œIt’d be just like him to surprise me, now that it’s too late to make much difference,” Ruth said.
    â€œWe wear the chains we forge in life,” Miss Beryl said. “Donald said that to me one day not long ago. I almost dropped my teeth.”
    Ruth smiled, then frowned deeply. “He’s going to end up alone, isn’t he,” she said, her eyes filling up.
    â€œWe all do,” Miss Beryl almost said. Beneath the dark branches of its ancient elms, Upper Main was full of lonely widows, solitary watchers and waiters. Miss Beryl didn’t worry about them. Didn’t worry about herself, not really. Why then worry about Sully? What if he did appear a