Ruffly Speaking

primitive effort at insulation were high stacks of The New York Times (Sunday in one pile, daily in another) and what must have been a complete five-year collection of The New York Review of Books. Magazines? On the countertops. Nature, Science, Harvard Magazine, Bird Watcher’s Digest, and, inexplicably, Gourmet.
    “Sit down! Tea?” Bernadette withdrew her hands from a salad spinner full of water and greens, made a token swipe at a rust-stained dish towel, and began to clear a space at the table, which served mainly as a repository for Xeroxed articles with notes scrawled in the margins and a few dozen yellow pads that looked as if they’d been used in some foolish attempt to take the toe prints of a couple of million chickens.
    I’m no stranger here; I knew the signs. Bernadette’s pale brown hair had been cut short about four months earlier, probably the last time she’d noticed it. She wore jeans, a red T-shirt, and old running shoes. I was willing to bet that if she’d been forced to close her eyes and guess what she had on, she’d have had no idea whatsoever. Although she probably told herself that the kitchen was untidy, I was positive that she didn’t care. Why do housework? She was happy already. It also occurred to me that since Bernadette was—what was it?—a socioecologist, maybe some of what struck me as junk was material saved for recycling. In Cambridge, you always have to remind yourself that absolutely anything—the height of the stacks of old newspapers in the kitchen, the length of the hair on any given body part—may well represent a carefully thought-out political decision.
    I accepted the offer of tea and stated the Cantabrigian obvious: “You’re writing a book.”
    “Two!” As if to remind herself of the reality, she repeated, “Two! But I’m on sabbatical this fall.”
    Since moving to Cambridge, I’ve concluded that all professors are permanently on sabbatical or about to go on sabbatical, and I’d previously felt outraged that all those academics were getting paid to loll around recuperating from the rigors of teaching four hours a week, if that, while I was pursuing my no-work-no-check occupation. This time, however, I was delighted. On sabbatical? Writing two books? Here in this cheerful mess? Although Malamute Rescue doesn’t require applicants to develop instant agoraphobia, the presence of someone at home doesn’t exactly prejudice us against a prospective adopter, either.
    Having failed to locate a teakettle, Bernadette managed to find a saucepan that she filled with bottled water. The gas stove was one of those practically antique white enamel models you still find in Cambridge apartments, the kind with a built-in space heater as well as burners and an oven. After she’d twiste a knob a few times and tried blowing on the pilot light, Ivan finally stopped reading, went to the stove, and somehow persuaded the burner to produce a thin blue circle of blame. His mother set the pan on to heat. Then she dragged a chair to the sink, climbed on it, and began to rummage in a cupboard.
    Ivan returned to his seat and said, “Really, she is writing two books, but they’re about the same thing, only one of them is popular, and maybe she’s going to publish it under another name so her department doesn’t find out.” So young yet so jaded.
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Because if a lot of people buy the book, the other people in her department might get jealous and not give her tenure.”
    Bernadette’s laugh was a beautiful, prolonged peal of glee. “Well spoken, Ivan! Straight to the point. Holly, would coffee do?”
    “Fine.Anything.”
    “Coffee appears to be what we have,” she said, “and I know we have milk.”
    Ivan evidently felt the need to explain his mother’s unexpected knowledge of the contents of her own kitchen. “We have a milkman.”
    “I do, too,” I said. “In fact, we have the same milkman, I think. Jim, right? I saw the box on your porch. Pleasant Valley Farms.”
    “He’s your milkman?”
    “You know, Ivan,” Bernadette said, “women can deliver milk, too.”
    Ivan corrected himself. “ Milk person.” He scowled. “That sounds stupid. It sounds like somebody nursing a baby.” Ivan licked some peanut butter off his fingers, wiped them on his Avon Hill shirt, and said, “Creamery... creamery... creamery representative!”
    “Excellent,” his mother told him, climbing down from the chair.
    Ivan lost interest in the word game. With a