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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Dodd, Susan M., 1946 Old wives' tales.
(The Iowa School of Letters award for short fiction) Contents: Rue Coelostat Public appearances [etc.] I. Title. II. Series. PS3554.031804 1984 813'.54 84-8879 ISBN 0-87745-132-X ISBN 0-87745-133-8 (pbk.)
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242 Book and jacket design by Rose Garfinkle 1984 by Susan M. Dodd. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America Third printing, 1989
Page v
For My Father
"... praising a forehead called the moon singing desire into begin..." e. e. cummings
Page vii
Contents
Rue
1
Coelostat
25
Public Appearances
43
Wild Men of Borneo
63
One Hundred Years of Solicitude: The Meditations of Ursula
75
Walls
89
Potions
109
Snowbird
123
Berkie
145
Browsing
171
Page 1
Rue
Page 3
Miss Rainey Roth of Wyoming, Rhode Island, did not believe in luck. Sixty-one years old, a self-sufficient woman with a business of her own, she had no time for hazy notions. People who believed in sudden strokes of good fortune, she thought, were simply seeking an excuse for idleness. Nothing was apt to help a person who wouldn't help herself.
This sensible attitude was not the least bit undermined or shaken when, on the fifteenth of September, Miss Rainey discovered she had won ten thousand dollars in the State Lottery. She became a winner (the word seemed remarkably foolish, applied to herself) not through luck, but through carelessness: someone had dropped the ticket on the path to her small herb and spice shop. Miss Rainey had never bought a lottery ticket in her life, and she wasn't sure whether her practical nature or her whimsical streak prompted her to save the numbered stub, to check it against the winning numbers announced in the paper a few days later. Either way, she was sure of one thing: she wasn't about to let the benefits of a rather silly accident alter her realistic outlook. Luck, indeed. Luck was largely a matter of paying attention.
Miss Rainey was accustomed to making decisions. She rarely sought advice, made up her mind with an almost savage authority. On the day her winnings were confirmed, she remained in the potting shed behind her house, where she put up flavored vinegars and scented toilet waters, potpourris and pomander balls. The scents from the drying sheaves of lavender and comfrey and sweet basil cleared her head. By late afternoon, she knew precisely what she was going to do with the ten thousand dollars which had fallen so peculiarly into her lap:
She was going to keep her feet on the ground.
She was going to pay off the remainder of the business expansion loan she had taken out two years ago with the Wyoming branch of the Old Stone Bank of Providence (an outstanding balance of $3,764.25, according to her records).
Page 4
And she was going to get herself a proper divorce. Legal. Official. Once and for all.
The following morning, Miss Rainey phoned the bank. Mr. Gencarella, the branch manager, sounded like a rejected suitor when she told him what she was about. He congratulated her, however, and agreed to make the necessary arrangements. Miss Rainey made one more phone call. Then, dressed in the gray tweed suit reserved for important business, she walked to the foot of her driveway. Her coarse, curly hair, still more black than gray, was tucked into a wool beret the color of wild chicory blossoms. A silk scarf of peacock feather print was loosely knotted at her throat. With a gray-gloved hand, she reversed a handpainted wood sign. "Open for Business... kindly consider the well-being of resident cats and visiting children. Drive with Caution," was changed to "Closed." No excuses. No promises.
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