What Do Ducks Do in Winter? / Time for a Showing

[61] Eve knew well the sorrows of her brother Phile, clouding her mind as they did often enough. But often enough she had her own tribulations to stare down, her sky no more clear than any normal human being could expect a sky to be. No everlasting blue for her. Oh no.

The day of her showing though was not a day of tribulations, only a day of rushing and running as though she were a newspaper the wind blew. Back and forth, back and forth. But it was also a day—though she didn't expect it when that day began—that Phile's sorrows swelled for her with the freshest of pain.

It took six trips, buzzing in her Volkswagen from her Rosewood Villa apartment to the Carraway Gallery on the river. Her brother Phile's Peugeot would have cut them to four, maybe three. He'd have helped load and unload her paintings because he wouldn't let anybody drive his polished white station wagon except himself, pale and starchy at the wheel. But she hadn't had the stamina to make claims on his skinny pride and strength. Her underarms were sopping, her dress like adhesive. If she didn't catch her death going from outdoor heat to indoor chill—well, Evie, all fools have their angels, Phile liked to say.

Even so she could have called him, not knowing yet what news he had to break her composure with. Wasn't he always there when she needed him, her baby brother still selling for New York Life but only enough to make his "retirement" livable? He would scold [62] her this afternoon when she stopped for late lunch, exasperated she hadn't asked for help. But as she scrubbed one of her rags across her forehead and around her neck and felt the ends of her clipped hair bunched with damp, she called herself wise. Today even a sigh raised sweat. Think of Phile immaculate in coat and tie, in pajamas and robe, in gardening shirt and trousers. Even, she had no doubt, in his underwear. He'd be much happier listening to his records, some so old you could barely hear Tetrazzini or Melba or Ruffo through the crackle and rasp.

"Landscape Paintings by Eve Holbrook."

There they were, her paintings, stacked against the walls upon which they were to be hung and, if all her right friends came, admired. Bare walls now. A bare room. Jane Clayton-Osborne sat down and cried at her first showing, she'd said. How could she ever manage to hang them? Space like you never saw! she'd told Eve. She'd collapsed in the middle of this very floor, her work in piles around her, she said, and cried.

Well, Eve wouldn't cry. Here was one of her earliest she'd chosen to show. "Do the woodline around the lake," her instructor had instructed. You knew where the water began. The rest in the class swept blobs of color across the canvass. Herself, she preferred to see the trunks. Her manifesto: let me see the trunks!

Eve was fifty-six, Phile fifty-three. Since retiring from teaching with her twenty-five years in Grade 9 math and algebra at Rolly Haymore High School, she'd gotten fatter. Not fat, which she was already, but fatter. From the time she started teaching, she wore muu-muus, though she didn't know that was what they were called till they came in style in the sixties. Tent-lady, the kids called her as she billowed down the hall. Hot weather, cold weather—tent-lady.

She had four brothers like pine trees. She was the berry bush, the fern, as they lifted toward the sky above her.

She found a stepladder. Glass and frame made some of her paintings heavy. She should have been a miniaturist like Jane [63] Clayton-Osborne. But Jane stretched ceilingward. She gazed across the tops of heads the way her brothers did. She could narrow in by choice. But if you come from a farm with brothers like pine trees, you wanted to see the forest line, not narrow in. She'd looked at the moss since before she stopped believing in fairies, and she was tired of it.

Her father showed her the piglets at the teats of the old sow. She rolled under the rugs with Phile that Pop and Momma pulled across the stubble to clean. She polished her Sunday shoes with blacking from the woodstove. She wanted the woodline and she wanted the trunks.

She stood back to survey. She might not win prizes like at 4H. In one of her summer classes, held among the woods and mountains, she'd wanted to paint the ocean for its mood. "You ever lived near the ocean?" the instructor cried. "No." "You ever been on the ocean?" "No." "Was your father a sea captain?" "No." "Did he ever see the ocean?" "No." "Then why"—throwing out his hairy arms—"do you want to paint the ocean?"

So she had lakes and woods, fields and barns, cows, gardens, and ponds.

Might as well instruct her to cast her brush over the sprawl of empty desks after a day in the classroom. Who'd ever catch a lifetime of squirming kids? The chalkdust on the blackboard? Her desktop creaking with papers?

"Painting!" Phile had said. "I should think you'd want to rest. What's wrong with staying at home?"

Nothing, if you were like Phile. Look at his name. Philemon. What could Pop and Momma have been thinking? Shorten it to Phile. Phile of New York Life. Then if you were crude enough, it became "vile." Poor boy. "You vile thing." "Here, Vile, come boy." "Don't be so—vile." And if it was Marilyn—no telling in the passions of love what combinations that woman would come up with.

"You know your problem?" she told her brother. "It's that Marilyn." Merry Lynne she called herself to anybody's face. But Eve [64] had refused the make-over. She wouldn't let it off her tongue, whatever Phile in his immaculate ranch-style said. "You turn around and look her in the eye. 'You're a tramp,' tell her. 'You weren't worth my valuable time,' tell her. 'I got better things to do.' Admit it, Phile, you made a mistake marrying a tramp. Don't be proud. 'I'm a fool,' tell yourself."

"That was twenty years ago."

"Twenty years. Twenty days. Don't let a rotten peach stain."

If she'd told him once, she'd told him enough times that the whole business should by now be laundered out of his system. Didn't he know about laundry and scrubbing floors and walls and washing dishes? Not just the last twenty years since Marilyn had gathered up her three Persian cats and her Russian mink coat and driven away to California in the 1963 Lincoln Continental she'd put Phile in hock for. For five years before that she'd been so frightened of nicking her manicure that she did no scrubbing. What do they say now? A "wimp." Yes, dear; no, dear. Her little brother like a pine tree—and a wimp. All in the same breath.

Even with air-conditioning in Carraway Gallery, she dripped. Among her streams and meadows and woods, she dripped.

With Phile the sting still pained. Sorrow. From Marilyn's sting. He was a man who needed children, grandchildren. Something more than an eccentric tent-lady who was his sister and embarrassed him. Joan and Renata singing Christmas carols in stereophonic sound—that was beautiful, heavenly. But those pale voices—Galli-Curci and Lehmann and Enrico himself—coming through an electrical storm. Poor Phile. Two people to tango. A good man and a good woman. Not a sad man and a silly sister.

"Yellow!" he cried. "Your car's yellow! Who did that?"

"Larry Ludachowska. One of my old students. He's starting his own shop, and I wanted to help him out."

"You want to be a canary? Or is it a buttercup? You want people to think buttercup? With red pinstripes?"

[65] "You don't have to ride in my little beetle."

"Ha!" he said. "Ha!"

And opened the door to his ranch-style for her.

So that was over. Finished like a harvest. Quick in the flourish, Phile would leave her be. When she stopped in the drive alongside the smooth nap of the lawn and the color exploding from his flower beds—marigolds and snapdragons and daisies and poppies and anything else that might have spilled through the Garden of Eden with all the profusion Phile could summon—when she turned off the key she knew he'd plant both slippers on the outdoor carpet of his porch and, thin hands on thin hips, read out the act of riot.

As she answered she unstuck her dress from her skin, wiped her forehead and neck with a soggy Kleenex, and walked—as tall as his Adam's apple—into his air-conditioned living room. With dignity. She had no difficulty with Phile in holding her aplomb high.

Tie and shirt. You didn't invite a guest for a light lunch in Phile's house, not even your tent of a sister, without a tie and shirt.

"You got your lawn chairs put away?" she said. "It's lighting up like machine guns in the west."

"You think I don't hear the thunder?"

"With Enrico or Luciano? It's not that close yet."

"But Evie," he said as she dropped at his kitchen table, "why yellow? I'll serve on the sunporch. 'There goes Evie Holbrook,' they'll say. 'Like a buttercup.'"

"So they notice me. I like to be noticed."

He shook his head. He even smiled. He was a good man, this Phile. He told her to sit with the plants and he'd bring lunch. She looked like she'd been through a hanging, he said. "You should have let me help."

"Be sure you're there tonight."

"Right next to your buttercup," he promised.

She heard thunder in the distance. A good sound in the heat. No music. "Either you listen or you talk. No in-between stuff." Christmas-time was listening time for her. In her "studio," it was

	What Do Ducks Do in Winter? And Other Western Stories Lewis B. Horne Signature Books; Salt Lake City, Utah © 1993 by Signature Books. Table of Contents Zina's Version Mansion, Magic, and Miracle One of the Kippers Secrets Time for a Showing What Do Ducks Do in Winter? His Brother South Robinson Street The Scorpion Fire A Summer to Sing—A Summer to Cry Blue Point cover


	Time for a Showing [61] Eve knew well the sorrows of her brother Phile, clouding her mind as they did often enough. But often enough she had her own tribulations to stare down, her sky no more clear than any normal human being could expect a sky to be. No everlasting blue for her. Oh no. The day of her showing though was not a day of tribulations, only a day of rushing and running as though she were a newspaper the wind blew. Back and forth, back and forth. But it was also a day—though she didn't expect it when that day began—that Phile's sorrows swelled for her with the freshest of pain. It took six trips, buzzing in her Volkswagen from her Rosewood Villa apartment to the Carraway Gallery on the river. Her brother Phile's Peugeot would have cut them to four, maybe three. He'd have helped load and unload her paintings because he wouldn't let anybody drive his polished white station wagon except himself, pale and starchy at the wheel. But she hadn't had the stamina to make claims on his skinny pride and strength. Her underarms were sopping, her dress like adhesive. If she didn't catch her death going from outdoor heat to indoor chill—well, Evie, all fools have their angels, Phile liked to say. Even so she could have called him, not knowing yet what news he had to break her composure with. Wasn't he always there when she needed him, her baby brother still selling for New York Life but only enough to make his "retirement" livable? He would scold [62] her this afternoon when she stopped for late lunch, exasperated she hadn't asked for help. But as she scrubbed one of her rags across her forehead and around her neck and felt the ends of her clipped hair bunched with damp, she called herself wise. Today even a sigh raised sweat. Think of Phile immaculate in coat and tie, in pajamas and robe, in gardening shirt and trousers. Even, she had no doubt, in his underwear. He'd be much happier listening to his records, some so old you could barely hear Tetrazzini or Melba or Ruffo through the crackle and rasp. "Landscape Paintings by Eve Holbrook." There they were, her paintings, stacked against the walls upon which they were to be hung and, if all her right friends came, admired. Bare walls now. A bare room. Jane Clayton-Osborne sat down and cried at her first showing, she'd said. How could she ever manage to hang them? Space like you never saw! she'd told Eve. She'd collapsed in the middle of this very floor, her work in piles around her, she said, and cried. Well, Eve wouldn't cry. Here was one of her earliest she'd chosen to show. "Do the woodline around the lake," her instructor had instructed. You knew where the water began. The rest in the class swept blobs of color across the canvass. Herself, she preferred to see the trunks. Her manifesto: let me see the trunks! Eve was fifty-six, Phile fifty-three. Since retiring from teaching with her twenty-five years in Grade 9 math and algebra at Rolly Haymore High School, she'd gotten fatter. Not fat, which she was already, but fatter. From the time she started teaching, she wore muu-muus, though she didn't know that was what they were called till they came in style in the sixties. Tent-lady, the kids called her as she billowed down the hall. Hot weather, cold weather—tent-lady. She had four brothers like pine trees. She was the berry bush, the fern, as they lifted toward the sky above her. She found a stepladder. Glass and frame made some of her paintings heavy. She should have been a miniaturist like Jane [63] Clayton-Osborne. But Jane stretched ceilingward. She gazed across the tops of heads the way her brothers did. She could narrow in by choice. But if you come from a farm with brothers like pine trees, you wanted to see the forest line, not narrow in. She'd looked at the moss since before she stopped believing in fairies, and she was tired of it. Her father showed her the piglets at the teats of the old sow. She rolled under the rugs with Phile that Pop and Momma pulled across the stubble to clean. She polished her Sunday shoes with blacking from the woodstove. She wanted the woodline and she wanted the trunks. She stood back to survey. She might not win prizes like at 4H. In one of her summer classes, held among the woods and mountains, she'd wanted to paint the ocean for its mood. "You ever lived near the ocean?" the instructor cried. "No." "You ever been on the ocean?" "No." "Was your father a sea captain?" "No." "Did he ever see the ocean?" "No." "Then why"—throwing out his hairy arms—"do you want to paint the ocean?" So she had lakes and woods, fields and barns, cows, gardens, and ponds. Might as well instruct her to cast her brush over the sprawl of empty desks after a day in the classroom. Who'd ever catch a lifetime of squirming kids? The chalkdust on the blackboard? Her desktop creaking with papers? "Painting!" Phile had said. "I should think you'd want to rest. What's wrong with staying at home?" Nothing, if you were like Phile. Look at his name. Philemon. What could Pop and Momma have been thinking? Shorten it to Phile. Phile of New York Life. Then if you were crude enough, it became "vile." Poor boy. "You vile thing." "Here, Vile, come boy." "Don't be so—vile." And if it was Marilyn—no telling in the passions of love what combinations that woman would come up with. "You know your problem?" she told her brother. "It's that Marilyn." Merry Lynne she called herself to anybody's face. But Eve [64] had refused the make-over. She wouldn't let it off her tongue, whatever Phile in his immaculate ranch-style said. "You turn around and look her in the eye. 'You're a tramp,' tell her. 'You weren't worth my valuable time,' tell her. 'I got better things to do.' Admit it, Phile, you made a mistake marrying a tramp. Don't be proud. 'I'm a fool,' tell yourself." "That was twenty years ago." "Twenty years. Twenty days. Don't let a rotten peach stain." If she'd told him once, she'd told him enough times that the whole business should by now be laundered out of his system. Didn't he know about laundry and scrubbing floors and walls and washing dishes? Not just the last twenty years since Marilyn had gathered up her three Persian cats and her Russian mink coat and driven away to California in the 1963 Lincoln Continental she'd put Phile in hock for. For five years before that she'd been so frightened of nicking her manicure that she did no scrubbing. What do they say now? A "wimp." Yes, dear; no, dear. Her little brother like a pine tree—and a wimp. All in the same breath. Even with air-conditioning in Carraway Gallery, she dripped. Among her streams and meadows and woods, she dripped. With Phile the sting still pained. Sorrow. From Marilyn's sting. He was a man who needed children, grandchildren. Something more than an eccentric tent-lady who was his sister and embarrassed him. Joan and Renata singing Christmas carols in stereophonic sound—that was beautiful, heavenly. But those pale voices—Galli-Curci and Lehmann and Enrico himself—coming through an electrical storm. Poor Phile. Two people to tango. A good man and a good woman. Not a sad man and a silly sister. "Yellow!" he cried. "Your car's yellow! Who did that?" "Larry Ludachowska. One of my old students. He's starting his own shop, and I wanted to help him out." "You want to be a canary? Or is it a buttercup? You want people to think buttercup? With red pinstripes?" [65] "You don't have to ride in my little beetle." "Ha!" he said. "Ha!" And opened the door to his ranch-style for her. So that was over. Finished like a harvest. Quick in the flourish, Phile would leave her be. When she stopped in the drive alongside the smooth nap of the lawn and the color exploding from his flower beds—marigolds and snapdragons and daisies and poppies and anything else that might have spilled through the Garden of Eden with all the profusion Phile could summon—when she turned off the key she knew he'd plant both slippers on the outdoor carpet of his porch and, thin hands on thin hips, read out the act of riot. As she answered she unstuck her dress from her skin, wiped her forehead and neck with a soggy Kleenex, and walked—as tall as his Adam's apple—into his air-conditioned living room. With dignity. She had no difficulty with Phile in holding her aplomb high. Tie and shirt. You didn't invite a guest for a light lunch in Phile's house, not even your tent of a sister, without a tie and shirt. "You got your lawn chairs put away?" she said. "It's lighting up like machine guns in the west." "You think I don't hear the thunder?" "With Enrico or Luciano? It's not that close yet." "But Evie," he said as she dropped at his kitchen table, "why yellow? I'll serve on the sunporch. 'There goes Evie Holbrook,' they'll say. 'Like a buttercup.'" "So they notice me. I like to be noticed." He shook his head. He even smiled. He was a good man, this Phile. He told her to sit with the plants and he'd bring lunch. She looked like she'd been through a hanging, he said. "You should have let me help." "Be sure you're there tonight." "Right next to your buttercup," he promised. She heard thunder in the distance. A good sound in the heat. No music. "Either you listen or you talk. No in-between stuff." Christmas-time was listening time for her. In her "studio," it was