The Finest Wife

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W hen rose was sixteen years old and five months preg-

nant, she won a beauty pageant in South Texas, based

on her fine walk up a runway in a sweet navy-blue

bathing suit. This was shortly before the war. She had been a

skinny, knee-scratching kid only the summer earlier, but her

pregnancy had just delivered her this sudden prize of a body. It

was as though life was gestating in her thighs and ass and

breasts, not in her belly. It might have seemed that she was

carrying all the soft weights of motherhood spread evenly and

perfect across her whole frame. Those parts of herself that she

could not quite pack into the blue bathing suit spilled over it

exactly enough to emotionally disturb several of the judges and

spectators. She was an uncontested champion beauty.

Rose’s father, too, saw the pin-up shape that his daughter had

taken, and, five months too late, he started worrying about the

maintenance of her graces. Soon after the pageant, her condi-

tion became obvious. Her father sent her to a facility in Okla-

homa, where she stayed until she experienced four days of labor

and the delivery of a stillborn son. Rose could not actually have

any more children after that, but the lovely figure was hers to

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keep, and she ended up eventually married, once again on the

basis of a fine walk in a sweet bathing suit.

But she didn’t meet her husband until the war was over. In

the meantime, she stayed in Oklahoma. She had developed a

bit of a taste for certain types of tall, smiling local men in dark

hats. Also, she had developed a taste for certain types of church-

going men and also for left-handed men, and for servicemen,

fishermen, postmen, assemblymen, firemen, highwaymen, ele-

vator repairmen, and the Mexican busboys at the restaurant

where she worked (who reverently called her La Rubia — the

Blond — as if she were a notorious bandit or a cardsharp).

She married her husband because she loved him best. He was

kind to waitresses and dogs, and was not in any way curious

about her famous tastes. He was a big man himself, with a rump

like the rump of a huge animal — muscled and hairy. He dialed

telephones with pencil stubs because his fingers didn’t fit the

rotary holes. He smoked cigarettes that looked like shreds of

toothpicks against the size of his mouth. He couldn’t fall asleep

without feeling Rose’s bottom pressed up warm against his

belly. He held her as if she were a puppy. In the years after they

got a television, they would watch evening game shows together

on the couch, and he would genuinely applaud the contestants

who had won cars and boats. He was happy for them. He would

clap for them with his big arms stretched out stiffly, the way a

trained seal claps.

They moved to Minnesota, eventually. Rose’s husband

bought a musky flock of sheep and a small, tight house. She was

married to him for forty-three years, and then he died of a heart

attack. He was quite a bit older than she was, and he had lived a

long time. Rose thought that he had passed the kind of life after

which you should say, “Yes! That was a good one! ” Her mourn-

ing was appreciative and fond.

When he was gone, the sheep became too much work, and

she sold them off, a few at a time. And when the sheep were all

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The Finest Wife

gone — spread across several states as pets, yarn, dog food, and

mint-jellied chops — Rose became the driver of the local kin-

dergarten school bus. She was damn near seventy years old.

Rose was no longer easy with names, but her eyes were good,

and she was a careful driver, as she always had been. They gave

her an excellent route of kindergartners. First, she would pick

up the bus itself, at the station behind the gravel pits, over the

double paths of train tracks. Then she would pick up the neigh-

bor boy, who lived by the gas station near Rose’s own house.

Then she’d pick up the crying boy. Then she’d pick up the girl

whose mother always dressed her in corduroy vests, then the

boy who looked like Orson Welles, then the disgusted girl, then

the humming boy, then the girl with all the Band-Aids. At the

bridge by the Band-Aid girl’s house, she would cross the river to

the hill road. There, she’d pick up the black girl, the grateful-

looking boy, the shoving boy, the other black girl, and the out-

of-breath girl. Last stop was the absent boy.

Thirteen passengers. Twelve, if you didn’t count the absent

boy, as Rose tended not to.

But on the particular morning that makes this story, the

neighbor boy, the crying boy, and the corduroy vest girl were all

absent. Rose thought, Flu? She kept on driving and found the Orson Welles boy and the disgusted girl and the humming boy

absent also, and she wondered, Chicken pox? After the bridge passed with no girl on it, and the whole hill road passed with no

children near it, she thought, with some humiliation, Could

today be Sunday? She recalled, then, having seen no other bus drivers at the gravel pit station, nor any other school bus cross-ing the double paths of railroad tracks. She had not, in fact,

noticed any other cars on the roads at all. Not that these were

fast highways, but they were certainly driven roads. They were

always used roads. And Rose thought lightly, Armageddon?

But she rode her route out to the end. It was a fine choice that

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she did, too, because there was someone at the bottom of the

absent boy’s driveway, after all. Two people, in fact, waiting for

her. She stopped the bus, demonstrated the proper and legal

flashing lights, cranked the door open, and let them in. They

were two very old men, one short, one tall. It took them some

trouble to get up the stairs.

“A ride for you gentlemen today? ” she asked.

They sat in the seat just behind her own.

“It smells clean and decent in here, thank God, ” one of them

said.

“I use a tub and tile cleaner, ” Rose answered. “Weekly.”

The taller man said, “My sweet Rosie. You look terrific.”

As a matter of fact, she did. She wore a hat and white gloves

to work every day, as if she were driving those school children to

church or to some important picnic.

“You could be a first lady, ” the tall one went on. “You could

have married a president.”

She looked at him in the wide, easy reflection of her rearview

mirror, and then gave a pretty little expression of surprise and

recognition. She looked at the shorter man and made the ex-

pression again. And this is who they were: Tate Palinkus and

Dane Ladd. Tate was the man who had knocked her up back in

South Texas before the war. Dane had been an orderly whom

she had often kissed and fondled during her recovery from

childbirth, at the Oklahoma Institution for Unwed Mothers.

Which was also before the war.

“Won’t I be damned? ” she said. “I sure never thought I’d see

either of you two again. And right here in Minnesota. How

nice.”

Dane said, “Ain’t this Tate Palinkus nothing but a Christless

old bastard? He’s just been telling me about getting you preg-

nant.”

Tate said, “Rose. I did not know that you were pregnant at

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The Finest Wife

the time. I did not even hear about that until many years later,

when I came around asking for you. That is the truth, Rose.”

“Tate Palinkus, ” she said. “You big bugger.”

Dane said, “Foolin’ around on a fifteen-year-old girl. I guess

that’s about the worst thing I ever heard of.”

“Dane Ladd.” Rose smiled. “You big stinker.”

“She was a hell of a pretty girl, ” Tate said, and Dane said,

“You barely have to remind me of that.”

Rose shifted her bus and turned it around.

She said, “You two have surprised my face just about off my

body.”

“Don’t lose that sweet face, ” Dane said. “Don’t lose that sweet

body.”

They drove on. And, as it turned out, there was someone

waiting at the end of the out-of-breath girl’s driveway, leaning

on the mailbox. Another very old man. Rose stopped and let

him on.

“Precious, ” he called her, and he touched the brim of his

hat. He was Jack Lance-Hainey, a deacon of the Presbyterian

church. He had once run an Oklahoma senatorial campaign.

He used to take Rose out for picnics during the 1940s, with

baskets full of his wife’s real china and real silver. He had taught

Rose how to climb on top of a man during sex, and how to pick

up phones in hotel rooms and say, “This is Mrs. Lance-Hainey.

Might you send me up a bottle of tonic for my terrible, terrible

headache? ”

Jack sat on the seat across the aisle from the other men, and

set his hat beside him.

“Mr. Ladd.” He nodded. “It’s a beautiful morning.”

“It is, ” Dane agreed. “What a fine country we live in.”

“It is a fine country, ” Jack Lance-Hainey said, and added,

“And good morning to you, Tate Palinkus, you fertile and lech-

erous old son of a snake.”

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“I did not know she was pregnant at the time, Jack, ” Tate

explained. “Not until years later. I would have happily married

her.”

And Rose said, under her breath, “Well, well, well... That

is news, Mr. Palinkus.”

Now she rode her abandoned bus route backward, and found

it fully packed with all her old lovers. She picked up every single

one of them. At the house of the black girl, she picked up her

Mississippi cousin Carl, who she had once met on an aunt’s bed

during a Thanksgiving gathering. By the shoving boy’s mailbox,

she found a small crowd of old men, waiting together. They

were all of her postmen, out of uniform. They had all once

driven airy trucks and kept stacks of extra canvas bags in the

back for her to lie down on. She couldn’t remember their names,

but the other men on the bus seemed to know them well, and

they greeted one another with professional politeness.

At the other black girl’s house, she picked up two elderly

veterans, who she remembered as enlisted men, their young

scalps pink and shaved, their big ears tempting handles for

tugging and guiding. The veterans sat behind Lane and Tate

and talked about the economy. One of them was missing an arm

and one was missing a leg. The armless one punched Tate with

his good arm suddenly and said, “You’re just a lousy, no-good,

knock-’em-up-and-leave-’em old prick, aren’t you? ”

“He claims he didn’t know that she was pregnant, ” Jack

Lance-Hainey said, and the postmen all laughed in disbelief.

“I did not know she was pregnant at the time, ” Tate said

patiently. “Not until years later.”

“My God, ” Rose said, “I barely knew it myself.”

“That baby got you that nice figure, ” Tate offered, and a

shared murmur of endorsement at this thought passed through-

out the bus.

At the grateful girl’s house, she picked up a man so fat he had

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to reintroduce himself. He was her sister’s first husband, he said,

and Rose said, “Coach! You troublemaker! ” He had been an

elevator mechanic, who used to meet Rose in the shop at night

to teach her how to trick-shuffle a deck of cards and how to kiss

with her eyes open.

“Those steps are lethal, ” he said, red-faced from the climb,

and the one-legged veteran said, “Who you tellin’, Coach? ”

At the Band-Aid girl’s house, she picked up the bartenders

from three states who she had fallen for, and at the humming

boy’s house, she picked up a highway patrolman she’d spent a

night with in Oklahoma City, back when they were both young.

He was with a shrimp fisherman and a man who used to drive

fire engines. They let him on the bus first, because they thought

he had rank.

“Ma’am, ” the highway patrolman called her, and smiled wide.

Then he called Tate Palinkus a bad egg, a bad seed, a lowlife, a

ruffian, and a dirt bag for getting her pregnant, back when she

was just a kid who didn’t know a worthless son of a bitch from a

fruit bowl.

There was an Arizona circuit court judge waiting for her at

the end of the disgusted girl’s driveway, and he sat down, with

Jack Lance-Hainey, in the front of the bus. He told Rose she

still looked good enough to crawl up under his robe any day of

the week.

She said, “Your Honor, we are old people now.”

He said, “You’re a daisy, Rose.”

She found Hank Spellman kicking rocks around the road in

front of the Orson Welles boy’s house. He got on the bus, and

the other men cheered, “Hank! ” as if they were truly pleased to

see him. Hank once sold and installed furnaces, and he had

always been a popular man. He used to dance with Rose in her

cellar, keeping time by tapping his hand on her hip. He used to

slide his hands over her as they danced. He used to take big

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handfuls of her bottom and whisper to her, “If I’m ever missing

and you need to find me, you can start looking for me right here

on this ass.”

Where the girl who always wore a corduroy vest usually

waited for the bus, there was a tall old man in a dark hat. He

had once been Rose’s dentist. He’d had an indoor swimming

pool and a maid, who would bring them towels and cocktails

all night without comment. He had to use a cane to get on

the bus, and his glasses were as thick as slices of bread. He told

Rose that she was beautiful and that her figure was still a

wonder.

Rose said, “Thank you very much. I’ve been lucky with my

looks. The women in my family tend to age in one of two ways.

Most of them either look like they smoked too many cigarettes

or like they ate too many doughnuts.”

“You look like you kissed too many boys, ” the elevator me-

chanic said.

“You could have been a first lady, ” Lane said again, and Tate

said thoughtfully, “You were my lady first.”

There were four former Mexican busboys standing by the

picket fence of the crying boy’s house. They were old now, and

identical, each one of them in a pressed white suit with hand-

some white hair and a white mustache.

“La Rubia, ” they called her in turn. Their English was no

better than it had ever been, but the armless veteran had fought

Fascists in Spain, and he translated quite well.

This was the most crowded that her bus had ever been. It was

not a very large bus. It was just for kindergartners, and, to be

honest, it was just for the morning class of kindergartners.

Naturally, the bus company had given Rose an excellent route,

but it was not such a strenuous one. She was generally finished

by noon. She was damn near seventy, of course, and although

she was certainly not a weak woman, not a senile woman, she

did get tired. So they had given her only those thirteen children

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so close to her own house. She was doing a wonderful job, a

truly excellent job. Everyone agreed. She was a careful and

polite driver. One of the better ones.

She rode her whole route backward that day, with all of the

old men lovers on her kindergarten bus with her. She drove all

the way without seeing one of her children and without passing

another car. She had decided, with some shame, that it might

very well be Sunday. She had never made such a mistake before,

and would not consider mentioning it to her old lovers, or they

might think she was getting dim. So she rode the whole route

right back to the very first stop, which was the house of the

neighbor boy, who lived by the gas station near her own home.

There was an old man waiting there, too, and he was a rather

large man. He was actually her husband. The old men lovers on

the bus, who seemed to know each other so beautifully, did not

know Rose’s husband at all. They were quiet and respectful as

he got on the bus, and Rose cranked the door shut behind him

and said, “Gentlemen? I’d like to you meet my husband.”

And the look on her husband’s face was the look of a man at

a welcome surprise party. He leaned down to kiss her on the

forehead, and he was the first of the men who had touched her

that day. He said, “My sweet little puppy of a Rose.” She kissed

his cheek, which was musky, sheepy, and familiar.

She drove on. He stepped down the aisle of the bus, which

rocked like a boat, and he was the guest of honor. The old

men lovers introduced themselves, and after each introduction,

Rose’s husband said, “Ah, yes, of course, how nice to meet you, ”

keeping his left hand on his heart in wonder and pleasure. She

watched, in the wide, easy reflection of her rearview mirror, as

they patted his back and grinned. The veterans saluted him, and

the highway patrolman saluted him, and Jack Lance-Hainey

kissed his hand. Tate Palinkus apologized for getting Rose

pregnant when she was just a South Texas kid, and the white-

haired Mexican busboys struggled with their English greetings.

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The circuit court judge said that he did not mind speaking for

everyone by saying how simply delighted he was to congratulate

Rose and her husband on their long and honest marriage.

Rose kept on driving. Soon, she was at the double paths

of railroad tracks that came right before the gravel pit bus

station. Her little bus fit exactly between those two sets of

tracks, and she stopped in that narrow space because she no-

ticed that trains were coming from both directions. Her hus-

band and her old men lovers pulled down the windows of the

bus and leaned out like kindergartners, watching. The trains

were painted bright like wooden children’s toys, and stenciled

on the sides of each boxcar in block letters were the freight

contents: apples, blankets, candy, diamonds, explo-

sives, fabric, gravy, haircuts — a continuing, alphabeti-

cal account of all a life’s ingredients.

They watched this for a long time. But those boxcars were

moving slowly, and repeating themselves in new, foreign alpha-

bets. So the old men lovers became bored, finally, and pulled up

the windows of Rose’s bus for some quietness. They rested and

waited, stuck as they were between those two lazy trains. And

Rose, who had been up early that morning, took the key out of

the ignition, took off her hat and her gloves, and went to sleep.

The old men lovers talked about her husband among them-

selves, fascinated. They whispered low to each other, but she

could hear some pieces of words. “Hush, ” she kept hearing

them say, and “shh” and “she” and “and.” And, murmured to-

gether, those pieces of words made a sound just like the whole

word “husband.” That’s the word she was hearing, in any case,

as she dozed on the bus, with all of her old men together and

behind her and so pleased just to see her again.

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