THENEWYORKER, APRIL 18, 2022 49S
he was shampooing her hair with
cherries. It was entirely her idea
to do it—she hadn’t read about
it anywhere. She had taken the little
cellophane sack of cherries out of her
bag and put the cherries in a wooden
bowl and pounded them down with a
flat, broad spoon, drawing out the pits
with her fingers, then she had slipped
into the shower and put the whole mess
on her head and shampooed it in with
a little bit of moisture. This was her
way of treating herself, since only the
moon seemed to be on her side, shin-
ing down silver on her coat that night.
After she rinsed out her hair, it was pink
and smelled like cherries. She went to
bed with it wet like that, and when she
woke up it looked like her head had bled
in the night. She put the pillowcase in
the sink with a bit of soap and left for
her day in the world, the sun shining
down on her, creating a golden armor
that coated her body entirely.
When she got to work, there was
Marla, there was Agnes, and there was
Junie. They had already taken their spots
as tellers and were standing and serv-
ing customers, and she went to her spot
and put away the sign that said “Next
Teller” and served the first person who
stepped up to her station. He was an
old but handsome man. He had white
hair, and was dressed in a very nice suit.
It wasn’t that he looked rich; he just
looked like someone who took care to
dress nicely for the world. She liked
that. She had never seen him before.
“What is your name, dear?” he asked
carefully, pulling out his wallet and put-
ting it down on the counter.
“Angela,” she said.
“Angela, my name is Thomas.” He
handed over his bank card. “Could I
please have three hundred dollars in
cash from my savings account?”
She rolled her eyes slightly, but as
soon as she did she regretted it. She
liked the man, and even if this was some-
thing that could have been done at the
A.T.M. she shouldn’t have rolled her
eyes. She was simply so used to dislik-
ing her customers, and she immediately
apologized. “I’m sorry I rolled my eyes.
It’s just habit.”
“A lot of things are habit,” he agreed,
and didn’t seem offended.
“I have lots of bad habits,” she said.
“I do, too,” he said. “It takes a life-time to get rid of them, and even then
that is not enough time.”
As she counted out his money, she
asked, “What habits have you overcome
and which do you still have?”
“I no longer smoke or drink, but I
tell little white lies. In fact, I do smoke
and drink sometimes. No, I guess I ha-
ven’t overcome any.”
“I forget to exercise, and I eat junk
food all the time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Your
body knows what it needs better than
you do, better than all the magazines do,
better than the doctors do, better than
your girlfriends do. You just keep eat-
ing your junk food and lazing around.”
“Thank you,” she said. “No one has
ever said that.”
“You do whatever you want. It re-
ally doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t, does it?”
“I like the color of your hair,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said. “You can’t
tell because of the barrier, but it smells
like cherries.”
“I can smell them,” he said, then
he put the three hundred-dollar bills
in his wallet and said, “Good day,” and
walked away. She went on to serve the
next person, and the next, and the next.
But there was a problem: even by the
end of the day, she was still thinking
about Thomas. She liked the fact that
he had not said that she should exercise
or eat better, and she liked that he had
not flirted with her, except for calling
her “dear,” but that wasn’t flirting. He
was just calling her “dear” to be nice.
Then he had left. He dressed beauti-
fully and was handsome. It didn’t mat-
ter that he was old. Old was as good as
young. It wasn’t that she was looking
for a boyfriend, a father, or a grand-
father. She just couldn’t help thinking
about him. At first, she despaired, be-
cause how would she ever meet him
again? But then she just went back
to the first transaction of the day and
found his name, Thomas Swisher, and
his telephone number, and once Marla
and Agnes and Junie had left she called
him on the little black telephone that
was at her station, and he picked up.
“Is this the bank?” he asked, because
obviously the telephone had told him so.
“Yes, this is Angela. I helped you this
morning. I was your teller.”
“I remember.”“I was wondering if you would like
to have dinner with me tonight?”
He hesitated on the other end, and
she imagined what he was thinking.
Probably he was wondering whether
it was a good idea or if she was crazy.
“Well, all right,” he said, a little
reluctantly.
“Do you have something else to do?”
she asked.
“No,” he said. “Where would you
like to go?”
She gave him the name of a restau-
rant, and they agreed to meet in half an
hour, to give him time to fix his hair
and to give her time to close up. Then
they met. They were sitting across from
each other in a dim red room, and wait-
ers were walking about in soft shoes,
carrying things on trays in their care-
ful and deliberate ways. She liked the
candlelight. She liked the spaghetti car-
bonara, and she liked Thomas, whom
she had started calling Tom. He didn’t
seem charmed by her, though, and re-
mained as uneasy as he had been on
the phone.
“You like old men?” he finally asked.
It was the question that had been plagu-
ing him.
“Not more than I like young men.”
“Lots of people don’t like old men.
They think that we’re disgusting, old-
fashioned, out of date, that our values
are not contemporary, and that there
is something wrong with our bodies.”
“I don’t think that,” she said.
He nodded but was not reassured.
“Is this a date?” he asked.
She admitted that it probably was.
She said, “I liked that you didn’t say
that I should start exercising and eat-
ing right, and I also liked your suit. And
your white hair is so nice and fluffy, like
a little Persian cat.”
“Thank you,” he said. He had been
complimented in this way before. Lots
of women liked him; Angela wasn’t the
only one. He said, “Can I call you Pearl?
That was my wife’s name. I still miss
her, and I find if I can call a woman
Pearl then my feelings open up to her
a lot quicker.”
“Sure,” she said, and then she real-
ized that she liked the name Pearl better
than Angela, for Angela was the name
of a fish. That is, she had once met a
fish named Angela, when she was lit-
tle, maybe three or four years old, and