Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

to have conspired against me, behind my back, to utter empty banalities of the sort you see in cartoons.
    You see?—the witch has put a curse upon you.
    What will you do, to exorcise it?

14 “Nephew”
    She’d been transferred to a psychiatric clinic in New Brunswick. I knew, I’d made more than one discreet call.
    “Would you like to speak with Ms. Haider, sir? She’s in the dayroom right now. I can see her from here.”
    Quickly I told the nurse no. No thank you. I didn’t want to upset my aunt.
    “Ms. Haider wouldn’t be upset, I think. She’s been lonely. She has been making excellent progress here but it’s very helpful if a patient has visitors. Especially, older patients need to ‘connect’ with familiar faces to keep them from delusional thoughts. Did you say that you are Ms. Haider’s nephew?”
    Explaining that yes, I was Ms. Haider’s nephew, but only the son of a stepbrother of hers, living in Duluth, Iowa—(but was Duluth in Iowa?)—and too far away to come visit her at the present time.
    “Well, we’re hoping Ms. Haider will be an outpatient soon. She’s the brightest and most talkative patient here right now. ’Course, she’s got a lot to grumble about, it seems. Sure is a grumbler. ” The nurse laughed, as if her remark were some sort of understatement, which I, as a relative, might appreciate.
    “So—my aunt is making progress? She’ll be discharged soon?”
    “Yes, sir. What’s your name? I will tell her you called.”
    “Stephen. My name is Stephen.”
    “‘Stephen’—Haider?”
    “No. Stephen King.”
    There was a startled silence. Then, “You mean—like the writer? The same name as the famous writer?”
    “The same name, yes. But not the same person.”
    “Well—good! I will tell Ms. Haider you are thinking of her, Mr. King!”
    “Call me Stephen, please.”
    “ Stephen . Gosh!”

15 “I Like Not That”
    “If you don’t mind, Andrew. I think I should attend . . .”
    Hesitantly Irina spoke. Between us was the issue of Irina’s hours at the Friends School, which seemed to me excessive for the (modest) salary she received.
    “Most of the staff will be there . . . I won’t stay for the buffet supper.”
    “Don’t be silly, darling! If you want to, you should.”
    “Well, I don’t want to . I want to have dinner with my husband of course . . .”
    To placate my dear wife who was looking apologetic, in a way that was both touching and annoying, I told Irina that she should certainly stay for supper with her colleagues, at the headmaster’s house. It would seem rude, or perhaps unprofessional, or might cause them to think she was less committed to her job than others if she rushed home to her husband whom she saw (after all) seven days a week. I would use the opportunity to have dinner with a (recently divorced) friend in Harbourton.
    In addition, I would drop by the Harbourton library, to donate a box of books that had accumulated over the summer. Several times a year I donated books to the local library, that were sent to me by publishers; not always, but sometimes, I used the occasion to donate a paperback or two by Jack of Spades whose novels, I’d noticed, were not purchased by the library.
    (Once, I’d made an inquiry about this omission to the head librarian who was an old friend and she’d said, with a crinkle of her nose, “Oh, well—we don’t purchase books like that.” But I saw that no one at the library seemed to mind if Jack of Spades was donated, to be displayed on the Mystery Paperbacks shelf alongside such hallowed rivals as Michael Connelly, James Ellroy, Mary Higgins Clark, and, indeed, Andrew J. Rush.)
    When Irina was hired to teach art at the Friends School in Hadrian, she’d been very happy and I had been happy for her. Since the children left home she’d tried with varying degrees of success to work on her own art, such as it was—landscape watercolors, glazed ceramics, macramé—but there was nothing quite like teaching to