Rabbit Redux by John Updike Page A

comes home, swinging down Vista spraying untarred grit and tucking the Falcon into the garage in that infuriating way of hers, just not quite far enough to close the door on the bumper, the blades of grass are mixing long shadows with their cut tips and Rabbit stands by their one tree, a spindly maple tethered to the earth by guy wires, his palm sore from trimming the length of the walk with the hand-clippers.
                "Harry," she says, "you're outdoors! How funny of you."
                Arid it is true, Park Villas with its vaunted quarter-acre lots and compulsory barbecue chimneys does not tempt its residents outdoors, even the children in summer: in the snug brick neighborhood of Rabbit's childhood you were always outdoors, hiding in hollowed-out bushes, scuffling in the gravel alleys, secure in the closeness of windows from at least one of which an adult was always watching. Here, there is a prairie sadness, a barren sky raked by slender aerials. A sky poisoned by radio waves. A sewer smell from underground.
                "Where the hell have you been?"
                "Work, obviously. Daddy always used to say never to cut grass after rain, it's all lying down."
                " `Work, obviously.' What's obvious about it?"
                "Harry, you're so strange. Daddy came back from the Poconos today and made me stay after six with Mildred's mess."
                "I thought he came back from the Poconos days ago. You lied. Why?"
                Janice crosses the cut grass and they stand together, he and she and the tree, the spindly planted maple that cannot grow, as if bewildered by the wide raw light. The kerosene scent of someone else's Friday evening barbecue drifts to them. Their neighbors in Penn Villas are strangers, transients - accountants, salesmen, supervisors, adjusters - people whose lives to them are passing cars and the shouts of unseen children. Janice's color heightens. Her body takes on a defiant suppleness. "I forget, it was a silly lie, you were just so angry over the phone I had to say something. It seemed the easiest thing to say, that Daddy was there; you know how I am. You know how confused I get."
                "How much other lying do you do to me?"
                "None. That I can remember right now. Maybe little things, how much things cost, the sort of things women lie about. Women like to lie, Harry, it makes things more fun." And, flirtatious, unlike her, she flicks her tongue against her upper lip and holds it there, like the spring of a trap.
                She steps toward the young tree and touches it where it is taped so the guy wires won't cut into the bark. He asks her, "Where's Nelson?"
                "I arranged with Peggy for him to spend the night with Billy, since it's not a school night."
                "With those dopes again. They give him ideas."
                "At his age he's going to have ideas anyway."
                "I half-promised Pop we'd go over tonight and visit Mom."
                "I don't see why we should visit her. She's never liked me, she's done nothing but try to poison our marriage."
                "Another question."
                "Yes?"
                "Are you fucking Stavros?"
                "I thought women only got fucked."
                Janice turns and choppily runs into the house, up the three steps, into the house with apple-green aluminum clapboards. Rabbit puts the mower back in the garage and enters by the side door into the kitchen. She is there, slamming pots around, making their dinner. He asks her, "Shall we go out to eat for a change? I know a nifty little Greek restaurant on Quince Street."
                "That was just coincidence he showed up. I admit it was Charlie who recommended it, is there anything wrong with that? And you