Barometer

							                                          The Barometer

                                   A short story by David Rood

“How much?” Andy asked.

“Take today's weather, for instance,” the old man said, ignoring the question. “Hot, heavy,
humid air, what you call a dee-pression. Now, suppose cool, dry air should move in. What then?”

He looked to the young couple with an inquisitive smile, not long enough for an answer.

“KA-BOOM!” He laughed, startling Andy and Edna. “Thunder, lightning – KA-BOOM!”

“Did you have a price in mind?” Edna asked.

“You see, prevailing winds change with the seasons …” The old man went on, rapping his pipe
against the hull of a dingy resting upside-down on sawhorses. “Sometimes these masses of air hit
each other with such force – KA-BOOM!”

Bargain hunters milled around the garage, occasionally interrupting the lecture to ask the price of
something. The old man stayed with the Buzbaums though, happy to have an audience. Andy
listened patiently while Edna fidgeted with the strap to her bra, noticeably discomforted by the
heat. She did not share his admiration for the old man's penchant for detail.

“Looks pretty cruddy, I admit.” The old man spat. “But she'll clean up good and work like a
charm. Won't no thunder-buster sneak up on you. That's for sure.”

Edna longed for the air conditioned comfort of their home, fed up with garage sales, and would
have paid any price to leave. Andy, looked at the barometer, trying not to let on how much he
wanted it.

“That needle moves just so much,” the old man measured with finger and thumb, “and it's grab
your Mac Jack. KA-BOOM!”




1
                                           The Barometer


Edna jumped, startled and angry. She thought, they had been weathering that kind of storm for
years.

“That's all very well,” Edna said. “But our place is climate controlled.”

The old man and Andy looked at her without a word, then returned their attention to the
instrument. She felt stupid and even more angered. Once the deal was closed, the barometer
secured in the truck and the Buzbaums in their seats, Edna stirred the air.

“I'll never understand why you waste money on junk like that.”

Andy started the car and adjusted the rear-view mirror, ignoring Edna's remark.

“Turn on the air conditioner,” she added. “I'm burning up.”

No sooner had Andy placed the barometer on the newspaper spread on the kitchen table, Edna
stormed out. Edna could tolerate his whistle-while-we-work cheerfulness no more than the smell
of varnish remover. Andy worked slowly and carefully. After a few hours, the layers of paint and
wax were gone. It was a beautiful thing, sparkling and harmonizing with all the other restored
objects in the house. He studied the needles beneath the crystal, so thin and fragile, like the hind
legs of a mosquito, he thought.

Edna returned to find him sitting asleep on the sofa. The barometer hung squarely on the wall
before him. He looked to her like a little boy exhausted from playing with a new toy. She smiled
and climbed the stairs alone, knowing he would awake in the morning with a stiff neck.

Two weeks of unrelenting heat passed. The Buzbaums holed up in their climate controlled house.
Edna dreamed of a beach cottage and cool ocean breezes, feeling the walls of the small town
house closing in. Andy's habit of doting on his most recent acquisition fueled her frustration. At
least twenty times a day, he would use his handkerchief to rub an imaginary smudge off the
barometer. One Sunday morning, Edna came down the stairs to find him polishing the thing.

“Stop it, damn it!” She screamed.


                                                 2
                                           The Barometer


“What?” Andy said, startled by her outburst. “What did I do?”

Edna felt too embarrassed to admit she was jealous. The barometer had become as much a
mistress to him as any woman. She was sure he whispered sweet nothings to it when she was not
in the room. All through breakfast, she focused on remaining calm.

“Looks like we might finally get some rain,” Andy said, peeling back the kitchen curtain. Edna
could see the black clouds that gathered on the horizon.

“Your girlfriend tell you that?”

“Huh?” Andy said, pouring a cup of coffee.

“Forget it,” Edna said, hearing her own cattiness.

Later that mourning, on their way to buy a newspaper, they drove past a church where dozens of
tiny children had just been let out of Sunday school. Edna felt an emptiness as she watched them,
all decked out in cotton dresses and white shirts with clip-on bow ties, scurry to cars waiting for
them.

“It's raining,” Andy said.

“At last,” Edna added, feeling better the drought was finally over.

Some of the children were caught in the downpour, not unhappily. To Edna, they looked like
playful newts. She had an urge to play with them. Suddenly, the car was in motion and she was
back in her adult world.

After three consecutive weekends of rain, the Buzbaums anxiously awaited any sign of sun.
Andy moved busily around Edna, wiping water spots on the counter as she washed lettuce for
lunch. It seemed to her he was always wiping or dusting something. She threw the lettuce into
the colander and went to check the mail. A letter from the local adoption agency stuck out from
the stack of junk mail. Edna placed the letter in the pouch of her apron. She hurried through



                                                 3
                                            The Barometer


lunch and dashed upstairs as Andy continued to eat slowly, thumbing through the stack of mail.
A few minutes later, Andy thought he heard Edna sobbing.

“Are you all right up there?”

“Fine!” She shouted through the bathroom door.

Edna dabbed her eyes with toilet paper. The disappointment was unbearable. Each time she felt
she had gained control, a glance at the letter would start another round of crying. She turned on
the faucet to drown it out, then tore the letter into tiny pieces and flushed them in the toilet. Her
sadness turned to anger as she thought how relieved Andy would secretly feel when she told him
of the letter.

The constant heavy rains deterred Andy from the usual weekly garage sales. He and Edna spent
most of their weekend hours watching television. Edna knitted while Andy flipped through the
channels, searching for weather reports mostly.

“There's an old movie on Channel 5,” Edna said, hoping he would give the remote control a rest.

“Hmm-hmm,” he replied. “What was that, honey?”

“Never mind.”

Suddenly, the screen turned to snow, crackled to a loud POP! and went dead. In the unexpected
silence, they heard faint rumbling of an even colder front approaching. They read books and
worked crossword puzzles with Beethoven in the background. After awhile, the kettle drums
were indistinguishable from the thunder outside. Inside, the air grew thicker by the hour. When it
could suspend the tension no longer, emotions precipitated with gale force.

“Get up and wipe that thing one more time, and I'll …” Edna said, teeth clenched. “You're
driving me batty the way you fondle that thing.”

“I beg your pardon.” Andy looked shocked. “I do not fondle the barometer.”



                                                  4
                                            The Barometer


“I'm going out,” she said, grabbing a raincoat from the closet.

“Hold on,” Andy said, gently blocking her path. “What's eating you? You've been acting like a
…”

“Bitch?”

“Edna, please tell me what is bothering you.”

Edna drooped her shoulders and threw herself on the sofa. She was determined not to cry. Should
I tell him about the letter, she thought?

“I am so tired of playing second fiddle to all this crap you've collected,” she said. “And I'm fed
up with your compulsive cleaning. This place is more antiseptic than an operating room!”

“Compulsive?”

“Only a sick person would sneak behind me to scrub a toilet after I'd spent nearly an hour
cleaning the bathroom. Oh, you didn't think I knew. Well, buster, there's a lot I know you don't
know I know!”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Andy tried to laugh it off.

“I'm glad we don't have any children. You'd want them sanitized, polished and kept under glass
jars.”

“Try to calm down, will you?” Andy felt a tinge of guilt. “I want kids as much as you do. You
know that.”

“Liar!” she screamed. “All you want is a life that's STERILE!”

Edna cupped her hands over her mouth, as if to trap that awful word. It was too late. Once
Andy's molars started grinding, she knew no degree of remorse would be adequate apology. He
tore the cloth from his pocket and rubbed the barometer until Edna was packed and gone.




                                                 5
                                           The Barometer


At first, their lawyers encouraged the Buzbaums to reconcile. Marriage counseling helped for
awhile. But with each warming, a cool front would follow. Like the collision of two air masses,
Andy and Edna created their own turbulence, thunder and lightning, Ka-BOOM! Through it all,
the barometer continued to predict subtle changes in the weather. Andy came to realize the thing
was an important symbol to Edna, probably what had caused their break-up. In a moment of
weakness, or strength from a different point of view, Andy decided to make a gesture to Edna
that might bring them back together.

“Oh, it's you,” Edna said.

“I know I've no right to drop by unexpected …” Andy stood awkwardly, shifting a large package
from side to side.

“Come in,” she said. “What've you got there?”

“It's for you,” he said hesitantly, having second thoughts about the whole idea.

“The barometer,” Edna said.

She looked intently at Andy who was flushed with embarrassment. He accepted her invitation to
stay for drinks. Drinks led to dinner, dinner to a late movie on T.V. and so on. Many things were
said. The evening was beautiful, spontaneous and romantic. But from the start, their romance had
never successfully carried over into the bedroom. Sex was as disappointing as biting into an
apple and finding a worm. To make matters worse, Andy was unable to sleep, preoccupied by his
attorney's advice to avoid conjugal contacts with his estranged wife. She woke the next morning
to find him on his knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. In the drainer, she could see all of her
dishes had been rewashed and stacked.

“Get out.”

“Honey, I made coffee …”

“OUT!” Edna shook with anger.


                                                 6
                                           The Barometer


As soon as he had gone, Edna poured the pot of coffee into the sink and made a fresh one. She
fought an urge to break every plate he had washed.

“Damn him!”

The relationship deteriorated with increasing velocity. Andy brooded for weeks over Edna's
hysterical reaction and his foolishness in giving away the barometer. Their efforts to reach a
property settlement became more complicated until even the lawyers turned bitter.

“She really doesn't want it,” Andy said, rolling his chin across his knuckles.

“Andy, you've got to understand,” the attorney said. “Women don't see property the way men do.
To you, this weather vane …”

“Barometer.”

“Barometer, right. It's like a knife to stab you with. Okay, she stabs you, you shoot her. Take the
Volvo.”

The attorney picked up a yellow pad and waited for an answer. Andy continued to roll his chin
over his knuckles.

“What's it going to be, pal? This is sixty bucks an hour.”

“The car,” Andy said, hurting from the knife.

The day she received the final divorce decree, Edna decided to mount the barometer
conspicuously on her living room wall. It had been collecting dust behind the sofa for some
weeks. After much labor, she stood back to admire her trophy. Even on such an emotion laden
day, she felt pleased at this symbol of her triumph. So pleased, in fact, she sat to jot down plans
for a divorce party.

Edna resisted an urge to dust and tidy up while waiting for her guests to arrive. She had a drink
to help her relax. Darla, a co-worker from the hospital, was the first to show.


                                                 7
                                            The Barometer


“Thank God!” Edna said. “I was beginning to wonder if I still had friends. Where's Ted!”

“Ted won't be here,” Darla replied. “I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you. I'm afraid
the divorce bug got to us, too.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry.”

But Edna was not sorry. She was secretly comforted to know she was not alone in her failure to
sustain a relationship. Later on, after the party was in full swing, Darla joined Edna in the kitchen
to help restock ice and snacks.

“Is it just a coincidence that everyone here is either divorced or separated!” Darla said, biting
seriously on a pretzel.

“Are you sure!” Edna looked surprised. “What about Lyle and Marge!”

“They're here, all right, but not together. They filed a month ago.”

“I didn't know,” Edna said.

“I mean, do you think that says something about us!” Darla said, crunching.

Edna tried hard to enjoy her first party as a single woman. She drank freely, unrestrained by
conscience or spouse. At the height of the celebration, she gathered everyone in front of the
barometer to make a toast. Struggling to keep her balance, she hoisted a wineglass to the trophy.

“To our estranged spouses, may they all drop dead.”

It was well past five-o'clock as Edna sat at her office desk. She had just learned through the
grapevine that Andy was engaged to a widow with three children. It was hard news to take. Her
stomach ached and rumbled louder than the approaching storm. She narrowed her eyes, staring at
some point of infinity. Returning to her apartment to begin another weekend did not appeal to
her. In this office, she was master of her fate, like the captain of a battleship in high seas about to
wage war with Man and Nature. The sound of thunder startled her. She imagined how helpless


                                                  8
                                             The Barometer


she would feel on a ship in a storm. Then, glancing at the clock, she pictured Andy returning to
his home about now, entering through the kitchen, careful not to track water, placing an umbrella
in the sink and drying his raincoat with paper towels. Then she saw him peeling back the curtain
to reveal purple clouds being shuffled off by strong southerly winds, exposing brilliant streaks of
sun. He opens the door and a gust of balmy air fills the room. He walks out on the deck, facing a
sunset to match any Hallmark greeting card and …

“You stayin' late agin, Miz B?”

“No, Dottie,” Edna replied. “I'm on my way out.”

She sat a moment longer, listening to the rattle of the cleaning woman's mop and pail. Then she
rose, put on her raincoat, aligned the spokes to her umbrella and paused before closing the door
behind her. By the time she reached the main entrance, rain was strafing everything in sight.

“Isn't this just great,” she muttered to herself.

The longer she waited for the storm to die down, the harder it blew. She opened the door to make
a dash for her apartment two blocks away and was soaked immediately. The umbrella flew away
in a gust before she reached the curb. By the time she got to her apartment building, she was wet
down to her underwear. A waterfall trailed behind her as she climbed the stairs to her flat.

For nearly an hour, Edna soaked in a hot bubble bath, drinking gin and tonic. After her bath, she
cleaned the tub and wiped the water spots from her drink. She heated some canned soup, ate
most of it then cleaned the pot, bowl and spoon. She fixed a fortified cup of tea and curled up on
the sofa. Noticing the lint from her terrycloth robe was covering the navy velveteen upholstery,
she stood and picked every last white fiber from the crush. Then she wandered aimlessly through
the rooms of the apartment before settling in an old rocking chair. It was one that had been
handed down to Andy from his great-grandmother and was as uncomfortable as it was ugly. But
Edna had always favored it, despite its uneven rock from splintered runners. Granted, the chair
didn't have the richness and charm of Andy's other antiques yet she had often wondered how he


                                                    9
                                           The Barometer


could part so easily with a piece that should have had great sentimental value to him. She let an
urge to phone him for an explanation pass.

“Well, here's to the weather,” she said, raising her cup to the barometer.

The humor was gone. She stared at it for a long time. The gray sky in the window darkened.
Edna recalled moments in her childhood when she felt frightened by loud storms. A crack of
lightning and echoing thunder sent a sharp chill through her body as the lights went out. And
then, as if God were illuminating writing on the wall, a narrow beam of sunlight peeped under a
cloud and struck the barometer, turning the wood incarnadine and the brass into a glowing gold
band. She rocked back, resisting its charm, feeling foolish for hating something so much she had
become blind to its beauty. The barometer became her infinite focus. She sat for what seemed a
long time, mindless, completely absorbed by the barometer's mystic aura. It was as if more than
mere technology and craftsmanship had been invested in the thing.

“My God!” she whispered.

For an instant, she was quite sure it was alive, staring back at her with its one large eye, smirking
at the way it could make her sit for hour after hour just to watch the needles move.

###




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