Solitaire and Brahms

by Sarah Dreher

  "I suspect I do."

  "You might be a natural psychopath."

  Jean laughed. “If I were a psychopath, I'd be rich by now."

  Connie moved closer to her. "How are things, really?"

  A feeling like guilt washed over her. "Shaky. It was a monster."

  Miss Myers had come into the room and was pouring herself a cup of coffee. Not in a styrofoam cup, not Miss Myers. Miss Myers had brought her very own stoneware mug with daisies painted on it, which she undoubtedly washed out every time she used it.

  Miss Myers glanced up and caught them looking her way.

  Penny detached herself from the group and trotted over to the coffee urn, pausing next to Miss Myers for an exchange of "good mornings" and a quick smile.

  "Penny knows how to brown-nose," Connie said. "I'll bet she sets a new record for making assistant editor."

  "Not until somebody dies or gets married and quits," Lisa said. She looked slyly at Shelby. "What do you think are the chances of that?"

  "I might die," Shelby said. "But at the moment I'm not planning to quit."

  "Not even after you're married?" Lisa asked.

  "Not even then."

  "You must be out of your mind."

  "Not quite," Shelby said. But any minute now she would be. The conversation was beginning to get on her nerves. It was shallow and forced and she could do it in her sleep. It made her want to lie down.

  Maybe she had come back to work too soon. Maybe she wasn't ready. Fran was comfortable enough, fever down, convalescing in front of Shelby's television set with a pitcher of lemonade and a copy of The Group. She'd promised to behave in an adult and responsible manner, sleep when she needed to sleep, drink the lemonade and as much water as she could, and turn the heat on under the pan of canned vegetable soup Shelby'd left behind.

  Fran was fine. It was Shelby who wasn't doing so well.

  The last three days had been easy, straightforward. Do what's needed. Be spontaneous. Follow where the heart goes and trust its judgment. A leads to B leads to C. What feels right is, miraculously, correct. Now she was back in the land of the obscure, the subtle, the duplicitous. Now it wasn't how things felt that mattered, it was how things looked. And she wasn't prepared for it.

  "You're really out of it," Connie commented.

  Shelby forced herself to concentrate. "I'm just tired. Didn't get much sleep. I should probably get to work before I turn completely useless." She picked up her pocketbook and started for the door.

  “Save enough energy for bridge.” Connie called after her.

  Miss Myers flagged her down at the entrance to the lounge. "Miss Camden!"

  She stopped.

  "I hope you're feeling better," Miss Myers said.

  Shelby was surprised. "Somewhat, thank you."

  Miss Myers tapped her arm. "Now, don't do anything foolish. Take as much time as you need to get well." She strode off toward her office.

  Shelby glanced over at her friends. They were staring at her, openmouthed. She shrugged and raised her hands in a "beats me" gesture. Of all the things Miss Myers was known for, concern wasn't one of them.

  Before she got down to work she called her apartment. Fran answered on the first ring.

  "Hi," Shelby said. "How you doing?"

  "OK. How about you?"

  "I'm fine, but I wasn't sick to begin with."

  "This is true," Fran said. "I was about to make up that soup you left."

  "So soon?"

  "Hunger hurts."

  "Can you manage?"

  "I think so.”

  "There's more in the cupboard if you want it. I'm checking out of here at three," Shelby said. "See you around three-thirty."

  "Great. We can watch Young Doctor Malone.”

  Things seemed normal enough on the surface, but there was a stiff, distant tone in Fran's voice that made her sound forced.

  Don't be silly, she told herself. Fran's still sick. This is her telephone voice. Her sick telephone voice. "Don't wash any dishes,') she said, trying not to sound stiff or distant herself. "Rest. You don't want to have a relapse."

  Fran laughed a little. "I won't have a relapse."

  "I did. And all I did was go out for a few hours with Ray."

  "I'm not likely to go out with Ray. Even for a few hours. You probably got yourself overly excited."

  "Well, don't get yourself overly excited."

  "On game shows? Fat chance. 'Queen for a Day' doesn't set my heart to pounding."

  Shelby tried to think of something else to say, small talk, news of the day, gossip, even. "When you feel better, we'll go to a movie, OK?"

  "As long as it's not overly exciting," Fran said.

  That made her smile. That sounded like Fran. "OK. Go lie down."

  “I'm not a dog, and I am lying down.”

  "So lie down flatter. I..." She caught herself, realizing she was about to say "I miss you," which would sound ridiculous. "...I'll see you later." She started to hang up.

  "Ice cream!" Fran said.

  "What?"

  "Get ice cream."

  "OK, what kind?"

  "I don't care, as long as it's not too exciting."

  Shelby sighed and shook her head. "All right, Fran."

  “Sorry.”

  "Clearly," Shelby said, "you're feeling better. Good-bye."

  She hung up the phone and wondered why she felt a small jolt of disappointment, then shrugged it off and picked up the nearest folder.

  By the end of lunch she really wished she hadn't come to work. Not that the day had been particularly hard, or that anyone had asked questions she couldn't answer. In fact, everyone behaved normally, and that was the problem. Shelby didn't feel normal. She felt turned in on herself, as if the outside world existed only as an echo. She had to force herself to listen. The slightest conversation was exhausting. She kept looking at the clock, and wondering how Fran was doing at home. During post-lunch bridge, she mis-bid three consecutive hands, and finally begged off the game entirely, claiming fatigue. The lunch bunch clucked and muttered over her like a clutch of worried hens. There were times when she'd have secretly enjoyed that kind of attention. This wasn't one of those times. It annoyed her and made her feel trapped and uncomfortable and... once more... guilty.

  At least Libby was out of town again. It was almost a semi-monthly occurrence during the cooler times of year. Libby prided herself on her always-fresh "just a touch of tan." During the fall and winter months, she went where she could get it. Puerto Rico, Cuba before Castro took over, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands. "This darned old tan is fading," she'd pout, and before you could count to twenty she was winging her way south. Then Shelby could relax, knowing she was safe for at least a week. Libby tended to be nicer when she was out of the country. Instead of the usual predictable letters of complaint and reminder, scotch-taped shut for privacy, she sent cheerful post cards. If Shelby did anything Libby didn't approve of, it would never be mentioned on a post card for All the World to See. Meaning The Mail Man. Libby thought all Mail Men were Voyeurs and Perverts, who deliberately snooped into people's private business and reported immediately to those awful, trashy newspapers they carried in the supermarkets for Ignorant People to read. For which the Mail Men were undoubtedly paid unwholesome amounts of Money.

  If she'd had to deal with Libby on Monday, if she'd had to choose between leaving Fran for the evening, or taking the risk of canceling their dinner meeting...

  She wondered what she'd have done.

  Focus, damn it, she told herself roughly. She glanced at the clock. Another hour and she could leave for that bogus doctor's appointment. She'd better get some work done.

  Easy to say.

  She slapped a folder against the desk. It was one thing to whip through a pile of submissions when she was still a reader. All she had to do then was separate the obviously bad from the obviously good, and leave the shades of gray for the assistant editors. And now she was one of the gray-sorters. If she ever made asso
ciate editor, she'd have to use a microscope to tell the difference between shades.

  Who was she kidding? She'd never make associate editor. Not at The Magazine. Because she'd either be a) married and have to quit to follow her husband wherever he ended up, or b) married and be expected to quit any minute to... etc., etc. It wasn't fair. Just because she was a woman, she couldn't move up in this job. Not unless she was willing to be like Miss Myers and have no personal life at all.

  Assuming Miss Myers really had no personal life. How would anyone know? No one ever saw her outside the office, so apparently she didn't shop, eat out, frequent the grocery or liquor stores, or go to movies—not even foreign films and other unintelligible cultural events. Nor had she been spotted in any of the local churches. So Miss Myers was either a heathen or a pagan, or a figment of their collective imagination. She was in the phone book, and lived in an apartment in downtown West Sayer. At least that was the address. Whether anyone actually lived there was open to debate. Once, when they'd all had a little too much to drink and had regressed to the age of giggling ten, Connie had called her number. But the phone only rang. So they didn't know any more than they had before.

  She was embarrassed now, remembering how juvenile they'd been that night. At one point they'd even piled into Lisa's car and driven up and down the street past her building, trying to catch a glimpse of Miss Myers. The shade was pulled, yellow light behind it. There were no shadows, and no sign of movement. They'd gone around the block a few times, then given up and gone home.

  Not only immature, cruel. Miss Myers had never done anything to them to merit the way they giggled about her. Miss Myers' only sin was being different.

  Suddenly she remembered how she'd been in grade school, always kind to the girls who weren't well dressed, or had funny teeth, or couldn't see the blackboard, or were “slower” than the rest. She never laughed at people who were different back then, when almost everyone did. The other kids teased her when she took her books and went to sit beside the outcasts. Her mother called her "the Angel of Mercy," her voice acid with sarcasm and disgust. Libby made a point of filling Shelby's weekends with outings with the "right" people. But she couldn't control who Shelby sat beside in school.

  Shelby wondered when and why she'd changed. It was as if something had happened when she wasn't paying attention. Something that made her nasty. After all, why should she judge Miss Myers? Miss Myers was probably lonely, had nothing but her job to care about, and knew she'd risen as high as she'd ever go. While Shelby was on the way to being a success in her life. She could afford to be a little more generous.

  She cringed. She hated the way that sounded, self-righteous and condescending. That wasn't how she felt at all. How she felt—really felt—was that she owed Miss Myers an apology. But she couldn't just go up to her and say, "I'm sorry for making fun of you." How sensitive was that?

  Well, according to Libby, that was her problem—she was too sensitive. Libby made it quite clear that they lived in a world in which your feelings were going to be hurt sooner or later, and the sooner she stopped with her "bleeding wound routine," the better off she'd be. And while she was at it she could lose five pounds, and "Do Something with your Hair," and try to develop a Sense of Style, because, "You'd be rather lovely, Shelby, if only..."

  There were a lot of "if onlys..." They tended to increase exponentially. In fact, the wedding had brought a veritable plague of "if onlys..."

  Two-thirty. She could leave in half an hour. Not that she was likely to accomplish much in that half hour. Or all day, as a matter of fact. She'd been useless, cocooning in on herself, unable to generate a coherent thought—much less a cogent, rational opinion. She'd left her soul back in her apartment. Without it she was a robot.

  The weekend had been quiet and intense. It wasn't easy to come back from that. People who led monastic lives, or went on long retreats, or into the rain forest or out on the desert for weeks at a time must suffer terrible culture shock. They must feel as if they were walking around without any skin. It really wasn't pleasant.

  And she hadn't been able to get Fran off her mind. Nothing in particular, just images and snapshot memories. Always circling back to Sunday night, when Fran had cried and...

  See, she was doing it again. She ran her hands through her hair roughly. She had a half hour. In that time she could certainly concentrate enough to get through one story.

  Shelby picked up a folder and opened it.

  Maybe she could find a way to do something nice for Miss Myers, to make up for things. Maybe bring her a little gift—flowers or a plate of cookies—in a casual way. as if it was just such a lovely day she'd felt expansive and wanted to brighten up the world.

  Two forty-five.

  Come on, come on, do the story. Trouble was, it was one of those clearly borderline jobs, the kind you maybe put in the file for a really slow month. Not that they ever had a really slow month. She should probably reject it outright, with an encouraging note about “not meeting our editorial needs at the present time.” Which brought her to problem number two: it was one Penny had passed on. If she rejected it, they could find themselves back in one of those strange and uncomfortable tensions. But if she accepted it just to avoid trouble, it was blackmail. Also cowardly and unprofessional.

  "Fiddle-dee-dee," she muttered to the empty office as the clock hands edged toward three. "I'll think about it tomorrow."

  Shelby opened the door to her apartment quietly. Fran was sprawled on the couch, asleep. She'd kicked the blankets into a heap on the floor. The sheets were twisted into a skein of white. There was a damp gloss on her face.

  Closing the door, Shelby put her things down and went to her and rested her hand on Fran's forehead. A little fever, not much. One of those low-grade. "you're not going out until it's been normal for twenty-four hours" fevers that leaves you bored, irritable, cranky, exhausted and not a whole lot of fun.

  She opened the window a little wider to let fresh air into the room, and draped one of the blankets over Fran.

  Fran stirred a little in her sleep.

  Shelby tiptoed out of the room to put away the groceries and change into her home clothes. She sat at the kitchen table to open her mail, alert for sounds from the living room. Fran was all right, she told herself. It was all going to be fine. Nothing to worry about.

  An advertisement for a new magazine. She tossed the envelope into the waste basket without opening it.

  But it was in her nature to worry. It was what she did best.

  United Fund, request for money. She'd given at the office.

  She wished Fran would wake up.

  Newsweek magazine. She wondered why she got it. She hardly ever had time to read it.

  No “Time” to read "Newsweek." Get it? Ha-ha,

  Date with Ray this weekend. It seemed as if she hadn't seen him in years.

  A post card from Libby, who was Having a Fabulous Time in Martinique, and had she remembered to look at the new Bride?

  She'd remembered. Wedding gowns, bridesmaids' dresses, silver place settings, china patterns, floral arrangements... a world so strange she might as well be reading National Geographic.

  Floral arrangements. For everyday events you had flowers. For weddings you had Floral Arrangements.

  What was this whole wedding business, anyway? Who thought it up? Some women built their whole lives around their wedding day—planning from the time they were children, keeping scrapbooks and photo albums and home movies of people dressed the way they never dressed, acting the way they never acted. What for? To feel important and the center of attention for one day of their lives, she supposed. But if you wanted to be a Star for a day, why not take the money and rent a theater?

  Not a bad idea. They could find some silly, romantic play to do. Some Noel Coward thing, where people chased each other in and out of elegant hotel bedrooms.

  A catalogue. Cheap clothing, ugly ceramic objets d'art. She wondered how she got on that particular mailing list. She
wondered if Fran was waking up yet. She wondered if their friendship would change after her marriage.

  Of course it would change. She wouldn't be living down the hall from her, for one thing. Or have the free time she was accustomed to. Fran might even have finished school in a year, and gone on to other adventures. This was it, this year, their time together.

  It made her stomach hard to think about that.

  She got up and went to the living room and looked down at her friend. One year. She fiddled with the blanket, pulling it up across Fran's shoulders. The gesture had become a familiar one after these four days. As had saying "good night" to her as she turned out the light, and listening for her in the shower to be sure she was all right, and leaving their doors open when she had to go to her own apartment to make a phone call. Cooking for her, being concerned. She touched Fran's hair, marveled at its softness, traced a wave with one finger.

  Fran moved and muttered a little.

  Shelby sat down on the coffee table by the couch.

  Fran's eyelids eased open, catching the light in those gorgeous cornflower...

  "Hi," Shelby said.

  Fran pulled herself up so her head rested on the arm of the couch. "Hi." She scrubbed at her face with her hands. "What time is it?"

  “Nearly four.”

  "Wouldn't want to miss 'Young Doctor Malone.' If I miss it three days in a row, it takes forever to catch up."

  "God forbid." Shelby smiled. She touched the backs of her fingers to Fran's face. "Have you been running this fever all day?"

  Fran shook her head. "Only since around two-thirty. I think it happens every day around that time, doesn't it?"

  "It does, and you're not going back to work until it doesn't."

  "I'll die of boredom and self-pity."

  "Can't be helped," Shelby said. "I'm making the rules." She glanced down at the floor. The paper bag she'd left beside the couch for trash was filled with bunched-up tissues. Either Fran's flu had taken a major turn toward the respiratory, or she'd been crying. "Are you really OK?" she asked.

  "Sure, considering I've been at death's door," Fran said. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She caught Shelby studying her and looked away.