Looking Back

by Belva Plain

  Larry hated being a “junior.” One night on the porch he had confided in Amanda, and told her so. He would gladly have used his middle name, Daniel, were it not that his father liked the sound of Lawrence, Junior. That seemed to be a foolish concession on Larry’s part, unless you reckoned the advantages of not angering a father whose name was on signs scattered all over the county: Balsan Real Estate.

  The company had three offices. Larry ran two of them. Five years ago he had been graduated summa cum laude from this same university. Highest praise! Norma was so proud of her brother that she might have been his mother. Well, that was easy enough to explain: Their mother had died, their father was remote, and the children had clung together.

  Brushing until her scalp tingled, Amanda reflected. People were so endlessly fascinating with their motives and quirks. What was it about herself, for instance, that had caused Larry Balsan to fall in love with her? Surely he must know dozens of pretty girls.

  Yet surely, too, if she wanted, she could “catch” him. It was easy to tell when a man was teetering on the verge. But she really, really—as Norma would say—didn’t want him. Those few embraces on the porch swing had been proof enough. She had felt nothing, and she wanted to feel everything.

  At noon a few days later, Amanda stepped out of the bus into the pouring sunshine of central Mississippi. Along the length of Main Street, there were not more than a dozen parked cars and a not much greater number of people on the sidewalks. Four years ago she would most likely have recognized—or been recognized by—most of them, but long absences between brief vacations had rendered her almost a stranger. She walked on, not even glancing at the shops, for she knew by heart what was in each window and what had always been in them: the butcher’s hams, the beauty parlor’s array of toiletries, the grocery’s canned goods stacked in pyramids, the shirts and jeans in Ben’s Dry Goods—all unchanged. The town dozed. It was, in its torpor, extraordinarily ugly except perhaps for the sapphire sky above it. There was nothing here to give greeting or to please the eye. She had never noticed that before.

  Her bulging suitcase, which needed new wheels that she hadn’t had time to get, weighed her down on one side; she had to change hands after every few hundred steps. Over her arm dangled the lightweight carry-on that was Cecile’s and Norma’s going-away present. Striped in black and white, it was so pretty that her glance had kept returning to it all through this long day. In it were a book for the plane and the three bus changes that had brought her home; in it also was her diploma.

  The family had no idea of what that piece of paper signified. They knew only that it was a proud thing to own, since most people they knew did not own one. And, trudging along through the heat that sweated her shirt onto her back, she felt how sad it was that they had not even been able to see the grandeur of the faculty procession, the tasseled caps, the gowns, and the insignia; nor had they heard the brasses ring out “Pomp and Circumstance,” nor heard her name called as she stood to receive this proud piece of paper.

  Too expensive. The plane fare was, and the hotel was, and the time off from the shirt factory where her sister Lorena and her father both worked was also too expensive. Yet, if Dad hadn’t fallen and shattered his thighbone that week, he and Mom would have scraped together the bus fare and come.

  In a spot of shade, she had to stop and sit down on a boulder to rest her trembling arms. Here were the familiar crossroads. The factory was on the other side of town, going back where she had just come from. The school was on the right, and home was two miles straight ahead. It seemed to her that everything looked gray. Apparently, it had not rained for a long time; the road, though tarred, was also gray. And the houses, so many of them in need of paint, as was her own, were also gray.

  Mixed emotions were what she had. And she said it aloud: Mixed emotions. The here and the there. The here, where you could be yourself, not wondering what impression you were making.

  “When you are beautiful,” Norma had once confided in a wistful moment, “you don’t have to wonder what people are thinking about you.”

  But Norma was quite, quite mistaken. There was much more to it than being beautiful. What impression, for instance, would Amanda make on her father’s boss or on his son? A fleeting one. Two seconds’ worth, she might be sure. To begin with, that assumed a meeting which, since such people generally lived far from the town in a house with a columned veranda, would never happen in the first place. They came from different worlds. You had to be realistic.

  On the ground beside her feet were the suitcase and the carry-on. All at once, it occurred to her that the ground was dirty. And in fear that she might have damaged the carry-on, she picked it up to look. Thank goodness it wasn’t soiled. In it was a collapsible umbrella that she had bought to protect it in case of a shower. The blue sweater was in it, too; this was for safety’s sake, in case the suitcase should be lost. All her best possessions, the silver charm bracelet, the flowered summer bathrobe, and the soft, fur-lined gloves—no use for them here in this part of the country—were gifts from Norma and Cecile. Mostly, they were from Norma, who seemed to be so much better off than Cecile.

  She stood up. There was only one more bend in the road, where, under the live oak, one of her sisters would be waiting for her. They would have consulted the bus schedule and timed the walk home, as the family always did whenever there was no car available to fetch anyone from town. There had never been enough cars for so large a family, with so many going to jobs in different directions. We’re certainly not what you would call poor, Amanda reflected now, yet there had never been enough of anything.

  There indeed and at last was Lorena with the large, cheerful smile on her still childish face. And with glad cries they rushed to meet.

  Lorena’s room contained a bed and a crib for the baby. They had had to bring in a cot for Amanda, since Tommy, now grown too old to share a room with another of the little girls, had had to move in with Hank and Bub. The house, especially since Lorena had come back with her three children, was bursting at the seams. There was no air in the room now, for it had begun to rain hard and the window was closed. Amanda had not had a bath this evening because Dad, her brothers, her youngest sister Baby, and Lorena’s children had been using the bathroom until it was so late that she was too tired to take one.

  It began to storm. A crash of thunder shook the house, and the baby awoke. In the dim light Amanda could see Lorena getting up to hold him. As he wailed, she crooned and rocked him. It had to be at least two o’clock by now, and Lorena got up every morning at half-past five to get breakfast ready before leaving for the shirt factory with Dad. It would have been impossibly harder for her if Mom had not been able to stay home and take care of the other children.

  “You look different,” Lorena had said immediately when they met.

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know. Just different since you were here at Christmas. You always were different, Amanda, but now you’re more so.”

  “Well, you look the same. Still pretty.”

  But it was not true. Lorena had puffs under her eyes and hollows in her cheeks; she was too thin; she had aged. Aged, at twenty-seven! A lump of pity stuck in Amanda’s throat.

  Of course, you didn’t have to be like this simply because you lived in Mill River. You didn’t need to marry a ne’er-do-well while both of you were in a state of ridiculous, thoughtless infatuation. You didn’t need to have more children than you could afford, as Dad and Mom had done. It all depended upon how you, as a thinking person, made your choices.

  Now, lying awake on the thin, lumpy mattress, Amanda’s mind wandered back to the supper table where, a few hours ago, she had been enveloped by a loving welcome. Exactly as she had expected, they were taking it for granted that she had come home to stay with them.

  “We need to get to know you again,” Dad had complained. “You only came for a week last summer and went right away up there to that college.”

  The grievance was plain
to hear. As gently as she could, Amanda had replied, “I needed to work, Dad. The job paid pretty well, with tips and a free dinner—I had to go back.”

  “With that diploma you’ve got, you could get a nice job here,” Mom had said. Her forehead was marked with anxious wrinkles, and her voice was plaintive. She had made several trips to the stove, refilling their plates from the pot in hand, and with each time had repeated herself. “A nice job in an office at the high school. I’ll bet you would get it if you asked, Amanda. I’ll bet you would.”

  Then Dad: “Maybe even in the office at the plant. Hey, you and Lorena and me going off to work together, me and Lorena in our work duds and you trotting upstairs in your high heels with diamonds in your ears!” He chuckled. “How about that?”

  “Yeah, but don’t marry some bum and don’t come back with no kids like Lorena’s.” Her youngest brother, Bub, had a way of shouting even when he was merely saying something like “Pass the butter.” “Home is bustin’ at the seams now.”

  Lorena, with the baby on her lap, leaned over to wipe brown gravy from Dottie’s chin. Plainly, she was too tired to give Bub an answer.

  Mom soothed, and worried. “Don’t talk like that, Bub. Any girl of ours can bring her babies home anytime, if she ever needs to.”

  “Long as they’re as pretty as these three,” Dad said. “Look at them. Goin’ to put them all in the movies, that’s what. Then we’ll all quit working.”

  “Us, too,” Mom said. “You’ll sing, Dad, and I’ll dance.”

  That they could make jokes and be jolly here! Yet, here is where she had grown up and gotten used to it all, to the smell of fried grease and the littered, untidy kitchen. A person could very likely get used to all of it again, if she had to. And get used to the town, too, where nothing much ever happened, or ever would. Tomorrow would be like today, the day after would be the same, and the day after that… She had always been out of place here and was now still more out of place.

  A desolate rain beat on the window. And Amanda, as the night wore on, had a strange sensation of being disconnected, of floating perhaps, with a fearful need to grasp something solid. It seemed to her at last that the only solid substance with which she had any contact was her friendship with Norma and Cecile. A family like Norma’s especially—never mind her brother—would have a golden key that would open many doors.

  Long before the dull, rainy dawn, Amanda had made her decision. Norma had invited her to spend a few weeks at her house before Cecile’s wedding. So, then, she would stay home here until next Monday, would with some pangs of sharp regret kiss them all good-bye, and would leave for Michigan.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The porch swing creaked and jerked as it swung. Larry had an annoying habit of propelling it too high with his feet, and Amanda, sitting beside him, wished he would stop. After the third week here, these evenings were starting to produce a tension within her. There was a sense of expectancy in the atmosphere, as if everybody was waiting for something to happen, to be resolved. And everyone knew very well what it was.

  “Tomorrow’s the shortest night in the year,” Norma remarked, making bright conversation. “It’s after ten now, and it still doesn’t seem completely dark, does it?” Larry said, “I wish I could take the day off tomorrow and be outdoors, but there are two sales pending, and I can’t let them slip. I should have been a schoolteacher like you. Then I’d have two months off in the summer. You knew darn well what you were doing, Norma.”

  He, too, was making conversation. But he had spoken with affection, and Norma laughed as though he had said something humorous. Then she stood, excusing herself, and covered a yawn.

  “If you all don’t mind, I think I’ll go up to bed now.”

  “Leaving your guest?” The question was a reprimand, and it was the third time Larry’s father had made it since Amanda had been here. She had counted the times. She had the impression that Lawrence Balsan was a perfectionist.

  “I don’t mind,” Amanda said quickly. “I’m used to Norma. She was always the first one in the whole dorm to go to bed. And why not go, if she’s sleepy?”

  “Amanda knows me pretty well,” Norma said brightly.

  “Well, it’s just not courteous,” Mr. Balsan insisted, as if his daughter needed instruction.

  “I can hardly keep my eyes open,” Norma answered, ignoring the criticism as she opened the screen door. Amanda knew that she had gone upstairs to get out of the way. Larry had probably asked her to leave them alone. But the father was not about to get out of their way. He reveals himself, she thought, with those remarks about making sales to “the right sort of people” from “the right kind of background.” That’s why there have been all those questions—so polite, so casual—about my family and my home. God knows I understand him, and who better than I? Am I one to blame a person for wanting the good things? He’s built his business from nothing, and he wants his son to marry up. It’s as simple as that. The funny thing is, he knows I know it. I catch his glances.

  A beam of light from indoors revealed Lawrence sitting upright in his chair, still wearing proper jacket and tie, although the night was warm. He had a sculptured face with no excess roundness of flesh to hide the bones, the very slightly aquiline nose, the resolute chin, or the curved structure surrounding the brilliant, youthful eyes. It was a haughty face. His employees were probably rather afraid of him.

  An involuntary smile touched her mouth. She was thinking that this scene could come out of a nineteenth-century novel. Trollope or Dickens would reproduce it superbly with all its elements of potential tragedy and humor, of disappointment, ambition, and conflict hidden beneath the still summer night.

  The sweetness of the night! Dark blue and shadowed under the trees, it was all white moonlight in the spaces between them. A bird, disturbed in its nest, gave a single, twittering cry. White iris gleamed along the path near the lantern.

  “I’ve been thinking, Larry,” said Lawrence, “we ought to take a small piece of that garden apartment. Naturally, they would like us to invest a serious amount, but I prefer to be cautious. It will probably do very well, yet there’s risk of competition close by.”

  “From that vacant plot on the corner. Yes, I was thinking that it should be up for sale soon,” Larry agreed. “I give it a year, maybe two, before they get moving on it.”

  Unlike his father’s manner of speech, which was clipped short, Larry’s was unhurried and calm. Up to this week, Amanda had not noticed it; nor had it occurred to her that the voice matched the man.

  “Even our father knows that he’s an asset to the firm,” Norma had told her. “Everybody likes Larry so much.”

  Yes, everybody would. He had an easy manner that made you comfortable. Yet in his quiet way, he was firm. It surprised her that she had so suddenly come to take so much notice of his qualities.

  As the swing moved, the creak that had annoyed her before began to lull instead. And that, too, was surprising. The minute his father should leave them alone, she knew that Larry would take her in his arms and kiss her. That action had become a pattern to which she made no objection. It was, after all, to be expected. He wanted her. Really, he was not about to hand her any golden key to open other doors. The only reason that they had never done anything more than a little kissing was the simple one that they were, after all, living in the family home. Larry was not the kind of man who would settle for the backseat of a car, for which, having had a few such experiences and having hated them, Amanda was thankful.

  The two male voices, although so near, were yet so remote to her that she was barely aware of them; her mind had begun to fill with odd new thoughts. If he were to ask her straight out—and she had a feeling that it would happen soon, probably tonight—would it be at all sensible to turn him down? I could be fond of him in time, she thought. And thinking so, she began to feel shame at having, only in her mind and only very briefly, considered the possibility of using him as a stepping-stone toward someone better.

 
; Fondness could easily turn into love, maybe a better love than it would be if she were mad about him, infatuated, as he obviously was about her. People had always married for practical reasons, and their marriages turned out well, indeed often more successful than most. It had happened all through human history, and was still happening.

  As the swing moved, it began to feel rather pleasant after all to have a man’s shoulder pressing against her own. The shoulder pressed closer, as if he felt her willingness. His aftershave lotion smelt of pine or some aromatic shrub. Yes, she thought again, I could really be fond of him. Rosy scenes of herself becoming a good wife, while having the means for graduate study and learning to do something significant—the vision of such a life grew warm within her as she leaned more closely upon Larry’s shoulder. Yes, I would be very good to him and for him, she thought again. I would never fool such a good man. He has all of Norma’s trustfulness.

  Curiously, the fact that his father disapproved of her only added to the excitement of this new vision, and to its challenge.

  So much had changed, so rapidly, in these short weeks.

  At last Lawrence said, “I’m going in. You need to get up early, Larry, and have your wits about you. Are you forgetting that those Fleming people are coming tomorrow morning? Nine sharp.”

  “I’m not forgetting, Dad.”

  When the screen door clicked shut, Larry smiled. “His bark is worse than his bite. Does he scare you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “He has a big heart. You have to know him. He was father and mother to Norma and me after our mother died.”

  He stood up, and pulling her off the swing, took her in his arms. “Come here. Oh, Amanda, come here. I wish we could go someplace—you know, don’t you? You know that I love you?”

  They clung together. When she opened her eyes, she saw past his shoulder that there were thousands of stars in the sky. And she knew that she was being moved by the loveliness of the night, by the soft air and the rustle of wind through the trees. It was as if she were seeing herself, as if she had stepped outside herself, watching a woman emerge from a forest into the starlight.