Looking Back

by Belva Plain

  * * *

  Amanda liked the way Larry took charge. Her father, the only other man with whom she had lived, had depended entirely upon her mother.

  “He brings his wages home,” Mom always said, “but as far as he’s concerned, and as long as it didn’t wreck his chair and the TV, the roof could cave in.”

  Now Larry was giving a brisk report to the family. “It’s a good buy, Dad. The guy made some quick money, he was in a hurry to move into his new mansion, and he didn’t want to take time dickering. As for the furniture, I’m going to see my friend Tom Rich. Remember Tom? He’s got that furniture place out on the pike. He’ll be glad to give me a break. Matter of fact, Amanda, you and I’ll go see him tomorrow and see what he has on the floor. If he hasn’t got what we want, he can get quick delivery.”

  “I’m so glad for you both,” Norma said. “And you both look so happy! It’s wonderful.” Her warm smile spread across her round cheeks. “Remember, I take responsibility for it. You’d better give me credit, you two.”

  Amanda nodded. “We do, we do. But enough about us. Let’s talk about you.”

  “What’s there to say? School starts the week after next. I take a second-year Latin class, Caesar’s Gallic Wars. And some French classes. And something that’s called ‘Music Appreciation.’”

  “That’s some schedule,” Larry said heartily. “Very challenging, I should think.”

  But Norma would rather have a husband and be furnishing a house, Amanda thought. Not that every woman these days wanted that anymore, but a whole lot of them, whether they admitted it or not, still did, and Norma was one of them.

  “And what are you planning, Amanda?” asked Lawrence.

  Although he had kissed her and wished her joy when she had arrived half an hour ago, this was the first personal remark or question he had directly addressed to her. As a matter of fact, she reflected scornfully, once he had determined that she was not part of the city’s elite, or of any elite, he had scarcely ever addressed her at all.

  It was Larry who took his question. “Amanda plans to fix up our house first.”

  “But after that? Amanda is not the sort of woman who can lock herself up at home, away from the world. Amanda wants to live.” And saying so, Lawrence turned for a bare moment to rest his brilliant, youthful eyes upon her.

  Although she was both astonished, and for no plausible reason uncomfortable, she found a quick answer.

  “I had been thinking I might learn to be a paralegal. I love words, and besides, it wouldn’t take too long to get through the course. It’s not like working toward a graduate degree. It’s not as expensive, either.”

  Larry exclaimed, “You never told me!”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “Well, you can’t do it this minute. The house comes first, and that will surely take a couple of months.”

  “Larry is right,” Lawrence said. “Take your time, Amanda. These are precious days. Don’t rush them.”

  Such thoughtful advice was the last thing she would have expected from Lawrence Balsan. Well, you never knew about people, did you?

  When Larry took their suitcases upstairs, he set them down in the guest room where, only a short few weeks before, he would have been an intruder.

  “Every night, whenever I passed this closed door, I used to go half crazy with wanting to get in. Weren’t you lonesome in this bed by yourself?”

  “Of course I was, but we couldn’t help it, could we?”

  “Just looking at your happy face would make anybody feel good.”

  And now again came the confusion, the vague fear that she was acting a part. But then she protested: But I do love him, don’t I? Are there not more ways than one to love?

  She began to undress while he watched her, smiling, and she smiled back.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Miss Elizabeth Jenkins was retiring. Norma, going through the hall after her last class on Friday, was suddenly reminded of this when she passed the third-grade room and saw Elizabeth packing a cardboard box.

  “Oh,” cried Norma, “I feel so guilty! I had planned to do something special on your final day, but the time ran away from me, and I didn’t look at the calendar. Will you forgive me?”

  Tired eyes, too old for the owner’s age, looked up at Norma. “I’m glad that you’ve come at all,” Miss Jenkins said simply. “It’s nice to say good-bye to somebody on your last day.”

  Apparently nobody else had come into this room to mark the day. They were just too busy to take the time, or they had forgotten. It was shocking. It was a silent tragedy. Norma hardly knew what else to say except to offer some help, to speak superfluous, dull words.

  “Are you packing these books on the desk? Do you need another box?”

  “No, thanks. The books belong to the school. I’ve only packed the contents of my desk.”

  There she stood, a thin little woman with gray-brown hair and a perky, small face. A sparrow.

  “How long has it been?” asked Norma, needing to say something. “How many years?”

  “Thirty-five. It hardly seems possible, does it?” Miss Jenkins had a habit of asking rhetorical questions. “Sometimes it seems like a long time, and other times it seems like yesterday. But people always say that, don’t they?”

  “You’ll be missed,” Norma said. “To tell you the truth, I usually don’t enjoy this new lower-school language program all that much, but I have enjoyed teaching French to your class. Your children seem so interested, so bright. Just—different from most.”

  “Oh, do you really think so? I’m so glad to hear that. I’ve always wanted to bring out the best in them, to make them listen and look about them at everything, at people, birds—”

  Norma followed the gesture to where along one wall hung a row of nicely framed bird prints, each with its proper title.

  “Oh, those are lovely. I’ll help you take them down.”

  “No, I’m leaving them here. They liven the room for the children. They’re better off here than they would be at home.”

  Elizabeth Jenkins, seeing a broken piece of chalk on the floor beneath the blackboard, stooped to pick it up and dropped it into the wastebasket. In thirty-five years, Norma thought, she must have picked up thousands of broken pieces of chalk.

  “I must say something about you, Norma. I’ve seen many language teachers before you, and from that first day last September when you came into my classroom, I knew you were going to be special. So young and inexperienced you were, yet you already had that special touch.”

  “Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you.”

  In the year since Norma had come back here as a teacher rather than as a schoolgirl, her contacts had chiefly been among young faculty members; she would have been embarrassed to approach on an equal basis anyone who had once been her teacher. But since Elizabeth Jenkins had never been her teacher, it was easier.

  “What are you going to do with all the wonderful new time you’ll have?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’ll be busy enough. Mother and I have been living in a nice apartment, but it’s on the second floor of a house, up a steep flight of stairs. So we’ll have to move. Last month she fell on those stairs, going up, thank goodness, but she cracked a bone in her ankle nevertheless. Our lease runs out next Tuesday, so that’s why I’m leaving here a week early, because we have to move.” And Elizabeth Jenkins smiled, although there was no evident reason for a smile.

  She smiles out of habit, Norma thought. It is a way of ingratiating oneself. An old woman, going home to an old mother! No companion, no husband, no child! A silent tragedy, yes. And there are millions of other personal tragedies all around us, although because they are so private, we do not see them.

  “Well, Norma, I guess I’d better go. It’s been nice knowing you. Keep up your good work.”

  Together they carried the box to the car and parted.

  “I’ll be calling the office with my new address, Norma, so people can keep in touch with me.”

 
; Not many people will. Right now I think I will, but most likely after two or three attempts, I won’t. For in all this year we haven’t spoken as much as we have just now.

  Norma stood watching the car back out, start away, and stop.

  “Norma, I forgot. Do you mind running back to check the window? I’m afraid I may have left the casement open, and if it should rain, it will stain the floor. They’ve just been polished.”

  “Right away. Don’t worry.”

  She cares, she really cares about the floor. … Back in the classroom, Norma stood at the window, feeling the three o’clock silence of the deserted school. Thirty-five years, she repeated. Classes come and go, new faces appear and fade, the oak leaves fall, the pink azaleas bud and bloom. Thirty-five years, and then home to Mother.

  “Is that you, Norma?”

  Turning, she saw Mr. Cole. Occasionally, at a faculty tea with no students to hear, he was Lester. Otherwise, he was Mr. Cole, and she was Ms. Balsan. Two or three of the women old enough to retire were still, out of habit, called “Miss.”

  “Yes, I came in to see Miss Jenkins off.”

  If he could address her as Norma, then she should be allowed to voice her feelings. “There was no one else here. It was sad.”

  “You’re right. We all get so busy that we don’t have time to consider what’s important. … I don’t know. But I did have a talk with her yesterday in my office to show appreciation. Recognition. It’s hard. What thanks can there be for so much devotion? All those years?”

  Lester looked troubled, as if he really cared. He does care, Norma thought. She had heard of so many incidents involving both students and teachers, to know that he did. He was a quiet man, often dressed in brown tweeds; you saw brown eyes and hair, all of him brown, with the warmth of bronze and russet. He looked like a teacher, too, which is an absurd thing to say because what does a teacher look like, for Heaven’s sake? Still, she thought, if you were to stand him next to my brother, you would easily see that Larry is not the teacher.

  Melanie Fisher had a crush on Lester. She had never revealed it to anyone, yet it, too, was easy to see. Everyone knew that he had taken her out once or twice and then not again. People had also seen him in restaurants, once with a “stunning” young woman who had red hair and a foreign accent; another person had seen him with a young girl who could have been a model.

  “She forgot her bird prints,” Lester said.

  “No, she left them on purpose for the children.”

  “They’re very good ones, you know. This parrot’s extinct. Not that I know so much, but I am a birder, and I happen to have read about this particular parrot. Well, I’m calling it a day. You, too?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll stay awhile to use the piano in the music room. It’s better than the one we have at home. If you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? Help yourself. Just watch when the janitor leaves so you won’t be locked in overnight.”

  This was not Norma’s usual Friday mood. As with most people, Friday meant welcome rest and pleasure. She laid her pencil down on the pile of Latin finals that were to be graded. Ordinarily, she really liked these tasks; Latin was, for her, the same tool or toy that mathematics might be for somebody else. But today she had carried home a load of self-pity and dread.

  Was she, in the end, to become another Elizabeth Jenkins? She was seeing her life escaping from her control. Once she had watched a beach ball, a light, careless thing, round and bright, caught in a receding surf, carried far out, tossed back into the shallows, then carried back again, each time a little farther out, until finally it was gone from sight and would never return. It had occurred to her then that, like the ball, a life could simply flow away.

  It was absurd—she knew it was—that a person only twenty-three years old could feel that way. Nevertheless, right now, she did feel that way.

  From across the street there came the mingled ring and screech of soprano laughter. Two girls no more than sixteen or seventeen years old lived in that house; they were already luring boys in droves, and had been luring them since they were in grade school. What was it? Why them? And why Amanda or Cecile? Or why Elizabeth Jenkins? Or herself?

  On the back of the closet door, there was a full-length mirror. With a sudden wrench, she got out of the chair to stand before it and examine herself, bit by bit. The hair was good enough, especially after the expensive cut that Amanda had coaxed her into having. Her skin was unblemished. Her eyes were nothing unusual, just nice, average brown eyes like Larry’s. Her cheekbones were too broad, also like Larry’s. The nose was a bit broad, too, but certainly it was no monstrous affliction such as you sometimes see. The mouth was just a mouth. Sound white teeth, brighter than many people had, were pretty when she smiled. Her figure was slender, not alluringly curved, but average, as good as most young women’s and better than many.

  But now the legs. Dear God, how can You have made such legs? Columns, they are, without any shape, the ankles thick as the knees, crammed into the shoes so that the flesh bulges over them. Do You know how it feels at a school dance to see a boy approach with invitation written on his face, then to watch when his eyes go downward to my legs, as he changes his mind and walks away? Wallflower: a grandmother’s or perhaps a great-grandmother’s term that describes the one who sits there smiling, who hopes, and who is never asked to dance. Unless her brother asks her?

  It’s all very well, this talk about how unjust it is for women to be judged by their beauty or their lack of it. Tell that to the girl at the dance, or to the woman at the dance of life. Of course it’s unjust! But that’s the way it is, no matter how many articles are written about why it shouldn’t be that way. Yet, it’s really quite a simple matter: Everyone loves beauty, and not only in a woman, but in a man, or a landscape—or in a dog.

  Angrily, she tore off her skirt and pulled a pair of trousers from a hanger. If it weren’t for that stodgy head at school, she thought, that so-distinguished scholar Dr. Griffin, she could wear these every day. But as long as he remained in charge, he would have his way. Perhaps if someone were to speak to Lester Cole? No, no. A young assistant, himself new in the job, shouldn’t be asked to challenge his boss. Not fair.

  Lester would listen, though. You could tell that he was kind and open-minded. He had felt for Elizabeth Jenkins …

  I wonder whether he’s in love with anybody? I imagine he would be very tender. Heaven knows what makes me think so, I who’s never had any experience. What can I know?

  And she sat there gazing out onto the street. The soft spring air blew between the curtains, and the light began to change as afternoon moved toward evening. Big boys, the grind of whose noisy skates had once disturbed Amanda when she had occupied the guest room, were scattering. The little hopscotch players were being called in to supper. The old man who apparently spent the whole day working at his perennial border was putting down his tools.

  How long she had sat there, Norma did not know, until a gong was struck in the hall downstairs. It was the dinner gong, which her father had installed because people in great houses always had a dinner gong.

  As she rose to answer it, she had the feeling that, gradually, her mood was changing. Was it a kind of reassurance that had come from watching the healthy, common life on the street? Perhaps. And perhaps it was also the working of her own inner toughness, which had reawakened of its own accord. Seize the day. She always did seize it, didn’t she, every morning? Head over heart. She was used to doing that, too.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A manda heard Norma lightly tapping the horn outside. She took a last approving look around her home. Finally, finally, it was finished! The “set”—long curved sofa and matching easy chairs, all wine-colored with the shades on the twin tables made to harmonize—filled one wall. On the opposite wall stood a huge, impressive piece of furniture of some pale, highly polished wood, the newest thing on the market, as the salesman had assured them. In addition to space for books and curios, it even had a wine
closet with room for every kind of bottled drink that anyone might desire, along with a mirrored bar. Beyond the open door of this room stood the dining room set: table, chairs, china cupboard, and sideboard, all glossy and all matching.

  Mine, she thought with satisfied approval. Owning good things like these made you feel warm within. All else was secondary.

  As she rode away in Norma’s car, she could not help turning her head for another glimpse of the little white house that was her own.

  “I’m glad Cecile thought of these monthly luncheons,” Norma said. “They seem to prolong the college years. Keeping us under the same security blanket, I suppose.” She laughed. “But people do drift apart if they go too long without seeing each other.”

  “I can’t imagine that could happen to us three.”

  “I hope not. Wait till you see Cecile’s apartment. What paint and new wallpaper can do! You’ll hardly recognize it. Their first anniversary’s next month, and they’ve just now got the place in shape, can you believe it?” And again Norma laughed fondly.

  “I can believe it. It’s taken us fairly long, too,” Amanda said, feeling complacent.

  Some half an hour later, as they stopped before a hollow square of garden apartments, she felt complacent again. “I would hate to be cooped up here in a little apartment,” she said.

  “When you see what they’ve done with that little apartment, you may change your mind. I know I’d love it, and someday, sooner rather than later, I intend to have one. I want a place of my own.”