by Belva Plain
Occasionally she closed her eyes. Occasionally when the bus stopped, she half rose in her seat as if prepared to get off, and then sat down again. Her hands were tightly clasped on her handbag, revealing the tension of her body, revealing it so distinctly that after a while she became aware that people were observing her.
A group of four girls seated two by two across the aisle were in fact staring. She had attracted enough attention for them to whisper together. One gave a raucous bellow of laughter that caused an elderly gentleman to turn around and look at them. They’re laughing at me, she thought indignantly, they in their shorts and outrageous miniskirts high to the crotch, with their heavy thighs exposed, their hairy calves and their not-quite-clean toes exposed, too, between the strips of their gold leather sandals. Tough. Tough and rude, they were, and she sat up straighter, her hands still clasped on her patent leather bag, her feet in their matching patent leather pumps resting properly on the floor.
They were still whispering and laughing. “Stuck up,” they’re thinking, because I don’t look like them.
Then she saw that one of them was showing the others a magazine. Was it possible that they had been looking and laughing not at her, but at something in the magazine? And if they had for whatever reason been judging her, had she not been judging them? And what did she know of them except that they were not well groomed and had no proper manners? What did they know of her except that her clothes were fashionable and expensive?
They don’t know what I’m doing, she thought. They might be shocked if they knew, or perhaps only titillated, not shocked at all. Nobody really knows very much about anybody else. We are only strangers sitting temporarily in a bus, coming from different places and going to different places.
Her lips moved: Forward or back? One foot tries to step forward, while the other tries to step back. But that way, you can only stand still. Decide. Decide now. I am a hungry woman who wants to break the window and steal the bread. I am a thirsty one who has had no water and is weak with thirst. I am a needy woman who has only to reach out her hand and seize what she needs. Does it matter that I have no right to do it, even if no one will know and no one will be hurt if I do?
And if that is so, it doesn’t matter all that much, does it? Why then should she keep trying to resist? Anyway, it is beginning to appear that she really does not have the power to resist. Every day and half the night for weeks on end she has had but one thought, suspended between a strange sadness and a great joy.
Her heart began to race and her head to whirl, as the bus slowed to turn the corner at the bridge and enter Lane Avenue. The last time she had seen it was on the way back from her honeymoon. The first time was when Norma had made one of her little jokes: Don’t ever accept an invitation to a party on Lane Avenue.
And suddenly, she was terrified: What if he wasn’t there? Would there be another bus back? She ought to have come in her car. No, he had said; if something were to go wrong with the car, a flat tire or a slight fender bender, you would have to explain what you were doing on Lane Avenue. Nobody you know ever comes here. That’s why it’s a safe place for us.
He thought of everything, and she was safe with him. Of course he would be here, right on the corner. She stood up and was waiting to step off the bus the minute it stopped.
“You’re late. I was worried,” he said. “I thought maybe you had changed your mind. I’ve thought of nothing else since that day. It’s seemed more like a year than a month.”
His eyes beseeched her; there was a deep tenderness in them. Even so, he could not help but be in command; as she looked up into his face, he was, as he always was, regal. She gave him a small, shy smile, and holding hands they walked away down the street.
“Your smile, Amanda, lights up the sky.”
One day in early fall, Cecile telephoned Norma with an invitation to go to the airport. Their mutual friend Liz, on her way to Europe, was to be there for two hours between connecting flights. Cecile, with all her wonderful qualities, could still be annoying sometimes. No doubt Liz had done some urging; Cecile was always obliging; and she, Norma, was not much better at saying “no.” Hence had come the long ride to the airport, an admittedly pleasant coffee hour with Liz, whom neither of them had seen since Commencement Day, and now the long ride back to school where she had, for convenience’s sake, left her car.
“The traffic here, getting off the bridge, is getting worse every day,” Cecile complained as the car crept around the corner.
Norma yawned. “It’s a good thing you’re driving. I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Too bad Amanda couldn’t come. This was supposed to be her off Saturday, but they’re too busy, she said. She really does work hard.”
The car, idling behind a truck that was being unloaded, was almost at the turn to Lane Avenue.
“Look down there,” Cecile resumed. “Those places can’t have had a coat of paint in a hundred years. It’s awful. Just look.”
Norma was looking. When her sleepy eyes came awake, her heart made a terrifying leap. Surely that is Amanda over there, and my father with her? Walking arm in arm … The jacket, the famous coral, orange, or whatever you call it. No, that’s crazy. It isn’t possible. They’re half a block away. I’m not seeing straight.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Cecile. Were they both seeing the same thing? But no, if Cecile had recognized Amanda, she would have exclaimed. Or maybe she would not have done so? The concept was so absurd that no one would want to believe it, and so would not want to make a foolish mistake.
At any rate, the truck moved ahead and they were able to move around the corner. Cecile turned on the radio.
“Let’s have some music,” she said.
Norma’s heart was thudding, steadily thudding; her whole body was shocked. Could there be any doubt in her mind about what she knew she had seen? But perhaps she was only imagining she had seen it. The eyes and the mind play tricks.
Her nerves were throbbing along with the music. That long, vivid hair and the coral jacket were not seen everywhere. And her father! Was it likely that a person would not recognize her own father, even from half a block away?
So she wrestled, her will not to believe in dire conflict with the growing certainty of fact. Sweating, she wiped her hands with a handkerchief. Impatient with the slow progress of the car, she could have jumped out of it, to run, to do something. But to do what? When she knew, she already knew, what she had seen.
What were they doing there, when Amanda was supposed to be at work? What would they be doing in that neighborhood, or doing together anywhere? It made no sense. There was never any love lost between them.
Cecile observed, “You’re very restless, aren’t you?”
“I am? I didn’t realize it.”
“You’re uncomfortable. It’s been a tedious drive. I’ll drop you off at school in five minutes so you can pick up your car and go home. It’s been a nice day though, hasn’t it?”
At this minute the word “home” was distressing. Her father might come back there before she would have had time to collect her thoughts. She needed time. She was afraid of herself, afraid that some queer phenomenon might be taking place in her mind, that she might have had a hallucination, such as people have when they see water on a desert.
As soon as Cecile was out of sight, she drove to the theater building at the far end of the campus. The door was open. Next to it was the headmaster’s house, where some sort of meeting must be taking place because there were a dozen cars on his driveway. Feeling safe because of their presence and yet at the same time needing to be let alone, she went into the music room and sat down to think.
The thought came to her that she was being unduly suspicious. Facts were what was needed. Taking her cell phone from her handbag, she telephoned the shop in Cagney Falls and asked to speak to Amanda.
“Amanda’s not here today” came the bubbling voice of Dolly.
“She’s not? This is Norma. You remember me, D
olly? I thought she was there.”
“She was supposed to be, but she’s at home. Called in with an awful cold, bronchitis or something. Could hardly talk. I just phoned to see how she is, but there’s no answer.”
“Thank you, Dolly.”
Cold fear came now with the sweat. This isn’t possible, she murmured to herself. After a minute or two of utter bewilderment, she called Amanda at home and got no answer. Then she took up the telephone again and called the main Balsan office.
“Mrs. Flanagan? This is Norma. Is my father there? I have a message to give him.”
“Dear no, didn’t he tell you? He took the afternoon off to drive out to Creston. There’s some property he needed to look at.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Flanagan.”
Her voice was natural and calm, which was a miracle. Creston was at least fifty miles away, far enough to account for an afternoon’s absence. So could she still tell herself that she had not seen what she saw? She was in the kind of shock that happens when one has been a witness to some disaster. And laying her head on the back of the chair, she sat staring up at the ceiling.
“I saw your car,” said Lester Cole, “and wondered what you were doing alone here. Are you all right?”
She sat up. “Yes, yes. Just tired all of a sudden.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry if you don’t,” she said almost angrily. She must look a fright here, hot and flushed, with her hair all this way and that. It wasn’t tactful, it wasn’t decent for him to barge in like this. He ought to know better.
“What are you doing here all alone?”
Now came his stern look, the one that befitted the assistant to the headmaster. Maybe there was some rule about entering the building without having a legitimate reason? She didn’t know.
“I wanted to play the piano, to practice,” she lied. “You remember, I explained to you several times that the pianos at school are so much better than the one we have at home? You said you didn’t mind.”
“And I don’t mind. Why not play something for me now? Play what you were playing before.”
Either she had to read and memorize for him, or she had to provide him with musical entertainment! She wanted to scream at him: Let me alone! Can’t you see that I’m suffering? I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.
But obediently she went to the piano and began to play from memory the Mozart Serenade in D. The notes went briskly, brightly rippling toward the doorway and the sun; then, as abruptly, they ceased. For, suddenly overwhelmed, she had to stop.
“I’m ashamed that you should see me like this. It’s not me,” she stammered.
“Surely I know that by now. I won’t question, I won’t probe, but I’m not going to leave you until you feel better.”
What was ever going to make her feel better? Unless perhaps proof of some sort were to turn facts inside out? Meanwhile this man, this nice, well-meaning man, was just sitting there while she, too, was just sitting there staring at the piano keys.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he began, meaning obviously to break the silence, “how much we appreciate the way you stepped in and took over the A.P. French class when Mme. Perrault got sick. The way those kids swirled right through the finals and did so wonderfully well! You deserve an award.”
“It was nothing.”
“Far from that. It was a crucial time, and you had four Latin classes along with it, not to mention third-grade French. You’re a born teacher, Norma, and a born linguist, too. Why don’t you take up Urdu or Bulgarian in your spare time?”
This little attempt at a joke falling flat, Lester bent forward to see her more clearly. Three parallel lines marked his troubled forehead.
“Sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t funny.”
Then silence came back. If he would simply go, she wanted to cry! Let me sit here till the cars have all left and I can run out to mine without having everyone see my red nose and eyes.
“Have I ever mentioned to you that I’ve often stopped in the corridor over in the Hale Building to hear you play? Have I?”
“No.”
“You’re a gifted woman, Norma, in many ways.”
This time, too, she wanted to say something and did not: If it’s even true, what good is it doing me right now?
“Thank you,” she said, “although I don’t agree.”
“Tell me, apropos of that, what’s happening with Jessie?”
Poor lost, lonesome Jessie! She at least was worth talking about. “I think she’s doing better. She’s happier.”
“I got that feeling when I saw her on the Great Lawn the other day. She had on one of those silly shirts that girls are all wearing this year, she was walking with one of the boys, and she looked almost pretty. What have you done to her? I have a hunch you got her father involved.”
“How did you guess?”
“I didn’t guess. Given the hopeless mother she has, it would be the logical thing to do.”
“Well, I told her to speak to him about having some money to choose and buy her own clothes, so she can dress like everybody else. That mother’s a self-centered fool with, in my opinion at least, a large problem. Maybe she wants to keep Jessie an ugly duckling so that she can preen her own swan feathers. That can happen.”
How long would he insist on staying? He’s being the good Samaritan, she thought, diverting me with talk about Jessie, and he will stay until he has found out what’s wrong with me. But never, never even under torture, will I reveal this.
Suddenly there were voices outside, and the sound of engines starting up. A couple of passersby looked in at the pair who were sitting there together in the deserted theater building.
“We should go someplace else,” said Lester.
Understanding that it did not look exactly suitable for them to be there as they were, Norma got up at once, went toward her car, and was stopped by Lester’s tone of command.
“We’ll walk down to the playing field. They’re having softball practice, and we can watch.”
She understood that, too. It was natural for faculty people on one of these golden afternoons to come over to the school and relax at the playing field. She understood also that in his position he could make a reasonable request of her and expect to be heeded.
When they were seated on a shaded bench, he returned to the subject. “I thought we were friends, or I wanted to think so. But to be frank with you, Norma, I sometimes have a feeling that you really don’t want to be.”
She was astonished. “What do I do that gives you such an idea?”
“You really don’t do anything. It’s just that you have a distant manner.”
Still astonished, she cried, “I have? I never mean to be ‘distant.’ I’m a quiet person, and always have been. You misunderstand me.”
“If I do, I’m sorry. But sometimes in school as we pass each other, I know you pretend you don’t see me. And I’m looking straight at you.”
She always thought he was looking at her legs … She could think of nothing to say. Everything was going wrong today. Everything.
“I’m not myself right now,” she blurted. “I had a bad experience, and I’m terribly confused.”
“A bad experience here in school?” he asked with immediate concern.
“No, it had nothing to do with school.”
If it were possible to reveal the truth to anybody, it might well be to this kind, intelligent man. With great tact, as her voice broke, he looked away from her toward the field where girls in yellow uniforms were running on the grass.
“What would you do,” she cried, “if you caught people you loved and trusted, people close to you, doing something terribly wrong? Let’s say you saw your—” she fumbled for words “—your grandmother stealing something in a store. Of course it wasn’t that. It was something just as wild, something very, very ugly. What would you think?”
“Why, I would think that your poor old grandma was ill and needed
help.”
Norma shook her head. “No, no. I gave you a poor example. These people are not ill. I trusted them. It’s unbelievable. I could scarcely believe my eyes.”
“There’s a difference between suspecting and knowing. Maybe you really shouldn’t believe your eyes.”
“What do you mean? I know what I saw.”
“Do you know how many witnesses in criminal cases, honest people who were sure they knew what they saw, have been proven wrong?”
“Yes, but I really, really do know what I saw.”
“Those people thought so, too—under oath, moreover.”
“No, no, Lester.” And yet only three days ago she had seen Larry and Amanda together, quite unchanged. Would they have been so if—if the other were true?
Yes, maybe.
Lester persisted. “So let us say that you actually did see something so shocking. Let’s say that your grandmother, having lost her mind, had become a shoplifter. You would still have to go on living your own life, wouldn’t you? I should hope you would.”
She did not answer. He was reasoning with her as a good teacher reasons with a child in distress. Perhaps he was right. It could have been an illusion, there on the corner of Lane Avenue.
“You would still have to go on with your own life,” Lester insisted.
Norma smiled weakly. That, at least, was true. There was nothing else you could do. She could hardly confront them: Was it you I saw on Lane Avenue near the bridge? And if so, what were you doing there together?
“Don’t jump at conclusions. That’s my advice, Norma. Things unfold, for better or worse, but inevitably they do. Take my word for it. One day you will find out whether you were hallucinating or whether you saw what you think you saw. In the meanwhile, how about dinner tomorrow?”
Cecile was in a hurry. The excursion to the airport had taken longer than she had expected, and there were some preparations yet to be made for the evening’s meeting at home. Her father was to bring some investment bankers to meet Peter for a discussion about the railroad land. A subject that had long lain more or less dormant was now awakening; recently there had been a noteworthy editorial in the morning paper protesting the long delay in making some good use of the “valuable acres.”
