I saw the starry tree Eternity, put forth the blossom Time, she thought, and remembered Matthew Swain and the many, many friends who were part of Peyton Place. I lose my sense of proportion too easily, she admitted to herself. I let everything get too big, too important and world shaking. Only here do I realize the littleness of the things that can touch me.
Allison looked up at the sky, blue with the deep blueness peculiar to Indian summer, and thought of it as a cup inverted over her alone. The feeling was soothing, as it had always been, but for a single moment now, Allison felt that she no longer needed to be soothed and comforted as she once had. When she stood up and began to walk again, the sun was high with noontime brightness, and when she came to the sign with the red letters painted on its side, she had to shade her eyes with her hand to look down at the toy village that was Peyton Place.
Oh, I love you, she cried silently. I love every part of you. Your beauty and your cruelty, your kindness and ugliness. But now I know you, and you no longer frighten me. Perhaps you will again, tomorrow or the next day, but right now I love you and I am not afraid of you. Today you are just a place.
As she ran down the hill toward town, Allison fancied that the tree sang to her with the many voices of a symphony.
“Good-by, Allison! Good-by, Allison! Good-by, Allison!”
She was still running with a spate of excess energy when she reached Elm Street. Her mother called to her from the front door of the Thrifty Corner.
“Allison! I've been looking all over town for you! You have company at home. A young man all the way from New York. He says his name is David Noyes.”
“Thank you!” cried Allison and waved her hand.
She hurried, and when she reached Beech Street she ran all the way up the block to her house.
“That's the place that girl wrote the book about,” they all said.
“Have you read it?”
“Of course. I loved it. So true to life.”
“I hear the natives in Peyton Place are in an uproar over the book.”
“I know it. The poor girl's father lost his job over it. Well, it just goes to prove what I've always said. New England is a fine place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here.”
“The narrowness is something fantastic, isn't it?”
“If I were Allison MacKenzie, I'd be worried for my life. No kidding. Some of the faces on the natives have an absolute look of stone.”
—from Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place
By GRACE METALIOUS
With a new introduction by Ardis Cameron
Hardscrabble Books
Northeastern University Press
Published by University Press of New England
Paper, 272 pp. 5½ × 8½"
ISBN 13: 978-1-55553-669-5
ISBN 10: 1-55553-669-7
The continuing story of Peyton Place
is once again available in paperback
www.upne.com
Peyton Place Page 51
