The Wintering

by Joan Williams

  Amy, banging her suitcase a step at a time, calculated how many more trips she would have to make. Nancy’s accent had sounded much more nasal and Northern than she had remembered. Nancy did cry and dance when Amy arrived breathlessly. Hugging her, Nancy shouted, at last they were free! They went into the apartment, where she hoped Amy would not mind that she had gone ahead and decorated. Nancy announced proudly that she had made the curtains and bedspreads herself.

  “Oh,” Amy said, looking around, “I didn’t know you sewed.” Catching the slighting tone, Nancy said that indeed she did sew and making it more obvious she pulled slightly out of its corner her shiny walnut-cased machine. What else, Amy wondered, in this first moment of coexistence, could she have said except that she liked the furnishings? But, regrettably, the apartment looked cozy. The curtains and bedspreads were all chintz when she had envisioned filling it more modernly, with colorful burlap curtains and sling chairs. Nancy had lacquered a coffee table pink. On it were overlapping copies of Vogue. Nancy beamed at having coordinated the apartment, carrying pink from room to room. Amy was taken around to see a fuzzy pink toilet seat cover and dish-towels with hand-screened pink carnations. In the bedroom to which she was assigned were pink velvet accent pillows. “You don’t mind having the alcove?” Nancy asked. Glancing at the things Amy had brought up, she added, as if it were not an afterthought, that Amy would have more space for her typewriter.

  Later, when Amy set her emptied teacup on the pink coffee table, Nancy immediately whisked it to the sink and rinsed the cup. Rightly and immediately, Amy guessed the main thought in Nancy’s mind was getting married. After dinner they settled into an awkward silence, until Nancy decided to phone her family. Listening to the conversation, Amy grew lonesome thinking of the unavailability of her own parents. Nancy, in bed, fell instantly asleep. Lying in her own bed and hearing hatefully the even breathing, Amy decided only brainless people did not lie awake a long time, thinking. Wide-eyed, she stared at the chintz ruffles shadowed here on the wall, like the ones in her bedroom at home. The difference was that at home, her curtains were reflected by moonlight, and here a street light shone annoyingly into her window. She almost listened for the smooth running of Edith’s heavy curtains along their antiqued rod. Young men passed along the street and yelled curses, in loud voices, more vile than any she had ever heard. Amy, smiling, thought that at last she was beginning to live, that each new experience would add up to some large meaning of her life.

  The next evening, Nancy sauntered in and announced without the faintest embarrassment that she had taken a job with a friend of her father’s, in an advertising agency. Advertising! Amy thought. She trudged the city endlessly that day looking for a job. That, she thought, had been the point, to struggle and to poke about in sections of the city she would not see otherwise. Her suspicions about Nancy were further confirmed when she told about the “darling boy” who worked in the office. Amy realized sadly that Nancy had less sense of adventure than anyone she had ever known.

  Every day, roaming the city, Amy thought with disgust of Nancy safely in her Madison Avenue office. Determined to live a life different from what she had known, she sought out shoddy places for lunch. A tiny cafeteria on Fourteenth Street smelled of cabbage and soured sponges used to wipe the tables. But the oily food was cheap. Inside, someone always was asleep or drunk, which was picturesque. Then one day, the counterman leaned over the steam table, with a sweating face, and said, “Honey, one of your stockings is falling down.”

  Amy stood stock-still, mortified, while an old man, eating soup, looked up at her dumbly and questioning, What was she going to do? She wondered even if there were a ladies room whether she would dare use it. She thought suspicious diseases came from bathrooms. Certainly they might in a place like this. A sense of unbelonging as well as one of embarrassment flooded her. Turning, Amy went out with a stricken face. On the street, she tried to straighten the stocking, but several people watched. She then went on, with it slightly droopy. Standing on a corner, she ate a dry bagel for lunch, wondering if her life were to be forever a multiplicity of confusing details.

  To take a job meant she might make a mistake; suppose, accepting one position, she heard later of something better? Her days continued to be filled with job-hunting. To give them more point, she began keeping her diary again, convincing herself that every minor incident would eventually have importance.

  Monday. I took the wrong subway and couldn’t get off until I got all the way to Queens!

  Tuesday. I’ve been discriminated against! I answered an ad for a stock girl at a famous hat shop, and they said they preferred Negro girls! That should make a great short story but should that be the beginning, the middle or the ending?

  When Nancy was told the incident, she stared at Amy blankly. Why did she want to apply for so menial a job? Pitying her, Amy knew there was no sense trying to explain. Nancy went regularly to her office, then out with the “darling boy,” leaving Amy alone most evenings. She began to sleep late every morning, telling herself, the first one, that she had a sore throat. But the week stretched out, and the next began. Only desultorily afterward did she search for a job, infrequent afternoons. She often reread the letter from Jeff her mother had sent, keeping it in her pocketbook always with her. Readdressed in her mother’s handwriting, the letter, to Amy’s surprise, held no cautions or explanations when she really longed for her mother to have advised, See him, or don’t!

  Nancy’s engagement was announced, and Amy thought, haughtily, she could certainly find someone better than Nancy had. When the young man came to dinner, she asked if he had read Reconstruction. Without glancing at Nancy, she tried to pretend it was not surprising her fiancé had never heard of Almoner. “He’s a writer Amy knows,” Nancy said lamely.

  The young man never understood exactly why, but, always uncomfortable around Amy, he would not come back to dinner. He then took Nancy out and Amy was more alone. She had a few dates with college friends, but they all ended in mutual lack of interest. But somewhere in the whole Village wasn’t there an artistic person she could go out with, or even marry? A painter or an architect. Someone in a creative field. A young Almoner, destined for fame. Though she would not marry the first person who asked her, as Nancy had. If only Nancy had been honest about her intentions from the beginning, she would not have a roommate sewing a trousseau. She had needed someone as interested as she in finding out meanings, Amy thought.

  The apartment’s silence began to be oppressive. Nancy stayed at her parents’ on weekends. Amy, growing tired of wandering about the Village, some mornings washed underwear and straightened her drawers. She feared that when she was not there, Nancy had peeked into them, horrified. Opening them herself, she sometimes had felt overwhelmed and shut them quickly. She understood for the first time people committing suicide, particularly older people whose lives had come to nothing. She bought two goldfish, but it was enervating to change their water so frequently. Was it possible she would go on like this, grow old, and her life would never change?

  She wanted to explore further, but wandering about the city as an occupation had lagged. She decided to get up at some unknown hour, like six A.M. Then, pigeons fearlessly strolled the Village streets. But, sadly, there was no sense of a day beginning. Amy missed grass wet underfoot, the smell of earth, though bits of sky she could see had a moist look, and there were fewer people. A man making flapjacks in a restaurant window decided her to have breakfast there. Hopefully, she tried to joke with the counterman when he set down her orange juice. He returned to the kitchen without his surly expression changing. Never would she be capable of light, bantering chatter, Amy conceded, staring into the juice which tasted like orange soda pop. A young man with a reddish, crinkly beard sat opposite, his blue jeans interestingly smeared with paint. He certainly must be an artist. Amy decided immediately afterward that he had great depth. She had to have courage, for once; direct her life and meet him. Leaning to see the title of the book he was r
eading, Amy said, “Excuse me, but I see you like Henry Miller.”

  Amelia said, “What are you doing in the closet so long?” and came toward it. Having huddled there, Inga came out with her face disarranged, sadly waving the pink straw hat.

  “Looking for this,” she said, and would have wondered how Amelia knew where she was, except that Amelia knew everything. “I’m going to sit in the hammock.”

  There were limits to things, Amelia thought. The sadness on Inga’s face was one. Amelia felt keyed up by the April weather, and though not sure for what, she liked to think for life itself. Birds were throaty in the flowering bushes, her bulbs were coming up, nothing could be sweeter than tuberoses in moist dirt, and there were baby rabbits in the pine copse. Why couldn’t Inga turn her thoughts to spring?

  “What’s the matter?” Amelia said.

  “He’s going to New York.”

  “He always does when a book’s finished.” Inga’s drawn look was not going to take away her own joy in the day. “Just look at this day,” Amelia said. “Go on and sit in the hammock, don’t worry about freckling.”

  As Inga put on the pink hat her wedding ring shone in the light. Amelia looked down at her own ringless hand, thinking not only would Inga require increasing care, but that she required, still, too many explanations. She had been irritated, only yesterday, when she mentioned that the old hotel on the edge of town had been a hospital during the war. Inga had said, “The Vurld Var?” She had cried, “The Civil War!”

  Inga, without shading her eyes, looked at the day. “In April, where I came from,” she said, “people still ski.”

  But skiing was something she had never known, so Amelia had no interest in that. Imagining was not her forte. Then suddenly realizing that imagining was Jeff’s business, she felt dumbfounded. She had given his work short shrift all along. Now he was leaving, and she was sorry about both things. Saying what she believed would not help Inga, and Amelia said, “Jeff probably doesn’t even know that girl’s up there.”

  “He’d have found out the same way we did, through the paper,” Inga said.

  “He doesn’t read the society page,” Amelia said. “The only mention of it was buried at the bottom of that column about her father opening a dancing school. Jeff got those things out for the cleaner. To be put away for the winter.”

  “He’s packing them now,” Inga said.

  “He’s always had to go to New York when a book’s finished,” Amelia said. She was sorry he had disappointed Jessie again about the garden. And all along, she felt Jeff had not thought enough about going. She ought to be able to delay him.

  At cold supper on Sunday night, Amelia said, “Dear Brother, are you going to New York just when you’re getting your oldmaid sister off your hands?” The blush of flowers at the windows seemed no more pink than his face, or the ham he was eating.

  “Is this an announcement about you and Latham?” Inga said.

  “Unless you can think of somebody else for me to marry,” Amelia said.

  “This is a surprise. When?” Jeff said, quietly putting down his knife and fork. Handy it was already April. “June,” Amelia said. “Isn’t that the month for blushing brides?”

  From within the deep twilight in the kitchen, she heard Jessie murmur, “Hmmm-mm.” No one else seemed to hear. Maybe Jessie only thought of the washing and ironing she had done for Jeff, now to be unpacked. Inga must be thinking of the word unpack, too; she looked in the land of the living, at last. But did Inga expect to undo in two months what she had spent all these years doing? She probably had little imagination, too, while the girl would be more like Jeff, Amelia supposed.

  The house was invaded by a slow green twilight with a quality that could kill, it was so beautiful and so intense. Amelia suddenly felt the newness of aching over nebulous things, like love and growth and loneliness. Everyone sat still, their faces around the table struck newly by the yellow-green light. Though each might want the moment broken, Amelia knew she was the only one crass enough to do it.

  “I hope you’ll be here for all the festivities, Jeff,” she said, wondering what possibly they would be.

  “Of course,” he said, putting down his napkin. “I must see my little sister married. I’ll give her away, gladly.”

  Inga’s eyes, watching him leave the room, turned the light startled blue of the Dutch iris, just beginning to bloom. Amelia’s ample chest heaved as she sighed and wished she might console everyone in the world at once. Who did not need it? But finishing her custard, she felt a sense of satisfaction like a cat having eaten, figuratively licked her paws. She thought of Latham’s first wife, Idabel. The way she had their house arranged would be all right with her, and they would keep Marguerite, the Negro woman who lived out back behind the house. Latham seemed fond of her, and she had been with him almost as long as they had had Jessie.

  “Let’s sit on the porch,” Amelia said. “And enjoy the evening.”

  Inga lay in the hammock. She had a look still somewhat lost, but happier. Among the evening sounds, they heard Jeff thumping upstairs, taking his suitcases back to the attic. Amelia listened and felt confident that tomorrow evening, after Latham had had his little drink before dinner, she could persuade him he had proposed.

  And when they were at dinner, she thought never had anybody seemed as picked up by a drink as Latham. The nice thing was he never seemed to need a second drink. “Latham,” she said, “I’ve been thinking. And you’re right. We ought to get married.” She said consolingly when he looked up that they would have to wait till June. She had legal things to get straight and would need to buy a few clothes. She spoke so rapidly on and on that Latham kept looking confused. Amelia never gave him time enough to ask himself when he had suggested getting married. She thought his strong point was that he would do what she wanted, without fuss.

  When she got home, that night, she gave his hand a good squeeze.

  “Now, you just behave yourself,” she said, “or I’ll put the wedding off even longer.”

  Latham went along the path between his house and Marguerite’s cabin behind it. Her light was on, and he gave their signalling knock. “Come,” she said. When he told her, Marguerite agreed there was no sense his staying alone in his great big house. “Miss Almoner might turn out to be a good woman. Sharper than Miss Idabel?” she asked. Latham said he had thought before of cutting a door to the cabin, which could not be seen from the house. He would do it. Marguerite, complacent, agreed. No other change was about to take place in her life.

  Deftly, he filched a dime tip from beneath another customer’s saucer and set it as payment by his coffee. He looked up at the blonde who had spoken and saw that she had not noticed. “Yes,” Tony said. “I like Miller. Why; do you?”

  The worried look already on Amy’s face deepened. She could give no definite answer. Twirling a piece of hair around her finger, she said, “I’ve never been able to decide whether I do or not.”

  They introduced themselves. Amy tried to tell Tony her feelings about Miller; but partly out of nervousness at having spoken to him first, she was not clear. Tony, unnoticeably, was looking at her clothes, the scrubbed quality of her face, and guessing that she had not been in the Village very long, he labelled her Southern and high class. He had seen her wallet was loaded when she paid for her breakfast and moved over to the stool next to her.

  They agreed the coffee here tasted like the bottom of a bird cage, but shoved their empty cups toward the surly attendant, who filled them again. When Amy reached for sugar her arm accidentally brushed Tony’s. His arm was covered with curly reddish hair, which had little flecks of paint beneath them. She had found out he was a painter. This accidental brushing against him sent a shivery thrilling feeling through her. She had a nice sensation, but also one as if something with light legs, like a spider, had run along her arm. Tony thrust his face so close she could smell coffee on his breath, asking what she did.

  Unless you had published something, Amy felt you should
not call yourself a writer, though in the Village that seemed not to matter. People announced professions, even if they only dabbled in them at home alone. Tony had said, he had never exhibited any paintings. Amy, however, was hesitant saying, “I’m a writer. I mean, I want to be a writer, but I don’t write much. I haven’t published anything.”

  “Who has?” Tony asked nonchalantly.

  “But I’m looking for a job,” she said.

  “Why? You don’t have to have one, do you?” His eyes insinuatingly travelled her from head to toe.

  She felt as always ashamed of not being poor. Those piercing, fathoming eyes would know if she lied. Amy lowered her head to mumble, “No.” Bending over his arm stretched along the counter, Tony swung an indolent leg. He looked at her from this half-reclining position. “Why,” he said, “do you want a job if you don’t have to have one?”

  Not really knowing, Amy shrugged. “Isn’t that just what people do?”

  “Not here,” he said. “Where you came from, probably. But didn’t you come here not to be like them?” He motioned a boneless-looking hand toward the street. Activity had begun, and people hurried as if toward shelter down toward a subway entrance and disappeared. Amy, having twirled around on her stool to look out, now twirled slowly back to face the counter. She felt lazy sitting here with nothing to do. But of course she said, “God, no, I don’t want to be like them.”

  “Then forget a job.” Tony seemed about to beat his chest. “I’m a writer, too,” he said. “I’m writing a poem about Queen Elizabeth. She kills me. I don’t know why. It begins, Oh Queen!” He threw an arm wildly into the air, but grinned. “That’s as far as I’ve been able to get.”

  He laughed at himself, which made him all right, Amy thought, grinning back. She could not criticize him when she never finished anything, either. But, frantic, she thought it was too easy to live as Tony did. Something was wrong, and she looked around as if she might see exactly what.