I Want to Go Home

by Frances Lockridge

  She felt much better and said so. She said, “This is Columbia?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “M.U.’s over there.” He waved toward his right. “The University of Missouri,” he said. “I go there.” He waved again, in the same direction. “The town’s over there,” he said. “You wanted to find the town?”

  “A bus,” she said. “Does a bus come through?”

  “Lots of buses,” he said. “Greyhounds. Trailways. They go in through the town, mostly.” He smiled at her. “Which way are you going?” he said.

  “I’m going home,” she said, and then laughed. “East—toward New York.”

  “My,” he said. “You live in New York? I’m going to New York, after I get through here. It must be quite a place. You going all the way by bus?”

  “Bus,” she said. “Train. Anything.” He looked at her and seemed to be waiting. “I was on a train,” she said. “I—I got off to see somebody. Then I missed the train.”

  “Sure,” he said. “A person can do that. You can get a bus on to St. Louis and get a plane there. Or a train. If you’ve—” He broke off, and flushed. She did not understand him, at first, and then she said, “Oh—yes, I’ve got the money.” She did not wonder, she thought, that he had asked. She even wondered that he had given her coffee and breakfast before he asked.

  He’s nice, she thought. She found she wanted to tell him what had happened, because then she would feel less alone. But even now, even after breakfast, she found that she was afraid to tell anybody, even this friendly boy, and so she merely smiled at him, and paid for the food, and found out the time of the next bus going east and where she could wash up. She washed up, and used the clothesbrush he found for her and took off the stockings, which were hopeless, and threw them away. Legs from California were brown enough, smoothly brown enough, without stockings. She looked in the mirror and decided that what she could see of herself would do. She was reassured in this when, coming out into the restaurant again, she saw the boy’s eyes widen. He began to nod at her, with generous approval.

  The bus was a big Greyhound, almost full, and all the people in it seemed harmless and ordinary. They looked up at her when she came in, the men looked longer than the women, but not too much longer; she found a seat by a window, so that she could wave through it to the young man of the restaurant, who came to the door to see her off. She felt more assured, then; more confident. And it was wonderful to be sitting, not walking, to be going home on wheels. After a time, she began to sleep a little—lightly, on the surface of sleep. Even now, she would not let her self go below sleep’s surface.

  Ray Forrest felt a kind of eagerness he could not remember having felt for years. It had begun, or more exactly, it had reached a pitch which gave it this special quality, when El Capitan began to run through the outskirts of Chicago. It had grown, it had become a mixture of eagerness and impatience, when the train had slowed, started, stopped again, felt its way into the Dearborn Street Station. Minutes before the train had finally stopped, Ray was standing in the aisle of the car, waiting for the door to be opened. He was a little astonished to find himself there, to find himself at the head of the line. He was first off the car, and one of the first off the train, and he was going down the platform, carrying his bag, with long strides, shaking off Red Caps who were piling baggage onto hand trucks. It was as if there were desperate need for him to arrive, somewhere, for some crucial action.

  That feeling of urgency rode with him in a cab to the La Salle Street Station; his mind said “hurry! hurry!” going up the stairs to the waiting room. And then, looking at the clock in the waiting room, seeing that it was now only a few minutes past two, he put his bag down and felt, obscurely, unhappily, baffled and let down. He had, really, no place to go, for all his hurrying. He had nothing to do, for all his need for action. This realization came over him in the form of acute, oddly hurting, disappointment. And then he realized that he had, for no sounder reason than his anxious need of her, expected to find Jane Phillips standing there—standing somewhere—in the big waiting room; that, subconsciously, he had pictured her there, slim and confident, with pale hair framing her face, pictured her moving toward him, pictured the smile which would show she was glad he was there. He had not, until this moment, let himself know that it was ridiculous to expect anything of the kind.

  She had reached Chicago on the Chief at one o’clock, forty-five minutes ahead of him. But she was not due to leave until four-thirty, when the New York Central through car would be part of the Twentieth Century Limited. Meanwhile, the through car sat somewhere, almost certainly not in either station; meanwhile, those on it got off, like sensible people, and spent the three hours and a half doing—well, whatever they wanted to do in Chicago. Calling up friends, having long, late lunches, even going to movies, or merely walking the streets and looking at Chicago. Very few of them, and certainly not Jane, would elect to sit three hours and a half in a parked Pullman—no matter how much it had come to seem like home.

  Jane had had forty-five minutes’ start of him in Chicago, and there was no way of telling where she was. There would, in all probability, be no chance of meeting her until, at the earliest, sometime around four o’clock. She might be ahead of time for the Century; after her experience in Los Angeles, she almost certainly would be. But she was not going to be sitting, two hours and fifteen minutes ahead of time, in the La Salle Street Station. And this simple, obvious fact, when he turned it over fully in his mind, was extraordinarily discouraging. Jane was in Chicago, he was in Chicago. There was no way of their getting together for, at best, an hour and—well, only forty minutes, now. He found he was angry about this and, obscurely, worried. He was worried because there was, so far as he could see, nothing whatever he could do about it.

  He picked up his bag, found the station-master’s office, and confirmed his belief that the Pullman he wanted was out in the yards; got corroboration of his guess that its passengers were, almost certainly, not. They could be, presumably; they were certainly not urged to be. The car was being serviced for its run on to New York. It was assumed by the management that the passengers would be seeing Chicago. And there was, certainly, no way Ray Forrest could get to the car and find out. It would come in, with the rest of the Century, at around four o’clock. Then, if he had a ticket, he could get on it. The station-master was politely doubtful that Mr. Forrest would have a ticket, could get a ticket.

  He was wrong, there. The ticket agent was pleasurably astonished; Mr. Forrest was in luck, in unbelievable luck. One of those faceless ones who, planning into the misty future, buy all space on popular trains, had apparently been tricked by the present. He could not go to New York that afternoon, for all his well-laid plans. He had turned in a roomette. “Doesn’t happen once a week,” the ticket agent assured Ray Forrest. “Once a month. You’re in luck, sir.” It was time, Ray Forrest thought. He tucked tickets into a pocket, turned away. It was still only two-thirty. He checked his bag, and it was two-thirty-three. He went out of the station and walked toward the lake. He thought that his luck about the ticket would be an omen. He would walk along Van Buren Street toward the lake, and Jane would come walking toward him, would recognize him and be surprised, and show surprise in her face and in her smile. That was the way it was going to be.

  He was so sure of this that, several times, he saw young women, at a distance, who were about Jane’s height, carried themselves somewhat as Jane did, and was momentarily delighted, unconsciously quickened his pace, before he realized that none of these women was really Jane or even, seen closely, resembled Jane. But for a long time he kept on believing that his luck was going to be in. Even Chicago, he thought, was not big enough to hold himself and Jane Phillips, and to hold them separated. Examined, this thought was absurd, but it was after three-thirty before he examined it. And then, turning back toward the station, he examined more carefully the corollary to all this. The corollary was, simply enough, that it would hereafter be impossible for him not be
where Jane was. He thought of the many times in Los Angeles when he might have been with her, and had not been—when it had not even seemed important to be—and he swore, suddenly. A hundred times—an infinite number of times—he might have heard her voice merely by picking up a telephone and spinning a dial, and had not because he had not thought of it or, thinking of it, had not thought it important. Walking back toward the La Salle Street Station it seemed incredible that he could, ever, have been so wasteful.

  At five minutes of four the sign was up at the Century gate and there was already a small group of early arrivals waiting. Perhaps Jane would be one of—no, she was not. And the train was not yet in, the gate still closed. He took a position beside it, where he could not miss anyone coming in. He would see her coming across through the doors to the waiting room, across the shed, he would step out and say something ridiculous, something meaningless; she would be in a powder-blue suit, some shades lighter than her eyes; her blond hair—she would be hatless, of course—would move just a little, as she moved. He would say something absurd; he would say “Mrs. Phillips, I presume” or “Haven’t I met you—” or, merely, “Hello, Jane.” That would be what he would say. “Hello, Jane.”

  At four o’clock a uniformed gate attendant came out and looked down the tracks. Then he went back to wherever he had been. At four-five he came out again and this time he stayed. At four-eight the long train backed in, presenting a rounded posterior. At four-ten the gate opened and those who had been waiting began to file past the attendant, showing their tickets. Jane would be coming any moment, now.

  The stream of men and women going through the gate thickened, but there was still no chance of his missing her. It was steady, now, the stream. It was steady at four-fifteen, thicker at four-twenty, then it began to thin. And Jane did not come. Ray’s happy expectancy began to cool; as the long hand of the clock caught up with, and began to pass over, its slower, shorter partner, Ray’s expectancy was replaced by anxiety. He couldn’t have missed her. She couldn’t have stayed on the car, after all. Neither of these things could be true, but at four-twenty-seven he realized that one of them had to be. She would not cut it this close again; somehow, she was already on the train. There were only a few people going through the gate, now, and they seemed a little breathless.

  At four-twenty-eight the attendant looked at his watch, and then at Ray Forrest. He lifted his eyebrows slightly. Well, Ray thought, I’ve got to stake my money somewhere. The wheel’s going to start spinning. He picked up his bag and staked on the train. It had to be on the train.

  He was only on it himself as the train started. He tossed his bag into the roomette and found the porter. He followed the porter’s direction and found the Pullman which had come through from Los Angeles on the Chief. He found the porter of that car and described Jane Phillips and saw the dark, intelligent face grow worried, unhappy.

  “You a friend of the lady?” the porter said.

  Ray said that was right.

  “You the gentleman she sent the telegram to?” the porter asked, and his voice was worried.

  Ray started to say “no,” realized he had no way of telling, and said he didn’t know.

  “If she sent it from the train I wouldn’t have got it,” Ray said. “I was on a train myself. Was it to Forrest—Ray Forrest?”

  “That’s right, suh,” the porter said. They had been walking along the car and now he opened a door. He opened it without first ringing for admission. “This yere’s her room, suh,” he said. “Only—she ain’t been in it since Kansas City.” He turned to Forrest; it was almost as if he turned on Forrest. “She got off to see you, Mr. Forrest,” he said. “Like you told her to in your telegram. She didn’t get back on.”

  Ray Forrest was a little pale, more than a little rigid. His voice was exact and hard and he hurried. But it took time to get the story—from the porter, finally from the Pullman conductor, to whom the porter had gone, worriedly, when the occupant of Bedroom C had not responded, late in the morning, to his ring. With the authority of the conductor, the porter had opened the door. They had found the room empty; they had found a telegram signed “Ray” on the berth. Then the porter had remembered seeing the lady get off the train in Kansas City, thought he had warned her that there was only a little time. He did not remember her getting back on the train, but he had not been worried, because two new passengers had come aboard, going into Bedroom A, and he had been busy with them. He had supposed the lady had got back on while he was in Bedroom A.

  In Chicago, the Pullman conductor had reported and a telegram had gone back to Kansas City, where an investigation had been tactfully begun—tactfully, because it was no business of the Pullman Company’s if a passenger decided to get off short of her destination, although it was somebody’s business if she left two suitcases in her room. The cases had, after a conference, been taken off. The telegram had been retained in Chicago, but the porter, who had delivered it—and later read it when it was found in the room—remembered its contents. He knew it had been signed “Ray”; obviously it had been an answer to the wire the lady had sent the night before, and which he had got off at Albuquerque. He did not remember that wire, except generally. It had mentioned “funny things happening,” he thought. She had written it on the pad, he had put the pad aside until morning, since there was no earlier opportunity to send it. The porter supposed that, without too much trouble, someone could have read the lady’s telegram to the gentleman. But he was certain he had sent it.

  Probably he had, after someone had read it. Probably the telegram was waiting for Ray in Los Angeles. Almost certainly, someone there—one of the men in the elderly Chevrolet—had been delegated to compose and get off a telegram which purported to be an answer; a telegram which had led Jane to get off the train in Kansas City to meet Ray Forrest. She must have got off confidently, Ray thought—expectantly. There had been a smile ready in her blue eyes. He swore futilely. There was nobody to swear at. The Century rolled east, heading for Toledo, Englewood many minutes behind it. There was no way of getting off before Toledo. And what could he do if he did get off at Toledo? What could he do even if he got back to Kansas City?

  The Pullman conductor prepared a telegram explaining this new development for Chicago. Ray himself sent a long wire to the police in Kansas City, identifying himself, urging that tact be abandoned. But neither telegram could get on its way until they reached Toledo.

  Ray Forrest stood in Bedroom C and looked at its emptiness. Already, it was as if Jane had never been in it. It was impersonal; it was waiting for its next occupant. Ray made arrangements with the Pullman conductor and became the next occupant. It was something to be where she had been. It wasn’t much.

  She had felt almost secure on the bus; she had come to feel almost as if she, in some fashion, belonged to the bus, and that as long as she belonged to it she could not be hurt. When the bus stopped at rest stations, as it did periodically, she had got off with the others and kept close to the others, feeling—again a little obscurely—that she, with them, formed a group and had the safety of a group. They had smiled easily, most of the people on the bus. They had seemed to accept her; the other women had made little comments about riding on the bus, and about themselves, at the stopping places. She had been watchful at the first of the stops, and glad to return to the bus, to feel again its power and its tirelessness, which were so much more immediate, so much more personal, than the power and the tirelessness of a train. At the second stop she had not lost her confidence, had hardly remembered to look around her warily before, in the protecting group, she climbed down and went to a counter and had coffee and a sandwich.

  But as they went into St. Louis and she realized that she would have to leave this community to which she had surrendered herself, she began again to be uneasy, and when the bus stopped and people began to get out she was afraid again. The community dissolved so easily and so quickly, and her sense of security dissolved with it. She was on her own, again. She was exposed
again, and where they could get at her. She tried to tell herself that she had shaken them off; that they had no way of knowing where she was. But she could not convince herself of this, because she could think of many ways they would have of finding out, at the least of guessing, where she was. Many cars had passed the bus, or been passed by them; some had passed, been passed, passed again as the bus lost time by its detours through towns, by its stops, and then picked time up again on the road. Any of these cars might have held one of them; any one of them might have seen her, sitting by the window on the left side of the bus. If one of them had, another of them might be waiting for her here.

  There were a good many people in the bus terminal, and if one of them was one of “them” she had no way of knowing it. That was one of the frightening things. It might be that comfortable-looking, middle-aged woman, sitting on a bench, her plump legs out in front of her, her too-tight shoes pinching her plump feet—the woman who was so obviously waiting for an other bus. It might be the tall, rather good-looking young man with short, almost colorless hair, who had been buying a newspaper at a stand and turned as she passed and looked after her—surveyed her absently, speculatively, as so many men surveyed all attractive women. It might even be the gangling boy, probably of about fifteen, who looked at her almost eagerly, with his mouth a little open—as so many boys of fifteen do when they begin to see beauty where they had never dreamed it would be, and to leave their mouths open in naive surrender and disturbed anxiety.

  Jane Phillips went through the waiting room and tried not to run, tried not to cringe away from the eyes which might be on her. She got a taxicab outside and said, “The railroad station, please,” not knowing whether there was more than one and then, “I want to get a train to New York.” The driver said, “Sure, lady, the Union Station,” and drove a block and turned right. It was five-thirty, then. It was five-forty-five when she paid him and went, hurrying now, into the big, barn-like station. She found a ticket window and said, “I have to get to New York. Can I get a room—anything?” The ticket agent looked at her and was noticeably patient. “When did you want to go, miss?” he said, from a distance, with weariness. “Now,” she said. “As soon as I can—the first train.”