Invisible, as Music

by Caren J. Werlinger

  She carefully poked her head around the door. Talbert’s door was shut, but the clamor was coming from inside his office. Beverly saw her and waved her away frantically.

  “Go!” she mouthed.

  Ryn scurried down the corridor to her office. She left the light off and closed the door so it would look as if it were empty. After a few minutes, a small shadow fell across the pebbled glass and there was a timid knock.

  Ryn opened the door and dragged Beverly inside. “What in the world is going on?”

  “It’s Professor Geary.” Beverly’s eyes were huge. “Father Croson and Dr. Talbert are both talking to him.”

  Ryn dropped into her chair, her heart thudding. “What did you hear?”

  Beverly perched on the edge of the extra chair, her lip caught in her teeth. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It’s not right, but they were so loud. And then I was afraid to leave, in case Dr. Talbert needed something.”

  She glanced nervously at the door and leaned toward Ryn to whisper, “I think Professor Geary got a girl in trouble. Father Croson is livid. And I think…” She put a hand over her mouth for a moment. “I think the poor girl got an abortion.”

  Ryn sat, frozen.

  “Father Croson said something about newspapers and the college.” Beverly leaned closer and dropped her voice further. “But who could know? How would the papers find out?”

  Ryn shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I think it must be the Feldman girl. That’s why her mother was so adamant about speaking with Father Croson. Maybe she’s threatening to tell the story to the newspapers.” Beverly wrung her hands. “Oh, this would be just terrible for the college—a Catholic college, of all places.”

  “More terrible for the girl,” Ryn said flatly.

  “Oh, of course. I didn’t mean—” Beverly stood up. “I should get back. It would be best if they didn’t see you here right now.”

  “Yeah. Let me know.”

  Beverly nodded and opened the door a crack. The coast was clear, and she let herself out.

  Ryn abandoned her papers, locking them in a drawer for the night. Hastily pulling on her jacket, she reached for her backpack and slipped out of the office toward the back stairs.

  She paused on the granite steps outside to draw in a breath of clean, almost-spring air. “What a hell of a day.”

  From the studio, Henrietta heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and her heart jumped a little. She frowned at her canvas, dabbing a bit more vermillion onto the trees surrounding the pond in her scene. The light began to fade as she worked. Before long, she had to flip on the overhead lights to clean up. She realized she hadn’t heard any other noises from the front of the house.

  Placing her brushes to dry, she left the studio to find the kitchen empty and dark. She walked into the living room and found Meryn sitting in her chair, staring out the picture window at the gathering dusk, apparently deep in thought.

  “Are you all right?”

  Meryn jumped, and Henrietta noticed she hadn’t changed out of her teaching clothes, something she usually did first thing.

  “I’m fine.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Just great.” Meryn turned back to the window. “Yours?”

  “Terrible,” Henrietta said.

  “That’s good.”

  Henrietta sat on the sofa. “Meryn, what’s wrong?”

  “Hmm?” Meryn spun in the chair. “I’m sorry, Hank. Just preoccupied.”

  “So I noticed.” Henrietta nodded in her direction. “Since you’re still dressed for work, how about we have dinner at the club tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  As it was a Thursday evening, the dining room was nearly empty, with only one other couple seated at a table.

  Their waitress, Barbara, according to her name badge, brought them menus and took their drink orders—decaf coffee for Henrietta and hot tea for Meryn. Henrietta waited until the drinks had been brought and their dinners ordered, but Meryn was staring into her tea, her brow wrinkled.

  “Something is troubling you,” she said at last. “Care to talk about it?”

  Meryn shifted her gaze, probing Henrietta’s eyes. “Tell me more about Una.”

  Caught completely off-guard by that request, Henrietta choked on her coffee. She had to cough several times to clear her throat.

  “You okay?” Meryn asked.

  Henrietta nodded, using her napkin to dab at her watery eyes. When she could speak, she croaked, “Why would you ask that?”

  “You said—” Meryn stopped abruptly when Barbara brought their salads. “Thank you.”

  Once they were alone again, she continued, “I know—at least I think—you loved Una. I’d like to know more about her. About your past.”

  Henrietta fussed with her salad as she gathered her thoughts. “I told you she spent summers here until the war, then came to live with her aunt.”

  “What did she look like?”

  Chewing slowly, Henrietta let herself remember. “She had red hair, the color of copper in the sun. Her eyes were the most vivid blue—cerulean. When she looked at me, I felt as if I were falling into a pool of the bluest water.”

  Henrietta caught herself and cleared her throat. “It was a long time ago.”

  She could feel Meryn watching her.

  “I think some memories stay vivid, no matter how much time has gone by,” Meryn murmured. “Did she love you?”

  “We were children,” Henrietta snapped. But when Meryn just waited, she sighed. “Yes. We were going to move to New York together. She wanted to be a writer and poet, and I would paint there.” She smiled tenderly. “We had it all planned out.”

  “Tell me about when you got sick.”

  “Why are you asking all these questions?”

  Meryn’s reply was again interrupted by the arrival of their entrées. After the waitress left them, she said, “Because I need to know.”

  “But why?” Henrietta met Meryn’s gaze and immediately regretted it. She’d often watched flies and other insects, caught in the webs spun in the branches of the bushes outside her studio windows, watched them struggle as the spider closed in. She felt like one of those insects now, ensnared by the intense emotions parading through Meryn’s eyes.

  “Please.”

  Flustered, Henrietta couldn’t reply immediately. She ate a bit of her tortellini and sipped her coffee. “It was June. Back then, every summer there was a rash of polio cases as people swam in infected ponds and lakes and rivers. Not everybody got sick, of course, or, if they got sick, became paralyzed, but we’d been warned not to go into the pond. In those days, there were no houses there. Just the dock. We’d been lying in the sun, planning, talking… kissing.”

  Henrietta’s face burned, and she glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “We got warm, so we decided to go into the water. It wasn’t long. No more than half an hour. We got out and dried off on the dock, thinking we were so daring. A few days later, I broke out in a fever. That was the last thing I remembered for ages.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw that Meryn wasn’t eating. “The doctors here packed me in ice and transported me to Rochester. It was nearly a year before I came home.”

  Meryn picked up her cup. “And you never saw Una again.”

  Henrietta shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on her plate, which was swimming through the tears in her eyes. Her throat was too tight to speak.

  “And there’s never been anyone else?” Meryn asked softly.

  Henrietta blinked several times and gave a curt shake of her head. “Who would there be? Look at me.”

  “I am.”

  Her heart pounding so that she thought she might actually pass out at the table, Henrietta gripped her chair, unable to meet Meryn’s gaze.

  “Is everything all right?” Barbara asked, appearing suddenly.

  “We need to have this packed to go, please,” Meryn said.

  �
��Is there a problem?” the waitress asked anxiously.

  “No problem. We’re just not as hungry as we thought.”

  Barbara scooped up both their plates. “I’ll only be a moment.”

  The ride back to the house was silent. Inside, Meryn put the food in the refrigerator as Henrietta walked through the kitchen to drop her coat on the back of the sofa. She wanted only to escape to her room.

  “Henrietta.”

  Meryn’s voice stopped her. Henrietta tensed as Meryn stepped up behind her.

  “Thank you. For telling me.”

  “I’ve never told anyone what I told you tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t make me regret it.”

  “I won’t.”

  Henrietta went to her room and closed the door. Leaning against it, she closed her eyes. “What am I doing?” she whispered.

  But a part of her—a small part that she was ashamed of—wished Meryn would come and knock on that door.

  Chapter 16

  That taste of spring turned out to be a cruel trick, as winter wasn’t nearly ready to let go. A massive storm system moved over the entire Northeast on Sunday night. Western New York got the worst of the lake-effect snow, but Bluemont still got two feet. Enough for St. Aloysius to cancel classes for a few days. All of the surrounding SUNY campuses also canceled classes while maintenance crews worked to clear parking lots and sidewalks.

  Ryn and Bud together got Henrietta’s driveway cleared.

  “Good thing this is dry snow,” Bud said while Ryn huffed and puffed.

  People on cross-country skis got out before the plows did, taking advantage of the lack of cars to enjoy the snow, waving a cheery hello to the shovelers as they glided by.

  It was pretty. The golf course was an undisturbed canvas of white—“no, not white,” Henrietta would have said. “Look at it. There are blues and grays and even pink tones in that snow. Look at it.”

  Ryn felt she was looking at everything differently. The atmosphere in the history corridor on Friday had been like working in a bomb factory—there was a definite feeling that the slightest spark could set off an explosion. Geary, rather than hiding in his office, made a show of marching up and down the hall, going to Beverly for unnecessary things, she told Ryn. Talbert, though, was holed up in his office, going through three packs a day, judging from the number of cigarette butts overflowing the ashtray on his desk. Beverly came to Ryn’s office just to get a break from the smoke that seeped into her space.

  “I may not get to retire,” she’d complained. “I may die of asphyxiation before that can happen.”

  “Did you hear any more?” Ryn had asked, closing her door.

  “Only a little. Professor Geary thinks he can ride this out, but Dr. Talbert asked me for the department budget. That means he’s figuring he’ll still be department chair next year.”

  “So…” Ryn couldn’t hide her smile. “Talbert’s promotion to dean is on the line. Maybe if he’s being hurt by this as well, he’ll be more inclined to do something. Did you hear if it was Mrs. Feldman who is threatening to tell the papers?”

  Beverly shook her head. “Father Croson wouldn’t say, not that I heard anyhow. Do you think she’d do that to her own daughter?”

  Ryn sat back. From the short amount of time she’d spent with Vanessa’s mother, it was hard to imagine her wanting to splash Vanessa’s story all over the place.

  “Who, then?”

  They were left with that mystery, and it kept running through Ryn’s head as she shoveled. That and Henrietta.

  She’d always pictured herself in a normal, committed relationship with a woman she’d have mad sex with everywhere—of course, sex of any kind was only a distant memory at this point. For the last several months, the closest she’d gotten was her collection of lesbian novels and her own hand.

  But Henrietta had already done so many kind things—the whole birthday and Thanksgiving surprise with her family, asking Bud to make the fire pit near the pond for them to enjoy evenings near the water, trying to make this feel like Ryn’s home, too.

  Henrietta had a lot of admirable traits—her strength and resilience, her barbed wit, her talent. But it was her vulnerable side, the soft side she hid from everyone, that was what tugged at Ryn’s heart the most. When Henrietta spoke of Una or her parents, when she let her guard down enough for Ryn to see deep into her eyes, Ryn did want to hold her. Not to make love, but to comfort and protect her. To promise her that nothing would ever hurt her like that again. And the feeling was so unexpectedly powerful. Was it love?

  Damn Franny anyhow. I don’t want to be in love with Henrietta Cochran.

  “Tired?”

  “Huh?” Ryn snapped alive.

  “You been leanin’ on that shovel like you need something to prop you up,” Bud said. “I can finish this.”

  “I’m not tired.” Ryn dug her shovel in. “Just catching my breath.”

  She didn’t dare steal a look at the house. If Henrietta was standing at the window, watching them, she felt certain Hank would know what she’d been thinking.

  They refilled all the bird feeders and suet cages. Before they’d finished, a score of birds were flapping and chirping in the higher branches, eagerly waiting for them to leave.

  Ryn cleaned Nelly off and started her up, letting her engine idle long enough to warm everything.

  When she and Bud returned to the garage, Henrietta was waiting for them.

  “Thank you both so much,” she said, handing a check to Bud.

  “Always a pleasure, Miss Cochran,” Bud said with a tip of his cap. “When the snow goes for good, I’ll make sure the path to the pond is cleared for you.”

  He shouldered his shovel and went to his truck while Ryn hung hers on the garage wall and stomped the snow off her boots.

  “You should get inside,” she said when Henrietta stayed there.

  “You, too. You’ve done enough.”

  Henrietta pushed the button to close the garage door, and Ryn followed her into the kitchen where the teakettle was steaming.

  “I’m happy to pay you, too.” Henrietta busied herself at the counter with her back to Ryn. “Shoveling snow was not part of your responsibilities in our arrangement.”

  Ryn stood in her socks. She’d nearly forgotten that this was a business arrangement. But maybe Henrietta hadn’t. She got a teabag and poured some hot water. Henrietta had a plate of shortbread cookies already sitting on the table.

  “I’ll get that,” she said as Henrietta tried to get a firmer grip on a cup of coffee to move it from the counter to the table.

  They sat, Ryn cradling her hot mug in her hands as she fought a chill that had nothing to do with the cold outside.

  “Are we friends, Henrietta?”

  Those gray eyes rose to meet hers. “What do you mean?”

  “When you offered to pay me a few minutes ago—”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Henrietta blurted.

  “I’m not offended, but it made me realize, I don’t know what I am, exactly.”

  Henrietta frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Ryn reached for a cookie as she struggled to figure out how to word this. “When I remember how things were between us, back when I first moved in, compared to how they are now, I get the feeling that you and I are different from the way things have been with your other companions. Am I right?”

  Henrietta dunked a cookie in her coffee. Ryn could tell she was stalling, thinking hard about how to reply.

  “You and I are different,” Henrietta admitted. “Sometimes, I forget that you’re here as my unpaid companion.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What?” Henrietta looked startled.

  “What I mean is, I haven’t thought of myself that way for a long time. And when you offered to pay me for shoveling, I realized, maybe you still do.”

  For long seconds, they stared at each other.

  “How do you think of yourself?” Henrie
tta asked at last.

  Ryn smiled. Henrietta wasn’t going to go first. “I see myself here as your friend, as a roommate, I suppose.” Now it was her turn to frown. “But that’s probably not fair. I don’t contribute anything here. Not financially.”

  Henrietta gaped at her for a moment. “But that’s how I’ve always done things. I need someone to be here, and to expect that person to be willing to stay with me, I’ve had to offer a room, free of rent.”

  She paused, her face now a mask. “But all of my companions leave. You’ve already lasted longer than most.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Ryn set her shortbread down and leaned her elbows on the table. “I love—” She caught herself. “I love living here. I love living with you. But I need to know how you see things.”

  Henrietta looked flustered. “A minute ago, you said you don’t contribute anything. That couldn’t be further from the truth.” She dropped the shortbread that was crumbling in her fingers and busied herself brushing the crumbs off. “You’ve brought joy into this house, more joy than it’s known since my parents were alive. You’ve brought me joy, Meryn. I… I would find it difficult to imagine living here without you.”

  “Then let me feel as if I really share this house with you.”

  “How? The house is paid for. I’ve no need to charge you rent. It wouldn’t feel right.”

  “Let me pay part of the utilities.”

  Henrietta waved a hand in surrender. “Very well. You may pay the water bill, if it will make you feel better, but it’s not necessary.”

  Ryn grinned. “I’ll take it.”

  “Anything else?”

  Ryn popped the rest of her cookie in her mouth. “Can I paint my room?”

  “You—” Henrietta frowned in bewilderment. “You want to paint the walls?”

  “Yeah. Not a mural or anything, although I could ask you to do that, couldn’t I? And not like purple or Pepto-Bismol pink. I was thinking a pale green or blue. I hate peach.”