It did not begin as a time of madness.
Richard Hall tossed his rain-dampened ski cap into the nearest chair and ran his fingers back through his thinning hair. “Elaine?” he called.
She appeared at the bedroom door and moved to hug him. “You look frazzled.”
“Am,” he said, face buried in her hair. “Fought half the morning with a dimwit from Human Resources who tried to tell me I don’t know my Social Security number. Took the IRS’s word over mine. Ha!”
“Take a short loving recharge,” she invited.
“Glad to,” he said, tightening his embrace.
“That’s enough,” she said, and pushed him back. “Choose: start dinner or get the mail in. My hands were full.”
“Mail, thank you.” He took the key from her hand and the stairs to the lobby, returning with six pieces of junk mail—one promising “Sexually Oriented Advertisements”—one bill, a letter from Elaine’s mom, and a tattered copy of the Cross Creek Weekly Chronicle. Cross Creek, which was every bit as small as its name implied, had been Hall’s birthplace and home for seventeen years. His mother still lived there, and the subscription was an annual gift from her, about which he had never had the courage to say, “Please don’t bother.” The paper came an average of three weeks late, by the cheapest class of mail, and the high point of it was frequently a list of where townspeople had gone on vacation or the weights of the 4-H sheep.
Settling back on the sofa and kicking off his shoes, Hall ripped out the staples and turned to the front page. He immediately frowned, and read quickly.
“Elaine?” he called. “Listen to this.”
“If it’s the balance of the Total Charge bill, I’d rather not hear it,” she called back.
“No—something in the Chronicle. They’re closing my old high school.”
“Why?” Elaine appeared, bringing him a cold soft drink.
“According to this, the school board decided that they could get better value sending the students over to the new consolidated high school in Atlasburg. Cross Creek High School was too rundown and had too few students. So the last day of classes will be—” Hall looked at his watch “—tomorrow. Oh—and they’re going to hold an all-class reunion as a kind of going-away party.”
“When’s that? You’ll want to go, won’t you?”
“It’s . . .” Hall scanned for the date. “It was yesterday,” he said, his voice dropping.
“Oh, Rick, I’m sorry. You missed it.”
“I’ve been meaning to get back and visit the teachers, my old friends . . . what happened to the six years, Elaine? It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long,” he said, shaking his head. “Listen to this: ‘Class officers will be assisting Mr. Hutchins and Principal Jane Warden in contacting all graduates.’ Jim Harris is our class officer, and he has my address. I should have heard from them before this.”
Elaine moved next to him and rubbed his shoulder, and he smiled at her.
“I feel cheated. It would have meant a lot to be able to be there. I haven’t really kept in touch with some people that were good friends, either.”
“It’s two hundred kilometers away,” Elaine said, trying to let him off his own hook.
“I could have written.”
“I’m surprised your mom didn’t let you know.”
“So am I.” The timer on the oven began ringing, signaling that dinner was ready, and they rose together to rescue it. Cross Creek High was forgotten for the time.
But that night, after Elaine had fallen asleep beside him, Richard Hall lay in the darkness with the hum of the clock and the creaking of the walls, and thought about high school and the friends he had lost track of, and felt alone.
He eased out of bed without disturbing his wife, and moved quietly to the den. It was only nine-thirty in Cross Creek, and a good friend should be able to excuse a call at that hour. Hall dug the small white address book out of the back recesses of the desk. Some of the entries, he saw, were very old.
Too old, in fact. The number he had for Jim Harris was no longer in service. The same was true when he tried calling his closest friend. The phone of Ruth, whom he had been both friend and boyfriend to, was answered by a sleepy man who said gruffly, “You got a wrong number.” And the phone of a teacher who’d been more than a teacher rang thirty times without being answered.
Hall returned to bed, feeling both anger at himself and a deep depression. Something good that had been his had slipped away, and in the darkness it was easy to believe that it was forever beyond his grasp.
A few days later, Richard and Elaine arrived home from work close enough together to take the same elevator to the fifth floor.
“I’ll bet dinner didn’t cook itself tonight,” she said.
He smiled. “I won’t take that bet.”
When they reached the apartment, she disappeared for a moment into the kitchen. “I was right,” she said on her return.
“Want me to fix it tonight?”
“No. I want you to take me out.”
“Suggestions?”
“The little lakeside restaurant outside of North Springfield.”
“Our old summer rendezvous. The one where we had the wedding reception.”
“That’s the one.”
“That’s a good hour’s drive away—and I’m not even sure I can find it again.”
“You’d better be able to!”
Hall showed a mock grimace. “We’d better get going, then.”
The Halls were generally silent while driving—Richard disliked being distracted. But as they neared the lake, Elaine turned away from watching the scenery—it was growing too dark to see well—and spoke.
“Do you think they still have our picture on the wall?”
“I don’t see why not. Pictures of customers are the only decoration they use.”
“It’s been a while since we’ve been here. Maybe they move the old ones out every so often.”
Hall pursed his lips. “Would you be angry if I couldn’t remember the name of this place?”
“No, because you never remember anything. But I won’t tell you what it is—you’ll have to work for it.”
“The Benchcraft . . . the Beachhouse . . .”
“Something like that.”
“Beachbelch . . .”
“Oh, come on!”
“Beachwood!” he said triumphantly.
“That’s it.”
“I can’t claim any credit—just saw it on a sign back there. Isn’t this the exit up here?”
“I think so.”
They turned off the highway, headlights sweeping across the undisturbed grass-covered sandy mounds found everywhere near the lake. A kilometer farther on, the road turned to parallel the shore.
“It’s not too far now,” Elaine said.
“No.”
They both watched the roadside ahead, expecting at any moment to see the sign, the building, lights, parked cars.
“That’s odd,” Hall said, frowning. “I was positive it was just a bit after the road turned.”
The car bored through the lakeside night for a minute more, and then Richard slowed the car and pulled onto the shoulder. “We must have passed it right at the beginning, when we were talking,” he said as he made a wide U-turn. “It was never that well lit.”
“But it sits right out in the open—right on the shore. We couldn’t have missed it. I don’t think we went far enough.”
“I’m not going to drive all the way to Cleveland. If we didn’t pass it, then we’re on the wrong road.”
They drove back the way they had come, confused.
“There’s someone walking,” Elaine said suddenly, as the headlights picked up the shape on the lake side of the road. “Let’s ask him.”
Hall was already slowing down, and rolled down his window. The rushing roar of the small breakers filled the car for the first time. “Sir?” he called. “Could you help us with directions?”
The man, carrying a fis
hing rod and tackle box, crossed the road slowly and came to Hall’s window. He was at least sixty years old. “If I can.”
“We’re trying to find a restaurant called the Beachwood.”
The old man pointed at the sands across the road. “Right there.”
Richard looked where the old man was pointing. “There’s nothing there.”
“That’s right. She burned down, mebbe six months ago—mebbe more. If it were day, you could see the pilings she sat on; that’s all that’s left.”
“Oh, what a shame!” Elaine said.
They thanked the fisherman, then watched him fold back into the darkness behind them as they drove away.
“Home?” Hall asked.
“Nonsense. You owe me dinner.”
“The Hearth?” he offered.
“That will be acceptable. Drive on, James.”
“Yes, Madame,” he said, but the heartiness was false. For the second time in a week, Richard Hall felt the tug of something lost.
The graphics department supervisor made his way slowly through the maze of drawing tables in the room, dropping off yellow paycheck envelopes as he went.
“Afternoon, Richard,” he said as he reached Hall’s table. He riffled through the remaining checks. “How’s your day going?”
“Pretty well.”
The supervisor reached the end of the bundle of checks and started again at the top envelope, frowning. “You didn’t get your check early, did you?”
“No.”
“And you weren’t on an unpaid leave these last two weeks?”
“I wasn’t on any kind of leave. I was right here.”
“Well, your day just took a turn for the worse. There’s no check here for you.”
“Let me see.”
“Don’t you trust me? It’s not here.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Well, you’ll have to go down to payroll and get it straightened out.”
Hall started to push back his chair, and the supervisor held up his hand. “Oh, not now. We need those charts for the taping this afternoon. Go down on your lunch hour,” he said, and walked away to complete his rounds.
“I can’t wait to tell you I quit,” Hall said in a diplomatically hushed voice, glaring at his supervisor’s receding back. He pulled the phone toward him, consulted a piece of paper in his wallet, and dialed.
“Concept Execution. May I help you?”
“Personnel.”
“Thank you.” A new voice: “Mary Anders, Personnel. May I help you?”
“This is Richard Hall,” Hall said, keeping his voice low. “I submitted an application to you several weeks ago—I wanted to make certain it was all in order.”
“Yes, Mr. Hall, I remember. I’m glad you called. We recently reviewed your application when filling an opening, and found it is not yet complete. We still need a copy of your birth certificate and your educational transcripts.”
“I sent for both the day I applied,” Hall said. “The transcript is coming to you directly—I can write and make sure it’s been sent. If you recall, I explained that my original birth certificate is gone, and I’m trying to get a duplicate from the state. It should be here soon, and I’ll see that you get it right away.”
“Very good. By the way, we’ve also had a little difficulty tracking down one of the references you gave us. Would you confirm that we have the correct address? ‘Spark and Son, 213 High Street—’ ”
“ ‘Cross Creek, Pennsylvania,’ ” he finished for her. “That’s correct. My supervisor was John Spark, the owner.”
“Has the company moved or gone out of business, to your knowledge?”
“No, Spark and Son is kind of a town fixture. I can’t imagine them moving. I can try and check on that, too, though.”
When he had hung up, Hall turned to the artist working at the board to his right.
“Chris?”
“Yeah?” Chris Wood laid down his pen and looked at Hall.
“Is it possible to catch a disease that causes everyone to try and ignore you?”
“Why?”
“Because if there is, I’ve got it,” he said, and laughed.
There was a thick collection of mail, and Hall looked through it as he walked to the apartment. He shook his head unhappily as he walked through the door.
“Have I been especially bad lately?” he asked Elaine, who was seated on the couch watching television.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m beginning to feel like a victim.”
“Of what?” she asked, tilting her head quizzically.
“Of a new crime—you take a guy and ignore him, pretend he’s not there, until he cracks up. I feel like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, only there’s no guardian angel.”
“What’s making you feel that way?”
“Here—here’s the perfect example. There’s ten pieces of junk mail here, all with your name. Two even have your maiden name.”
“My lucky day,” she said, smiling and taking them from him. “When they’re in your name, you throw them out before I can see them. What else, besides the mail?”
“No check for me this morning. I had to spend my whole lunch hour fighting with payroll, and I still don’t have one. I wasn’t in the computer, that’s how bad they screwed up, and they couldn’t process a check by hand until Monday.”
“That’s enough to ruin your day,” she agreed.
“I can’t wait to get out of there. Say—I didn’t get to see yesterday’s mail. Was there anything from the state on my birth certificate?”
Elaine hesitated, but only briefly. “No. Nothing came.”
“It figures. Where’s tonight’s newspaper?”
“I left it in the kitchen.”
“Okay.” When he had disappeared through the swinging saloon-style doors, Elaine moved quickly to the buffet and gathered up several folded sheets of paper that were lying there in a neat pile. She buried them in the back of the end table drawer nearest her chair, closing it just as Richard reappeared.
“What do you have there?”
“Oh, just some trash,” Elaine said, flustered.
“Well, don’t put it in there. Give it to me and I’ll put it in the compactor.”
“I don’t—”
“Come on, give it to me while I’m still standing up.”
“It’s not really trash, not yet.”
“Are you trying to hide something from me?”
“No—I—”
“You are! Get them out. I want to see them.”
“No!” she said angrily. “They’re private.”
“Come on, Elaine, it took you too long to think of that. What could they be that they’re so terrible I can’t see them?”
Slowly she retrieved the papers from the drawer and held them out. “I would have shown them to you. I just didn’t want you to see them tonight, feeling the way you do. Some of the things you said—”
Hall took the papers gently, and reversed them so that he could read them. The first was from the university he had graduated from and Elaine had attended for a year. Elaine stood up and crossed the room, standing with her back to him as he read.
“Can’t find my records to issue a transcript,” he said. “You’re right. I could have done without seeing that tonight.” He unfolded the second sheet, which bore the seal of the State of Pennsylvania—Bureau of Vital Statistics.
“Oh, no,” was all he said, very quietly. He moved it to the bottom of the pile and looked at the final paper. It was smaller, of stiffer paper, and very official.
He looked up from it at his wife. “Why did you change the title to the car?” he asked, and his voice had acquired a hard edge.
“I didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know why it came that way.”
“The car used to be in both our names,” he said more loudly. “Now it’s only in yours! You’re the only one who could do that.”
“They must have made a
mistake printing the registration—” she started. But she did not get to finish the sentence.
“You! It’s been you doing these things!” He stepped forward, trembling from the force of will needed to restrain himself. “Why, Elaine? Why?”
She stepped back. “You’re scaring me, Richard. Please don’t come near me,” she said in the calmest voice she could muster.
“I don’t deserve this,” he said, tossing the papers on the floor behind him. He had lowered his voice, but that made it even more threatening.
“Please, Richard . . .”
He stepped toward her, and she turned to run to the bedroom with its locking door. She was too slow; he caught her by the shoulder of her loose-fitting blouse and yanked her back, the thin fabric tearing to the seam as he did. “Why are you doing this?” he shouted, his breath hot on her face. “What did I do to you?”
“Richard, I didn’t—”
“You want me out? You don’t have to make me think I’m crazy to get it.” He was shaking her, holding her by the upper arms in a powerful and painful grip. In the face of his anger, her strength had fled; without his hands, she would have collapsed. “You’ve got it, if that’s what you want! I won’t stay and let you mess with my mind!” He flung her into a chair, and, pausing only to scoop up his keys, stalked from the apartment.
Elaine Hall half-stumbled, half-crawled to the chair beside the phone. She could not control the trembling in her limbs, and misdialed twice before making the connection she wanted.
“Chris? This is Elaine.” Her voice communicated more than her words.
“Are you all right?” Wood asked immediately.
“I—I think so. Yes, I am. I’m just a little shook up. Can you come over, Chris? I need you to be here—and Rick, he—” The tears came streaming from her eyes. “Rick’s going to need both our help.”
Reassured by the presence of a full fuel tank, Richard Hall turned up the radio to a level that precluded coherent thought and simply drove. Presently he became aware of where he was: on the highway that would bring him nearest to Cross Creek. Once he had realized that fact, he did not think about it further.
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