Miss Inga shake her head saying, “Ten years,” not thinking ’bout Miss Reba. Miss Amelia say Miss Reba get her hair done on Fridays and so it would be all over town by now. “Tall and blonde and wearing an expensive coat and alligator shoes,” Miss Amelia read. “Are we supposed to think he gave her those? We’ve outlasted others. We can outlast this one.”
“But where will it all end?” Miss Inga say.
“At the grave, I guess,” Miss Amelia say. “Jessie, what’s the matter with you?”
“Rabbit done run over mine,” I sayed.
Then they fixing to go on to the picture show. Get they mind off it, Miss Amelia sayed. But they ain’t going to get they mind off it. Like I can’t keep my mind off Vern. I keep telling him church ain’t meeting no mo’, it’s taking up collection. And everybody full of hate when the Bible say love. Too little love. Black and white folks going to be fighting out yonder in the road. Mark my words. It’s all laid out in the Bible. History just goes round. “Love,” Vern sayed to me. “What white man love me?” I sayed, “He give you a job.”
“That white man where I plow at need me bad as I need him,” he sayed. Then he gone off to another meeting. Preacher got a new car, Vern ain’t. Sets up to the lunch counter, they close it down.
“It takes the process of time,” Jessie’s sister said. “Like you may want you some field peas in the wintertime, it takes till the summertime to get them.”
“I see,” Jessie said. “And I guess that what us going to do: see.”
But, that evening, Miss Amelia tell Miss Inga to stop crying and run put her face back on. She had some wrinkle-erase cream on her dresser and sayed it would hide the red around Miss Inga’s eyes, go use it. Miss Inga say, “It won’t hide the wrinkles though, will it?” And Miss Amelia act like she don’t hear. So Miss Inga sayed to me, “Will it, Jessie?” And I sayed, “No’m.”
“It’s like you sayed, Sister, everything going to go according to the process of time,” Jessie said.
That evening, waiting on the porch to go to the movies, Inga had seemed like a little bird huddled on its perch, Amelia had thought. They had stared back in at Jeff with the book still on his stomach, and he never turned a page, she had noted. The winter-dry muscadine had scraped the porch’s eaves with a groaning sound that reminded her of arthritic old people complaining about their swollen joints. The car’s headlights, bending obliquely, tore through the forsythias, and the car rattling over the cattle gap had made a sound as if something had been dropped hollowly into frozen ground from a distance. How old she felt, Inga had thought. How much better Amelia seemed to be bearing up under life. She wondered what her secret was, and for the first time, having often wondered why Amelia had never married, she had thought that it was because she had had sense enough not to. It aged you, Inga thought, having realized when she looked into the mirror that the hair rinse she had put on was not enough; tomorrow she would go to Billie Jean’s.
“If we had had children do you think things would have turned out any differently?” she said.
Meaning to absolve Inga of that guilt, Amelia said, “Probably he would have cared more about his work, anyway.”
Anyway, but how cruel, Inga thought, wanting desperately to reach out and touch someone. “His work,” she said vehemently.
Vurk, Amelia repeated inwardly, jarred. If only Inga had been able to get rid of her accent better. She remembered how odd she had looked when Jeff brought her home wearing black lisle stockings; right away, she had given her some silk ones. Inga had wanted to milk. As kindly as she could she had said, “We have Negroes to do that.”
She said, now, “Inga, don’t you ever miss your home?”
“Why, this is my home!” Inga said.
“Well, I mean where you came from, then,” Amelia said.
Inga answered, a little lost, “Home to me is where I live.”
“That’s certainly not the way I am, at all,” Amelia said. “I sometimes wonder what in the world would have happened to me if I had married a man I started to once. He got transferred afterward to St. Louis!”
Was Amelia telling her something finally, or had she at last only understood, Inga wondered. She had left her country and Amelia wouldn’t move out of her county if she had to. She had married for love, Inga thought. Was that a mistake? At the ticket window, she drew up her coat collar feeling pierced by eyes on the young woman selling tickets. And inside the movie, she thought she was going to scream if Amelia did not stop sucking popcorn hulls off her teeth and scraping the popcorn against the insides of the cardboard box. She thought of her early years here when on pretty mornings the smooth magnolia blossoms had given off their lemon scent. When she went to open market all the men around the station had stared and she had swung her basket teasingly. How much she had liked bending over the great bushels of peas to run her hands down to the cool wettish depths at the bottom, but one day she had realized the old countrymen gathered around to stare down the top of her dress, which had changed those lovely moments. Nothing ever did stay the same. If only Jeff had worked at the lumber mill like everybody else. And why should she have invited Reba when she hardly knew her? If only she had not chosen that time to try to defy Amelia and go against her advice. Did defiance ever work? The time she had put Jeff’s manuscript in the garbage, she had not let Jessie burn it. She had told him afterward it ought to teach him to keep carbons. The pages, found at last, had been smelly and smeared. Before he went back to the house, she had asked what he would have done if she had let them be burned. And he had answered, “Kill you or leave you,” she could not remember which, as they would have been the same.
On the street again, Amelia said, “Did you enjoy the movie?” wondering why Inga kept her coat collar up to her nose.
“Yes,” Inga answered, though Amelia knew she had no more idea than a puppy dog what the whole movie had been about. Negroes came down the rattly wooden steps from the gallery.
“Hidy, Vern,” Amelia said, recognizing Jessie’s nephew from his painted-on leather jacket. He lowered his eyes as if not to see her, then at the last minute spoke. She wondered if he mumbled because he didn’t have good sense and someday was going to ask Jessie.
“Let’s look in the jewelry store,” she said. While there, a couple were reflected stopping behind them to speak. The station’s lights dimmed as she and Inga turned around. It was nine o’clock and not even an express would pass through the remainder of the night.
Holding a large knitting bag, the woman said, “Dea Ellman, Amelia,” since it was obvious Amelia could not place her.
“Joe,” said the man, lifting his hat.
“Of course,” Amelia said. “And you know my sister-in-law, Inga.”
“We were about to have a quick Coke or something at Chester’s,” Joe said. “Won’t you join us?”
It was the most astonishing invitation Amelia had ever had, but then it was not an invitation, at all. It was a command, she thought, ruffled. The man had taken her arm and was guiding her toward the drugstore before she could answer, and Inga had been taken in tow by the woman. Silently, they sat while Chester smeared the marble table top, wiping it before he took their order. Each mentioned something to eat, though no one cared.
“We stay in the country so much, we hardly ever see anyone we know,” Dea said, trying to look amiable.
Know? Amelia thought, wondering when she had last seen these people. What was the point of all this? When Dea said she could not remember when they had last seen a movie, and Joe started to answer, Amelia cut in quickly. “None of them are worth talking about,” she said. “Inga, your coat’s trailing on the floor.” She wished Inga could at least say Boo once in a while; it was like dragging a child about with her. Inga blushed, and Joe helped her straighten the coat.
Chester brought the order and it took time to remember who had asked for what. Dea gave Joe a definite nod and taking a great swallow of his Coke, he knew he had to begin. “Some folks like to tell a tale like the
re’s more to it than there is. And I believe Reba Royal is one of them,” he said. “Though don’t misunderstand, I’m just as crazy about old Reba as I can be.”
“Amy only came here to see Mr. Almoner because of her friend who’s writing a paper about him,” Dea interceded.
“Amy?” Amelia said. They did not know as much as Dea thought they would. “Came here?” Inga said. Amelia gave her a kick under the table, and she was silent. “Of course,” Amelia said.
“My niece,” Dea said. “She used to want to be a stewardess and then a nurse and now she thinks she wants to be a writer.”
“Till she gets married, of course,” Joe said, winking. “You know how these things go.”
No, how did they go; that’s what they were wondering, Amelia thought. She looked at them questioningly.
“After she came here with her friend who’s writing the paper she wrote Mr. Almoner to thank him for seeing them, then evidently he wrote her and proposed lunch in Delton,” Dea said.
Or she did, Amelia thought.
“We think it’s nice for young people to be interested in Jeff’s work,” Inga said.
“She’s gone back to college in Vermont now,” Dea said. “She’s too serious about studying for a girl. And I hope she will marry soon. She’s a pretty girl.”
“I’m sure of that,” Amelia said.
“What Reba’s telling don’t sound as simple as it was,” Joe said. They were running around together all over Delton was the way Reba told it. “And naturally Amy’s mother is upset and we thought just to come out in the open and talk to you was the best way to handle it.”
“If we all just sit tight and keep calm, it’ll seem like Reba’s just talking off the top of her head,” Dea said.
“Yes, I think that’s the best way to handle Reba,” Amelia said slowly. Later, having argued gently over the bill, and Joe having finally paid it, they stood outside on the sidewalk and shook hands all around. There was nothing else they could do for now, they agreed.
Dea and Joe waited until the women had driven off safely and then headed toward the country. Driving through the darkened town, they turned moon-struck faces toward houses with lights on later than usual, wondering why they were: such small things were their main concerns. Something must be good on the late show, Joe decided. They paused to admire a new stop sign at the corner of Main. When they at last turned into their own driveway, Dea made a mental note to take the greenery off the mailbox tomorrow. Concern made her poke inquiring fingers into the fern pots inside the house now, and she found they were dry. She had to water them and Joe was almost asleep by the time she stood by the bed putting on her gown. But if she talked, he would go immediately back to sleep.
“Did you notice how Mrs. Almoner says ‘work’ so funny? ‘Vurk,’” Dea repeated.
“Switzerland or Sweden. Where was it she came from?”
“I don’t know,” Dea said. “Someplace. I am certainly glad we got that talk off our minds.”
Joe yawned. “Somebody has to write books, I reckon,” he said, turning on his back. “But I certainly can’t imagine a man sitting down wanting to do it.”
Dea got into bed and smiled a little complacently. “It certainly isn’t like a man getting up and going to an office in the morning, or to the fields.”
The furnace popped and the clock in the tiny entranceway struck the half-hour. She could smell cloves stuck into an orange, hanging in her closet, which a granddaughter had given her for Christmas. The odor reminded her she needed to make a dentist’s appointment, as his mouthwash had the same smell. Turning over, Dea knew she would sleep well with that talk over. She was glad to be rid of their duty.
While his black dog ran ahead, Almoner, holding his gun close, stood uncalmly at the edge of an autumn-scarred field. A plane crossed overhead, a silver sliver against the totally blue sky. Was it hers?
“So you had lunch with Almoner,” Quill said. He had been tugging so mightily at his seat belt Amy had been wondering whether it were going to go around him. And as immediately as they had gotten on the plane, he had yelped for a Bloody Mary, trying to be so suave. Now, she gaped at him. “Don’t look so astounded,” he said, grinning. She had turned to glance at Borden behind them with his head bent over a magazine. “Don’t worry,” Quill said. “He knows. How did you think you could get away with something like taking him to the Frog Pond?”
Laughing, his jowls hung, and he looked like a bloodhound, Amy thought. “Will you hush,” she said. Surrounded by his laughter, and feeling still astonished, she put her head back remembering once when she had been floating down a rapid river that she had been sucked into a whirlpool, had had the sensation of drowning, and all her thought had been to open her mouth desperately and gasp. “How did you find out?” she said.
“Mrs. Decker called my mother. Some woman from down there had brought her daughter up to enroll her in school here and saw you.”
Cars minute as fleas went by below with her mother in one, driving home from having brought her to the plane. She couldn’t know, or she would have said something, Amy thought, which meant that Aunt Dea did not know either. She knew them well enough to know if they had known, they would have said something. Why had she taken Almoner to the Frog Pond? she wondered, opening a magazine: to try to disprove his feeling there was a need for secrecy, which she had not wanted to believe. She had wanted it all to be innocent and he had ruined that when he touched her arm.
“I don’t see anything wrong with having lunch with him,” she said. “That’s why I went to the Frog Pond.”
“Boy oh boy oh, I don’t see old Almoner asking me out to lunch,” Quill said.
She was silently furious the remainder of the trip. When they landed, Borden hung back as if she and Quill might have something to say to one another that was private, but as noncommittally as strangers who had happened to share a seat, they turned their backs on one another and parted.
I’ve wanted to write you letters ever since you went back to school, but I don’t know how to sign them. I’m afraid you don’t want me to sign them the way I want to. Write and tell me and then I will write you.
Jeff
If you won’t write, then send me some of your work. I can always help you with that. Maybe that’s the only reason you came into my life, after all.
It has snowed all day on top of the foot we already had and it makes me feel so far from Delton, where it’s almost spring. I’ve been trying to think of some good titles. A. says they are important. If I think of a good one, maybe I can think of a story to go with it. I wanted to know him and not feel so much as if there were no one else like me in the world. But I don’t know what to do about the insinuations in his letters.
Thank you for sending the piece, though, in addition, I would have liked anything, even a scrap of paper with your name. The little girl going out to burn sparklers in her yard alone while her parents were having a New Year’s Eve party made me want to cry. It is difficult to adjust to the fact that we are all alone. Maybe that’s why I wrote books, to cope with this frustration. I have to tell you because, so far, there has been between us only honesty, which is why in so short a time I know our relationship is different, that your writing is not yet right. But if you work it will come right; what I thought would be is there, what comes out of your letters: remember I told you what it was at the river that day?
Jeff
I didn’t write, I guess, because I didn’t know how to tell you to sign your name. Any way you want to, I guess. But thank you very much for reading the piece. Do you know somebody saw us at lunch that day and told Mrs. Decker who told Quill’s mother. I’m sure a lot of people know. My mother doesn’t seem to or she would have said something. But do you think your family does? I hope nothing happens. Here, it is still cold and bleak. Many people have gone away for the weekend and it is lonely; but I like this kind of loneliness: when you choose it. But I have been just thinking about myself and I know I think about myself too much. I ju
st don’t have anything to write about; that’s why nothing I write is right. I feel I have got to live, then sort of stop, and then write about what I’ve lived. I’ve tried to grow up since knowing you; but I don’t think I have, completely; because I don’t think I want you to sign the letters the way I think you want to. I hope you will understand the kind I mean when I say,
Love,
Amy
He should have known, Almoner thought. He said, “I should have known; if you’d burn my manuscript, you’d open my mail. Why didn’t I suspect? Just tell me this. With your interest in the dollar what made you pick this one? Why not the one from New York, the publisher’s. They’ve sold more books. Or this one from Hollywood. It’s bound to have a money-making scheme. Why this plain white envelope from Vermont?”
“There’s one way to put a stop to it. I’m going to see her father. Mallory Howard, in Delton. Are you surprised I know so much?” Inga’s legs visibly trembled as she entered the hall. One hand groped for her room’s door handle, missed, touched, while her voice came thick and smelling of codeine. In the moment of smelling it, reliving all he had ever known of separation and death, Almoner shuddered. “I’m surprised at nothing,” he said.
“I didn’t burn it,” Inga said, lingering at her door a moment. But he was gone.
Amy:
She has opened your last letter. I should have been more vigilant, watchful. I’ve torn up all your others. To rip them up was like tearing myself inside. She was expecting the letter. I don’t know how. She knows your name and has threatened to see your father, though I don’t believe she will. I hate to frighten you, Amy. But I must. I have to warn you. Now, maybe you’ll understand really the risks ahead, if you continue to see me. Only you can decide whether it’s worth continuing. Whatever you decide, this may force you to grow up at last, despite yourself. If there are to be any more letters, we can’t risk them here. I will rent a box under the name March Walsh. Do you remember him, a minor character in Reconstruction? A favorite of mine. Write me, if you will, so that it arrives here on Saturday. If the box is empty then, I’ll understand.
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