“Son,” Mr. Howard had said, “aren’t you going up yonder to the big insurance convention in Hartford?” Stabbing for it, he had at first missed the bar with the edge of his elbow. Billy Walter had helped to right him. Modest, his rounded cheeks reddened as apples, Billy Walter admitted to having been chosen as his company’s representative. When Mr. Howard asked, Billy Walter had promised to see Amy, promising further that if he found out anything not suitable for Delton’s ears, he would not tell it.
“I mean,” Mr. Howard had said, “if she’s become a Communist, or something,” his eyes watery. Promising, Billy Walter knew the man was not worried about Amy’s politics at all.
“Honey,” he was saying, “get on your face. I’m coming down to show those Yankees some dancing.”
“Oh,” Amy said. “But I have other plans.”
“All I don’t have is time,” he said. “I only have tonight.”
In Delton, he had turned toward the picture window overlooking the golf course, while his drink was being refilled, in order not to see Mr. Howard’s tears. “She’ll come home, won’t she?” Mr. Howard had said. “Amy,” Billy Walter had said, “is kind of cerebral, not like us drinking and tearing up!” For a moment, they had forgotten everything to roar in appreciation of their own kind, heads lolling. “My wife, I guess she’s more the other kind, too,” Mr. Howard had said when he could. “Well,” Billy Walter had said, “that’s worked out all right.”
“Oh, has it?” Mr. Howard had asked. Slipping from the bar stool, he had gripped Billy Walter’s arm. “Son, I appreciate it. I was happy as a bluebird when you and Amy were running around together. By the time you get back now, I’m going to be needing some insurance on my dancing school.”
“I’d sure be glad,” Billy Walter had said, “to come around and talk to you about that.” He had gotten up respectfully when Mr. Howard stood, and they had parted, veeringly.
Billy Walter thought Amy might not need much coaxing to come home, hearing her voice trembling. “Billy Walter,” she said, “I’m so glad to hear from you I don’t know what to do. Come on down here quick as you can.” She heard her accent return.
“Honey, you bawling? Tell old Billy Walter what’s the matter?”
She said, “I’ll stop. Just you come on down here, quick as you can.”
Dancing exuberantly from the phone and almost lightheartedly, Amy thought of her first kiss, from Billy Walter with closed dry lips when they were fourteen. Jeff was full of understanding and would realize her need to see someone from home, but she should not tell him exactly who it was.
“An old friend from Delton,” she said, phoning.
“Amy,” he said, “you won’t be young and attractive always. That does enter in, now. You aren’t going to be able always to do with people what you want. If people can’t trust you, you won’t have anything left. How many times have you changed our plans?”
She was irritated knowing that he knew and had answered, “Twice.” Confidently afterward she apologized and said she would call him later. Later, when she telephoned, the ringing had gone on and on in the apartment, the following day and the following. Where would he have gone without telling her? The only possiblity which occurred was that an emergency had called him home, until Alex came back from Europe and found Jeff in his apartment, unconscious.
Knowing none, Billy Walter had not picked a sedate small hotel, but the city’s brassiest and largest. It fitted him, too, Amy thought, watching him cross the lobby, which was full of nearly riotous conventioneers. In a forelock like a pony’s, blond hair fell over his forehead, and though he wore an expensive suit, it was buttoned straight up like a uniform. He elbowed his way, happily, toward her. The morning after his call, with some quicker perception of what was right for her, Amy had found a black crepe dress with a (moderately) plunging neckline, as well as the suit. She felt more than well-dressed in the bar which Billy Walter picked. With her bosom shaking, a fat lady, who played a thumping piano, began immediate rapport with him. “Bourbon and branch water,” he had ordered, which bored the waiter. But, overhearing, the lady had laughed loudly and played the piano accordingly. “That’s Tennessee wine!” Billy Walter had called. She shook, bending over her pudgy thumping hands, the waiter looking sour. Disapproving, in parody, Amy drew down her own face. Billy Walter was glad to see she had not become pretentious living in the city. “Big girl,” he had said, “when are you coming home?”
Teasingly, she had said, “Oh, Billy Walter, you don’t care.”
“I didn’t call you for a while,” he had said, so seriously Amy was surprised, “because I thought you had something going with Quill.” Having pretty much looked over the field and finding nothing left but much younger girls, and tired of his mother questioning his comings and goings, Billy Walter had decided he needed to get married.
“How is Quill?” Amy asked, hoping for some clue as to what had gone wrong between them.
“Crazy as ever, maybe crazier. Cutting up every time I see him. Though don’t mistake me, Quill’s a pretty good old boy. Last time I saw him out to dinner, he had everybody in the place looking at him and knowing who he was, too, by the time he left.”
“Isn’t he happy?” Amy had asked quickly.
“I don’t know why he wouldn’t be. But I’ve never found any cure for unhappiness but keeping busy, have you?” Billy Walter had given her an affectionate poke with his swizzle stick, shy about his pronouncement, and had gone back to talking about Quill. “You and Quill are up on the same cloud.”
“I think I’m coming down off mine. But you’re a philosopher, Billy Walter. I never knew you had such thoughts.” And feeling naive, she said, “I’m impressed,” and looked at him a bit differently. “Is Quill still thin?”
“As a rail. Too thin.”
“I hope his father is happy.”
“You going to show me around tomorrow? What’s on the agenda, art galleries and museums?”
Dismissing those plans, Amy said, “Whatever you want to do.”
He looked doubtful, but said, “You wouldn’t be interested in Yankee Stadium?”
“I’d love it, if you would!”
“Careful, you almost looked as if you enjoyed smiling.”
“Oh. Don’t I usually?” she said, continuing to.
“No, you’re always solemn as an owl.”
“I’m afraid to have a good time,” she said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It makes me feel guilty.”
“You always were a screwball,” he said, but kindly. He took her hand. “But you’re not going to bawl!”
“Oh, dear. It seems like it. I don’t want to here.” She looked around.
He began to urge her up from the table saying, “Come on up to my room. You can cry your heart out.”
Going through the lobby, he put an arm about her waist and kept her close. While observing the deriding glances of several obvious New Yorkers, Amy did not move away from him. Suppose they looked like hicks, she thought, entering the elevator. And who decided how many buttons to button on a coat? She was concerned, however, with how many people she ought to go to bed with, numbering Tony and Jeff and, momentarily, Billy Walter.
This hotel room, like most, was innocuous, the carpet without pattern was merely a covering for the floor, and a couple of un-noteworthy pictures hung over the bed. The curtains were there only to frame the gayer view outside. Amy, in the middle of this room, was aware of nothing except Billy Walter, who seemed enormous coming from the door, which he had locked. He crossed from it in two strides and put his arms about her. She was suddenly frail as a flower stem in strong wind, and bent against him. Totally new feeling filled her at his touch. With a sense of awe and astonishment, she was lifted, and Billy Walter carried her to the bed.
There, Amy felt no desperate need to cover herself, even when she had removed her dress at the moment Billy Walter began to tug open his tie. As quickly as he got into bed, she turned toward him, li
king this closeness: that she could see minuscule flecks of green in his eyes, never before noticed. She felt compulsive about being even closer to him. When he turned off the light, she was sorry, for she had liked the sight of their bodies together and wondered at her previous embarrassment. Time, which seemed so often to her endless, seemed now not long enough. Closing her eyes, and wishing to prolong it, she felt a potential in herself never before felt.
They were two birds fantastically soaring, she imagined. They came back to earth, seemingly many-limbed, perspiring and exhausted human beings. Billy Walter got up eventually and stubbed his toe, headed toward the bathroom. He swung open the door as if clubbing it. When it had banged the wall, he shoved it again toward the bedroom, though it did not close completely. Unmindful and whistling a gay tune, he stood urinating loudly. Amy lay back on the bed to hug her pillow with a sense of deliciousness, laughing.
Preceded by a towel on which he was drying his hands, which he then flung across the room to a chair, Billy Walter came back. Amy got up swiftly, to stand as if experimentally, beside the bed. He looked at her appreciatively. She was still laughing when she went into the bathroom, never bothering to turn on the obliterating faucet.
The clothes of spectators, in stands opposite, had seemed scattered dots of color, like confetti. Distant trees waving in the fall wind had a similar look of frenzy and excitement. Nothing seemed to press inward on her, and Amy felt that she had grown, that inwardly she had expanded. Rising with the crowd to cheer, she watched in exhilaration as pennants flew in the breeze, and programs slung outward by excited fans sailed far. On this sunny afternoon, almost blinded by the brilliant green ball field, she wanted to think of nothing beyond this moment, of nothing more than being at a game with Billy Walter. In her seat, she leaned against him. She had had this morning nothing to put on but the black crepe dress and could not go to Yankee Stadium! Billy Walter quickly solved her dilemma, rushing them downtown in a taxi, which waited while she changed, and took them as swiftly to the field. Figuring it out herself, Amy knew she would have contrived a difficult situation on subways and buses, causing them to arrive for the game both distraught and late.
All around her now faces showed an unreasoned happiness, without guilt. She applauded the players and their striving enthusiastically, having a sense of well-being in the autumn day. Perhaps this was everything. Perhaps, after all, it was enough, she thought, glancing around. Anyway, since she was here, she meant to participate. Players jogged from the dugout and seemed, pointedly, to glance up at Billy Walter, in camaraderie; calling off their names, glimpsing their numbers, he seemed to know them, making Amy envious. Even the peanut vendor, who circled routinely and wearily, stopped to joke, calling Amy “the big boy’s better half.” She blushed, remembering that in bed, she had dwelled on having a baby with Billy Walter.
From the stadium gate, where he held up a brand-new suitcase, waving, Billy Walter took a taxi to the airport. Streets over which Amy returned to the city were clogged with dingy houses, the bus driver was melancholy and had no interest in his pretty passenger who tried to make jokes. Gabby as his two-year-old learning to talk, he thought, his frown driving Amy back into silence. Slumped into her seat, she stared out, depressed, knowing that she might turn obsessively inward again. Her loneliness was intensified when, leaving the bus, she had phoned Jeff and received no answer.
Coming from the hospital to stand in pale sunshine on the steps, Jeff then took the arm Amy offered. She hoped to make him smile and descending the steps said, “See, the chrysanthemums are still pretty.” Across the way, however, the trees partly had lost life and, half-bare, cast emaciated shade. Having caught cold, he had been confined past his designated week, and the flowers held little interest, though he smiled dutifully and said they were pretty. He held in one hand toilet articles in a small brown kit. Pressing that arm, Amy shepherded him carefully past traffic, halted with an impatient look, as if tethered by the red light.
Motorists, noting that he came from the hospital slowly, and noting the attentive young woman, thought that even though he relied on her, he had a self-possessed air. It made them conscious of being enclosed in cumbersome and expensive machinery, for his air said he wore and carried all really necessary to own. His tan raincoat was slightly soiled, its wide belt drawn so tightly to his middle, he seemed to have received some blow there, or to expect one. His set face had a pale sheen, like paraffin. Though November had only begun, there was to the air, to the day, some hint of white. Icicles might glisten so, hanging in the sun. Amy reached out a hand to turn up Jeff’s coat collar, before they disappeared from the motorists’ sight into the park.
An olive-skinned delivery boy, peddling fast on his bike, had lifted malicious eyebrows as if inquiring whether Amy might be a Girl Scout? Having looked quickly away, fearing comment, she glanced back, once, with a feeling that someone came behind her along the path. Visible, only, was the hospital’s forbidding roof.
Almost immediately while following the path, Amy and Jeff had begun to alternate passing from sunny spots into chill shadier ones. That set for the afternoon a fitful aura. Although they admitted wanting to scuffle through leaves, lying about in sparse drifts, they did not. The leaves were bright as Indian war paint, red and orange and yellow, and rose up with wind in whirlish dances. Following the walkway, Amy and Jeff happened past the merry-go-round and arrived at the top of an incline to face a lake. Trees stood away from its edges, permitting them to see the variable and uncertain sky, which was thinly blue. Giant clouds of grey overrode the blue, full of rain and possibly of snow. There were no longer swans on the water or people out in boats and a sign on the padlocked dock read, Closed. A bent candy box drifting on the water presently dissolved to spread in many unrelated directions. In this silence, the merry-go-round’s deadened music came to mind as well as reminiscent thoughts of childhood: lost things and times. Before those presently here had come, said the desolate place, there had been children and activity and good times, but the desuetude did not promise their return. The effect made Amy linger over the thought of how long she had known Jeff, without significant change in her life. Was she to go on and on as she was? Her moods shifted and changed, like the heavy clouds drifting here and there on the delicately blue sky. She was glad they did not feel the necessity of small talk, and oppositely, she felt as a burden the obligation to break their silences.
“I’m glad you’re out of that place, at last,” she said.
“Yes, I’m tired of illness. This may all be over soon.”
“It was a depressing place. And for you to be in it depressed me, too. In fact, I don’t like it here any more. I wish we were in our woods, Jeff.”
“That, Amy,” he said, “was beautiful. But it’s past. You can’t recapture. Though people keep, if they’re wise.” And he glanced at her sideways, as if ascertaining whether she were. He put out his hand then. “A leaf’s fallen in your hair.” He removed it and gave it to her.
Amy took it like a more valuable gift and stuck it into her purse. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll keep it because it’s from you. Somebody said to me once that leaves falling were like people dying. Was that you?”
“No,” he said. “But someone near my age, I’m sure. Your father?”
“I don’t think he’s ever said anything even that profound,” she said. “It might have been my Uncle Joe, though I never think of him as saying anything poetic. But it must have been one of them.”
Having observed her opposing moods, he said, “I’m going to risk further boring a beautiful young woman by recalling an old saying. The one about the child who grows up and is amazed to discover how much his parents have learned.”
A sudden glimmer in her eyes matched his own, and Amy laughed. “I have to confess. I don’t think I’ve ever understood that saying fully, until just now.” The face she turned toward him expected approval, perhaps appreciation of her being agreeable. Jeff remained absorbed in watching a squirrel running blithe
ly along an iron railing. Feeling rebuffed and looking away, Amy snuggled her cold nose into her coat collar. Aware of her movement, without exactly looking at her, no matter the weather, he thought of sunlight when Amy appeared in that coat. He had to smile when she snuffled her nose, made runny by the day, against the collar. He felt indulgent and spoke more kindly. A feeling from their better times came back. “Shall I take you inside somewhere? Are you too cold?”
“No,” she said. “Not unless you need to rest?” She glanced around at benches, themselves cold-looking with the trees leafless. “Let’s walk on to Fifth Avenue and then decide what to do. Unless you want to do something different?”
“No. I need to clear my head and need exercise, too, only slowly. Though I thank you, beautiful Miss Howard, who is growing up. I’m afraid, however, I’m not to be much fun.”
“I didn’t know you thought I was looking for fun.”
“Once, I thought I knew a great deal about you. This past week or so, I’ve not been sure.”
“Does the time you were in the hospital count?” she said defensively. “I tried to come often, but it was tiring just to sit when you were so sleepy and confused. You never could remember things, even that you had sent Reconstruction.”
Stopping in the middle of the path, he gripped her elbows and turned her toward him. “Amy, I’ve had a hard time convincing you of anything. You’ve been too stubborn and proud and stiff-necked, and gotten away with it because you so often broke my heart. Also because you’re beautiful. But damn it, I’m telling you, once and for all, I haven’t forgotten. I didn’t send the manuscript. I only wish I had thought of it.”
She said, shocked and believing at last, “But then, who did? It’s impossible that anyone else did.”
He seemed as stunned as she. “That’s something I’ve got to think out myself,” he said.
“But what’s happening to everyone?” she said. “My mother told you how to find me, and now this.” She stared at him as if he had materialized on the path. “It’s as if they wanted us to be together.”
The Wintering Page 29