Into the Valley

by Ruth Galm

15.

  The next town B. came on was the largest she’d seen in the valley. She avoided for a while anything but the fields, driving straight through the flat green and the flat yellow, concentrating on the line in the road. The town appeared from out of nowhere, like an oasis. (Or was she farther south in the valley than she’d thought? She was no longer exactly sure where she was.) The milky blue sky beat down on its empty streets. A few tall palms listed over the main drag, a movie theater with missing letters in its marquee and a church and a Woolworth’s. A sign pointed toward a river, the existence of which seemed doubtful in the heat.

  She turned down the streets until she came accidentally into a neighborhood. A collection of small one-story cottages. Each yard seemed carefully planted, with gladioli and rose bushes, geraniums and fuchsia. Actual trees, a rare collection, stooped over the houses. There was a quietness about the place. Everything seemed quaint and tidy and protected. She parked the car and got out.

  She walked up the block. At a cream-colored stucco house she walked up to the arched window. The entire living room was visible. She stood in the shade of a magnolia tree and peered in at a dark green couch and dark green armchair, both decorated with antimacassars at the heads and arms. In the corner of the room a black-and-white television was on. On the dark dining room table she could see a stack of envelopes and a thick book whose title she could not make out. There was a large crucifix in the center of one wall, two small ceramic angels around it. She waited to discern something, some message or communication from these choices, this arrangement. The beauty parlor girl’s blue-and-black smears and the old thin woman’s mottled hands flashed at her. She moved to a different part of the window and continued to watch.

  B. waited for someone to come into the front room. For a split second she saw her reflection in the window, the curls wind-ragged, her shoulders pink. The reflection seemed far away; it was the image of a disheveled thin woman. She waited for someone to turn off the television and its flickering gray images. No one came.

  She stood there she was not sure how long until she noticed a different reflection. A mailman watching from across the street. She raised her hand to wave. He did not wave back.

  Finally she walked back to the Mustang. She sat at the wheel. The television images from the stucco house flitted in front of her: a woman with a box of laundry detergent; a man with a briefcase; a woman in an evening dress. She tried to put these images together in illustration of something, a code to the house, to its way of life.

  She did not notice the police officer until he was knocking on the window. The sun was angled low behind him, blurring his outline. She rolled the window down.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Do you have a license, ma’am?”

  “Of course.” She reached over to her purse on the passenger seat. There was a stain from the ice cream on the floorboard; she hoped the police officer could not see it. She drew out her wallet, trying not to open the purse too wide to reveal the fifty-dollar bills.

  “I was just feeling tired. They say it’s better not to drive when you’re tired.”

  He studied her license. Her face flushed; how closely would he look at it? His fingers around it were large and ruddy, big blond hair follicles in the knuckles. He stooped to her eye level, elbow in the door.

  “You’re a ways from the city.”

  She made herself observe his badge, his holster. “I’m meeting a friend in Reno, and I was just stopping to do an errand and I wanted to see the neighborhood, and . . . it’s such a nice-seeming neighborhood . . . then I realized I was a little tired.”

  He peered down at the license again, then at her. He could not, she reminded herself, know about the checkbook. Or the bills. Then she realized from the way his gaze returned to her and darted shyly over her face that he was finding her attractive. She had learned she must respond to these cues, that to do so put her at an advantage in a situation.

  She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Maybe I should get a cup of coffee,” she said, biting her lip. “Could you recommend a place?”

  The officer coughed. “Well, there’s a Sambo’s at Second and Main. Just take a right here and go about five blocks.”

  “Thank you.”

  He hesitated and cleared his throat. “Try not to let someone find you like this again.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  The houses looked gilded and soft in the late light; she did not want to leave them. But the policeman would not start his squad car until she started the Mustang, after which he followed. Her shoulders tensed until finally he turned.

  The Sambo’s was a bright orange color outside, the booths and light fixtures the same lurid orange inside. The theme of the restaurant unfolded in a vaguely disturbing cartoon along the walls, in which a tiger was turned into butter as punishment for trying to eat a child. But the melted butter did make one think of pancakes, B. thought, and she ordered a stack and coffee.

  Things were happening that B. had not intended. She had not intended to stand on a lawn looking into someone else’s picture window in broad daylight. She had not intended to present a fake license to a police officer. She should, she knew, stop to consider these events. Ascertain some schema to them, formulate a plan in reaction. But she sensed for the first time that something dire might occur if she stopped to do this, if she stopped to examine any of it. What was so terrible about wanting to move forward? she thought.

  Cheered by this slant on things and the coffee, B. borrowed a pen from the waitress and began sketching on a napkin the stucco house and the dining room table. When her pancakes came, she noticed a girl sitting alone in a corner booth, also writing, in a notebook. The girl sat with a cup of coffee and a few balled-up dollar bills, a large knapsack at her feet. It was unclear whether she’d eaten or not. Her skin was deeply tanned, her long hair falling in greasy sections to the table. She wore fraying blue jeans, dirty at the hems, a loose peasant blouse, and a choker made of leather. Her feet were bare. She seemed like a brown and wind-tangled child just come in from the beach, except for the frown lines in her forehead and the shadows under her eyes.

  “I’d appreciate it oh so much if I could get more coffee the same as everyone else,” the girl said to the waitress, who seemed to be ignoring her. “Jesus Christ. You’d think I wasn’t paying.”

  A LIFE magazine protruded from underneath the girl’s knapsack; she ran her toes back and forth over the gloss. B. had seen the cover everywhere in the spring: the bride in a mushroom cloud of white veil, cascading white and yellow roses, the groom’s hair slicked carefully to the side, ascot gray and black. The young senator’s daughter and the young wealthy family’s son. A picture making all the sense in the world.

  Except that after the cover appeared, B. had begun having the same dream. Her graduation luncheon, the white-linened tables and camellias in glass bowls, the early humidity glazing her face. (The yellow dress her mother had insisted on to complement her hair sometimes lavender, sometimes blue.) What upset her in the dream was that the speech was never intelligible. The Rotarian’s or Junior Leaguer’s or fundraising committee chair’s words always cut off by a faint high-pitched scream, a terrified animal shriek B. imagined might occur during a stabbing or a rape. What came through made no sense: “Take the higher road . . . gentle abiding . . . look happy, now . . .” What could it mean?

  B. woke from these dreams with her nightgown sweat through.

  The girl arranged sugar packets in a circle on the table. She seemed engrossed in getting the white packets to curve out smoothly, widening larger and larger until she ran out. The waitress returned and said something under her breath, not refilling the girl’s cup, and at that moment the girl casually swept her arm across the table and dropped all the sugar packets onto the floor.

  B. gaped at the scattered packets.

  �
�You should pick those up.” She had not meant to say it out loud.

  “Why?”

  The girl seemed to look right through her. The blank stare frightened B. She jumped up from her booth, knocking over the silverware, trying to get out. On the way to the register she dropped her purse, the ostrich skin strangely flesh-like against the orange-flecked linoleum, her lipstick rolling onto the floor, the checkbook slipping out. B. scrambled to gather them and pay. Outside, the air was still hot and dry. The town in the dusk looked even more empty. She walked quickly down a few blocks, the white packets raining on the floor and the girl’s sullen blank eyes on her, and when she passed underneath a decorative Spanish arch, there was only the same empty street on the other side.

  16.

  The next morning, in the motel bed, she fingered the collar of the powder-blue dress. She had not meant to sleep in it. There was a coffee stain at her breast and a pungent dampness under her arms. The night before she’d had the intention of washing her underthings. She’d laid out her bra and panties next to the sink and found her Woolite travel packets. Then she’d sat on the bed and the intention had lost its keenness. She must have lain down.

  The already-warm morning air smelled faintly of green onion. (There was a kind of onion grass wasn’t there? Did it resemble chives? The question nagged her.) She watched the line of blue sky through the curtain. It made her think of the sky through the magnolia trees from the day before. The cottages shared the same compactness of the lake house, the same shade and light, she thought. She had lost something in the lake house. She lay in the motel bed contemplating the line of blue sky and what it was she had missed, but she could not grasp it.

  When she got up from the bed finally, she smoothed down her hair, limp from the over-washing and wind. She wiped the makeup from under her eyes and applied new lipstick and mascara.

  She made sure the bills were tucked into her purse and left the Mustang in the motel parking lot to walk toward the center of the town. It was early, so she stopped in a small park and sat on a bench. The freshly mown grass shone darkly from sprinklers. An old man sat at the other end of the park feeding bread to small brown birds. B. imagined herself coming here to read or picnic. She thought perhaps she could even be like the old man, quiet and serene tossing crumbs of bread.

  But a sense of pale familiarity descended on her. Why would the park be any different from the ones in the city? What would she tell people she was doing there? Her head spun. She rose from the bench and walked across the lawn, pieces of wet grass sticking to the bone-colored heels, and tried to calm her breathing. The old man’s birds took flight. She walked past the main street, to the river, low and brown. The onion smell had evaporated, the heat of the day already inescapable. She walked along the river until her breathing evened and the spinning slightly lessened.

  She found the real estate office. It was a storefront with a few photos of houses in the window. A woman sat at a desk flipping through papers. She had styled, shoulder-length hair and a tan dress belted at the hips. She studied B. for a beat before she smiled.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to look at houses for sale in the area.”

  The woman lowered her reading glasses to her nose and scanned B. “Are you visiting from the city?”

  “Do you have time to show me anything?”

  The woman hesitated. “I can take you round a couple places, although I find it helpful to have both of you along, to ask questions, get things clear,” she said. “Should we wait for anyone?”

  “No. I’m ready to go now.”

  Again the woman studied B. and seemed after a moment to make some assessment that allowed her to stand up from her desk.

  “I’ll drive us out.”

  They walked to the woman’s car in back, the steering wheel and dashboard, seats and doors of which were lined in an immaculate white calfskin. B. hesitated to sit on it. The woman warmed up once they were in the car. “My husband and I were both planning to move to the city, you know, before we met. Funny how life works out. His plans fell through, and so did mine, and otherwise we would never have met.

  “I still love to visit, though,” the woman went on. “Seeing the bay is a thrill. Although I’m not sure these days it’s the safest place.” She hmmmed in agreement with her own observation.

  “It’s a small town, but our schools are good, and we have strong clubs and community groups. It’s right to get out of the city, I think, once you’ve decided.” Her voice fell into a conspiratorial tone. “I know how hard it is to get them to stop thinking big big big, to stop them wanting to be in the game. It’s something caveman-ish in them, I think. Ronald still talks about moving to the city—at thirty-seven! Thinking they have to be where the action is. But if you can steer the boat the right way, it’s the best thing.”

  B. knew she was expected to offer some personal story here, some hint of her plan, but she said nothing, watching the faded stores and buildings pass by.

  The woman eyed B. “Do you think you’ll be starting a family soon? These are the kinds of things it’s best for me to know, so you don’t settle in and find out you need a nursery.”

  “I’d rather just see something first.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ve only been in real estate for thirteen years.”

  They were on the highway now, alongside a line of sharp-edged pink and white oleander, and suddenly the town was behind them and they were back in the fields. It was a development, with a main artery and small streets shooting off, low beige mirror-image houses and thin new trees around the perimeter. Each had a new lawn and a two-car garage and, B. imagined, a swimming pool out back.

  “It’s not what I want,” B. blurted out.

  The realtor was listing the amenities of the houses, “. . . new double ovens, sunken living rooms, automatic garage doors . . .”

  “I was in a neighborhood last night near your office,” B. said. “That’s where I want to go. Take me back.”

  “Downtown? That’s old folks. Retirees and widowers on their own.” The realtor grimaced. “Don’t you even want to go inside one of the new ones?”

  “Take me back now, please. That’s where I want to look.”

  The woman scowled. Her fingers gripped the white calfskin of the steering wheel so hard B. was afraid she might soil it. She turned the car around in one of the new driveways. “Those houses are too small, you realize, not in any condition,” she said. “Really, they’re falling apart inside. Not suitable for families at all.”

  As they drove back along the sharp oleander the lake house descended on B. again. She had the feeling whatever she had lost there she could get back in one of the old cottages. A desperation climbed through her to get to the cottages; she braced herself against the blaring white seat. Hurry, she thought, hurry. As they drove, she tried to calm herself with images of new curtains and a divan on which to read her books, a cookbook with recipes for fingerling potatoes and roasts, a sewing machine maybe. It seemed so simple.

  “There’s only one I agreed to show,” the realtor was saying. “I felt sorry for the children, you know, trying to move on with their lives. The father eating out of tin cans at the end, for pity’s sake.” They parked in front of a white wooden cottage with green trim and one of the large magnolias in front. Its suede leaves littered the dry lawn. The realtor led her up to the front door. B. tried to ignore a pang of disappointment at the chipped paint and the rusted knocker. The house was empty. The realtor shuttled her through the rooms, with square pale outlines on the walls of picture frames removed. “No dishwasher, no central air, no electric stove, here’s the one closet you would share . . .” B. tried to rally herself by visualizing the bookshelves she could stain herself, the new curtains she could learn to sew. But her heart sank at the cracked porcelain sinks and the splitting baseboards. She thought inexplicably of the girl’s dirty bare feet on the magazine
cover in the Sambo’s. “Could you show me another?” she asked the realtor. “Nothing else is up in this neighborhood,” the woman said stonily. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. People stay until they die. They’ve been in there since their honeymoons, since the war.” She sighed. B. left her and walked back to the front yard. The houses all at once looked dilapidated, gardens dying. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t buy a house on her own; she couldn’t fix it up. The tightening seized her neck and head. The pale washed-out park of the morning hung before her. She saw that it was a version of every park she’d ever seen before, would ever see again. She bent over and brought her hand to her stomach and dry-heaved. She could not move from the dead lawn. Like a day in the city when she’d frozen in the middle of an intersection, immobile, realizing there was nowhere to go—backward, forward, it was all the same. The traffic light changing and the cars honking as she stared at a crumpled bus transfer, until a man stepped out and pulled her to the curb.

  Through the haze of this memory, the realtor was making squawking sounds like a crow. Demanding to know where B. was staying, how she had gotten there, if she was going to be sick. When B. understood this last question she wanted to tell the woman that she was not, that if she could be sick, it might be better.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t help someone in your condition.” The squawking now arranging itself into sentences. “I try and keep up with the times. I like the city. But we’re different out here. We have morals. It was strange enough that you were alone, but now . . .” An objection formed in B.’s mind, but she could not get it out of her mouth. Before she knew it, she was back inside the spotless calfskin and then deposited in the motel parking lot, waves of heat shimmering off the asphalt. A car door slammed and the realtor was gone and B. stood beside the Mustang, the blue metal searing.

  She stumbled into her room and gathered her travel bag, leaving the Woolite packets, and left cash and her room key in the office. Her shoulders contracted into each other, her head spiraled. She climbed in the Mustang and exited the motel parking lot without any sensation of movement.