Strangers on a Train

by Ruth Wind

  Mike looked at him. Heather had been sick yesterday, he remembered. "She wouldn't answer the door?"

  Tom drew himself up to his full height, standing straight for the first time in Mike's memory. "I think you oughta check on her, make sure she's okay."

  Mike licked his lips and considered.

  "Maybe she's sick or something," Tom added.

  "Something." Mike nodded. "Thanks, Tom. I'll go by there."

  "Good. I don't mean to interfere, you know, or anything like that."

  "I know. I appreciate your coming over here. Thanks."

  "See ya, then."

  Mike wrapped his bleeding fingers with a clean rag and considered the dilemma set before him. Would he play knight and go see if he could rescue Heather from her dragons? Again?

  He wanted to. He wanted to rage over to her house on his noisy Harley, then pound on her door and roar until she dragged herself out of bed. Then, he thought with satisfaction, he would shake her until her teeth rattled, until her numbed brain was shocked to life.

  No. She needed a good shaking up, but not a physical one. And he didn't think he was the one to administer what she needed.

  If he'd learned anything at all in Alcoholics Anonymous, it was that each person had the control of his or her own life. Pity didn't help somebody who was stuck in a ditch with mud in their eyes. You could toss them a cloth to wash the mud away, but they had to do the washing themselves.

  For two years, he'd been acting as guard over his sister-in-law, effectively shielding her from any help she might have found within herself. It had been guilt and sorrow, he supposed. He'd worried about his little brother constantly after he'd returned from Vietnam, but at first Heather had seemed to really help James.

  Mike had spent a lot of time since James's suicide wishing he'd been more alert to the signs that his brother wasn't facing his war memories well. His constant monitoring of Heather's terrible grief had been, in part, a way of making it up to his brother.

  Now he saw that that, too, was a game. He wasn't giving Heather enough credit. Look at the way she'd managed her love life, he thought. For years, he'd been pushing every suitable candidate he could find at her, and she'd just as steadily ignored them—then gone out and found herself one hell of a decent man in Ben Shaw.

  Ben was old enough to know what he was doing. He was patient, Mike thought. That would help. But even Ben wouldn't wait forever. What would happen to Heather then?

  He quelled his urge to go to see her, after all. Heather had to fight her own dragons, be her own knight in shining armor. He had a hunch no one would be more surprised than she at the bang-up job she would do when she found no one was going to do it for her.

  The vivid picture he imagined brought a smile to his face: Heather, her glorious hair spilling over the blue velvet gown she'd worn for Twelfth Night, swinging Excalibur with both hands, a grimace of fury on her face.

  He wished he could be there to see it.

  * * *

  When Heather awoke, it was long past dark. Her mouth was dry and she was stiff from sleeping, but the heavy, banging headache was gone. Once she rose and stretched, she realized she felt better all over.

  A lot better.

  Gone were the runny nose, the scratchy throat and grainy eyes. Except for her deep thirst, it was almost as if she'd gone for a dip in a magical pool of healing water, to be instantly cured.

  Propelled by her thirst, she went to the kitchen and drank two huge glasses of water, then automatically put the kettle on for tea. In the living room, Amadeus chirped with shrill notes. Heather smiled. "You missed me, didn't you baby?"

  In his flurry of chirps was the plaintive answer. Heather released him, stroking his head and under his chin. Ordinarily aloof, Peter scooted toward her and she pet one bird with each hand. "I don't know what I'd do without you guys."

  Her gaze fell on the digital clock on the stereo. The red numbers showed 9:09 p.m. and with a wince, she remembered Tom. "Excuse me, guys. I have to make a phone call."

  First she dialed Mike to get the telephone number. When her brother-in-law came to the phone he said, "Where've you been?"

  "What do you mean?" Heather asked, frowning at the tone of his voice. "I've been here, if it's any of your business."

  "Well, hell. Tom came by here this afternoon worried about you because you didn't answer the door. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she answered. "I was sleeping off my cold."

  "You sound a lot better."

  "I am."

  A brief pause stretched between them. "Are you still mad at me, Heather?"

  She sighed. "No. You were right. I took the car back myself."

  "And?"

  "And nothing." She struggled to keep her voce neutral, but it sagged a little when she added, "I didn't even see him. His secretary drove me back."

  "Does that bother you?"

  Heather touched the bridge of her nose. "Mike, I just can't get involved with anyone yet. It's too hard. It's too frightening." She shook her hair away from her face, and before Mike could be sympathetic or irritated—neither of which she wanted to deal with—she said, "Why don't you give me Tom's phone number so that I can apologize?"

  Mike gave her the number and she quickly ended the conversation. When she called Tom, he picked up the phone on the second ring.

  "Hi, Tom. This is Heather. Did you come by this afternoon?"

  "I did, but you didn't answer. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. I just got up." She paused. "I'm really sorry I couldn't practice with you this afternoon."

  "It's all right. I understand."

  "I'll clear my schedule and we can spend the whole evening on practice tomorrow night, okay?"

  "Sure." He sounded doubtful.

  "I promise I'll answer the door this time," she said lightly, hoping to coax a chuckle from him, and was disappointed at her lack of success.

  "I believe you," he replied solemnly.

  "Are you feeling nervous?"

  "Yeah. I'll get over it. I'm practicing tonight, working on the parts I screw up. I've also almost got the steel-mill thing down pat."

  "That's great, Tom." She laughed. "If it wasn't mine, do you know how long it would take me to learn that?"

  It was a rhetorical question and he didn't answer it. "Thanks for calling, Heather."

  "I'll see you tomorrow."

  Rather than give her thoughts a chance to turn dark, she made herself a cup of tea and took out her guitar. She'd been busy since her trip to St. Louis to see her mother, but the composition she'd written that morning on the train had been haunting her at odd moments. She fixed her mind on it tonight, filling it with the exotic tempo and spirit of the Dark Ages.

  As she experimented on the guitar, she found it couldn't do all the work of the music she heard in her mind. Tentatively then, on another sheet of paper, she penciled in the notes of a flute, dancing around the edges of the guitar's. Because of her years of musical study, she was familiar with other instruments, but she'd never attempted to use them in composition. The push to do so now was too great to ignore, and with a little thrill of excitement, she hummed the flute notes, writing them down. Somehow, as she recorded them, she could hear the eerie, high song more clearly, weaving in and out of the lines of the thrumming guitar. At the edge of her imagination, another sound called out to her—what was it? Tip, tip, tip. A tambourine. Yes, that was it. She penciled it in.

  She worked for hours, completely engrossed in the new work. It was something different for her; as emotional as her other compositions, but more primitive, with less fancywork. It was good—better even than the sonata of the steel mill's cycles. This piece had come from a place deep inside her; a place she hadn't known existed. This one dripped with a sensuality that had been absent from anything else she'd written. She recognized it, but didn't examine its source.

  Well past midnight she quit and went to bed without benefit of cold tablets. Not a trace of her illness remained.

&nbs
p; * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  « ^ »

  The next day, Heather's mood of artistic exhilaration spilled over into the lessons and classes she conducted. All music seemed sacred and joyful, even in the hands of still-clumsy children and hobbyists without real commitment. Twice in the course of the day, Heather was moved to the brink of tears, not by any magnitude of talent, but by the small steps forward made by students honestly in love with the music they'd undertaken to learn. For the first time, she realized it was enough to love music, to be moved by it, to feel it coursing through one's soul. Playing an instrument, even badly, contributed to understanding music as a whole.

  Even her high spirits couldn't trick her into not examining her love for Ben, however. He crossed her mind a hundred times through the day, showing up in snatches of detailed memories. Each time one of the pictures flashed through her mind, a spasm narrowed her stomach into a small, sorrowful wound.

  Each time, she carefully shoved the picture away, firmly humming bars from her new composition to avoid the specter of Ben.

  Soon enough, she told herself, her memory would tire of tantalizing her and would give up. Then her heart would be safe.

  She told herself she was being a coward. But was it cowardly to protect herself? Nothing in life carried a guarantee. Ben could fall off a horse or run into a tree with a car and she would face that horrible, searing pain of parting all over again.

  She and James had been married just over three years when he died. What if she gave her heart to Ben and they stayed together for years and years and years? What if she grew to love him more with each passing day and at the end of twenty years of that building emotion, he was taken from her?

  The truth lay even deeper than that. It terrified her to imagine again going through the grief she'd endured over James's death; but the risk of death or loss was always present in life. Losing her mother or Mike would also bring a period of mourning.

  The real issue, she felt, was Ben's need for a stronger woman than Heather was capable of being. He would be happier with a woman who wasn't as easily hurt as Heather knew she would be when he was sharp or withdrawn. She didn't think she had the energy necessary to deal with another man haunted by the phantoms of war.

  It would be far better to break it off now, while the love was still small. Cowardly? She thought not. It was more like self-preservation.

  After her round of lessons, she stopped at the grocery store on her way home and purchased the ingredients for a rich corn chowder to serve Tom before their practice session. To complement the soup, she bought a long, crusty loaf of French bread; and remembering Tom's preference for coffee, she added a half a pound of freshly ground Colombian coffee beans.

  She prepared the meal to a background of Segovia, humming as she diced onions and potatoes. As it brewed, the coffee sent a fragrant steam curling into the air to mingle with the odors of bacon fat and chicken stock. Mentally Heather reviewed the pieces she and Tom were to practice, ticking off the spots she knew he needed to improve.

  There had been no arrangement made for time, which is why Heather had chosen to fix a soup. Still, when seven had come and gone, then eight, she opted to call him.

  Tom's fiancée answered the phone with a wary hello, as if she were expecting bad news.

  "Hello, Helen," Heather said. "This is Tom's teacher, Heather Scarborough. Is he home?"

  "No, Heather, he isn't."

  "Do you know if he'd planned to come here tonight to practice?"

  A long pause stretched between them. "He might show up," Helen answered finally. "But I wouldn't count on him being able to play anything."

  "Is something wrong?"

  "He's drinking." Her voice was weary. "He started in late this afternoon. I guess he's just not ready to do this school thing yet."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Heather replied. "I pushed him into it—"

  "No," the young woman said firmly. "Only Tom is responsible for drinking. He's the only one who can do it or not. Please don't give him someone to blame."

  Heather bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be." She gave a bittersweet laugh. "I've spent quite a long time learning the lingo."

  "Are you okay?"

  "I'm a little sad, I guess. But I've made my choices, too."

  "Is he driving?"

  "Oh, no. I thought he told you his—um—history."

  "No."

  "Well, it's his story to tell."

  "I understand."

  "Heather, I'd like to ask you a favor."

  "Of course."

  "If he does come to your house, will you call me to let me know he's there? I can't come get him if he's drinking, but if he's straight, I will."

  Puzzled, Heather agreed. When she hung up, she stood by the phone for a long moment. She felt as if she'd been given a message she didn't quite understand. Choices.

  She also had no idea how she would handle Tom if he did arrive. Evidently her usual nurturing wouldn't be the right tack in this case. What then?

  It made her slightly nervous to think Tom might be very drunk when he showed up—if he did. People could be so terribly different from their usual selves if they drank a great deal. James had undergone huge personality changes when he got drunk, although that had been rare.

  She threw out the scorched coffee and made a fresh pot, deciding she could drink it herself if Tom didn't show up.

  Somehow she'd known that he would, but she'd been deeply engrossed in her new composition for nearly an hour when the doorbell summoned her from her reverie.

  The Tom she opened the door to wasn't so terribly different from the one she ordinarily confronted. His self-conscious slouch was a little more pronounced and his usual shy expression had deepened into one of dark brooding. When he spoke, his words were only slightly blurred. "Hi. Can I come in?"

  She stepped back. "Please do." As he passed her she noticed his eyes were unnaturally bright, and she could smell the whiskey on him. He had been drinking, she decided, but he wasn't sloshed yet. She motioned him to the chair, suddenly hitting upon her method of conduct. "Where is your guitar? Your music?"

  He sank to the couch, saying nothing at all for a moment. He licked his lips. "I didn't bring them."

  "I thought that was what we were supposed to do tonight—go over your material for the demonstration tomorrow."

  "I'm not going."

  Heather nodded, taking the seat next to him. "Do you mind telling me why not?"

  He examined his fingernails with great concentration. "I'm not any good."

  "Oh, please," she said dryly, "save the self-pity for someone who will fall for it. I'm your teacher, remember? You can't tell me you aren't any good."

  "I don't mean that." His voice dropped. "I mean I'm not a good person. I don't really deserve to be happy."

  Heather quelled an urge to roll her eyes at the adolescent tone of his words. "You seem okay to me."

  He focused his blue eyes on hers and Heather drew back from the honest misery glowing there. "I've done a lot of rotten things, Heather. One of them was killing somebody in a car when I was drunk."

  Here it comes, Heather thought with a touch of panic. The part where I blow it. Every nerve in her tensed as she asked, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

  He shrugged listlessly. "Not much to it. I was driving when I shouldn't have been and wrecked my parents' car. My buddy went through the windshield and didn't make it."

  "That's pretty sad," Heather responded with sympathy. "If you were drunk, why didn't your friend drive?" A beeper went off in her mind, a warning. She wanted to call the words back, afraid they were the wrong ones.

  "He was drunker than I was." He laughed with no humor.

  Heather stood up. "Do you want some coffee? I'm going to get some for myself."

  "I'd rather have something a little stronger."

  She looked at him for a long moment, feeling an unexpected surge of irritation. She turned silently and walked to the kitchen.
r />   With a sudden flash of insight, she knew, as a musician and an artist, where the only key would lie for Tom. Again, the strange message Helen had given her about choices echoed through her mind. She reached into a cupboard for a bottle of brandy she kept for long winter evenings and carried it into the living room in her left hand. At the table, she paused to pick up her guitar with her right.

  She stood before Tom and waited until he looked at her. "Listen carefully," she said briskly. "I've studied music all my life. You are a guitarist of rare and important talent. Pick one, Tom. Booze or the guitar."

  He didn't look at either of the choices, but only at Heather. "I can't play. I've been drinking for hours. I'd probably drop the guitar and break it."

  She didn't move, but held her arms outstretched with their offerings.

  Slowly he reached up, unerringly heading for the guitar. A tremor rocked the long, narrow fingers where calluses showed on the pads of each finger.

  Heather felt a little rocket go off in her mind. She smiled and released the guitar. "Good for you. Now play the 'Steel Mill Sonata' for me, then the blues piece." He stared at her, unbelieving. "It won't matter, really, if you're drunk or not, right now. You won't be tomorrow."

  His blue eyes cleared and he clasped the guitar to his body like a woman. "No, I won't be."

  "I'll get us some coffee."

  * * *

  When he left, a little after one, Tom was dragging—exhausted by his emotional turmoil and the rigorous practice Heather had put him through. His playing hadn't been as clear as it ordinarily was, naturally, but it hadn't been terrible, either. When Heather called Helen and explained what had happened, she drove over to pick Tom up.

  On her way out, she gave Heather a thumbs-up. Heather smiled, deeply pleased with both Tom and herself. She'd faced Tom's dilemma fairly, if not head-on. As he'd spoken, it had suddenly come to her that she could only do the best she could, and as his teacher, she'd chosen the most pertinent route—the guitar.

  Through luck and timing, her gambit had worked. What if it hadn't? she wondered. What if Tom had picked the bottle?

  Well, she thought, at least she would have given it her best shot. There was a wonderful freedom in that realization, but she couldn't place just what it was.