A Perfect Stranger

by Roxana Robinson

  At meals Juliet ate without speaking, looking down at her plate. They could hear the sounds of her chewing, the faint muscular convulsion as she swallowed.

  Once, at dinner, Roger lost his temper.

  “Jules, could you pass me those beans?” he asked mildly.

  Juliet stopped chewing, the bite of food still evident in her cheek. Without raising her eyes, she handed her father the pink china bowl. She began to chew again, looking down at her plate.

  “Juliet,” Roger said irritably, “could we please have some manners here? Could you please look at someone when he speaks to you? It is considered courteous to acknowledge the presence of other people. All the rules of life are not suspended forever, you know, just because you’ve been in rehab.”

  Juliet raised her head and looked levelly at him. “Just because I’ve been in rehab?” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he said forcefully, deeply sorry he’d begun this. “Manners are the muscular supports of society. They are the embodiment of its moral core. They are the basis for a civil society. You’re in a family community here. We all owe each other something. Respect. Courtesy.”

  “Sorry, Dad,” Juliet said, her voice pointedly neutral. “Here are the beans.”

  Roger was already holding the bowl. “Thank you,” he answered foolishly. He set it down and served himself to seconds. Somehow he had lost his moral authority. He was afraid of what she might say to him. What was it? What had he done? He thought nothing; he could not bear to learn.

  But as the summer went on, the tension seemed to subside. They were up in New Hampshire, in the old shingle house that had belonged to Ann’s parents. They had always spent the summers here; Roger’s academic schedule allowed for a three-month vacation. Juliet and her older sister, Vanessa, had been here every year of their lives, though starting in adolescence, they’d gone elsewhere as well. Now Juliet was back in the house with her parents, as if she were a child again.

  Slowly, during the summer, she had begun to thaw.

  One night Ann told them about a zoning meeting she’d attended. Developers had begun greedily to eye the big open mountainsides, and a town meeting was held to discuss planning. Ann thought the Zoning Board’s position was meek and conciliatory.

  “Jackson Bly might as well have invited the developers to come and stand on his stomach,” Ann said. “I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I wanted to get up and say, ‘Jackson, when we want advice from a hamster, we’ll call on you.’”

  Juliet was drinking milk, glass at her mouth, and at this she erupted, coughing and gasping, milk flying up her nose. She’d briefly choked, her napkin plastered against her face, white drops spattering the table. Roger stood and patted her back, happy to be able to help her with something so urgent, so simple: milk up her nose.

  Things improved, Juliet began to relax. By August it seemed she’d reverted to the easy, sunny child she’d once been. She’d seemed to like her parents again. She liked the ramshackle house. She’d spent that summer as she’d spent earlier ones: hiking, swimming in the pond, helping with the garden and the dishes, walking dreamily through the fields. Late at night, she talked on the telephone. He and Ann heard the low murmur through the thin old walls of the farmhouse, felt the vibration of the invisible connection that stretched from their docile meadow to the crackle of distant cities. None of your old friends, the therapist at rehab had said. No one from that life. But Juliet was alone there in the house, with them. She saw no one else. There were no drugs there, in the sun-bleached field, the wooded hills.

  Though it seemed drugs were everywhere now, seeping into kids’ lives like groundwater. They were so available, so common, you couldn’t ask your older, most obedient child not to take them, let alone your younger, wilder, more rebellious and more difficult daughter.

  Vanessa, three years older, had been relatively saintly, they’d learned. Now through college, she was living in Somerville and working for a landscape designer in Cambridge. This summer, Vanessa had been their lifeline at times, coming up often for weekends, acting as intermediary between her parents and her sister. She told them her own story. Smoking pot, mushrooms: it would have horrified them at the time. Now it seemed innocent, adolescent.

  What was it they’d missed? That exchange in the kitchen, between Juliet and Ann—the plates, the hose—that was completely normal, wasn’t it? Or not? What was it that he should have foreseen? He felt again the sliding terror of what approached.

  The last week, they’d gone swimming, the four of them, in the pond at the foot of their hill. At the near end of the pond stood the splintery wooden dock. At the far end was a stand of willows, overhanging the water, trailing long green strands into its depths. Beneath the willows the water was dark and murky. No one swam there, for fear of monsters: snapping turtles, eels, leeches. Logic suggested that all those things might be anywhere in the pond, but instinct warned that the dark shadows, the overhanging branches, were a haven for sinister forces.

  That afternoon, Vanessa and Juliet stood side by side at the edge of the dock, wrangling languidly. Feet braced, they shoved hips at each other.

  “Go in, then. Why don’t you go in? You’re such a wuss, ” Vanessa told Juliet, pushing her shoulder.

  “As if,” Juliet said, shoving back. “I’m so much braver than you.”

  “Okay then, swim the pond. Go under the willows,” Vanessa challenged.

  Without a second’s pause, Juliet threw herself full-length onto the cool green skin of the water in a long racing dive, hitting the top of the water flat, then sliding under it to disappear. There was a lengthy, expectant pause. The waves from her entry subsided, the pond turned silent. The surface was now smooth and unbroken, though somewhere beneath it was a living body, moving swiftly, its heart pumping, oxygen coursing through its blood. Waiting in the sunlight for Juliet to reappear, the others became mindful of held breath, aching lungs, throbbing heart, the weight of the silver-green water. The pond was still. Dragonflies glinted and shimmered above it.

  Juliet suddenly exploded upward, surfacing in a swirling rush of air and bubbles, unexpectedly far away. Without glancing back she began to swim, turning her head to breathe with each stroke. Her hair, now black and glistening, clung flatly along her back and arms. They stood on the dock, watching her move along the edge of the water, toward the cave of willows. Juliet never stopped, never looked to see where she was. The long movement of her arms, the thrashing kick, disturbed the whole pond. Ripples rocked across its wide stretch.

  At the far end Juliet disappeared behind the curtain of overhanging branches. The water there was shadowed and opaque. They could hear her steady strokes, but her progress was hidden. For a moment her disappearance seemed perilous, the silence fraught, as though they were waiting for a scream. Roger found himself holding his breath.

  When Juliet reappeared, her arms beating long arcs through the still air, dark hair plastered over her polished shoulders, her flashing progress seemed triumphant. Risk now seemed absurd. There had been no danger after all, no monsters.

  Juliet swam steadily back. Reaching the shallows, she stood, walking in slowly, against the weight of the water. Her face and body were streaming, brilliant.

  Juliet looked at Vanessa. “So,” she said. “Wuss.”

  What was it they should have noticed, foreseen?

  The traffic hurtled past; the red car trembled. He should move, he was too close to the thundering stream. Though now he realized it would be hard to get out of here: the shoulder ahead narrowed to a point, then vanished. It would be difficult to get up enough speed, in the space remaining, to reenter the current. The red car, though willing, did not have much acceleration.

  At the end of that week, Juliet had announced her plan to go back to Boston with Vanessa. It was late afternoon, and they were all out on the lawn. The girls were lounging on the grass; Ann sat in a decrepit aluminum chair, its woven webbing frayed. She was shelling peas and dropping the empty pods onto a newspaper spread o
n the grass. Roger had just come up, carrying a hammer and a jar of nails. His summers here were spent in continual battle with loosening shingles, hidden leaks, rotting wood, and creeping damp, as the house struggled purposefully to return to the earth, and he struggled determinedly to prevent it.

  Ann frowned. “Where will you stay?” she asked Juliet. “You can’t stay at home.” Their house in Cambridge was empty, and this was exactly the sort of thing that could get Juliet in trouble.

  “She’ll stay with me,” Vanessa said.

  “I just want to see Alicia before she leaves for college,” Juliet explained.

  None of your old friends. No one from that life.

  Roger and Ann looked at her, worried.

  “Juliet,” Ann began. She was sitting very straight, her feet crossed at the ankles, dropping the peas into the colander in her lap.

  But Juliet smiled at them. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Alicia’s not in that crowd. I’m not going to run off and do drugs.”

  She’d said the words out loud.

  Should they not have trusted her? Do you never trust your child again? When do you start to trust her? She’d been there with them for nearly three months. Her eyes were candid, her gaze open. They couldn’t keep her alone with them in the mountains forever. It was the end of the summer, and they were all about to return to the world.

  On Sunday afternoon, the two girls left in Vanessa’s small dusty car, trundling slowly down the rutted driveway through the field. At the bottom of the hill Vanessa gave a honk; both girls stuck their bare arms from the windows and waved loosely. Roger and Ann stood on the lawn in front of the house, waving back. Then the car turned out onto the road and was lost at once among the trees.

  He would have to make an effort to get out of here, to get back into the rushing line of cars. He would be late for his lecture.

  He looked in the rearview mirror. The traffic streamed at him seamlessly. Maybe he should back up, to give himself more room. He set the car in reverse and turned to watch over his shoulder. He pressed cautiously on the accelerator. The car began to creep backward, zigzagging disconcertingly toward the cars flowing dizzyingly toward him.

  When Vanessa called, the next night, they’d been asleep. At the first ring they were both awake, sitting up, hearts racing. Ann picked up the phone, Roger fumbled with the lamp.

  “What is it?” Ann asked into the phone.

  He looked at the clock: one-forty.

  “Where is she? Where are you?”

  “What is it?” Roger asked.

  Ann shook her head, frowning. “Are you with her right now?”

  There was silence while Vanessa talked.

  “What is it?” Roger asked again.

  “Hold on.” Ann turned to him. “It’s Juliet. She came home late and Vanessa’s worried about her. She thinks she took some drugs.”

  Roger took the phone.

  “Vanessa,” he said. “What happened?”

  “We met some friends for dinner, and then we went on to hear some music, and then I wanted to go home. Jules said she just wanted to see Alicia, by herself, and she’d be home really soon.” Vanessa sounded frightened. “I know I told you I’d stay with her. I know I did. But she got really mad at me, and yelled at me, and told me to stop following her around. She promised she’d be right back. She came back a while ago, and now she’s asleep, only I can’t tell if she’s asleep or out cold. Unconscious,” she added, touchingly careful, as though verbal precision might help.

  “How did she act?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  There was a silence. Roger closed his eyes to listen, trying to hear what was going on.

  “Really okay?”

  “I guess so. She said she had a headache.” Vanessa sounded miserable.

  He spoke to Ann. “She had a headache.”

  Ann frowned and shook her head. What did it mean? What did a headache mean? Anything?

  “That’s all?” he asked Vanessa.

  “Yeah. She said she was going to bed.”

  It was quarter of two in the morning. Whom could they call? Was it an emergency? Juliet was already asleep, and they were two hours away.

  Ann took the phone back. “Nessa, did she seem okay?”

  Their bedroom was in shadow, except for the glow from the lamp. The darkened ceiling slanted down toward the eaves; on it, above the lamp, was a pale blurry oval. Around them the house was still.

  They decided finally to let Juliet sleep. Whatever she’d done was already done. They’d get up early and drive to Somerville. They’d call the therapist at rehab. They’d find a local program, they’d call their own doctor, marshal their forces, find out what to do. Right then, seventy miles away, in the middle of the dark mountain pasture, the middle of the night, they could do little. They’d do everything the next day. They’d start in the morning.

  Of course, for Juliet there was no morning.

  She’d taken no more than her old dosage, but during those innocent country months her body had lost its resistance. The cocaine vapor thundered into her system, accelerating her heart, contracting the vessels in her brain. Within the hard bone cup of her skull, a narrowed artery gave way. The tissue ruptured, and blood spilled deep into the smooth inner surfaces of the brain. These were places sacrosanct, inviolate. The intrusion was intolerable: an irreversible distress signal was given. The violated brain closed down the central nervous system.

  Closed down the central nervous system.

  He had an image of offices darkening for the night, covers placed over machines, doors shutting, lights going off. Closing down. Closing down. He could not hold the two thoughts in his mind at once, the physiological and the personal. The rupturing artery and Juliet.

  He was backing now directly toward the oncoming cars. The afternoon was waning, and some headlights were on. The approaching lights were hypnotically attractive, and he had to resist veering slowly into their path. He backed carefully, swerving slightly back and forth, correcting himself with small swings, until he’d created enough room to make a run. Then he waited for a gap in the oncoming stream. All you could do was go on. Was there anything else you could do? Back directly out into the stream?

  When he saw the gap, he tried to measure it mentally, looking backward through the growing dusk. How big was it? Big enough? But he could feel something gather within him, some kind of excitement, and he understood that this was the moment, he was going. He had already gunned the little car; at once it lost traction on the gravel. But he was committed, the tiny motor roaring, the accelerator flat against the floor. He felt the engine laboring, gathering speed slowly, the breakdown lane narrowing rapidly ahead. He was racing it. At the very end of the lane, his turn signal sounding its repetitive bell, hoping the driver behind him would understand his need, see his danger, Roger pulled out into the traffic, his heart racing, rising to meet the moment. It was like a plane roaring down the runway toward liftoff.

  The moment the wheels hit the pavement he knew his pace was too slow. He could feel the speed all around him: he was too slow. He felt the thunder of trucks alongside, felt himself borne down upon from behind. All around him was the assault of sound, the hurtling crush of speed; he waited for the impact.

  It did not come. The car behind him must have seen him and understood; he felt its dangerous looming presence diminish, fall away. The little red car droned loudly, its engine straining upward. Finally it reached its capacity, and then miraculously, within moments, he was again a part of the flow. He was in it. All you could do was go on. But still, he stayed in the slow lane. The far lane, the fast one, seemed now unimaginably distant, suicidally fast.

  Somewhere soon, he thought—though he had lost all sense of this trip—he was meant to get off the highway, onto a secondary road. This would lead him to the quiet streets of the university, and somewhere there he would find Allen Douglas Hall. The small band of waiting historians, the silent students— respectful? bored? derisive?—lounging in their
seats. This community of dazing speed would be behind him.

  When he reached the exit sign, he slowed gratefully and turned off. Curving sedately down the ramp, he felt himself returning once again to the actual world. This new road was two-lane, winding through wooded countryside, but the traffic still seemed fast. It was late afternoon now, not dark, but nearly dusk. You could still see without headlights, though their presence reminded you that light was fading, vision provisional.

  After the stoplight at the Dairy Queen, the road curved down a small hill toward the town. On the left was a string of bright seedy places: muffler repair, Mexican fast food, a gas station. On the right was nothing: a strip of trees, some kind of construction. A metal fence, a single grooved and massive band, hugged the roadside.

  When he saw the man, Roger thought he must be seeing it wrong—the man must actually be on the outside of the metal fence, not inside it. There was no sidewalk, and the shoulder was narrow, not for pedestrians. There was barely room for the man’s body between the fence and the speeding traffic.

  The man wore a trench coat, and beside him was a dog on a leash. Or not on a leash—a harness? Was it possible? Roger felt his scalp tighten. That this was a blind man, making his way along this shallow gulley, inches from the lethal stream of traffic?

  Roger couldn’t stop as he drove past; the traffic pressed him too hard, too fast. He watched the harnessed dog trying to lead the man away from the road, toward the fence. He saw the man stumble against the fence, then jerk the dog, heading it back toward the traffic. Roger passed by, inches from the man’s trench-coated shoulder. The man held his head high, his chin raised, as though his face, pointed toward the sky, would help his body see. Ahead, unknown to him, the narrow walkway was about to end, slanting diagonally toward the road, funneling the man’s steps toward the pavement, the hurtling cars.