by Jane Smiley
With her finger, Rya pushed her hair behind her ear. “Then you come with me. That’s the human thing to do, too.”
“I won’t!” Alice was vehement. “Why don’t you be brave for once! Why don’t you rise all the way to the occasion this time!”
“Please?”
“I’ve got to go to work!” Alice grabbed the now empty coffee cup from Rya’s hand and turned on her heel and went down the long hallway. She was determined not to accompany Rya to Riker’s Island, determined not to get anywhere within Susan’s orbit. The attack of Sunday night, like a narrowly averted accident, had become far more real to her in retrospect than it had been at the time. Her thoughts swung between the dark mystery of seeing Susan step out onto the fire escape and the sunlit bitterness of having everything spelled out the following afternoon. Everything was fresh again. She did not seem to have accepted the murders, Susan’s planning of them, Ray’s injuries, the attack on herself, or Susan’s opinion of her at all. Whatever composure she remembered having attained over the weekend was false, and had vanished anyway. Even the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, where you caught the bus for Riker’s Island, seemed dangerous ground. She rinsed Rya’s cup and set it in the drainer. Rya herself appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I can’t go!” she wailed. “I can’t go! He’s just going to have to take a cab by himself. He won’t mind. He’d be embarrassed to have me out there, I’m sure.”
Alice screamed, “Why are you such a bitch! Such a selfish bitch! Think of somebody else for once! How he’s managed to put up with you for six years, I’ll never know!”
“If you went with me, it would be all right!”
“I won’t go with you! I just won’t. Don’t nag me!”
Rya thrust out her chin. “It’s because Susan’s out there, isn’t it? I bet Susan’s out there. Otherwise, you’d go. You were willing to try and see him, but you’re not willing to do this. I know it’s because Susan’s out there.”
“I want to keep my job!” But Rya was already down the hall, disappearing into the second bedroom. Alice looked at the telephone and looked away. It was impossible. She picked it up. After all, it was rather easy. She said, “Howard. I’ve got to miss work again today. I’m not sick. I’ve been involved in a murder.”
“Jesus!” said Howard.
“Just peripherally, and actually, it’s been going on for a couple of weeks, but there are some things I have to do.”
“Take the rest of the week, Alice.”
“I couldn’t stand it. Today is enough. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She heard Howard put down the phone and imagined the entire library lighting up instantly like a neon sign with the news. Rya entered the kitchen, her hair pinned up. “What should I wear?” she said meekly. “Do you think a dress is appropriate? Do I have to take the subway? God, I hate taking the subway alone. But I guess I’ll have to.”
Alice put down the receiver. “I think anything Noah likes is appropriate. And we take a bus over to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Honey gave me the information. I’ll go with you.”
“Thank God! But listen. Sometime, you will tell him I was ready to go alone?”
Alice nodded, feeling doomed.
THE trip was briefer than Alice expected, into Queens, then Astoria. The neighborhood was middle class, nearly up to the bridge. With the recent weather, Alice was reminded forcibly of the beach. The robin’s egg sky and the sapphire water made the perfect Cape Cod contrast. Yes, they had heard of Noah, which somehow surprised Alice, as if they had come to retrieve him from a trashbin instead of a modern, automated prison facility, and he would be ready in about an hour and a half. They were instructed to wait with the other visitors in the army tent behind the parking lot. Alice craned her neck, but the white-trimmed group of buildings on the island looked only like a college.
The temptation to ask after Susan was almost irresistible, only to ask how she was, not to see her, but even that Alice feared and hated to do. Rya said, “Is Susan here? You ought to go see her.”
Alice snapped, “Forget it!” and it was Rya’s turn to smile. Alice cleared her throat angrily and sat in her seat with great determination, but it didn’t matter. Soon enough she had crossed the parking lot again, asking after a recent arrival, “Susan Lynn Gabriel.”
The uniformed guard dialed some numbers and repeated Susan’s name into the phone, then he turned to Alice. “Was she brought in last night?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s the one. Can she have visitors? I’ll send her over.” “I don’t—I’m not—”
He hung up. “Just get on that bus, and ask the driver to take you to the women’s area.”
“I don’t want to go to the women’s area! I just wanted to find out how she was!”
“Well, ask her yourself.”
Rya was watching her. Alice decided to get on the bus and go over the bridge, and maybe even get out at the women’s area, but then, even though she wasn’t going to see Susan, she began to perspire and get frightened, as if she were. The bus rolled over the beautiful blue of the bay, turned left, stopped here and there. People got off much too quickly. “Well?” said the driver, and he seemed so weary and irritable that she got off. She stood immobile for a few minutes, then went in. She was not going to speak, but an authoritative black woman asked who she was, and she did it, named herself and asked to see Susan Gabriel, who was a new arrival. Alice was told to check her purse. Then, too committed to turn back, she was led to a room and invited to sit down. Everyone was polite, but this was not a place where you waffled or changed your mind or acted bizarre in any way. She dreaded the sight of Susan as much as, on the ledge outside her building, she had dreaded the appearance of some monster face around the sash of the window. In the midst of her dread, Susan was brought in, looking much as usual.
She smiled knowingly when she saw Alice, rendering Alice unable to speak. After a minute or so, the wardress prompted them. They had ten minutes. Susan said, “How did you get here? But you’re magic. You always turn up.”
“Not necessarily. Anyway, there are regular buses. You go through Queens. The bus doesn’t penetrate a time warp or anything.”
“You should use the car.”
“It’s impounded.”
“Oh. I guess it would be. How about the apartment?”
“They went over it yesterday. Starting today I can go in and out again.”
“It’s all very practical, isn’t it? Like moving to Europe.”
“Except that they do a lot of it for you.”
“I suppose.”
The tone of their voices was familiar to Alice, and after a second she realized that Jim and she had spoken just this way, with affectionate but distant politeness, after the divorce. She also had the same desire to proclaim one last consummate accusation, to make her position known forever, and the same inability to do it. She said, “We came out to get Noah, actually. He’s in the men’s part. Honey reduced his charge to a misdemeanor. Rya got back last night.”
“I can just see Rya at a prison.”
“She’s okay.”
There was another long pause. Susan looked at her with the old amused directness and said, “Do you hate me?”
Alice thought about the word “hate” and compared it to her feelings of the past two days. She looked up. “Yes.” After a moment, she said, “For now.”
“How’s Ray?”
“Feeling better. Honey dropped around his place the night he got out of the hospital and said that he should go back to Minnesota and gave him a good talking to about lifestyle and companionship. I guess Ray’s going to do it.”
“Five minutes,” said the wardress, halting all conversation once again. Alice coughed.
Susan said, “Can I say something? Don’t be so dependent. You don’t have to be.”
Alice opened then closed her mouth, then chuckled.
Susan said, “What?”
“I was just about to say, How will I know what to do without you telling me?”
“You will. You knew what to do the other night. I would never have thought of that.”
“True.” And here was another thing like the divorce, the harsh habit of being in love that inflamed every exchange. Alice looked directly at Susan for a moment. Susan didn’t feel it. That was clear. She was merely being kind. Alice stood up. “It’s almost time. Can you get packages? Can I send you anything?”
Susan shrugged. The wardress approached, and Susan stood up. The wardress led her away. As she was about to disappear, though, she stopped and looked at Alice. And Alice was betrayed by the furious desire for some loving word that would change the situation from horrible to tragic. Susan said, “Some of those long bobby pins. Send me a package of those long bobby pins, okay?”
Alice nodded.
BENEATH his casual manner, Noah seemed a little startled when he came to meet them, but the distracted way he greeted Rya made it clear that it was not precisely she who startled him, that his surprise was a personal condition only tenuously related to his exact circumstances. He seemed glad to see them, although even as he looked at them affectionately, he seemed not to be listening to what they had to say. He declared at once that he was fine, before they asked him, and complimented Rya idly on her dress, which he hadn’t seen since last summer, but still he seemed startled. Alice thought that such a condition might last for a long time, even become permanent. She gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek, and he hugged her suddenly, tightly, with real feeling. She had not always liked Noah. Tears came to her eyes.
As they looked for a taxi that was going to take them back to Manhattan, Noah reminded Alice very much of a little boy of a certain age, perhaps eleven or twelve, elated and confused, but determined not to show either. His face was arranged, his gait was arranged, his remarks were arranged to give no evidence that his arrest, indictment, arraignment, and confinement had been any different from a gig in Bridgeport or a weekend in the Catskills. This air of false resolution made him look very handsome, both older and younger than usual. Alice glanced at Rya, wondering if she noticed. Rya looked small, stooped slightly by the weight of the scenery. She was not looking at Noah. Alice pursed her lips and shook her head. “Another beautiful day,” said Noah. “Especially out here near the water.”
“The air is lovely,” said Alice.
“So,” he said, “it was Susan.”
“Yes,” said Alice.
“I didn’t think of that. I heard the shots, you know, when I was outside the door. I didn’t think of Susan. I thought one of them did it. I thought sure that was it.”
“Who did you think it was?”
Noah shrugged. “I thought Craig was crazy enough to do it, but I guess I thought Denny would have a motive.”
“But what about the weapon? The police never found a weapon.”
Noah smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know. Besides, you never know what the police have found.” Thinking of Honey, Alice nodded, and said, “How did they find the cocaine at your place?”
“By process of elimination, I suppose. I just grabbed it at the last minute, because I didn’t want Denny to get in trouble.”
“With Susan?”
“Who else?”
There were no cabs, and so they sat on an old bench, waiting for the bus. A breeze blew briskly off the water. “This smells great,” said Noah. He was grinning. Rya took some pins out of her hair and put them back in. Noah looked at her, then looked toward Manhattan, or what would be the Bronx, Alice guessed, then took Alice’s hand. Alice shivered, suddenly afraid, and looked quickly toward Rya, who was gazing at the planes coming into LaGuardia and taking off. Noah’s hand tightened on Alice’s, became painful. After a long moment, Noah groaned, “Oh, God!” and then burst into tears. Alice bit her lip and blinked. Rya, as if viewing everything from a distance, slowly turned her head and watched in amazement.
Noah cried for a long time, holding tightly to Alice’s hand, only to Alice’s hand. The bus did not come. Rya sat perfectly still and Alice tried not to look at her, tried not to signal in any way what she thought Rya should do. Once Rya opened her mouth and closed it again, then, after a few minutes, she spoke. “Why are you crying, Noah?”
Noah perfectly took her meaning, which Alice saw was really to inquire, not to challenge. Of course he would be crying, but it was important to know what aspect of his recent experience was most vivid to him. Noah caught his breath, was unable to speak, caught his breath again. Finally, he said, “It’s intolerable to be alone like this.”
Neither Rya nor Alice exclaimed that he was not alone, that they were with him. They exchanged a glance, and Alice realized that Rya, too, acknowledged the depth of their threefold solitude, and had no answer for it. Alice looked toward the Bronx, and she felt suddenly like a stone, about to be carried with a great show of purpose toward millions of other stones. In fact, though, belying her movement, there would be nothing among those stones for her, and no promise that she would ever again cease being a stone herself.
A cab came, carrying a woman and a small boy. Rya stood up first and stepped forward, then turned halfway to wait for them. Alice bent down to retrieve her purse, which had slid under the bench. The sun was shining brightly, and it was almost hot. Noah took a deep shuddering breath and stood up. Just then there was a piece of broken pavement, and Noah stumbled. Alice put her hand out, but it was Rya who grabbed his elbow so that he didn’t fall down. Noah smiled. Alice was suspicious of any hope for them, but on the other hand, never before had she seen Rya even notice anyone else’s problems, much less try to help with one. The woman assisted her little boy out of the cab and looked around suspiciously. Alice smiled at her, and then they were in the cab, speeding back to Manhattan.
SOON enough she was at the gate of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She was not willing to say that it was Henry she wanted to see—she would not, for example, have gone over to his apartment, but when she catalogued her alternatives for the empty afternoon, shopping reminded her too much of Susan, work seemed a bore, there were no movies she wanted to see, and she had no friends to visit. Only the Botanic Garden, with its deserted paths and grandly organized exotica seemed alluring. She stood at the gate, though, for a long time, unable to go in, although she could see that there was no Henry weeding or pruning among the ivies and crab apples of the formal walk. She was not merely afraid of an embarrassing encounter, although, standing there, she strongly felt the garden to be Henry’s preserve, she was more afraid, oddly afraid, of intruding upon the garden itself, as if she would be unwelcome. A group was going in: an older black man in work clothes carrying his lunch, an extremely fat woman who had to be helped through the turnstile, a teenager with a baby. Alice followed them. Anyone, after all, could go in. The man sat down on one of the benches and a truck full of equipment drove by, but otherwise the upper walks were empty. It was not until she had strolled there for a while that Alice realized how populated and jangling her life had been for the last few weeks. More importantly, it was she herself who seemed an intrusion upon it. A discomfort she had felt, like a burr in her side, had goaded her closer and closer to Susan, closer and closer to Honey, so that, in the end, she had succeeded in inserting herself in the picture. When she thought about Susan, her embarrassment was so profound that almost any other pain seemed preferable to it. And embarrassment was exactly what she had always assumed their friendship would preserve her from.
At the end of the formal walk, she turned sharply left, along the upper walk, where she and Henry had not gone. Spread below, as in an amphitheater, were the rows of cherry trees, fully leafed out now, the lilacs, almost faded, and straight ahead, the rose garden, surrounded by a picket fence, which was just coming into bloom. The roses were so profuse, so colorful, and so fragrant, even a hundred feet away, that it seemed startling that no one was viewing them, that they should have such a self-contained existence even here, in the middle of millions of people. Alice was not a particular lover of roses. Usually she found them frag
rant, but too garish, too full of blooms or too blank without them, unable to bear up their own richness. Her favorite flowers were more modest—daffodils, lilacs, lavender—but from this distance, the velvety reds, flashing yellows, and glassy whites seemed to break up the light of the summer sun into its various elements and cast it back far more brilliantly than any other flower ever could, seemed not exactly of the earth, but of space and air itself. Alice stood still for a long time, until a man came and sat near her on the bench. Afraid that he would say, “Pretty, huh?” or something equally compromising, she turned and walked down the hill toward the lilac bushes.
Maybe Doreen and Hugh and the grandparents were right after all. If she went back to Rochester, where she at least had relatives, if not friends, and relatives she got along with, she would be eating fresh strawberries right now, and the first oakleaf lettuce. Later in the summer, she could go fishing with Hugh and Doc, who still had the confidence to eat what they caught. Going home wasn’t necessarily a defeat. Thirty-year-olds settled near their parents every day, and viewed it as a matter of coming to their senses, bolstering up the disintegrating American family, or even out-growing all of those spurious resentments that had driven them away in the first place. If you could freely return to the geography of your parents, after embracing to your heart’s content the most dangerous, exciting, and alien landscape imaginable, didn’t you thereafter have everything? Weren’t you then forever both small town and cosmopolitan, experienced, and yet reaping the abundant fruits of innocence? They seemed very alluring just then, the lives that her living ancestors had led; not just Doc, who had spent three years in Europe during the First World War, two of them before the Americans came in, patching up the wounded, and then come back to Minnesota to practice, and become a friend of the Mayos, but Pop, too, who’d had a little fortune once, only an inconsiderable, small town accumulation, but he’d lost it by speculation, and then made some of it back again by his dogged but hungering avoidance of speculation. Her grandmothers had their own stories, more personal and more shadowy, since the essence of being a grandmother is to have been perfectly virtuous and a sterling example for a little girl all of your life, but after all, their lives were of a piece, as were those of Doreen and Hugh, lives that lasted so long and were so continuous that every subterranean force set in motion by inheritance or chance had the opportunity to grow, flower, and subside. Her relatives seemed actually to have learned something from their long existences, which was perhaps why Alice had always liked them. They had not been battered by random events into numbness, as Alice felt in danger of being. Each of her forebears had a peculiar and fully branched inner life. Maybe that was the great compensation for living in the Midwest, in a climate as routinely cruel as Minnesota’s.