After dinner we walked Allie back to her shop. She said she was not in the mood to go home alone while we went about our marshaling business. She said she’d prefer to continue with getting her shop ready.
“Smells like rain,” I said.
“Does,” Virgil said.
“If it does, Everett will pick me up in his buggy, won’t you, Everett?”
“Most assuredly, Allie,” I said.
“Everett, I said this before, but I will say it again. You are forever the gentleman,” Allie said.
“Sure he is, Allie,” Virgil said. “You don’t think I would have someone work with me who was not a gentleman, do you?”
“Well, I do what I can, when I can,” I said.
“Oh, you do far more than that,” Allie said as she unlocked the door to her shop.
She insisted we help her move a few trunks and hang a dressing mirror before we left. A necessary gesture on her part so as to let both Virgil and me know who was in charge. After we got the mirror hung, we left Allie standing in front of it, looking at her backside. When the door closed behind us, Virgil glanced back at Allie for a moment, then looked at me and smiled a little.
“Got a burr,” Virgil said.
“Happens.”
“Does.”
“Don’t think she has that cornered,” I said.
“No.”
“Goes with the territory of being a woman.”
“Not hard to see it coming.”
“No,” I said. “It is not.”
“Jug don’t help.”
“No, it don’t.”
“Nothing you can do about that.”
“No, don’t suppose there is.”
“Shop helps,” I said.
“It does,” Virgil said.
“Keeps her from fueling the flame.”
Virgil nodded.
“Yeah, it does,” he said. “Keeps her occupied.”
“Yeah, this is a good thing . . . when business is up and going, it will be even a better thing.”
“Out of the goddamn house,” Virgil said.
“I can see how those walls get to closing in.”
“Do,” Virgil said. “Things for the most go good, pleasant even, then all the sudden she will come on like a Comanche.”
“I’ve seen it, plenty.”
“I have come to the place where I just take a trip to the shed or to the barn to curry and such, just to sidestep the tomahawk.”
“Least the two of you are not sitting around listening to the clock tick.”
“Not doing that.”
“Keeps a fella from getting too settled on his heels.”
“Damn sure does,” Virgil said.
“Sometimes I wonder where she gets all that piss and vinegar,” I said.
“Unrest,” Virgil said.
“No, hell, that we know.”
“It ain’t dull,” he said.
“No, far from it.”
“Never met a woman like her.”
“No, she’s been anteing up since the day she was born.”
“She has,” he said.
I thought about that as we walked. What all Allie had been through.
“This weather can’t make up its mind,” Virgil said.
The recent cold snap had passed and the night air was pleasant, but it sure enough felt like rain. There was also the feeling in the air like that when hail and tornadoes came. The evening air had a static and expectant feeling that went with it, as if something heavy was approaching.
When we crossed Main and turned up Fourth Street we saw a group of people walking from the depot, carrying luggage. Behind them the train hissed, releasing steam into the night air as it sat being replenished with water and coal.
“Here they come,” Virgil said. “Every damn day another crop, Everett.”
We crossed the street and waited for a handful of the newcomers that were headed for the steps of the Boston House Hotel, where some older men stood by the entrance smoking cigars, engaged in a spirited conversation as if there were no other people on earth.
As the people from the train passed, I noticed a distinguished couple bringing up the rear. The man was tall and angular and wore a polished hat and long coat, but my focus was instantly trained on the lean, elegant, and tastefully dressed woman who held on to his arm. She was wearing a high-collared dark brown gabardine dress with matching gloves and a fashionable coat and hat. She was strikingly beautiful and had a graceful air of elegance about her. She carried herself as if she was a princess, and as they reached the steps I caught the briefest look from her. Then her tall partner looked down to her and said something that made her laugh, and when he looked back up he, too, made eye contact with me just before they started up the steps.
It seemed that maybe he recognized me, and I also thought I recognized him but wasn’t exactly sure.
I slowed and looked at the couple as they climbed the steps up to the Boston House.
The men standing around the entrance were still carrying on about whatever it was that made each of them do their best to talk over one another.
“Know ’em?” Virgil said, looking back to me.
I didn’t reply, but as we continued walking and just before we moved on around the corner it hit me. I took a step back and looked to the couple just as they were entering the Boston House.
“Driggs?” I said.