But now lunch is over and I am back at my light table, once again trying to work. Or trying at least to look like I’m working. It is as I’ve mentioned increasingly difficult to pretend, I have not got a thing done in the past hour. So it is a welcome diversion when the phone on my desk starts to buzz. It is Marcie putting me through to a call, with luck something non–work related.
Marcie monitors all our calls here, it is part of her acting-receptionist job. She answers our lines, then buzzes our desks to tell us we have a call. It is a great waste of manpower of course but Steinem prefers to do it this way. He does not want us accessible, he says. We have our ivory turret to defend.
I pick up the receiver. “Margaret,” Marcie says on the line, not buzzing me through at all. “Margaret, have you forgot about tea? It’s three-thirty, Margaret. Time for tea.”
I look at my watch. I have been daydreaming longer than I thought. And so, “Tea, Marcie. Right,” I say. “Meet you out in the solarium.”
It is something we sometimes do, Marcie and I, we take afternoon tea in the solarium. I am happy enough for our breaks. I learn things from Marcie, I do in some ways even like her. Although it is true I also do not always trust her.
And Marcie for her part seems to want to take breaks with me. As receptionist and administrative assistant to Steinem, she is lonely for company, she says. She must sit by herself at a desk all day out in the fourth-floor foyer. And all day long, she says, she has no one to talk to and just elevator doors for a view. She is grateful for the solarium, she says.
Marcie is not really supposed to be the receptionist here. She was hired strictly as Steinem’s assistant. We had a real receptionist at the time, and don’t you worry, Steinem told Marcie. We’ll have more than enough work for both of you. Which is true. Dr. Steinem, given to lapses as he invariably is, requires a great deal of assisting, and with that work alone Marcie would have her hands full. But only four days into Marcie’s new job, the first Monday of her second week, our receptionist just didn’t show up. Instead she dialed in to say she had tired of all of the phone calls, of all the answering required in a day—just when to expect our catalog, for instance, and when our new readers would ship. So ever since, Marcie has been taking our calls, in addition to filing and typing.
We are all wondering when Steinem will hire someone new. When he asked Marcie to fill in as receptionist part-time, he said it would be only for a little while, only until he could get the ad for a replacement into the paper. But it has been four weeks now since the old receptionist took off, and Marcie says she just can’t keep filling in. She cannot get her own work done, reaching for the phone every time that it rings. Marcie says she has talked to Steinem about it, that then he promises to call an agency tomorrow. He has told her this four times in a row. “It is odd,” she says. “Don’t you think?”
I say well yes, although maybe Steinem really is trying to hire, he just isn’t having any luck. Then I tell her come to think of it we do go through a lot of receptionists here. And I add I am not certain why. We are nice to them, it is not that the Project mistreats them. Still, it could be Steinem’s needs are just too great, our phone calls just too many. Maybe that’s why our receptionists don’t stay long. Maybe we’re just asking too much of them.
Marcie believes she is meant for something far better than acting receptionist. Better even than administrative assistant. She is here by mistake, she tells me. “Marcie,” I say, “we are all here by mistake.” But she says no, really, she had another job offer. Well almost. She was one of three they were considering, she’d had a second interview. “I was going to be an office manager,” Marcie says. “For the university’s School of Pharmacy.” They publish a lot of research, those pharmacists, they have a quarterly journal. She would have had her name on their masthead.
As I have said, Marcie and I are assistants here. We both could be doing more. But as Marcie points out, entry-level positions are hard to find in this town. There are too many old students who stay put here, they all try for the same open jobs, and many have advanced, if useless, degrees. She supposes, she says, she should be happy to have any work at all.
I tell Marcie well, I am happy. Compared to the other work I have had since leaving the School of Art—grinder of raw meat at a hamburger hut, potter of plants at a nursery—my position as the Project’s assistant editor of design is really something of a marvel. Although of course, I am lying here. I am too old to be someone’s assistant.
Marcie, however, is not. This is her first job out of college, she has time to become something else. I am blunt with her on this point. She has nothing, I tell her, to complain about.
Still, Marcie and I are friends of sorts. And so today we take our tea in the solarium. It is where all of us take our breaks when we can, this great vaulted tunnel of lead-paned glass. It is now just the passage to the crippled children’s wing, but when the sanatorium was truly a sanatorium, this was known only as the solarium. Consumptives sat here in sunlight for hours; we now recline in their same wood deck chairs. It is beautiful out here and airy and my favorite place on this floor, on good days all thick wavy glass and warm sun.
Today is one of those days. And surprisingly we are the only ones here. So I decide to give Marcie some idea of the view. “Oh look,” I say. I stand and walk to the glass. From our solarium, you can see all the sanatorium’s meadows, all our phlox, our blue-eyed Marys, and of course our sturdy old oaks. Staring out, I gesture Marcie to come closer. I intend to show her each one.
But just now my eye goes not to our meadows, fine as they are this spring, but beyond, to the farmer’s rich fields to the north. We none of us know this farmer, his land is too distant for sanatorium strolls. But through the solarium glass up here on fourth floor, the rolling contour of his land is clear. It is this that catches my eye—the dazzling green of young corn now sprawling the farmer’s black earth in concentric lopsided whorls. Stunning geometry from where Marcie and I stand.
And I know then I cannot point out anything new. Because my mind has gone back to Ben, these fields remind me of Ben. How the corn is up in his fields now as well, tender and verdant and hopeful.
Oh, how good it would be to see Ben again.
How good to see Ben again? Did I just say that? Oh I really must go now and find him. Ask “Ben, what is wrong?” Are you all right? Do you think we could both be all right again?
Soon enough, I think. Right after work, I will go right after work. But just now I need more to focus, as there is not much time left for my plan. What I need to do is not reminisce but understand about Ben and me, specifically how it went wrong. It is important to think through that part, what led to this winter’s discord and Ben’s subsequent, hasty retreat. So that when I find Ben, I will know what exactly to look out for. I will know how to keep him safe, how to keep him closer to home. I won’t make the same bad choices.
So then, a little more still about Ben and me. About that night we went to the movies, that is, when it all began to unravel.
As I’ve mentioned, normally Ben and I did not go out together in public. We kept it to his house or mine. And it is how we would have continued, we would have stayed home drinking our coffee and tea or sitting around in the grass. But then, more or less by accident, I invited Ben out to a movie. It was a lapse in judgment on my part. We would probably not have had the problems we’ve had, specifically Ben’s disappearance, if we had not gone to that movie.
This is what I am getting to.
One day late last fall I read in the paper that the Bijou was showing Picnic, starring, as luck would have it, my most favorite actor, William Holden. He is a specialty of mine, I have an unreasonable crush on him. I study his every move on screen, his lanky long stride and secret half smile, the lazy assured look to his eyes. I try to see all of his movies.
And so when I read about the Bijou showing Picnic, circa 1955, in which William Holden starred but with sizable reservation, a movie I had not had the chance yet to see, I dialed up Ben Adams immediately. “Oh we must go, we must go,” I said into the phone, urgent and going on shrill. “Tonight, Ben, it’s showing just tonight.”
“Margaret,” Ben said, “take it easy.” But when I pointed out again it was just this one night, well OK, he agreed. We’d meet there.
But now, in the dark, it is a mistake, this movie, from almost the beginning I know. It is no wonder William Holden had his doubts. William Holden is older than my father by one year, born in April 1918. Which means at the time they were shooting Picnic he was almost thirty-eight years old, playing Hal, a carefree young drifter, opposite Kim Novak’s nineteen-year-old Madge. There’s no denying William Holden feels out of place and I am reminded of Sunset Boulevard, another of his starring films. And I think oh now he knows how Gloria Swanson felt, with her white powdery face, sharing close-ups with the tanned, flip Joe Gillis.
Still, in Picnic William Holden gives it a shot. As the movie begins, he is riding a freight train into town. He jumps off, then gives the train a good kick. This is a clue, we all know. William Holden will put up a good fight in this film, or that’s what the director Joshua Logan believes.
But it makes me nervous. Even now in the beginning, I am concerned. William Holden just isn’t acting right, he isn’t his usual self, we in the audience can see it. And then when he asks old Mrs. Potts if she has any yard work for hire and shuffles his boots at her door, we’re all sure this isn’t the William Holden we know. He looks foolish and embarrassed to be playing a young drifter when it’s obvious he is pushing forty. But someone, Joshua Logan again we suspect, has told him to take off his shirt and shoot baskets in front of Kim Novak, flash a boyish grin now and then, and swagger when he can work it in. William Holden is overplaying it we think, trying too hard, and so are Kim Novak and Susan Strasberg and old Mrs. Potts for that matter. I am worried now how the rest of this movie will go.
It only gets worse. And as the reel spins on, we all grow increasingly uncomfortable. The movie, I think, is not showing William Holden in his best light. And so when Rosalind Russell’s Rosemary begins smearing cold cream all over her face and drawling her a’s like Blanche DuBois, although the movie is supposed to be in Kansas, I whisper to Ben Adams we can leave. But Ben doesn’t say a word, and in the glow from a close-up of Rosalind’s cold cream, I can see he is watching intently. So we just stay in our seats where we are.
It is Labor Day weekend in the movie, it turns out, and everyone’s preparing for that night’s celebration when Madge Owens will be crowned Queen of Neewollah. Which she is, just a few scenes later, and then floated down a river in a big paddleboat made to look like a large frightening swan. It gets Hal’s attention all right. And still later that night, as the town band begins playing “Moonglow” and Madge undulates toward him to the beat, Hal cannot keep his lusty eyes off her.
I take a quick look at Ben again, to see if now he is ready to leave. But he does not move. He is completely absorbed, and well it is possible, I think, Ben Adams sees something I’ve missed. So I sit still in the dark and try hard myself to focus.
It isn’t easy, however, as Rosalind Russell has just gone into her big scene with Howard, a man she has been dating for years. Madge and Hal’s dance is over, and Rosalind, who has drunk too much and apparently lost hope for Howard, begins throwing herself at William Holden. She is giving it her all, she makes him dance with her, cheek to cheek. Which is difficult for the rest of us here at the show, as we know it is Kim Novak that William Holden is after. Kim is young and has a fine chest and Rosalind Russell, who is middle-aged and loud, has stepped entirely out of line. It is clear William Holden wants nothing at all to do with her.
I look again in the dark at Ben Adams. But Ben just keeps his eyes on the screen. And so we stay through the next several scenes, which do not go well for William Holden. Police are involved, a stolen car, also a chase through a river. And then, with the sheriff and Madge’s mother closing dangerously in, it is clear Hal will have to leave town.
It is what, at the end of the movie, he meets Madge by the back shed to tell her. “I’m in a jam, baby,” he says. And he says how he’s hopping a freight train for Tulsa. And he asks if she’s going to say good-bye.
Kim Novak demurs, turns her face to the shed. But William Holden can’t leave it like that. “Madge,” he says, taking her into his arms. And he says then he’s never told her before, but—and here William Holden looks anguished, I do not think he likes pretending like this, I do not think he believes a word of the script—“Look, baby,” he says, “I love you. Do you hear, Madge? I love you.”
Now Kim Novak looks anguished. But William Holden doesn’t let up. He wants to know if she loves him too. “Do you, Madge? Do you?” he says over and over, although it’s clear Kim wishes he’d stop.
Then in the distance we all hear the sound of the freight train. William Holden will have to hurry. So he tells Kim, still holding her hard by both arms, to meet him there in Tulsa, at a hotel where he has plans to bellhop.
Which would be a pretty good place for the movie to end. But then even though we can hear the train coming closer, although we are all growing concerned, William Holden still has a few lines left. Things Joshua Logan still wanted said. “You’re the only real thing I ever wanted, baby. You love me. You know you do.” Things of that sort. And worse. Thinking obviously only of himself, “You gotta claim what’s yours,” Hal tells Madge, “or you’ll be nothing for as long as you live.”
And then running for the train, which as luck would have it skirts the Owens backyard, Hal calls back over his shoulder, grinning and arm up high waving, “You love me. You know it! You love me, you love me.”
By now, I can barely stand William Holden. I do not know what Kim Novak can see in him. And when, in the last scene, against better judgment she boards the next bus for Tulsa, pausing on the step to smile once at the sky, I am wildly relieved to see the lights go up in the Bijou.
I stand immediately and begin pushing Ben toward the aisle. I act like I want to beat the rush for the door. “Hurry,” I hiss. “We have to get out of here now.”
“Margaret?” I hear.
I collect myself at the glass and again point to the farmer’s new corn. Think how maybe now I’ll bring up contour plowing, keyline irrigation, things I have learned from Ben.
But I turn and see that Marcie, still waiting at our table, isn’t interested. “Margaret,” she says. “Come sit.”
She stares at me and at last I remember—we have something here to discuss. It is why Marcie had suggested tea in the first place, why we have come here to the solarium at all, where we can be certain no one will hear us.
“Well now,” Marcie says, and we pull our two chairs close together. Our cups of tea sit on the table between us. We are only taking our tea, we will say, should anyone happen to walk in. It makes us feel safe, having our tea on our table.
Marcie picks up her cup and looks at me. She is matter-of-fact, it is Marcie’s way. “So here is the thing,” she says. “Dr. Steinem is having an affair.”
For a moment I freeze. Not because Marcie has spilled Steinem’s secret. I’m not surprised about Steinem, of course. It’s the affair part of what she’s just said, the word, that has startled me. Considering what I’ve just now been thinking about, it cuts a little too close.
But then I collect myself. Marcie cannot possibly know what I think here, I am not myself clear on the subject. And in an objective sort of way, I try for interest. “Oh,” I say. “Really?”
Marcie has been waiting all morning to tell me about Steinem and MaryBeth. It would be unkind to say I already know. Marcie has only just learned, I suppose, because Marcie is new and also the administrative assistant.
That is, no one here trusts administrative assistants. “They turn on you, darlin’, or this ain’t my first rodeo,” Lola says. She is referring here mostly to Sandra, two administrative assistants before Marcie. Sandra was fond of being in charge. It was her job, she was to make sure the office ran smoothly, but she took it too seriously, we all thought. She was forever organizing our office supplies and making group decisions for us—what loud Marimekko we would hang in the halls, what new coffee urn we would all chip in on.
No one liked Sandra. She took the administrative part of her job too far. She wanted us to fill out time sheets each day, how much time to the quarter hour, for instance, we spent on the lesson on S’s. See Sam, see Sam shirk. How much time drinking coffee with a cigarette, how many trips to the ladies’ room. People refused to give her their sheets, they claimed they forgot to write down their start times, they said there was no point in turning in hours when they had no idea when they’d begun. They suspected then Sandra told Steinem on them, and though they were pretty sure he didn’t care what they did, still they did not like all the tattling. Which is why they never told Sandra a thing.
Marcie is not like Sandra, she has not asked anyone for hours. Still, because Marcie is new, people want to make sure before saying anything much to her. It is no wonder she has only now learned of the affair; the wonder is that she has found out at all. And it occurs to me now it could be that Marcie reads Steinem’s mail. I would not in the least put it past her.
“You can never guess who it is,” Marcie says.
I can, of course. I wait for it.
“It’s MaryBeth Malone,” Marcie announces. “Miss MaryBeth from The Magic Garden.” And then she sits forward like a young, prissy hawk to see what my reaction will be.
I open my eyes wide for Marcie’s sake. “No!” I say. “Not Miss MaryBeth.” I raise my hand to my mouth in utter surprise and hope that I am convincing.
It is enough, if not all Marcie hoped for. “The same,” she says and leans in further to tell me what she’s found out. That Steinem is a fool for Miss MaryBeth Malone. That it has begun to affect his work. She has watched him there in his office suite. She peeks in on him when he isn’t looking. “Dr. Steinem,” she says, “isn’t up to what I think you all think he is.” Instead, every day since contracting MaryBeth—if she isn’t already visiting on business—he just sits writing long love letters to her. “When Steinem closes his door and announces he’s on a deadline,” Marcie says, “you can bet it’s more mail to that woman.”
We all know this about Steinem, of course. About his general disengagement. It is why there’s part two to our own secret here. But I let Marcie carry on.
“Or if not writing her,” Marcie says, “Steinem’s on the phone to her, long distance.” MaryBeth lives on the West Coast, Marcie reminds me. Steinem is forever phoning her in the middle of the day. When the rates are highest, she points out. Marcie worries inordinately about our bottom line. “It just all adds up,” she says.
And then from behind us we hear, “He couldn’t wait until five like the rest of us?” It is Frances now, come out to the solarium. Frances and Lola and Sally Ann too.
Marcie jerks her head up. Frances and Lola laugh. And Marcie looks at me quickly, like I could have let her know we all know. But then without missing much of a beat, “No,” Marcie says to Frances. Miss MaryBeth is home with her husband by five. Naturally Steinem can’t call her there.
“Naturally,” Frances replies, and helps herself to a deck chair. Lola and Sally Ann sit down as well, they all pull their seats in closer. We have turned ourselves into a tea party. The editors all seem to want to hear more, they all sit and look now at Marcie. She does not herself look displeased.
“No, no,” she says again. “Dr. Steinem cannot wait until the rates go down.” Instead, she tells us, he calls the Personality late mornings, right after her children’s show, right after she finishes shooting. She must have to run from the set to her phone. He calls her almost every weekday.
Here Sally Ann pulls out Mr. Bones, who has something to add. “Steinem’s a goner,” Mr. Bones says. The crooner’s going to find out about all those calls. Somebody at the studio will tell him. Probably trace the number. “The crooner’s not gonna stand for no stinkin’ calls.”
Marcie gives Bones a knowing look. “Well, and it’s not just the calls,” she says. She suspects Steinem also tunes into the show. She says she has watched him, he disappears at ten-thirty every day, and she thought at first he was just on his way to the men’s room. “Most people around here go to the restroom about then,” Marcie says. She has noticed that about us. “But,” Marcie says, “Steinem never comes back, well not for twenty-five minutes or so. It is too long a break for the restroom.”
Bones nods his head once at Marcie. “I can make it in thirty seconds,” he says. And Sally Ann has to contain him, or he will go into unnecessary detail. How it is that puppets urinate. She takes hold of his mouth by both his bowls and eases him down off her arm.
Marcie continues. “And then one day, I saw Steinem in the alcoholics’ lounge.” She had gone down to their floor for a candy bar, she says. The alcoholics have vending machines on their floor, and although generally Marcie tries not to snack before lunch, that day she’d had no breakfast. “So anyway,” she says, “as I was passing the glass doors to the lounge, I looked in and there was Steinem on a couch next to a guy in a robe. They were both of them watching the alcoholics’ TV.”
Frances jumps in here. “Alcoholics will watch anything,” she says. We all turn to look. “Don’t you agree? Surely you’ve noticed. I can’t believe what I’ve seen those men watching.” We stare. “Well, yes, on my way for a Snickers.”
Marcie ignores Frances. Goes on. “The doors to the lounge are all soundproof, so I couldn’t hear what the alcoholics had on.” Although, she adds, she didn’t try very hard either. She couldn’t very well have Steinem catch her there watching him watch the alcoholics’ TV.
“But it was MaryBeth, I am sure of it,” Marcie says. “It was that awful Magic Garden show.”
We all nod our heads. Dr. Steinem is more a fool than we’d thought. “Well thank god she lives in Los Angeles,” Lola says. “At least he isn’t watching her in person.”
Marcie has been waiting for this. She almost lunges. “But that’s just it,” she says to Lola, voice rising. “That’s the part I was getting to.” And she shifts in her chair to address us all. “Miss MaryBeth is coming for a visit. She’s coming to spend the weekend. And the worst of it is,” and here Marcie stops for a dramatic breath, “she arrives at the Project tomorrow.”
Well now, at last Marcie has said something newsworthy. The editors and I take it in. Always before the Personality has come here only on little day trips, and always before we’ve had warning. But now with no word whatsoever from Steinem, the Personality descends tomorrow for a shocking whole three days.
I begin thinking of all we should really prepare. Or, for that matter, hide. Then I think too about those readers she wants to get hold of. And oh well, I think, the editors and I should probably talk.
But Lola and Frances are concerned about more. “The weekend?” Frances says. “She’s coming for the entire weekend?”
And “Good god almighty,” Lola says. “That gal wouldn’t dare. What’s she gonna tell the crooner?”
Lola is with Bones on this one. She believes the crooner is onto his wife. And in this, Lola sides with the crooner.
Frances lights up a cigarette, takes a draw. “So the weekend,” she says, squinting into the smoke. “Well you of course know what that means. They’ll be spending it all at Steinem’s. Most likely in Steinem’s bed.”
Things must be worse with the old crooner, she adds. The Personality would not stay overnight as she is, here for a three-day weekend, if things were going all that well at home.
Lola nods, sadly. “That poor man home all alone,” she says. The crooner is getting on now in years, and Lola says she can just see the ol’ boy. He is sitting there in one of his golf sweaters right now, in some leather recliner, just sitting. Lola imagines he is playing carols, some album he made for the Christmas show. He is sitting in his recliner on a fine spring day listening to “Away in the Manger” and waiting for the Personality to return.
Once in a while, the crooner gets up and looks out to see if she has pulled in. And then when he sees she has not, probably he just hobbles back to the stereo, turns over the album, and with a great deal of effort sits down again.
Lola cannot herself bear the thought. “The weekend, Marcie?” she says. “Are you sure Steinem told you the weekend?”
Marcie shakes her head no. “He didn’t tell me a thing, Lola,” she says. “MaryBeth wrote it to him in a letter.”
And well, I think here, so I was right. Marcie does indeed read Steinem’s mail. I wonder if Steinem knows this.
Marcie gives us a little smile. “The Personality is not stupid,” she says. She never writes Steinem anything much, she must guess his mail’s opened by somebody else.
Yes, I think, but I still wonder if Steinem guesses.
“In her last letter,” Marcie says, “she wrote she’d be arriving on Friday.” For the taping, she wrote, she called it “taping” in her letter. “The Personality is always careful to make it sound like just business.”
Frances looks at Marcie, disgusted. “And Steinem is paying her too,” she says. “Steinem would do that, for all three days, right out of one of our grant funds. Consultant fees: one TV personality, services rendered.”
Lola herself is not so concerned with financials. She is still on the topic of extramarital affairs. And “Well,” she says, “I jes don’t think it is right. When some ol’ gal’s married, she jes shouldn’t be seein’ somebody else. And Steinem shouldn’t be seein’ her neither. It ain’t what you call complex.”
Complex? I tune back in. We have stumbled onto familiar ground here. I know something about this matter of seeing. And oh Lola, I want to tell her, you have no idea how complex it is, when you find it is you who is seeing a married man.
But Lola is off now about a previous visit from MaryBeth. That time, she and Steinem had been in his suite working all day. Until, that is, about five when Lola, who’d stayed late, noticed the shade at Steinem’s door was now all the way down. And then, Lola says, when the two of them left for dinner, they jes sorta had that look to ’em.
“Right there in his suite?” Marcie says. How bold.
Lola lets out a snort and nods. It is easy to tell she is only just started on this subject of would-be adultery. Texas outrage is Lola’s particular forte, yet another reason for not bringing up Ben around here.
Ben? My mind takes a sudden sharp turn. And it’s no use then to pretend I’m still listening here, that my mind is anywhere but on Ben.
Because here is the thing. Just now when Lola brought up Steinem’s drawn shade, I thought once again of my trip to Ben’s. How once I got to his farm, the shades at Ben’s windows were all down as well. And what I couldn’t place then but has come to me now is that something was wrong with that picture. Ben likes things open, he likes a view, he is not one to be pulling shades. In the time that I knew him all this fall, never once did I see them down. Not even when Ben was away.
So what does that mean, those drawn shades? What were they hiding behind them? Why wasn’t Ben to be found?
And despite what I’ve been thinking about rescue, how there is probably no real reason for it, I’m thinking I may be wrong.
But now the editors check their watches. We have talked enough for one day. And at any rate, look at the time. It is almost four o’clock at the Project. Time we were all heading home.
And I’m relieved then at last when I am back on the bus into town. I need to be off to Ben’s, I still have Ben Adams to find today, it is more pressing now than ever. But the ride home is slow, we have a new driver as I feared we would, and we arrive in town later than normal. I hurry off the bus and push on.
At the crosswalk I head north, wait as normal for the light at Summit. And once again, there, the white van. I catch it out of the corner of my eye, in the haze of late afternoon sun. A large white van moving in from behind, idling sinisterly just off to my left. I turn and take a quick look through the glass. It is never, as I’ve said, someone I know. But then, in a glint off the windshield, I see him, the large angry man from the dream, oddly smiling and beckoning—get in.
My heart slams into my chest. So it’s true, he has found me. I try to think which way to turn. The street is quiet, no one is out, there is no one to call to for help. The man could easily jump out of the van and stuff me into the back of it. That’s how it goes with vans, it is why serial killers drive them. I know I should run. I start to push off. But like in a dream, both my feet stick hard to the walk.
I turn my head to call out. Maybe someone inside a house will hear. “Help me,” I call. “Help me! Oh please, for godssake help!”
And when no one comes out of his house then, waving his arms and shouting, copying license plate numbers as he runs to me, I think well what now do I call? The large man in the van has arrived? He is here now in life to do me harm as the dreams predicted he would?
“Help me!” I call again. And when still no one comes, I cannot help thinking well isn’t it just like a dream though? To twist things like this and hang you to dry? Instead of driving off a bridge on a country road, I am cornered here at a crosswalk, almost dead center of town. Looks like the dreams’ directions were wrong.
I turn one more time to the van. Maybe I’ll offer the driver a deal, or simply plead for my life. But now the sun’s gleam is gone, and as I look through the glass, I see I have made a mistake. The driver is not who I thought he was. It is just some town hippy, a man with white hair and a beard from out of Zap Comix. He is gesturing to me to cross. The light is green. I’ve failed to notice it’s my turn.
The man smiles and waves. I hurry on, I do not know what came over me. But I know now I have no more time for white vans. The number of vans in this town is uncalled for.
I walk fast down the rest of Church and Grant, turn onto Mott, and plunge on, head down, race-walking for home. But when I stop then a moment for bearings, there up ahead I see her. Mrs. Eberline is again at my door.
She has spotted me too, she has turned and is hailing me feverishly, her arm up and waving high. I can hope only it will be a short visit.
“Mrs. Eberline, well hello,” I say from the walk. I climb the bank and up the steps to my door. Then standing, towering actually, over her, I say, “Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Eberline?”
I am wary now of course about this new visit. There is my couch to consider. And there is also of course Ben Adams. I do not think I can take any more of Mrs. E and her threats and rants about Ben. Or her visions of Ben and the trouble he is in. Just now, I would say, I have trouble enough of my own.
“Open the door, missy,” Mrs. Eberline says. “I got somethin’ to say.” She looks at me, determined, unmovable.
Mrs. Eberline is on one of her missions, it appears. And I know from experience there’s no stopping her. So I check first for any lighted cigarillo, then reluctantly I unlock the door. Well all right, I am going to tell her, come in. But just for a minute, please. Really, I have just a minute.
Before I can say this, however, Mrs. E pushes past, I assume headed for the front room. But she stops then, looks up, and suddenly breaks into a grin. “That Ben feller, he come back!” she announces. She points toward the window. “I seen his truck right there out front.”
My whole body jerks back like it’s just hit a wall. “Ben was here?”
Mrs. Eberline nods and smiles widely, showing all of her gums.
I look at her hard. Ben? Could it be true? She’s not just imagining things?
“When, Mrs. Eberline?” I say. “When did you see Ben’s truck?” I think Mrs. E is mixed up here. She’s only remembering how it used to be.
“Just now, missy,” she says. “Just a hour ago, while you was out at work.”
I study Mrs. Eberline closely. I do not know if she knows what she’s saying, it could be some other truck on this street. I do not know if Mrs. E knows her trucks.
And besides, I think, why after all this time away, why now would Ben choose to stop by? And why, when he knows my schedule, would he come when I was away?
It is not making sense. “Well no, Mrs. Eberline,” I say. “I do not think it was Ben that you saw.” And I offer that the truck was probably just someone a neighbor on Mott Street had called. Some plumber or TV repairman.
“We need to be sure of our facts here,” I say.
Mrs. E’s smile fades. She considers me, stares a moment more. Then as though she’s just got the picture, her eyes narrow and she gives a short, incensed “humph.”
She turns away. She is now all action. As quickly as she is able, she drops to her knees, puts her cheek to the floor, and takes a look under my couch.
She pretends not to hear me. She stands. Then straightening the hood on her parka, she scuttles back toward my entry and opens the coat closet door. Peering inside, rummaging, she reaches behind the dry cleaning I’ve hung there and pats along the far wall.
“Mrs. Eberline,” I say. “Just what is going on?”
She stops where she is and takes one last glance. Then her shoulders drop, she turns, and she trudges back slowly to me.
Mrs. Eberline does not now look herself. Her face is pale and her eyes have gone flat again. She appears less stable than ever, and I am worried something is wrong. “Here, Mrs. Eberline,” I say. “Take a rest. Have a seat. Sit here.” And I offer her usual end of what is now left of my couch.
Then against my better judgment, I also offer to go get her water. But on my way back to the kitchen, apparently Mrs. E revives some. Apparently she has also thought up a new tack, I can only guess to what end, because “Tea, darling,” she calls in her Belva contralto. “If you don’t mind, dearest, I’d much rather a cup of tea.”
It takes me a while to find the tea bags. I myself drink only coffee at home, but for Mrs. Eberline’s sake, or maybe for Belva’s, I make a proper tea tray. Then as I am lifting the tray holding my best china cups and my mother’s silver teaspoons, I hear a creaking in the floorboards above me. A sound that can only be Mrs. E. She has shown herself up to my second floor and is pacing around my bedroom.
“Mrs. Eberline!” I say. I hurry to the stairs. “Mrs. Eberline!” I call again, my voice rising as I climb.
Mrs. Eberline meets me at the top of the stairs. She cocks her head and eyes me. “So there, missy,” she says, tossing tealess Belva aside. “What’ve you did with the man?”
“Man?”
And I realize then what she is up to. Mrs. Eberline thinks Ben is here. That indeed his truck was outside just now, and he is somewhere now here in this house. Has been maybe for some time. Because rather than continue to share Ben with her, I’ve decided instead to hide him.
I take Mrs. Eberline’s old, crepey hand. I lead her carefully down the stairs and station her back on the couch. I bring in our tea, sit, and pour her a cup. “Sugar?” I offer, and hand her a teaspoon to stir. Then, as kindly as I can muster, I say, “You still miss our Ben Adams, I see.”
Mrs. Eberline just stares at her cup.
“Oh Mrs. Eberline,” I say. I sound heartfelt. I reach again for her hand. “Oh Mrs. Eberline,” I say, “let us put Ben Adams behind us.”
Mrs. Eberline glares and snatches her hand back to her side. She watches me warily.
I try to think what to say. I want this issue of Ben put to rest. I want Mrs. E off my back. So I lie and say something I don’t myself feel but something I think she just might fall for. I tell her how I am pretty sure, given a little time, we’ll both forget all about our Ben Adams. It can happen, I say, if we try. I make it sound like we are in this together.
Mrs. Eberline does not look like she believes me. The point here being, of course, we are not in this together. We have never been in anything together. Mrs. E, if anything, is behind enemy lines. Or then again, maybe I am.
That is, simply put, Mrs. E is just no fun to live next to. For years now I have had my concerns about her. She is, as I’ve mentioned, an incorrigible thief, also a liar and bully. She is the reason I no longer leave things in grass or linger outdoors myself, that I keep watch now pretty much always.
Which I must say, as a homeowner and former renter, is not the kind of freedom I’d hoped for. And now knowing about neighbors like Mrs. E, about owning a home nearby one, I do not think I would buy a house again. I dislike the proximity to so wanton a force, to all of the snatching and loss. It just makes me hold tighter myself. Which is no way to be a good neighbor, I know, and also not good for the soul.
Mrs. Eberline taps at my shoulder. “Missy?”
I turn to look at her. I’ve been neglecting my duties as host. So I thank Mrs. E for stopping by. And getting back to the reason for her visit, “Ben Adams is not here, Mrs. Eberline,” I say. “Ben Adams, you’ll remember, is gone.”
I stand and look at her on my scorched, soggy couch. She sits, head down, more wan and wizened than ever, and for a moment I truly do feel sorry for her. And while there is nothing at all to be done about that, still I grasp for something to say, a way to end on a more pleasant note. I tell her once more how we’ll forget about Ben. How we’ll be happy then back alone in our houses. “Happy enough as we were before,” I say, smiling brightly and bravely. Then I walk to the front door and open it. “Just you now wait and see.”
Head up now, Mrs. Eberline scowls, rises, and starts for the door. But at the threshold she stops, takes one more look toward the closet. Then she steps outside, and without turning back, lets the screen bang shut loudly behind her.
I return to clear our tea tray. I must hurry if I’m still to find Ben. But in the kitchen I look up at the window and see the sky is turning to dusk. Once again, Mrs. E has outstayed her welcome and now it is too late to find Ben. In the time it would take me to drive to his farm, it will be dark and impossible to search.
Then tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow whatever else happens—tomorrow I will find Ben.
I sigh and go back to the tray. I begin placing our cups in the sink. And it is then that I find Mrs. E and I have a new issue. One of my mother’s teaspoons is missing.
A small postscript to Mrs. Eberline’s visit, although I did not say it to her of course: How coincident she should think Ben is hiding out in this house. The fact is, at times I too have had the sense he is here. Always it is fleeting, however. I do not, like Mrs. E, expect to find him behind the dust ruffle of my bed. It’s just that sometimes while passing an open door I think I have caught a glimpse of him. There, lying stretched out by the fire, his feet in his old woolly socks, crossed at the ankle, toe jiggling. There again, out in back on the lawn, raising his iced tea in salute. And for a moment, again there at the window upstairs, shaking his head at Mrs. E.
It is only my imagination, I know. Wishful thinking, hallucinations of sorts, arising for an instant to stand in for Ben. Side effects of sensory deprivation.
Such things can happen to people. People with missing limbs, for example, who feel shooting pain in an absent knee. Or the deaf who hear someone calling their name, or the blind who see shooting stars. So why not also when someone disappears, someone important to you, who has somehow got caught in your being? I think it can be just the same. Some of him still remains.
Tonight then as I am falling asleep, I roll toward the far side of the bed. And there deep in the folds of the sheets, I catch the faint, clean scent of Ben Adams.