It is only just dawn Monday morning. He opens his eyes and stares at the landlord’s ceiling, at the gentle beige and bubbled paint above. He thinks: Something is happening here.
Slowly, he slides his foot down across the bed. He feels a cool breeze from the window. Then stretching, reaching with his hands, his feet for the corners, he lies spread-eagle, bare-chested and exposed to the day.
His eyes close. He lies still listening to the morning sounds, to birds mostly, the individual, insistent trillings.
Cool mornings in spring, sparse ones like this with no blanket—these are the best, he is thinking. When he can feel his skin so perfectly, to the cell, here in the farmer’s bed. He will have to remember this morning.
And he knows then. It is time. This is the day he is leaving.
There are moments of being in one’s life, I have read. Pivotal, numinous moments when at last it all becomes clear. You understand, you know, you just know. And then for all of your life that comes after, you are never again the same.
I have not had such moments. But this morning while boarding the bus for the Project, on this our fateful pink-slip day, I think I may have come close.
I waited as usual for the bus at town center. And as it’s still spring, I had on my light blue sweater. Mornings in this town have a chill, and when I wait for the bus I am generally glad for a wrap. But my blue sweater does not have buttons, it was made just to hang open in front, so to keep out the cold I have always to clutch the front edges in a wad at my chest.
It was how I was standing when the bus pulled up. And without warning it started right then, my moment of knowing, just as the bus opened its doors. I reached out for the railing to board, which, because I used both my hands, meant I had to let go of the sweater. At that same point a strong spring breeze begun out in the country swept in over the bus and caught me dead in the sternum.
The cold air passed easily through the weave of my blouse and, although I do not normally give them much thought, brought my attention to my breasts. With the cold air contracting my skin, I could feel every bone of my rib cage, the compact paired flesh there in front, the puckered nipples, the areolar goose bumps. And I felt something happening to me. I felt suddenly, crisply defined.
My foot still on the bus bottom stair, yes, I thought, yes. This is it. This is it and here I am. Here are my breasts, here are my ribs, here is my buttonless sweater. And here is town center, here is the bus, here the wondrous bus driver. And here then the breeze, here the wide sky, here the unseeable stars. Here is every part of it all.
Which I hasten to add was not yet the numinous moment. It was what happened after.
I stepped into the bus and found a seat. I sat breathing fast, feeling flushed. And then yes, I thought, it is possible. I do not know why I hadn’t thought of it before. It’s possible to rouse, to arise. It is sometimes even very simple, only a matter of a cool breeze at your chest that catches you one morning braless. Yes, of course. People can awake, start again.
In fact, I thought then, taking myself as an example, I had never intended to be what I was. A homeowner who never much feels at home. A liar and a cheat in the workplace, a secret lover who cannot seem to love. And with that blast of cold air, I did at last become clear. I understood that these things could change, that what I’d become was in fact not necessary. What was happening here was a chance at escape, a denying of mistaken destiny.
Other people, I know, must have these thoughts too. Not only people like me. Married women, for instance. Some days, they must say aloud to themselves they do not have to be married women. Or hard-laboring men or the rich and complacent or wastrels and scalawags for that matter. It must sometimes occur to them as well when they are feeling out near the edge, desperate over their fetters. They must have the thought they must flee or die, die to this life and not know it. Except then the thought will frighten them. They have families, jobs, duties, addictions. They cannot run now. And they will say to themselves just be still. It will pass, all things given time always pass. And they will pull their hair back in matching red combs or lower their welding helmets or light up another Cuban cigar and grow busy or distracted or hopeless.
But just now I have got it. It is possible in this world to start over. You have only to find some other new town, just board a bus in a stiff breeze. And then I turned to the window and saw myself there and thought you are not fooling anyone here.
Still, it occurs to me now that this moment of mine was what Ben Adams was talking about. Well what do you know? Ben Adams was onto something. William Holden, that drifter, too.
And then here is the surprise when at last I arrive at the Project today. Steinem’s little turn of events. There is, as we expected, a note waiting for us in our mailbox—but it is not the pink-slip sort of note we had thought. Instead, Steinem has written us all to announce “Happy Reorganization!” He is not leaving to go work for the Personality after all. In fact, the Personality is coming full-time to work here. It was decided, the note said, over the weekend. The Project is saved, we all here are saved. And we have the Personality to thank for our deliverance.
The editors are stunned. They had no idea this was coming. They cannot believe that after our lunch, the Personality would sign on for more. Whatever could the woman be thinking?
I have an idea. That is, I have just now been giving it some thought and I believe the Personality has a plan. She has indeed figured out our secret. She has probably called a printer or two. She knows we have turned out not one single book. And she has figured the cost savings there.
That is, the Personality understands it is economically more sound for the Project just not to print. Dr. Steinem’s forte is the theory of reading, not, all in all, the reading. He also excels at grant money. Why would he need to publish, too? Producing a book would come at a price and necessitate all kinds of new duties—marketing, sales, distribution. And then too, if we were actually to get our books into some readers’ little hands and found that they didn’t help them, imagine how that would go over. Bad reviews could irreparably harm future grants. And where would that leave the Project?
No fool, or for that matter, spring chicken, the Personality has studied the Project’s financials and figured the bottom line. She must know as well she’s too old for children’s TV. And she recognizes then a grant-subsidized gravy train when she sees one. Far better, she’s told Steinem, that they stay the course, just proposing and outlining and laying out boards, then, naturally, more proposing. It makes perfect sense, really. But it will take many hands, as she knows Steinem knows. And here she would just like to reiterate that she, MaryBeth, stands ready to help in any way that she can—as, say, his new chief of staff.
Steinem’s note, of course does not go into all this. But it does end with yet another surprise. All this lack of production, lack of anything at all to show for ourselves, has won me a Project promotion. I’m to become our new editor of design. Steinem’s note implies the Personality herself has suggested it. No assistant about it, I’m now full-on editor of production and design. Which is a convenient move, I can’t help thinking, since the Project has not had a real editor of design, just my perpetual assistant position. Steinem will not have to promote anyone above me.
So there it all is in one side of a note. We stand at our mailboxes dazed. I am being rewarded for my duplicitous ways, and the Project will go on and on.
When they had read Steinem’s note again once or twice and knew it was real, they would all still have jobs, the Project would indeed continue, Lola reckoned she’d try again. “So now, ladies,” she said, “can we party?”
They all raised their heads from their notes and grinned. Well all, that is, except Margaret. And “Yes!” they exclaimed. “A party!” What a very, very good idea. Now really they had something to celebrate, they all needed to raise a glass. To the Project. To Margaret’s promotion. To life pretty much as it had been.
It was decided. A party. At three.
And as soon as the liquor store opened, Lola went out for champagne. Meanwhile, Sally Ann, Marcie, and Bones began pushing tables together. Celeste thought she’d seen a white linen somewhere and went off to rummage in closets. “Just the thing for the punch table,” she said. Frances herself dialed a caterer she knew. They make wonderful little cupcakes all set out in tiers. She was sure they could deliver yet today.
And while the others went looking then for more things to do, Margaret herself took to the stairs and quietly slipped out the sanatorium’s back door.
It is true. I skip out on the editors’ party. It would not make any sense, my celebrating with them now. Soon enough they will understand.
I have left my letter in Steinem’s box, to take the place of the note left for me. Thank you for the promotion, Dr. Steinem, I wrote. I must say I am surprised. And while I must also say I do not understand you, I appreciate your confidence in me. It is, I realize, an opportunity and it would be ungrateful and imprudent not to accept. Still, this seems as fitting a time as any to announce I am taking my leave of you. The Project and I are through. I resign, Dr. Steinem. Effective today. Warm regards and best wishes, Margaret.
The series editors will forgive me, I think. But really I must be going. I have an appointment to keep, well a mission of sorts, a matter of life or death. There is something I must tell Ben Adams. Now, before he leaves town.
I drive all the way to his farm, windows down, singing to the open fields. It is a fine spring morning, cool and bright, and “Fly Me to the Moon” is what comes to me. I sing it with all of my heart. “Fly me to the moon,” I sing. And then I sing, “In other words.” It is one of my favorite lines and probably the best part of the song. “In other words, in other words,” I sing to the passing fields.
What I have to tell Ben is just this. At last I am certain. All the signs, all the dreams are in. And I know now I have made a terrible mistake. I was wrong, it turns out, about us.
And I will say then I am ready to run off with him. We can leave today, I will say. We won’t need to pack. We can take the bus, eat cheese sandwiches in our seats on the way, and look out the window for our town. For our new town, Ben, I’ll say. We will start a new life in some other town. Like Madge and Hal, only better.
And “Oh Ben,” I sing loudly out the window, “fly me, oh fly me to the moon.”
And then because I am not yet even halfway to Ben’s farm and have a little time to kill, I think about all the rest there’s to do. Clearing my desk at the Project, I cannot just forget about that. The resignation letter to Steinem, well luckily that is done. Little notes for all of the editors, maybe for Emmaline too.
So much to do, so many to inform. Ben Adams and I send our regrets. We’re unable to stay, we’re sorry to say, we are starting our lives anew.
And I try to imagine it then, our new life, and how it will soon begin. How we will ride on our bus and find our new town, we will know it as soon as we see it. How then we’ll buy a small farm just a few miles beyond, one with breezes like Ben’s other place. And there our house will be white, our yard green and rolling, we’ll have a clothesline of course. And first thing, just as soon as I get off the bus, I will start up a large load of laundry.
I think of myself out there like that, I think of living with Ben. And then—it is because of the clothesline, I suppose, that I’ve been thinking of all that laundry—I imagine myself as some farmwife. Ben’s wife it must be, a woman likely to hang out her wash.
It takes me by surprise. Ben’s farmwife? What a thought, I think. What madness! It makes me laugh out the window. But it interests me now too. And so, maybe because I have a few miles yet to drive, I consider this subject of farmwifery. It will hurt no one, I think. Ben will not have to know. And so I carry on for a while.
I think how if I were Ben’s farmwife, I would spend each morning cooking. I would prepare great hot lunches for Ben, there would be potatoes and thick gravies and chicken-fried steak and when it was going on noon I would go to the back door and call, “Ben, Ben.” And he would come back from the fields, leave his old muddy boots on the step, and open the door all smiles, very tan. It would make his eyes look so green. He would stand there awhile just grinning, and then in his socks he’d step in. He would give me a kiss and say how he was hungry as a bear, sure did smell good in here. And then he would scrub his hands clean in our kitchen sink before sitting down at our table.
After our noon meal, when Ben was back out in the fields, things would slow down for me. There would be more laundry to do of course, I have no idea how we would have so much wash, but I would hang it out flapping on the line.
And then maybe I’d turn to some weeding there in our handsome raised beds. I’d put on big rubber boots like Ben’s, but I’d keep on my farmwife’s apron, the kind with a bib and a pocket, and I’d go walk the rows of our peas and beans. I’d pull up all the creeping charlie I could see. And then later, around three, when the sun had grown too hot for it, I’d leave the weeding and go visit the geese.
It is Ben’s idea, to again keep two geese on this farm. They would be large, noble birds, they would walk with their heads up high. And when I visited, I would climb over their fence the way I’ve watched Ben, and I’d sit down in the pen alongside them, pine needles all around us. And for an hour or so in under the boughs I’d just sit and tell the geese things.
There is more besides I have to do on our farm. There are still the pigs to feed. But look—now I have reached Ben’s old farm, the real one, and the long gravelly front drive and the lilacs.
I pull up to the front by the house. And today, just as earlier this week, I see that Ben’s truck is not there. What, no truck? At this hour? I get out and I check the back of the house to make sure. But there is no Ben and this time I know he is not just out running errands.
Oh no, I think, this can’t be. Ben is not here. I have come all this way to tell Ben the news and now—Could it be? He’s left town? How could he have left so soon?
Oh no, oh no. Ben, this can’t be!
And I realize that suddenly I am crying. Which is surprising and not at all called for, crying at something like this. There are ways to find people who have left you behind. There are numbers to call for help. But here I am crying, all right. Crying and crying and then sobbing.
And well, that’s enough, I think, trying to get my breath. But still it is such a big disappointment. There is so much I have to tell Ben, and on the drive here it had worked out so well, that I do not think I can just turn around and go back home now without him.
I sit down right there in the grass of Ben’s farmyard, throw back my head, and bawl.
A sound. I look up. Ben’s landlord is here. He steps out from around the side of the house and he stares at me now. He looks wary. The landlord is not usually around here mid-morning, usually he finishes his chores before dawn, and I have never before run into him. I do not know if he recognizes me. But it is possible he recognizes my car, or maybe he’s just concerned, this strange woman crying in his yard. He walks toward me, hand extended.
I am going to ask him where Ben is. But he says first, “Say there. You all right?”
I nod up at him. I smile a little.
He bends down, looks close at me. Smiles too.
“Mornin’,” he says. “That’s better.” He does not know my name, I see. Well Ben would probably not have mentioned my name to him, if he mentioned the fact of me at all.
He studies me. “You’re that friend of Ben Adams, ain’t you?” And then he stops smiling, his face changes.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me.
“Sorry?” I say. I think this landlord does not have to be sorry. He did not make me cry.
“About Ben,” he says. “Sorry, about Ben, ma’am.”
He stands back up. He starts to turn, he is going to leave. That is all he is going to say? Sorry about Ben? How could he know about Ben and me?
“Wait,” I say. I stand, reach toward him. I am going to ask what he knows.
He turns back, looks at me. “I mean, you was friends and I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “Terrible shock. The missus and me didn’t know till we heard on the news. About the accident, I mean. Was all you heard on the news those first days.”
He stops here. Watches me. Goes on. “I know that bridge, you don’t want to be driving it fast. Ben never had a chance of it, ma’am. Not in that river. Not on that cold a day.” He shakes his head again. “Coldest day of the year. Hard to believe it’s three months he’s been dead.”
And he looks at me again and I guess he sees something there on my face, because he touches my shoulder, gives it a stiff pat. “I’m real, real sorry, ma’am.”
Then he remembers. He says wait there, disappears into the house, and brings out a cardboard box. “Here,” he says, and holds it out toward me. “Ben’s things. His wife didn’t want them.”
I hold out my arms. I do not know what I am doing.
“There’s not much,” he says. “Some books, a couple shirts, hiking boots.”
He places the box in my arms. “Oh,” he says. “Right.” And goes back inside, brings out a small stretched canvas, places it on top of the box. He smiles but he does not pat me again. Then tipping his seed cap, he is gone.
She drives back into town with no memory of how she gets there. She remembers nothing for days. Until early one morning, just as the peonies are opening, she awakes from a dreamless deep sleep.
Listening, she lies still. Birdsong. He had told her about it, made a point. She smiles, thinks how like him. Remembers.
In a rush then she rises. There is a great deal she has now to do. Call Mr. Abbott, put a sign on the lawn. Call Ford, say he can have her TV. Call the paper, stop service, water the plants. Leave out new clippers for Mrs. E.
And when she is done, she will head for town center, she will board the first bus she sees. Find a seat by a window, ride to the end of town.
And then? She stops. She does not know. She has not thought this part through. But it occurs to her then she can just keep on riding. It is possible, yes. She will just stay on the bus and ride. To some other place, some other town. She will look for it out all the windows. And when she sees it at last, she will know.
She is late, she must hurry. But as she is leaving, she goes back for the landlord’s box, finds Ben’s hiking boots there.
She places the boots outside the front door. Touches one more time the soft leather. Then turning, she rises up to her toes and makes a run for the bus.