“I CAN’T DO THAT ANYMORE,” STELLA SAID TO JONATHAN after the funeral. By that, she meant teach at the H.O.P.E. night school. “I can do something else.”
She looked at him as though she couldn’t see him. The hand he held was icy, but her face had a hectic to it (the Shakespearian term came sadly to his mind), the flush of red hysteria Jonathan had seen on the faces of pale female students at Juilliard before they broke. But Stella surprised him by not crumbling, by going on to say, “Instead, I’ll help people practice for voter registration.”
Later he heard that the whole stifling week in early September after the funeral, she’d stayed in her bedroom. She’d told everyone I have to grieve my way. I have to grieve it out.
He had thought of Bach’s cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden—Christ lay in the bonds of death. Though he didn’t know her well, he pictured her on an austere bed, dressed in Sunday clothes, her hands clasped, waiting for the agony to pass. He imagined the bed to be neatly made, spread with a white candlewick coverlet. The bed like a bier with Stella decorously centered on it almost filled the room he had never seen where temperature did not exist. It was unlikely, but he hoped sometimes she thought of him, found minor comfort in the idea that beyond her walls were friends.
She would see only her aunts, people said, her old friend Nancy, her college friend Ellie, and Cat’s brother. Later Jonathan had heard that Stella and Don had broken off their engagement. “We’re like brother and sister now,” they had told everyone.
Jonathan felt a small flame kindle in his heart.
IN OCTOBER, STELLA did begin to work with voter registration. She remarked to Jonathan, “It’s easier to deal with older people. One at a time.”
BY NOVEMBER, JONATHAN and Stella were going together to concerts, movies, organizational meetings, lectures, dances (she was a poor dancer); she asked to listen to him practice, and she invited him home to meet her old aunts, both of whom he adored. Eventually he took her back to Dale’s Cellar for a full dinner. They had lobster, and she said that she’d never eaten lobster before.
After the Veterans Day parade, at Twentieth Street and First Avenue in downtown Birmingham, she introduced him to a short, freckle-faced man named Darl.
Rather awkwardly, she asked Darl if he’d enjoyed the parade. He responded that there ought to be at least one float honoring those who’d died in the struggle for civil rights. “They’ve served their country and given their lives. Just as much as any soldier,” he said. Suddenly Stella reached up and hugged him, then she turned, took Jonathan’s hand, and guided them through the dispersing crowd.
As they walked away, Jonathan remarked, “You certainly were glad to see him,” and she told Jonathan that Darl was the man to whom she was first engaged.
“He’s changed,” she said. “I’m glad.”
Wordless, Jonathan put his arm across her shoulders.
“I used to love to hear him play,” she said. “Especially Bach.”
He watched as the streets cleared of people who had witnessed the parade. “I remember,” Jonathan said. “Drove a motor scooter.”
She told Jonathan that she had broken up with Darl, “about this same season, late November last year, when Kennedy was assassinated.” She seemed distracted, as though her mind had moved away from Darl and their engagement.
Jonathan felt jealousy flare from the pit of his stomach. He knew he didn’t want her to ever say of himself, casually, I used to go out with him.
He felt surrounded by strangers, noticed the day was gray and dreary. These people moved slowly; none of the quick, businesslike movement of a New York street. He thought of Kabita and the last date they’d had, a visit to the Metropolitan Museum to see fashions based on cubist art.
“You’re a survivor, aren’t you?” Jonathan said to Stella. “Twice engaged.”
She said gravely, “That’s nothing to feel guilty about.” Then she pointed to the emblem of the department store beside them. “Fair and square,” she said. “I used to think justice and beauty could save the world.”
He asked her what she thought could save it now.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Personal strength and luck.”
CHRISTMAS EVE, THEY parked in front of the aunts’ house under the dim illumination of the streetlamp. The Thunderbird was cold because the heater was broken, and the ragtop provided no insulation. Suddenly she turned to him and he to her, kissing and kissing, and touching each other till they were panting and enveloped in a mist of their own breath. Their teeth were chattering so much that they began to laugh.
“We could go to my apartment,” he said. “I’m sorry the heater’s on the f-f-fritz.”
“I want to,” she said. “Not yet though.”
“When you’re ready.”
He walked her to the front door, where they kissed tenderly.
“Soon,” she said.
He knew she meant it. He knew after several months she would go home with him. That was what a southerner meant by soon, said in that eager, promising, reassuring tone, the ultimate flirtation.