Chapter 8

Meredith emerged from the plate-glass doorway of the new psychology building to the splendor of an early autumn day. A lace of clouds fringed the horizon, but the sky overhead was as royal blue as a china bowl. The carefully pruned trees that lined the campus walkways were losing leaves, and a few completely bare branches laid herringbone patterns against the sky. On the green lawns, fallen leaves overlapped and drifted in the light breeze; a rippling, crazy quilt of red, yellow, and orange.

On the walkways, where students laden with books hurried between classes, footsteps had ground the fallen leaves to a fine texture like oatmeal. It puffed upward and scurried ahead of her steps. The students were colorfully dressed, wearing bright plaid jackets and knitted caps, maroon-and-gold collegiate sweaters, and bearing the obligatory green or blue book bags on their shoulders.

Meredith decided to join them. She had no reason to hurry. She would spend the afternoon among the familiar sights and sounds of the campus, visiting old haunts and discovering the many new buildings. Gus had said she needed to re-create her identity. There seemed no better way than to review memories of a place she had once thought of as home.

She decided to go to the library first. On its steps, one similar afternoon eight years ago, she had accidentally and on purpose stumbled and dropped an arm load of books at the feet of a handsome student. Richard’s boyish charm when he stooped on hands and knees to pick them up had confirmed her attraction.

Meredith pulled back the wrought-iron handle of the heavy door and inhaled the faintly musty smell of books and papers that was inseparable from her memory of college. She hurried at once to where the psychology collection had been kept, but found it had been moved. She followed a labyrinth of corridors and call numbers to the new location. From the rows and rows of shelves there, she selected a handful of books with the newest bindings. These she lugged upstairs to a study desk beneath the arched Gothic ceiling of the graduate reading room and settled down to skim their contents.

When she looked up an hour and a half later, the shafts of sunlight penetrating the stained glass along one wall had shifted positions. There were so many other places to see. She left the last book lying open on the desk, collected her handbag, and hurried down the worn stone stairs to discover that the day outside had only improved in its brilliance.

Her next stop, she determined, should be the old psychology building. It lay at the north end of campus, a small red brick structure that its namesake department had long since outgrown. It was devoted to laboratories and offices now, and as she toured its antiquated hallways she tried to recall where her classrooms had been, what courses she had studied in them, and the air of excitement fall semester always carried.

She remembered the graduate students’ lounge on the top floor and climbed the stairs to stand outside its frosted-glass doors. A small card designated the hours it was open and posted flyers announced events that were scheduled, but midafternoon nostalgia was not listed among them. As she was about to turn back toward the stairs, a memory tugged at her.

It had something to do with what Gus had said. She searched her mind to recover the scene. Once, one of the other students had asked Meredith and several companions to be part of an experiment in telepathy. They had gathered in the lounge, exchanging flirtatious jokes about ESP and sexual attraction. Then they had settled down to work hard for the experimenter who needed the research to complete his work for a class.

Meredith was a Receptive. That was what the older student had said. She had passed all his tests with flying colors and so outperformed the others on the card identification exercise that only their teasing masked open jealousy. A Receptive, according to the older student, was a person uniquely aware of unspoken thoughts. She would be an excellent subject for telepathy testing and was probably equally sensitive to messages from other worlds.

Meredith had laughed at the time, and she smiled at the memory now. She stepped lightly on her way down the staircase. Spirits and talking tables, Gus had called such work. Halburton’s opinion was good enough for her.

A haze had gathered by the time she stepped outside again. The sun was moving toward the horizon, but she could not resist crossing the campus diagonally to make one last stop. The later she got home, it seemed, the better. She no longer felt afraid, Meredith reassured herself, but if she could avoid it, there was no point in spending even an hour alone in that empty house.

On the west side of campus the student union building that housed the cafeteria had been remodeled, but the dining room itself looked unchanged. The long wooden counters were scarred with a few more years’ graffiti, but the middle-aged food service women with thick hair nets and big aprons appeared, almost miraculously, to be the same.

Meredith selected a root beer float from the cooler and threaded her way through the crowd of students to a table that offered the best view. She listened to the murmur of conversations about course work and midterm exams, then decided to test her powers of recall by cataloging the various types of students.

The engineering majors, who used to carry slide rules, now carried electronic calculators. The future scientists wore heavy rings at their hips filled with the many keys needed for opening laboratory doors and cabinets. Physical education majors passed in sweatshirts and jogging pants, while the literature students could be sorted into two groups: scruffy mop heads in blue jeans, and prim, pencil-thin fellows in gray V-necked sweaters, their conservative striped ties knotted hard against their Adam’s apple.

Suddenly Meredith caught herself. For the last few minutes she had been watching only the men. For an instant she credited force of habit, left from college days, but then a pang of guilt cut into her. She knew what man she was looking for.

It was the stranger she wished to see. With a mixture of both dread and longing, she had searched the kaleidoscope of faces, seeking only his. She sat momentarily shocked. Here, so far from home, the stranger still intruded into her thoughts. Here, in this safe place, he could still make himself present in her mind.

Meredith stood and pulled her jacket over her shoulders. The stranger was not here, she told herself. He was not at home, not anywhere. It was time to get home, arriving, if necessary, before Richard got there. This evening she would have the pleasure of sharing news of changes at the college, and, more than that, extending her own renewed sense of well-being to Richard.

Several hours later, as she sat enjoying a cup of coffee after dinner, Meredith began to appreciate exactly how much her tour of the campus had meant. Over dinner she had described the easier portions of her meeting with Gus, and told Richard briefly about the high points of her afternoon walk. Now, although she felt slightly deceptive about the way she must go about it, she tried to explain what she had learned.

“Gus and I got talking,” she began. “You know, not just about the move and old times, but about feelings.”

Richard had untied his shoes and wriggled his feet out of them. He flexed his toes before raising his legs to rest his heels on the hassock in front of the yellow chair.

Over the weekend, Meredith had left the chair in its new position, in the exact spot where Friday’s vision said it belonged. It still felt right in that place. Stretched comfortably in it, Richard’s lanky frame looked tired but relaxed.

“You got to talking about feelings,” he repeated her words. “Anything I should know?”

“A few.” Meredith picked her way carefully, as if threading steps along the edge of a cliff. “I guess you and I haven’t talked much about hopes and fears and all that lately.”

Richard cocked his head sideways in concern. “I know,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve been missing it.”

“So have I.” Meredith paused, selecting a safe approach. It felt pleasant sitting with Richard, as comforting as if it were a memory of many shared evenings like this. She went on. “Gus said something about how when we move to a new town, we need to shape new personalities. Walking around campus today, I felt like myself again. I was whole, I was someone. I belonged in a place and it was wonderful.”

Richard paused, considering her words. At last he spoke. “I know what you mean. Maybe I’m pushing it, but, well, that’s why I thought about a baby.” His voice trailed off uncertainly. He began again. “I mean if we put down roots, began planning and fixing up that empty room upstairs, wouldn’t it be more like we were really here?”

A flicker of fear leaped into Meredith’s chest. She glanced at the windows. They were black with night, but this was not that other conversation. Richard sat across from her, his gaze loving and tolerant. He was not that other man. The feeling was only an echo.

“Yes,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation. “It would be more like that. “

The stranger was not here, she told herself. She had left the stranger in Halburton’s office, or at least left him in the college cafeteria, and the whole business was over. He did not seem even remotely present during the half hour after she had come home and before Richard arrived.

Nevertheless, it felt too soon to answer Richard’s question. She wanted everything to be right before she made that decision.

Richard was waiting, his calm gaze fixed on her.

“I do want children,” she managed at last. “But right now, it’s so final. It’s a decision that will change our whole life. I go this way, then that way. I want it. I just can’t seem to take the step.”

She thought of the small pastel purse containing her diaphragm tucked away upstairs in the drawer of her nightstand. If only she could forget to reach for it once, the decision might be made.

“We could decide by indifference.” Richard’s eyebrows lifted quizzically.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, come on over here.” Richard patted his thigh. “Have a seat on my lap, little girl. I’ll teach you all about indifference.”

Meredith laughed. She watched as Richard’s most charming and salacious smile spread over his face. Then she stood and stepped around the coffee table. His strong hands grabbed her arms and pulled her down on his lap.

“For your first lesson in indifference, pay no attention to what my hands might do,” he said, nuzzling her neck.

Meredith felt the warmth of his touch begin to arouse her. A shadow of doubt crossed her mind, but she pushed it away. They did want a child and the stranger was gone. She let her emotions carry her along and closed her arms around Richard’s firm back to squeeze him close. Then she was jolted alert.

The phone rang. It brrrr-inged again, a shrill stab into the moment.

“Damn,” Richard breathed against her neck. “Can we ignore that?”

“Better not.” Meredith extracted herself from his arms and hurried toward the kitchen. Since they had not yet made friends, hardly anyone called. It might be long distance from one of their families. That would mean trouble.

Meredith laid her hand on the receiver and paused to catch her breath. She was trembling and a chill passed over her, a shudder of premonition and dread. She felt afraid to pick it up. What was wrong with her these days?

“Have you got it?” Richard called as the bell rang once more.

Meredith steeled herself and pressed the receiver to her ear.

“Hello, Mrs. Morgan?”

“Yes?” Meredith’s breath came in short, shallow gasps. The voice sounded faintly familiar. She thought of the boy at the hardware store. It was too deep for his voice.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” a man stammered. His voice sounded thick, as if he might have been drinking. “I hope you don’t mind my calling. Excuse me, you don’t know my name. I’m Arthur Watson and I, I happened to pass your house today. I saw a sign in the yard.”

“Yes,” Meredith answered, filling the man’s embarrassed silence. She felt sorry for him, whoever he was. He seemed overcome with shame at calling strangers unexpectedly. A thought struck her. “But how did you get our number?”

“Oh, information, new listings. Well, really, I saw your name on the mailbox and just figured. I mean I hope I’m not too rude.”

“Of course not,” she reassured him. “What did you call about?”

Richard had come out to stand beside her, leaning seductively in the kitchen doorway. He lifted his hand, and one finger drew a light, enticing line along her neck.

Meredith covered the receiver. Squinching up her face, she hissed, “Don’t distract me,” then spoke into the receiver again. “Yes, go on.”

Arthur Watson explained that he had recently moved. He was about to move again. His company was sending him to Europe, and he had a few things he wanted to sell but no time to do it himself. Would she be willing to include them as part of her sale?

“I’d be glad to,” Meredith assured him hastily. She would have agreed to housebreak his pet Saint Bernard if it would get her off the phone. Richard’s fingers had renewed their feather-light teasing, and she had difficulty concentrating on the man’s stammered words.

“You could keep the proceeds,” the man rushed ahead. Then he corrected himself. “No, that doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, since I want to sell them. I mean, keep part of the proceeds, of course.”

“That would be fine,” Meredith answered firmly. “I’ll be home Friday morning, you could drop them by. Is there much?”

“No, I didn’t keep much.” The man paused. “That is, when I moved. Your yard sale just seemed like a good . . . a good place.” He took a deep breath and when he spoke again the depth had returned to his voice. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Morgan.”

Meredith hung up and quickly explained what the man had called about. His last words echoed in her thoughts, bringing an uncomfortable chill. She could have sworn she had heard him speak before, or heard someone who had a voice like his. She felt that in only a moment the voice would connect with a face. She would know who he was.

“Don’t say another word.” Richard’s arms encircled her from behind. “You’re coming upstairs. There’s no time to waste on this baby-making project.”

“What?” she said, laughing, pretending to struggle as he successfully marched her toward the living room. She halfheartedly clung to the living room doorjamb, making him pull her free. “You said we had all the time in the world. We’d be together forever.”

“That was before. I’m going out of town next Monday. Got to get you pregnant before I go sterile from airport X rays.”

Meredith laughed, clinging unsteadily to the banister. He half dragged, half carried her up the steps. The heel of her shoe caught on the rug and she felt the shoe slip free to tumble down the stairs.

All at once, with the sound of the shoe falling, a wall of coldness washed over her skin. She lurched against the banister, her mind suddenly woozy. The echo of a scream came from the dark corner beside the stairwell. Meredith fought the cold and the echo, but they were too sheer and dark, flowing through her flesh. The shoe clunk-clunk-clunked down three more steps before settling to a stop. Meredith fought the rush of air speeding past her skin as she felt that she was falling with it, like a death wind as she dropped down the stairwell herself into darkness.

Richard still tugged at her arm, and she pulled herself away from the dragging of darkness, the force wanting to pull her down. She felt that she was nearly staggering as she entered the bedroom and lay on the bed. Beyond the bedroom door, down in that hollow of darkness, voices sobbed, claimed they loved, and sobbed and sobbed.

Richard heaved a mock sigh, then chuckled. She lay shaking, struggling to cover the awful shivering that gripped her, trying to make it look as though these were gusts of laughter making her tremble on the bed. Richard must not know. He must not realize how near the well of darkness had come.

Above her, Richard unbuckled his belt. He whipped it free of its loops.

A memory tugged at her. She wanted only a few moments to review the sound of that voice on the phone. There was something in it that stirred the memory and brought the blackness. It was a voice that seemed intimate.

There was no time now. Richard’s weight eased onto the bed. This could not be the man’s voice, she told herself. She was imagining that. This endless well, this sense of darkness could not truly come from memory. She had searched every face in the cafeteria today for a hint of the stranger. Now she was imagining his voice, too.

Strong hands gripped her shoulders. Richard’s silhouette rose over her, a black cutout in the dim light from the hallway.

“It’s only fair to ask,” he said softly, his voice empty of laughter. “Will it be love on the half shell, or not?”

Despite the fond reference to her diaphragm, Meredith read the seriousness in his words. She thought a moment, then, without a word, rolled onto her stomach. She stretched to reach the nightstand drawer, and her fingers located her diaphragm.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Richard’s waiting silence. “I have some things to think through. Soon. I promise, I’ll be sure.”