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The phone jangled as Marta sat by the bay window watching Bartley drive away. She answered, “Belvern Boarding House, may I help you?”

“Yes, I want to talk to the prettiest girl in the house. Would that be you?”

“Hi, Steve.” She felt a tingling of happiness at hearing his voice.

“I’ve got something to tell you. I’ll be right over, okay?”

“Will it keep until tomorrow? I’m really tired. Come for dinner.”

“O-kay. I guess it will keep. Can we go out on a date after dinner?”

“If you’ll haul me around. Now, give me a hint about your news.”

“Marta, Marta. Miss Impatient. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Sweet dreams. Think of me. I’ll be thinking of you.”

20

A
fter dinner the next evening, Steve and Marta drove to The Rims. The city lights sparkled like stars hovering near the ground. Headlights and tail lights moved like ants along the streets. Marta never tired of the view.

Steve angled his family’s station wagon, allowing Marta the panoramic view from her backseat perch. He reached over the seat for her hand.

“Wish that cast fit in the front seat. I’d like it better with you sitting beside me.”

“Me too,” Marta said. “Thanks for bringing me here. Now what’s your news?”

“I’ll get to that. First, I want to remind you that you’re extra special to me. I’d like to keep you to myself, as my girlfriend.”

“I know, but I’m—”

“You’re not ready. I know.” He cleared his throat. “But I needed to bring it up. Things have changed. Dad set up an internship for me at the
San Francisco Chronicle
.”

“What? You’re leaving? When?”

“Soon. It’s a great opportunity, but it means leaving Billings and you until the end of spring or longer and moving 1250 miles away.”

“You checked that pretty close.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“You don’t sound excited about it.”

“I’m not. Well, I am excited, but I wanted to stay closer to home. My dad jumped in; didn’t bother to consult with me. I’d started asking around on my own to newspapers in Montana and Wyoming. Now he’s set this up, and I’m obliged to go.”

“Isn’t it a great opportunity? It’s like my being asked to dance for the New York City Ballet.”

Steve shrugged. “Interning at a large city paper will improve my chances for a better job after I graduate. I know he’s right, but I wanted to find an internship myself. Plus, it moves my graduation back a semester unless I continue with my classes as a long distance student. I’ll be working through the summer sessions instead of having time to be here with you.”

Marta wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was happy for him. But he helped her escape from herself. If he left, she’d be more alone than ever. Why couldn’t
something
in her life stay constant? “I know it changes your plans, but if it helps your career, that’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s better than good, but I won’t know anyone.”

“That’s not true. Bartley joined the ballet company there.”

“Really? When did that happen?”

“Just this week.”

“That’s interesting. Do you think she’d want to hang out? She
is
snobby, kinda icy, not friendly like you, but maybe her family has contacts. A newspaper man needs contacts.”

“Steve! You certainly jumped on that information quickly. You didn’t want to go and now you want to
use
her?”

“Her family’s rich. She may know people who will get me in the door to some important interviews.”

“That’s just wrong, Steve. Sometimes you’re a self-centered jerk.”

“Ah, Marta.” He kissed her fingers one by one. “How about thinking of me as a nice, sweet, adorable guy who’ll really miss you?”

Marta pulled away. “Promise me you’ll treat her like you treat me.”

“You mean like a girlfriend? Ruffle her hair, hold her hand and...”

“No, Steve. You know what I mean. She’s sensitive about her family being rich.”

“Relax, Marta.” Steve reached through the dusky night, took her hand, and massaged small circles on it. “I understand what you are saying. But I need you to let me finish.” He turned on the wagon’s interior light and fumbled around in the glove box. ”Ah… found it,” he said.

He lifted his hand like a magician about to share a trick. A small blue velvet bag with a satin tie dangled from his fingers. “My surprise will prove my intentions.” He handed Marta the bag.

Her fingers trembled as she unknotted the satin strings and removed a tiny blue velvet box. When she opened the box, light ricocheted off a tennis bracelet of ruby-colored stones and oval diamonds. She gasped.

“It belonged to my grandmother, a fiftieth anniversary present from my grandfather. I want you to have it, as my promise that I’ll return to be with you.

”A promise? She wasn’t ready for a promise. “What if I’m no good as a girlfriend?”

“You’re a great girlfriend. How can you say that?”

Tears raced down her face. She closed the box, shook her head, and handed it back to him. “I can’t.”

“Why not? I thought you cared for me and that we made a good team.”

“I do. We do. But you hardly know me. Right now I need to focus on my recovery. I don’t have the energy to think about all this.”

“What does ‘all this’ mean, Marta?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t know. I care about you so much, and now I’m leaving town for months.”

“You want us to be a couple.”

“So?”

“I’m not ready to be a couple. I’ve never dated anyone but you. Besides, I need to focus on myself, and you need to focus on your internship.”

Steve took back the bracelet, placed it in the tiny box, and tossed it on the front passenger seat. “You confuse me. I thought you’d want a commitment from me.”

“I care about you, but I don’t need you to make a commitment.”

“Fine.” Steve sat in stony silence.

She leaned against the back of the seat and took a deep breath. “Steve? I’m sorry it’s just--”

He raised his palm, stabbing the air. “Don’t say anything. Please.” He turned off the overhead light, started the car, and backed onto the road.

Marta felt his verbal slap; her refusal of the bracelet devastated him. Maybe she should have taken the bracelet and worked out her feelings over the time he was away. Why hadn’t she seen something like this coming?

She kept silent but studied his tight jaw as they passed street lights. His death grip on the steering wheel and his silence continued on block after block through town. She had no idea how to start a conversation. She might as well have been riding with a stranger.

At the boarding house, Steve lifted her out, carried her inside, and left her sitting in her wheelchair in the front hall. When she reached out to touch his arm, he stepped away.

“Not now, Marta.”

He stalked to the front door and slammed it closed behind him.

Hours and days passed at a snail’s pace.
Giselle
performances began. Lynne reported the ballet’s success to a tight-jawed Marta. She worked on bodice repairs for the ballet company, all the while replaying her last minutes with Steve. She should have found words to explain herself, but how could she tell him when she couldn’t understand her own reluctance? Now it was too late. An ache deep inside her body told her she missed him more than she had anticipated.

James and Shorty sensed a change in her mood. They carried the basement record player and records to her bedroom and installed it on a TV tray beside her bed.

“Is there music you’d like us to get for you?” James asked. “The record shop is on my way home. I can stop in tomorrow.”

“No, these records are fine, thanks.”

When they left, she placed the
Nutcracker
on the turntable. She watched the needle slip into the first groove. The open strains reminded her of the excitement of performing on stage in Billings just weeks earlier. With each new ring of music, she relived her various roles: Mother Ginger, the Waltz of the Flowers, background corps dancing, as well as the understudy roles she’d rehearsed with Lynne and Bartley.

At meals she picked at her food. Dinner conversations blurred. She looked up when she heard her name, answered, and went back to pushing the food around her plate. After helping with the dishes, she wheeled into her dreary downstairs room and watched the sky turn as black as her mood. The quiet permeated the walls, the furnishings, and the air in the room.

Lynne’s calls and her attempts to entice Marta to “spill the beans” were ignored. During the day she sat in her wheelchair in the common room and stared at the phone, willing it to ring, willing it to be Steve. Had he already left for San Francisco? She’d told him she couldn’t focus on him
and
her recovery. Now she could focus on nothing else.

Over the next week, her costume repair tasks ended and she worked on intricate embellishments for costumes for April’s
Serenade
. Luckily the stiffness in her left hand disappeared, because adding tiny beads on the bodice made her hands ache almost as much as her iron injections made her
derrière
ache.

Every two weeks, the nurse took blood from her arm. Then she stuck a large needle of an iron supplement in Marta’s
derrière
, smiled, and said, “See you next time.”

One
evening Lynne stopped by for dinner and stayed for conversation. They sat alone in the common room
.
When the phone rang at a little after nine, Marta jolted and dropped her hand sewing. The caller wanted to speak with Shorty.

“Boy, are you jumpy!” Lynne said. “You miss Steve, don’t you? Does he know?”

“I hope so.”

When the hall phone rang again, she held her breath. Mrs. B. called out, “Marta?”

A nervous bubble zigzagged through her. “Coming.” She wheeled herself to the hallway phone.

“That’s my cue to exit stage left,” Lynne said. “Might be Mr. Wonderful. Call me if you return to earth anytime soon.”

“Hello?”

“Hi, Marta,” Steve said.

The next afternoon, Lynne returned and dropped a large box on the floor beside Marta. “You didn’t call. Was it Steve on the phone? If so, did it get steamy or what?”

“We got things straightened out.”

“What things? Spill it, Marta. You’ve got a smile glued on your face.”

“He apologized for going all crazy and not saying good bye. He’s stressed about his dad making plans and not consulting him. When I  turned down the bracelet, he said it broke his heart. I apologized and told him I missed him.”

“And?”

“He’ll call every evening. I don’t know what I’ll have to talk about, though.”

“Marta, he just wants to hear your voice. You could probably read him the phone book and he’d be happy.”

“I hate to admit it, but I miss him. He had a way of making me forget about myself. I could use that now with this cast.” Marta fidgeted and brushed aside her straggly hair. She repositioned the sharp hairpins against her scalp.

“Told ya. ‘Bout time you got off the dating fence. Now, back to the real world.” Lynne opened the box, revealing a pile of white bodices. “Rose said to copy the design from the old bodice onto the new ones. She needs them in two weeks.”

“No problem. Sewing keeps my mind from spinning empty circles.”

“You’re coming to see
Giselle
before we end
,
aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re coming. I’ll save you two tickets so you can bring Mrs. B. or someone to help you maneuver through the theatre. You have to see me dance as a Wilis. I love being a ghostly spirit who haunts people and dances on graves.”

Carol entered and sat on the couch directly across from Marta and Lynne. “Where’s your boyfriend these days? Tired of you and your cooking, I imagine.”

Marta bit her lip to keep from answering Carol, or better yet, ramming her with the wheelchair.

Lynne stood, grabbed her purse, and stopped almost on top of Carol’s slippered feet. “See you Marta. Too bad about Steve getting an internship with a prestigious paper in San Francisco. Night, Carol. Too bad you’re going to be an old maid. I’d love to haunt your...”

“Lynne!” Marta said. “Call me tomorrow.”

As the front door closed, Carol squinted her eyes and looked Marta up and down. “I hear San Francisco girls are stylish.”

Back in her room, Marta stared into her mirror. Carol might be right. Steve could meet a stylish California girl and become infatuated. Who’d stay serious about a teary-eyed girl with a limp? She wondered again if she’d been wrong to refuse the bracelet. He wanted to commit to her. Why couldn’t she accept that and return his commitment?

She sat in front of the mirror that hung over her sink and stared at her hair. As she dragged a comb through it, she turned her head side to side. Yuck. Her hair hung in scrawny kinks. If she trimmed it, the natural curl would hide its thinness. It might also perk up her evening. She reached for the scissors.

21

S
nip, snip, snip. Strands of hair dropped away, covering the bottom of her wastebasket. Marta doused her hair in the sink, then towel-dried it as ringlets curled around her face. Kinda short. Oh well, she had time to grow it out before Madame saw it in June.

A quick ruffle of her hair and a shake of her head and she’d be ready to go. If she looked perky, maybe she’d feel perky. No way could Lynne say she didn’t take chances now.

When Lynne arrived for dinner the next night, she stared open-mouthed. “What did you do, back into a lawn mower?”

“I cut my hair.”

“I can see that. But why super short? You’re nearly bald.”

“It’s easier with my wheelchair and taking showers and all.”

“Madame will kill you.”

“No, by the time she sees me, it will grow out. Besides, no one notices me.”

“Doubt that, Harpo.” Lynne circled Marta. “Does your hair grow fast?”

“I don’t know. If it doesn’t, I’ll buy a hairpiece.”

“Like that will work. So, what’s for dinner? I’m hungry as a bear.”

“Tonight is chicken and dumplings with mixed vegetables, a salad, and a pudding cake.”