Eyes in the Fishbowl (11 page)

When I opened the door to the studio, the P.T.A. prima donna unclasped her hands and drifted to a stop in the midst of “the perilous night.” Dad turned around from the piano looking so grateful for the interruption that for a minute I felt sorry for him, even if he had brought it on himself.

“Uh, excuse me,” I said. “Dad, Jerry Davidson wants me to give him a lesson on the guitar. I won’t be back until late.” It didn’t happen to be a lie. Both statements were true. They just didn’t have anything to do with each other. Dad looked at the guitar case and for a second his eyes crinkled up with pleasure. Then suddenly he cooled it and said, “I see. Well, I guess that will be all right,” in a carefully indifferent tone of voice. It was easy to see that he was trying not to show that he was happy to see me doing something with music again. It was a perfectly obvious put-on; he never was any good at pretending.

I was on my way down the stairs before it occurred to me what his problem was. He was probably thinking that if he approved of something, I’d quit wanting to do it. I had to admit to myself that it had worked that way at times lately. But I didn’t know he knew it.

I
T WAS DARK
when I got to Alcott-Simpson’s, but it wasn’t foggy and there were a lot more people on the streets than there had been the last time I’d been there at night. I walked around the block, stopping for a few minutes at each entrance. Inside everything looked the same as it had before, dim lights and white-draped counters. I went back around and stopped again at each entrance, but all it got me was some suspicious stares from passers-by. Finally I admitted to myself that it was pretty stupid to think that I could get in that way again—at least, not unless I let Sara know I was coming. She might not be there; she might be there but not know I was outside; or she might even know and be afraid to open the door because of there being so many people on the sidewalks. It had just been a coincidence the time before.

I knew it would look strange if I went home so early, and it occurred to me that I might do what I’d pretended I was going to do. So I called Jerry from a pay phone, and luckily he was at home. When he heard that I was on my way over with my guitar, he got very enthusiastic. I’d given him a couple of lessons when I first got to know him, before I decided to quit music for good, and he’d been after me for a long time to teach him some more.

So instead of seeing Sara that night, I sat around and played the guitar at Jerry’s house. Actually it turned out to be not a bad evening. We ate a lot of food that Jerry’s mother fixed for us, and Jerry called up another friend of his who wanted to start on the guitar. This guy, whose name is Brett Atwood, came over and I showed them some chords and strums, and the three of us worked out a couple of new arrangements for some old songs. It turned out that Brett had a great voice and he even knew something about music, so together we came up with some pretty good ideas.

After we’d been fooling around for quite a while, I decided to play some of the things I’d written. It was the first time I’d done any of my own stuff for anyone except my dad and some of the people around home; but everything seemed to be going so well that I decided to try it. I was really surprised at the reaction I got. Actually, they made such a fuss I was a little embarrassed. I mean, they really knocked themselves out. Like for instance, Brett—who is a much more swinging type than either Jerry or me—said, “Jerry, Baby, you have really been holding out on me. You said he was good, but you didn’t tell me the cat had a bad case of genius.”

Afterwards I took the bus home, and when I got off downtown to transfer I walked by Alcott-Simpson’s again. It was late by then, and everything in the area was closed up tight. Almost all the pedestrian traffic had stopped and the fog was rolling in, drifting down into the canyons between the tall buildings. Inside Alcott-Simpson’s, everything seemed just the same as before. But I waited for a while, and all at once I thought I saw something move way back near the escalator. It was so dark back there it was hard to be sure, but then I thought I saw it again on the same spot. It wasn’t coming closer or going away; it was as if someone was just standing there watching. I waited, straining my eyes to see, and whatever it was waited, too. Then a police car drove by slowly, and the cop stared at me so I had to move on. A bus was rolling up to the corner, so I hurried and caught it and went on home. By the time the bus had arrived at our stop I’d figured it out, and gone back to thinking about the evening at Jerry’s. What I’d decided was that I’d only been watching a dust sheet draped over something way back in shadows. I’d only imagined I’d seen it move.

That was on Saturday. It was the next Monday morning at the hat shop that I talked to the clerk named Myrna. Myrna had been a clerk in the Pet Shop at Alcott-Simpson’s for a year or so. She was a good friend of Jayne Anne, who owned the hat shop where I worked every Monday morning. She was fairly young and very pale and nervous looking, so that she always made me think of the white mice that were sold in the department where she worked. Now and then, on her way to work in the mornings, Myrna would drop by the hat shop for a quick cup of coffee and a little gossip with Jayne Anne. At the hat shop she was always friendly to me, but if I saw her in Alcott-Simpson’s she was very formal because she was afraid of the man who was the department manager. That morning when I got to the hat shop, Jayne Anne was late; the shop was still locked, and Myrna was having hysterics in the alcove outside the front door.

“Dion,” she sobbed when I came up, “I’m so glad to see you.” She rubbed her eyes with a handkerchief that looked sopping wet already. “Where on earth is Jayne Anne?”

“I don’t know. I guess she’s a little late. She’s this late lots of times on Monday mornings. She’ll probably be here any minute.”

Myrna wiped her eyes again and looked at her watch. “Oh, I guess it isn’t so very late. It just seems like I’ve been waiting here for-ee-ev-ver.” And she broke down and started to cry again.

I felt very uncomfortable. It seemed as if I ought to do something, but I couldn’t think what. Finally I said, “Is there anything I could do?” It occurred to me that maybe someone had been chasing her, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Besides she wasn’t the kind of girl that anyone would want to chase, unless it was just to see her run. “Could I call the police, or something?” I said.

“Oh, no-o-o,” Myrna said, pulling herself together a little, “no thank you. I’ll just wait here and talk to Jayne Anne when she comes. Not that she can help me either, but I just have to talk to someone or I’m going to go crazy.” And then she added in a kind of a wail, “if I haven’t already.”

It occurred to me that if what she needed was someone to talk to, I’d be glad to oblige. I didn’t want to see her go crazy and, besides, I was curious. To start things out I ventured a guess. “Did you get fired, or something like that?” I’d heard that the manager of the Pet Shop was a real tyrant.

“Fired?” she said. “Oh, no. Oh, my no. I’m almost the only full time clerk Mr. Braunstetter has left. He couldn’t fire me, though I suppose he’ll try to blame it on me. He always tries to blame it on one of us. But he couldn’t fire me.” She stopped and looked at me, and I could tell she was trying to decide how much she should say. I tried to look mature and helpful. She took a deep breath and started out, and once she began it was like a break in the dam. She never even stopped to take a real breath.

“It was this morning—I don’t mean that what happened this morning is all of it, because it’s been going on for weeks and weeks, but this morning was the last straw. It was my turn to get to work early to clean the cages and do the feeding, so I got there just as the morning janitorial crew was going in. And when we got in, the Canaries and parakeets and mynas were loose and flying all over the store. They’re catching them now—running all over the store with nets and ladders—but I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand it anymore—I just had to get out of there. I didn’t even stop to check out.”

Myrna had been looking scared to death all along, but when she said that she looked horrified. She was the type who wouldn’t be caught dead breaking even the littlest rule, and checking in and out was almost sacred at Alcott-Simpson’s.
“I didn’t even stop to check out,”
she said again,
“I am going crazy—I’m sure of it.”

“You said it had been going on for weeks and weeks,” I said. “What has? Have the birds been out before?”

“No, not the birds, but other things. Some of the mice, and the kittens—the kittens so many times that we had to stop stocking them. And the chipmunks—and, oh yes, once an iguana. But that’s not all. They feed things, too. Right in the middle of the afternoon They feed things. So that you look in the feed trays one minute and they’re empty, and the next minute they’re full. And They put things in places they shouldn’t be—spools of thread in the kittens’ cages—wind up toy submarines in the fish tanks—”

“They?” I asked.

“Yes. They!” she said angrily, as if I’d meant I didn’t believe her. “Don’t take my word for it. It’s not just me. It’s not just in the Pet Shop either.” Her voice got higher and more hysterical. “Oh, a lot of them won’t talk about it, because they’re afraid of what you’ll think, or because they’re afraid they’ll think it themselves. But if you pick the right ones, the ones who
have
to talk to someone and who can see that you’re as scared as they are, they’ll tell you. They’ll tell you about the sounds They make—feet running and laughter, and voices—and the things that move by themselves—toys, balls that bounce by themselves—and things you see—in dark corners—” She pressed her hands over her mouth as if she were trying to make herself stop.

I felt paralyzed. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Just then Jayne Anne came around the corner. “Hello, Di,” she said, “sorry to be so late. Myrna! What is it? What on earth is wrong?” She unlocked the door and led Myrna inside, patting her and making sympathetic noises. She stuck her head back out long enough to say, “Di, run along, won’t you please. We’ll skip the sweeping up for today. Catch me later in the week if you have time.” She nodded towards Myrna and made a face that said, “You see how it is.”

“Sure,” I said. “See you later.” And I started off down the sidewalk toward my next job in the McAdam building.

I finished the rest of my Monday morning work in a kind of daze. My mind was just treading water, doing the same things over and over without getting anywhere. The only positive conclusion that I came up with was that I was going to have to see Sara again right away. I was going to have to break my promise about not asking any questions. For my sake, and maybe for her own too, Sara was going to
have
to tell me what she knew about whatever it was that was going on at Alcott-Simpson’s.

Maybe they’ve heard in the toy department

The endless whispered sighs,

Or have they seen on the goosedown couches,

Where each night something lies?

Could they be learning to shun the shadows

For fear of great dark eyes?

They know, they fear, they’re almost certain

But they tell each other lies.

R
EMEMBERING ABOUT POOR
Myrna gave me the idea for the second verse.

I finished my work in a hurry on that Monday morning, and on my way to catch the bus to school I walked back past Alcott-Simpson’s. Through the doors I could see that a few more clerks had arrived. The birds must have all been caught, because I didn’t see any ladders or butterfly nets. That is, if there had been any birds; I’d almost decided that poor Myrna was right about going crazy.

But whether there was anything to Myrna’s story or not, I was getting more and more frantic about seeing Sara. I almost decided to wait around until nine-thirty so I could take a quick look for Sara before I went to school. I would have, too, even though I hated being late, but I was almost positive she wouldn’t be there. No matter what kind of weird home life she had, she probably had to be in school on Monday mornings like everyone else. So I went on to school and tried to keep my mind off the whole thing until I’d had a chance to get some more information. But that afternoon I was back at Alcott-Simpson’s as quickly as I could get there after school.

Sara wasn’t in the store that afternoon either. I hung around until the closing bell rang, and she just wasn’t there. The crowds were very light again, so I was fairly sure that I’d have seen her if she were anywhere around. There weren’t many customers, and there didn’t seem to be as many clerks as usual. I glanced in the pet shop and it seemed quiet and normal enough. Except that Mr. Braunstetter, the department manager, was waiting on customers himself, which was something I’d never seen him do before.

I was on my way home, just a couple of blocks from Cathedral Street, when I passed a bus stop and there was Madame Stregovitch getting off the bus. She was carrying a couple of big packages, so I hurried and caught up with her and asked if I could help her carry something.

“Dion,” she said. “How nice to see you. You appear like magic and in the nick of time. My arms are very tired.” She gave me the biggest package, and we started off down Willow Street. I’d been wanting another chance to question Madame about the trouble at Alcott-Simpson’s, and this seemed like a made-to-order opportunity. But I remembered that the last time I’d tried, she’d seemed pretty reluctant to give any answers. So I thought I’d ease into the subject as carefully as I could. I began by saying that I’d heard she’d been sick and I hoped she was okay now. She said yes, she had been and that she was better. Then, just as I’d gotten around to asking if she thought the store was still having as much trouble, she turned into a driveway.

I had known for years that Madame Stregovitch lived somewhere in the Cathedral Street neighborhood, because I used to see her around now and then, but I’d never known exactly where. The driveway we were walking down led back behind an old Victorian town house that had been turned into apartments years and years before. It was a mess of peeling paint, cracked windows and crumbling ornaments—the kind of thing that artists and tourists love, but nobody in their right mind would want to live in. But Madame didn’t go into the big house. We went around back and behind the garage we came to a gate that led into a tangled overgrown mess of trees and bushes that had probably once been a garden. Almost hidden in the bushes was a small house. The little house was probably built at the same time as the big one in front of it, maybe for servants to live in; but now it was fenced off into what looked like a little world of its own. It was old and a little shabby, but not rundown and uncared for like the big house; and sitting there almost hidden in the undergrowth, it gave you a funny feeling. Like you’d stumbled onto a place where time had stopped a long time ago.