Late in the Season (4 page)

She awoke to darkness. The rain hadn’t stopped. If anything, it seemed to be raining much harder now. It rattled on the shingled roof like horses’ hooves; it twisted down in great vertical sheets on the front and side decks, beating down the bushes and swirling around the cottage’s corners to slap at the windows like boys with BB guns.

She’d been cold when she awakened. She put on two or three lamps, then went to the kitchen to brew a cup of warming tea. Waiting for the water to boil, she turned on the little electric clock radio and dialed through fields of static until she arrived at a voice. It was the nine o’clock news. That late?

She sat down with the tea and the mystery novel, only hearing fragments of the announcer’s words, until he began reporting the weather. Heavy rain was predicted throughout the night: six inches or more. Flooding was expected in low-lying areas. Gale force winds. Small craft warnings had been posted by the Coast Guard. Odd, after such a sunny, warm, clear day, she thought.

She went to the window to look out again. The rain was coming down so hard it sheeted over the window, making it opaque. She opened it—an inch, no more—and tried to look outside. It was quite dark: she couldn’t see any lights from houses in this direction. She closed it and did the same on the other side of the house. This side was more densely populated: there were a few more lights—but quite distant. The lovers, of course, were in. God! It was awful out there!

She prepared herself a light dinner, read, listened to the radio even though she didn’t care for the “easy listening” stuff on this station and would have preferred rock or even jazz. It was the only one she could get without great distortion: and it
was
contact, of a sort. She would read her book, perhaps build a fire with the log she’d bought today, perhaps play solitaire, be alone, as she’d been all day. She would prove to herself, as well as to her parents and to Bill Tierney, that she could be, had to be, left alone.

Imagine Liz with those kids surrounding her all day. Tony at night. When was Liz ever alone? When the kids were at nursery school and the baby taking a midafternoon nap? For an hour, maybe less than that? Not enough time even to catch her breath.

Do I want that? Do I? Because that’s what will happen to me if I marry Bill. He’ll argue that’s not true. He’ll say we’ll take it easy: not have children for a while. He’ll say that I’ll be able to finish school. We’ll each pursue our own careers. Then, maybe after several years, we’ll have children. Sure, that’s what he’ll say. The truth will be different. More like Liz’s life.

I don’t have a career, anyway. That’s one problem. What’s going to happen when I graduate from school? I should have listened to Uncle Ned when he suggested I go to engineering school. At least I’d be prepared for something. I don’t really want to teach, which is what’s expected. I don’t want to—to what? To work? Maybe I don’t. Or worse, maybe I don’t want to grow up, period. Maybe that’s what all this is about.

The radio station began to drift, and Stevie became aware of how much harder it was raining now than an hour ago when she’d awakened. She tried to retrieve the radio channel, but it was a cheap little receiver, and what she was able to hold on to was so shrill and crackling, that after a minute she had to turn it off. With the little bit of radio-induced comfort gone, she could hear the rain more clearly. It would slam down on the roof with so much force she wondered if she could hear herself speak out loud. Worse, the windows all around her would thump every once in a while as gusts of wind struck them. She moved around shutting curtains, then went back to sit in the rocker.

She felt chilly. She got up and found the sweatshirt she’d left behind, but that had short sleeves, and her arms had goose bumps. She found her work shirt and put that on underneath the sweatshirt.

“Oh, boy!” she said to her reflection in the mirror. “Don’t I look stylish! Very hillbilly.” She’d already gotten nice color today.

There was a distant boom, then a sheet of lightning tore across the bedroom window, brightening it. Involuntarily she jumped, then cursed her silliness in the mirror and laughed.

What a great day it had been. Alone almost all day, and not needing, not wanting any company. On the beach, the closest people had been so far away that she could barely make them out. They’d left earlier than she too. When she strolled down the beach, they’d gone, leaving a big red and white beach umbrella stuck in the sand, shading a little white metal table and two white chairs, each seating a huge stuffed animal, perched precariously on the edge of the table, as though slightly drunk and conversing. That was funny. And watching the sandpipers dipping back and forth, scampering along the water’s edge always pleased her. Of course they were digging for food—some type of tiny fish or insect or even algae, she knew, with their long pointed bills. But how officious and bureaucratic they seemed: how intent too, as though they were government officials of the seashore, busily checking the sand for hardness, or strength, or granular distribution. They’d reminded her of filing clerks, secretaries, and of the one time she’d been in the vast secretarial pool at LD&G, where Bill worked. Bill was sometimes like these sandpipers. He’d peck at his food, peck at his newspaper, even peck at her body, taking little sips, checking out various spots, when they made love.

Stop! She was being terrible. She was making herself laugh at Bill’s expense. It was a terrible comparison. An invidious comparison, Rose Heywood would say. Would Rose wonder where Stevie was this semester? Of course she would. Rose Heywood was the one thing to look forward to at school, really. Their little teas tête-à-tête, their occasional shopping forays to Springfield, their car rides down to New York City for the weekend, where Rose would go to clubs and cabarets and restaurants Stevie only read about in magazines.

What a wonderful teacher, what a wonderful woman Rose Heywood was! How well they liked each other, and how well they got along together, even though Rose was twelve years older and knew scads more. “Never lie about your age, dear,” Rose had once said. “If you look young for it, you’ll always feel complimented rather than flattered. If you look older…well, you’ll always be honored for your endurance.” Rose. She would see Rose anyway, wouldn’t she? Even if she didn’t return to Smith? But it wouldn’t be the same, would it, as those mad car rides down, with Rose smoking furiously in the middle of a weekend traffic jam on the Henry Hudson Parkway? Or Rose’s awful thumbnail sketches of the men sitting in the cars around them. “That one’s a fetishist, Stevie. You can tell by the glazed expression in his eyes. Right now he’s probably fondling himself and thinking about his secretary’s instep.” Or, “Secret agent if I ever saw one. Don’t be fooled by the Huck Finn innocent looks. The government always goes for the boyish ones. They think they look more trustworthy. He’d as soon shoot your head off as offer you a light.” Oh, Rose! Now there was an independent woman.

But did Stevie want to be like Rose? Not completely. Above all she didn’t want to be totally cynical, utterly world weary as Rose sometimes seemed.

The kitchen lights suddenly flickered. When she went into the living room, the lights there flickered on and off too. She immediately began to feel afraid, then admonished herself and went to check the hurricane lamps. The one above the kitchen sink had a hairline crack in its bowl. It wouldn’t work. The older one in the living room had a tiny wick, but there didn’t seem to be a great deal of oil in the bowl. She lighted it just to make certain it would go on, then blew it out, turned off the oil spigot, and left the matches nearby—just in case.

The rain seemed just as bad as before, only now it had begun to thunder: not a hollow distant thunder, but short, loud cracks like the sound of huge trees splitting at their thickest part and falling. Lightning began to illuminate the room, first at one window, then at another. Stevie saw that the lightning was striking very close, into a stand of pine trees not a dozen feet from the house. She remembered her girl scout counting method for determining how close the storm center really was. Watch the lightning, then count slowly until you heard the thunder—each interval represented a mile. Another sheet of lightning tore down in the side yard, and she counted. Thunder boomed even before she reached one.

She tried tuning the radio again; it whistled so badly she had to turn it off.

She tried reading her mystery novel, but found that she couldn’t concentrate.

It was foolish to feel afraid. It was just a storm. In the city, she would hardly notice it. Because there was less traffic noise here, less protection, she heard it, felt more exposed to it, that was all. It was nothing to be afraid of. And what if the electricity did finally go out. They’d had brownouts and blackouts at the summer house for years. None had lasted more than a few hours. The hurricane lamp would last that long.

But when the lights did begin flickering again, as she was cleaning the dinner dishes, then finally flickered off, she felt afraid. She brought her just-made cup of tea out to the living room, where she lighted the lamp, opened the curtains, and even the door for a second to make sure all the other houses had suffered the same fate.

Only a dull yellow glow—from the lovers’ house—consoled her for being stranded on a promontory in the middle of a terrific hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The oil lamp didn’t provide enough light to read by without straining her eyes. It guttered too. She at-tempted laying out the deck of cards for a game of solitaire, but they only reminded her of how alone she really was. Sleep would be a real escape, but could she get to sleep with all this racket, and after having had a nap?

“Serve her right,” her father would be saying to her mother right now in their well-lighted apartment overlooking Gramercy Park. Her mother wouldn’t protest. Stevie knew how tightly organized his system of instant retribution and justice were. How Paleolithic, really, when she thought of it. Bill Tierney was a bit like that too, sometimes. Not as rigid yet…but the potential was certainly there.

They would expect her to return to the city tomorrow, frightened, chastened, ready to go back to school, to get married, to become another zombie like Liz, just because of a storm.

The lightning seemed all around the house now. The bushes outside the window were being blown so forcefully their branches tapped the panes, like fingers striking it. She was certain she heard footsteps in the kitchen. The hurricane lamp only brightened a tiny space, hardly anything at all. Who knew what was lurking in the corners of the rooms?

There was a creak in a floorboard to her right, and Stevie froze instantly. She only relaxed after a few minutes, when it didn’t repeat.

Of course it was possible for someone to have gotten in. She hadn’t locked the doors until she awakened from her nap. One of those men she’d seen unloading the flatboats in the harbor. The way that tall blond bearded one had looked at her this afternoon, blankly, stupidly, as though he hated her. He might have followed her back here, come in quietly, be waiting for her in the corridor.

“No!” she gasped, standing up.

There was no response, except a sudden crack of lightning in front and the unremitting rain pounding the roof. That was even more unnerving.

I have to get out of here, she thought. Get out before I really frighten myself with all these fears and fancies. I’d be mortified if someone arrived here in a day or so to find me catatonic, hunched at the back of a clothes closet.

She carried the lamp in front of her, inspecting every room, every closet of the house, until she was satisfied she was alone. When she returned to the living room, she looked out the window, at the rain. Aside from the glow in the lovers’ house, it seemed as dark as on the last day of time.

I can’t, she thought. I can’t. That would mean giving up, admitting I’m afraid. I won’t.

A terrific burst of lightning brightened the room as though it were daylight, and at the same time thunder surrounded the house in rumbling cannonades. The lamp began to gutter.

I’ll admit it. I’m terrified.

She grabbed her slicker from the closet, barely got it on and fastened before she turned off the lamp and opened the front door. Even with the hood up, she had to bend down to the latch in order to see the keyhole to lock the door.

It was awful out. She was completely out of her mind to come out here when she had a safe dry house. And the wind! She could barely keep herself from being blown off the deck.

She bent low, and tried running. The rain splashed in her face as though someone had trained a hose on her. At the entrance to the lovers’ house walk, she hesitated, holding on to their deck railing to keep herself from being blown against the walls. What if they were doing something private? Making love, or something like that? Surely they didn’t expect a neighborly visit in this weather.

Another crack of lightning surrounded her house in a malignant glow, making it look so eerie and repulsive that she decided. She ran along the deck, crossed her fingers, tried to wipe the rain out of her eyes enough to peer in, and gritting her teeth, knocked hard on the glass door.

In the first startling moment that Jonathan realized that the new sound amid all the other racket was actually someone knocking on the glass doors, he was certain a boat had been shipwrecked. His next impression, as he got up out of his chair, pulled aside the heavy curtains, and indeed made out a gesturing, drenched, oddly attired figure, was that his first thought had been astonishingly correct.