The Wintering (20 page)

“Oh. The bus is going to be here.”

“Run then, damn it,” he said. “Run.”

“Next week or not?”

“Yes. Yes,” he said, watching her run.

Jeff
:

What's happened? Does your wife know about the day in the woods? She phoned and asked me to lunch. I said I could and then she phoned right back and said she wasn't coming to Delton, after all. My mother had a fit and said not to write you; the stuff about letters being proof positive. Now, she's written asking me to lunch there. I don't want to come but should I? What's going on? And I did say, Why couldn't I? Why didn't I? I missed you afterward. I wish God would help me. Nobody is so dumb and foolish as I
.

Amy

Dearest Amy
:

I bought crappie from a Negro walking along the road with a string of them, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary when I got home. I don't know why the sudden telephoning. Intuition? Something could have happened; someone could have seen us on the square that day. What choice do they leave us but back alley subterfuge? They can see nothing else for looking at us cross-eyed. As I was coming from the drugstore the other day, I encountered your aunt, and she looked at me so exactly like Amelia, I was confused for a moment. There's a difference in the air I can't put my finger on. Momentous housecleaning began, I in the middle trying to work. But to them I am the only one in the house not doing anything and I'm sent to town for floor wax. Amy, I don't have time to lose this way. I must finish this hook and soon. Impossible of course, but if only we could go off together and when I had finished working, there you would he with your eyes looking at me as I dream they will, to read the work and say simply, Yes, it's good, go on. Something as simple as that. Go on, Jeff, I believe in you. And I there to say to you, Yes. We need each other for that. But they'll leave me alone for a while, because coming back with the wax, I pointed out that time lost that way means money lost. They've even had the front hall painted and Inga insisted on new wallpaper and really I have no extra money. Always there are hills. If only we could go away
.

And Amelia's been going about with a secret air and so I thought, at first, the plan about your coming here was her idea. But now I think her preoccupied air is because she has a beau. She had recently resumed church work with zest, and the choir director, now a widower, has begun to ask her out to dinner. Only I see now, as I'm writing, that Amelia resumed church work shortly after his wife died. Then Inga told me herself, that while the house was clean she wanted to invite you here as her guest to stop gossip. I don't think the town's full of it, as she says; rather, I know the town's full of gossip, but not about us, I mean. But how can I take the chance it's not? Always, you must he protected. How are they sure we are still in touch? It all goes around in my head endlessly. My work is suffering, and the time lost can never be regained. This time, I'm afraid you'll have to decide what to do. You see, despite running, you may be forced by all this to grow up, yet
.

Jeff

While her new employer stared at her legs, Amy tried not to laugh and stared down at his blue socks with gold clocks. Since he wore no garters, the socks' droopy tops showed when he crossed his legs. He had no more idea than the man in the moon that her alligator shoes cost more than he made in a week, she thought. He kept looking at her insinuatingly as if she must be pleased and as if assuming they would be going out together after work. Did he even realize, she wondered, that there were different kinds of people, that what he might consider life's highest attainment would have little interest for her. God! if only he would stop looking at her legs.

A greenish gold tooth on one side of his mouth shone when he laughed. He wiped saliva, afterward, from his mouth's corners, then stuck thumbs behind his lapels and leaned back and kept staring. A blister on one heel, from walking and job-hunting, made Amy ease off a shoe, which gave him further reason to look. Told at the employment agency that smiling pleasantly would help get her a job, Amy had smiled. Proust, Existentialism, the Renaissance—college courses fled through her mind, pointlessly, now that she was in the real world, out to make a living. His green gold tooth appeared when he told her a joke; he sat wiping saliva on the back of his hand. Suppose she mentioned reading
Rememberance of Things Past
in French? He would find that as pointless as she had found his joke, Amy thought, having smiled at it. Hired as a receptionist, she need not do much and felt qualified for less.

At some interviews even smiling pleasantly had not helped. How had others taking the test known, if A talked to B for C minutes at so much a minute, then so many minutes overtime, how much it would cost? The telephone company's personnel manager had shaken her head in pity. “You got none of the problems right,” she had said. Trying then to smile, Amy had said, “Well, I was a Literature major in college.” But in the elevator she had cried, for the woman's pity had seemed to be for so much else besides her inability to get the job. Graduated from college, she was not qualified to be a long-distance telephone operator.

As a receptionist, she was to address envelopes, having clipped from each morning's paper announcements of births and marriages. Then to the people involved, she was to send a letter suggesting insurance. It hurt that she had not been invited to Quill's wedding; he would throw away this form letter from some unheard-of company and never know she had typed it. Beating upon the typewriter keys with two fingers, she thought of adding, It's from me, Amy; here I am, lost! Every day she had been working, her employer had worn the same pair of socks, or did he have similar pairs? Today, he had a run in the shiny material. Tomorrow she would know whether he ever changed them. There was something to look forward to in this job, after all. Picking at something near his gold tooth, he went out to the “Y” for his daily swim. Resentful that he had this freedom when she had none, Amy immediately abandoned his correspondence for her own.

Dear Jeff
:

Thanks for calling, though unfortunately my mother heard and knew who it was. I'm glad my note was satisfactory and that your wife thought my having a job was a good enough excuse for my not coming there. But the job is so boring and I'm not learning anything, except that the business world is dull and stupid. I'm sorry about not meeting in the woods again but it did seem scary to do it after she had called. When will I see you
?

Amy

Dear Amy
:

If it weren't funny, I'd beat my head against the wall. So often, when we could have been together, we've been apart to spare our families so they would be what they think they are, happy; or so at least others would not think they had reason not to be. They've forced us to secrecy. They may force us to something like having to go away to be together. Keep at the job for now even if it is boring. People need something to chafe against and particularly artists, as I've probably told you. Bear down on your pencil now. Tell yourself that's how you'll get out of it all. Start something and stick to it, Amy. I tell myself by working like a mad man, I'll drive you out of my thoughts for a little while. But you won't go. You won't. When will I see you
?

Jeff

She would see about what was going on in this house, Amelia thought. Jessie was continually going out, frequently letting the back door slam, more than in all her other years here put together, and always wearing white. That did not mean a boyfriend, but she couldn't be going to that many funerals. Amelia could not think of a single Negro who had died these past few days. And always, what's-his-name, her nephew was waiting at the end of the driveway. Amelia remembered him as the cutest little colored boy. What had made him turn out so surly? She called, “Inga, was that the phone?”

“No.”

Inga's voice came muffled from the hall closet, where she had found a once-fashionable pink straw hat, its wide brim decorated with cherries. Backing out, Inga closed her eyes against the suddenness of day. In that inward yellow-starred darkness, she had a brief flash of self-assertion, thinking, I live here. Opening her eyes, she stared at the white hall paper Amelia had chosen, after saying the green grass cloth she had wanted was too expensive. But at least, Inga consoled herself, she had made the decision to have new paper, and she knew triumph. Now everything in the house had not been here before she had come. Something seemed hers, one decision anyway. The new wallpaper quickly had become her point of reference; she referred to things as having happened before or after she had decided to have the hall redone. Yet, she thought ruefully, how much had happened before, how little since. Time fled. Looking in the hall mirror, Inga pulled the sadly flopping brim of the hat over her face, then lower.

Inga had known she was expecting Latham to call, Amelia thought. That was the reason for that look on her face, putting on that old hat, just as jealous as she could be. She held open the door onto the grey porch, while Inga felt her way along the hall. She stumbled slightly over the doorsill. Amelia was exasperated more when they were driving. Then Inga said the car's motion made her sick.

“I'm driving just as careful as I can,” Amelia said.

Forcing her voice to be even, she called attention to things she thought of interest: the stationmaster's geraniums were the prettiest in years, Chester's was getting a new awning, Brother Milroy's wife was under the dryer at Billie Jean's and usually her day was Friday. Why would she be getting her hair done on Thursday? Brother Milroy's arthritis must be better. He was able to wave, in return. Amelia had waved at him in his yard as they went by. “He's waiting for Latham to go over Sunday's music,” she said, a little note of proprietorship in her voice.

Inga gazed with weak eyes back toward town, trying to see the importance of all these little things, as Amelia and all who had lived here always saw them. Through blurred vision, she saw only little stores huddled about a tattered station and thought how the people here came out to see a train pass. But Amelia had managed to take away that little flash of self-assertion she had felt in the hall. Inga searched for it again, vainly.

When Amelia turned down a rutted driveway, Inga saw a figure holding open the house's door and knew it must be Dea. As they came closer, she saw the navy dress, the red shoes, Dea wore so often. Was it in kindness, as it seemed, that Dea took her arm and helped her past the doorsill?

“I haven't been out much lately,” Inga said. “I can't adjust to the daylight.”

“Hard to get used to our summers, I imagine,” Dea said.

“Inga's been here a very long time,” Amelia said testily.

She had heard these remarks so continously, so many years, that Inga merely sat down in resignation. Dea thought how pale she was, but Amelia was blooming like a girl. Proud as a peacock about Latham Peabody taking her to dinner regularly, she imagined, when everybody knew he kept a nip in his pocket and took it first, when his family were, supposedly, the cream of the Baptists. He had only one kidney and was probably just looking for somebody to care for him in his sick old age. Had Amelia ever thought of that?

Feeling a little stiff with one another, they spoke at first about inconsequential things, like ferns. “Yours are so pretty,” Amelia said to Dea.

“They don't get too much sun, and I water them the minute they get dry,” Dea said. They had gone to the window to look out admiringly. They discussed, then, gardening. Inga, asked questions, never had her mind on the subject. Natural, the others thought, exchanging a glance which made that plain. The afternoon lagged like the conversation, until Dea brought out iced tea and cakes. Amelia, bending to the tray, said she must try one of each kind. Though she was “sort of” on a diet, and she laughed at herself.

“I hate myself being tempted,” Dea said. “I need to lose, too. But I so seldom get a chance to entertain, I thought it would be fun to have you over, instead of trying to discuss everything on the phone.” Nibbling cake, the others could only nod in agreement. Dea glanced around at how soft the color in the room had grown, the sun lower. Her house looked so much prettier. She was glad to have waited to get to the point of the visit. “He's phoned Amy,” Dea said. “And her mother wanted me to find out if you couldn't get him to stop. Amy is about over her hero worship, she believes, and her notion about being a writer. She could never have published anything. Anyway, she has a lovely job now and a boyfriend from her college is coming to visit her.”

“Is she to be engaged?” Inga sat forward.

“In a way, we hope not. He's not a Southerner. But her parents are giving her a big party and she's very much back in circulation. Her mother and I've been telling her if she doesn't marry soon, she'll end up with dregs.” Or as an old maid, she had almost said, forgetting about Amelia. Though with her skin blooming was Amelia possibly thinking of marrying at this late date? And wondering about it, Dea knew she was envious of beginnings.

“Jeff has been working so hard, I don't think he's been thinking about that girl,” Inga said.

Vurking, Dea could not help repeating to herself, staring at Inga curiously.

Amelia set down her glass. “I feel tied. If we mention it, he'll know we've been talking. He speaks of going away for a while. Maybe that's the answer.”

“Couldn't you say her mother had asked me to speak to you about his phoning? Surely, he doesn't want to seem an older man bothering some young girl,” Dea said.

“She's not complaining,” Amelia said quickly. “It's her parents. She must encourage him.”

“I can't think for what reason,” Dea said.

“Her reason is what we'd like to know, too,” Amelia said. “What does she want? It's gone on so long, someone's getting something out of it.” She turned on Dea a frozen smile.