She blinked. There were newspapers on the floor around his feet. He was shining his shoes. His hands moved slowly back and forth. Right, left, right, left. He had a brush.
Suddenly he looked up at her. “Hello. How do you feel?”
“Not very well.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No.” Presently she said: “Maybe some water.”
He got up off the bed and padded out of the room. She heard water running. A moment later he came back with a plastic cup.
Through the door she saw a small bath room with a shower and washbowl. There were little green soap squares wrapped up on the washbowl.
She took the water. “Where are we?”
“Almost in New York. A little town outside the city. We didn’t quite make it.”
“Where’s Bill?”
“We left him off, fifty miles back. He lives up that way.”
“Oh.” She was silent.
He touched her arm. “Are you all right?”
“I’m better. Is my purse here?”
He found it for her. She fumbled in it and found a bottle of aspirin. After she had taken two tablets she felt a little better.
“How about Penny and Felix?” she said. “Do they know where I am?”
“They know you went with us. We told them. Don’t you remember?”
“No. I—I can’t remember a lot of things.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, there’s a few things I don’t remember either.”
She smiled wryly. After a while she got up and walked about the room. In one corner on a wood table was a radio with a coin slot and a plunger. “Twenty-five cents for an hour’s listening,” a sticker read.
She looked out the window. It was dark. She could see a concrete ledge; beyond the ledge were lights. They seemed to be far away.
“Are we up high?”
“Third floor. That’s some sort of a town. A little place. I’ve been here once before, but I don’t remember much about it. It was a long time ago.”
One door led into the bathroom. She examined the other door. It had a latch on it; it led out into the hall. She did not feel so confused, now. Her head was beginning to clear. Except for the nausea she was almost all right. She touched her skirt; it was wrinkled and dirty. Stained. Suddenly she thought about her things.
“My clothes! They’re—they’re still back at Castle?”
“Penny said she’d have them shipped to Boston for you.”
Barbara nodded. She watched Verne. He was sitting on the bed again. He had finished polishing his shoes and had put them off in the comer. He wiggled his toes; he had on bright red socks.
“What time is it?”
Verne examined his watch. “After midnight.”
“Midnight—twenty-four hours.”
“Yes. We did a lot of things. What do you remember?”
She rubbed her head. “Not very much.”
She felt cold suddenly. She stared around at the room, at Verne sitting on the bed. He shifted uncomfortably. He had taken off his shirt and was sitting in his trousers and undershirt. His shoulders were narrow and small.
She gasped. She was dazed.
“What’s wrong?” Verne murmured.
“We’re—we’re both staying here? Together?”
“That’s the general idea.” He laughed nervously. “It’s not so serious. People do it every day.”
She said nothing.
“Don’t look at me that way!”
She closed her eyes. Her heart began to pound loudly. As if it were trying to talk. She moved away from Verne, over toward the window again.
Outside she could see the tiny lights, so far off, lost in the immense darkness of night. Were they really lights of some small town, as he had said? Or were they something else? Stars, perhaps. But they did not wink.
She turned around. Verne was watching her intently. He was so small and thin, sitting on the bed in his undershirt. She had not felt afraid before, but now she was beginning to become frightened. Verne’s face was anxious. Suddenly she realized—he was terrified. He was afraid she was going to leave.
In spite of herself she smiled. She walked back toward the bed. Verne seemed to draw away from her.
“Well,” she murmured.
“How do you mean that?”
“I don’t know. Everything seems to be happening so fast. I have to get used to it.”
He said nothing.
“I’m still a little afraid,” she said presently. “But not as much as before.”
“Afraid of me?”
“No. I don’t know. I’m confused. I can’t remember… I’ve forgotten so many things. I still feel sick. Did I do anything—anything silly? Dumb?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Verne pulled himself up. “In fact, we didn’t realize you were—that you had been affected so much until this morning in the diner. Do you remember that?”
She nodded.
“You were sick in the car. You had sort of gone to sleep. Passed out. We couldn’t tell very much. You came around pretty groggy.”
“I remember.”
“That’s about all.”
Barbara sat down on the edge of the bed. “Verne, I—” He reached for her hand but she pulled it quickly away. “Verne, I think I told you I was twenty-four. I’m not. I’m only twenty.”
His eyebrow lifted. He gazed at her, his face round and owlish, his lips twitching.
“That makes a difference, doesn’t it?”
“Sort of.”
They sat for a long time, neither of them speaking. Finally Verne sighed and began to move about on the bed.
“Well?” he said. “What do you want to do?”
“It’s not very safe, under the circumstances.” She hesitated. “We crossed the state line, too, I think. Doesn’t that mean something?”
He nodded. “Yes. It means something.”
“What—what shall we do?”
There was silence. The room had begun to grow cold. The heater had been turned off. Barbara realized, all at once, that she was beginning to tremble. Her body was trembling all over. She gripped her hands together.
“Brrrrrrr,” she murmured. “It’s cold.”
Verne nodded. He drooped, sagging in a little heap on the bed. His face was long and sad. Presently he removed his glasses and put them on the dresser.
Barbara leaped up. “Verne—”
“Yes?”
“I wish I knew how you felt.”
“Felt?”
“About everything. About this. You know.”
He started to speak, but then he seemed to change his mind. He rubbed his chin and swallowed. Finally he looked up. “It’s hard to me to say in so many words.”
“I suppose so.” She hesitated. “It’s hard for me, too. To know what to do without being sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“I don’t know.” She paced slowly across the cold room, her arms folded. “I wish I could tell what you’re thinking. How you feel. What this means to you.”
She sat down again on the edge of the bed. Someplace, far off, a clock struck. Outside in the night, a long way away. A wind had come up. She could hear it moving against the window, rustling in the darkness.
She began to take off her shoes slowly, conscious of Verne’s eyes on her. Her heart was thrashing inside her, beating in hard little strokes. She was terrified and excited at the same time. Stage fright Like when she had to make a speech in school. How far away that seemed! She was shaking terribly. From cold and fatigue. And fright. She smiled at him.
“I can hardly breathe.”
“Will you be all right?”
“I think so.” She took off the other shoe and pushed it against the first. She was cold all over. Cold and clammy. Little beads of moisture clung to her body. Tiny icy drops against her neck and arms. But she was excited, shaking with awe and terror.
“Verne—would you do something for me? Would you turn off the li
ght? Please?”
He reached up and pulled the light switch.
In the darkness she undressed, her hands awkward, her pulse racing. What would Penny think of her now? If they ever guessed—But of course they knew. They knew all about such things. She laughed out loud.
“What is it?” Verne’s voice was very near her.
“Nothing.” She felt for the bed in the darkness. Her fingers touched the covers. He moved away to make room for her. “Verne—”
“Yes?”
“I hope you’ll be patient with me. I’ve never—I’ve never done anything like this before. Will you be patient and understand?”
“I will,” he said.
8
IT WAS LATE August.
“How much money do you have?” Penny said.
Barbara opened her purse and got out the coin purse. She showed Penny her money: three tens and a twenty and some ones rolled up with a rubber band.
“All right,” Penny said, nodding.
“It’s enough?”
“Yes. You already have your ticket?”
Barbara showed her the ticket. The first bus was already starting to leave. It pulled out, away from the station, moving along the road with a roar. Penny and Barbara stepped back, away from the curb. The driver of the second bus brought his bus up to the loading platform, and the small group of people began to pick up their suitcases and shuffle forward.
Penny took Barbara’s hand. “Good luck, honey.” She grabbed her around the waist and hugged her hard. “And remember! If you get into any trouble in New York call me and Felix. We’ll come up there, if we have to.”
“I better hurry,” Barbara said. “He’s going to pull out.”
She caught hold of her little bag and ran to the door of the bus. The other people had all got on. The driver started up his motor, shifting gears. Barbara clambered up the steps and handed him the ticket. He punched it and gave it back to her. She pushed down the aisle to the rear. The bus began to move while she was still on her feet. She clung to a seat handle and lowered herself into the seat, still holding onto her bag.
An elderly man sitting next to the window put down his magazine. “Want me to put that up in the rack for you, miss?” he said.
She said no very quickly, and clung even more tightly to the bag. The old man returned to his magazine. Barbara sat holding onto the bag, looking out the window past the old man’s glasses, at the streets moving by.
In New York she checked her bag at the depot. She found a telephone booth and called the radio station.
“I’m sorry, lady,” the man said patiently. “I can’t tell you that. It’s not the policy of the station. I’m sure Mister Tildon wouldn’t mind, but it’s the policy of the station not to—”
“You can tell me when he broadcasts, can’t you?”
“Certainly.” She heard him moving some papers. “He’ll be on the air tonight at nine o’clock. That’s the starting time of his program.”
“Will he be in the station before the program?”
“I don’t know that.”
She thanked him and hung up.
When the taxi let her off in front of the station it was almost eight-thirty. She hurried along the gravel path, looking around uncertainly. Was this really the place? She saw a small modern building, one story, with shrubs and grass around it A tall wire tower rose in the air behind the building.
Barbara pushed open the door and went inside. She was in a large, well-lighted waiting room. There was no one around.
At the end of the room was a great window, and beyond the window she could see a man sitting before a board of dials and meters and switches. The man leaned back in his swivel chair, turning slowly from side to side. He was reading something in front of him. Every once in a while he pushed a sheet of paper away.
Barbara walked restlessly around the waiting room, her heart thudding. The room was painted in light pastels, blue and green. The ceiling was some kind of perforated fiber. The light came from recessed fluorescents.
She sat down in a deep modern metal and leather chair and watched the man talking. On the wall next to him was a big round clock and some photographs tacked up, a row of girl pictures, mostly breasts and shoulders. There was a tall file case of phonograph records in heavy covers. And two immense turntables next to each other, with long thin tone arms. The man who was talking noticed her and turned his chair around. He was an older man with curly light hair, a necktie and a jersey sweater. He studied her a moment and then swung around, away from her.
At the end of the waiting room a door opened. She jumped, suddenly tense. But it was only a big man in a blue pinstripe suit, walking with a young fellow in his shirt sleeves. They glanced at her and passed on through a door marked PRIVATE.
The clock in the control room read five minutes to nine. Her nervousness increased. She took off her coat and folded it over the back of the chair. She picked up a magazine but she could not bear to read it. Presently she got to her feet and walked around, her hands in the pockets of her suit.
The man in the control room put on a phonograph record. She could not hear it play but she could see it going around. He got up from his swivel chair and lit a cigarette. He nodded to her. She turned away. On the wall the hands of the clock were still moving. Had the person on the phone told her the truth? Was this the right night?
Suddenly it happened. She turned pale. Verne had come silently into the control room, beyond the window of glass. He did not see her. He put down an armload of records and removed his coat. He sat down in the swivel chair and pulled the microphone down to him. The other man bent down, resting his hand on Verne’s shoulder. He said something to him. Verne turned quickly, looking through the window at her. He gaped, his mouth open foolishly. Like some sea thing in a glass tank, suddenly surprised.
He started to get up from the chair but the other man pointed to the clock. Verne nodded. He picked up a sheaf of papers and unclipped them, turning toward the control board again. The other man left the control room through a side door. A moment later he came into the waiting room.
“Hello,” he said to Barbara.
“Hello.”
“You’re waiting to see Verne?”
She nodded.
“All right.” He looked around. “Don’t you want to hear the program?”
“Hear it?”
“I can turn on the wall speaker for you.” He reached up to a box over the window and clicked a switch. The room filled suddenly with the sound of jazz music, a heavy beating Chicago orchestra.
“Thank you,” Barbara murmured. The man went on outside, down the path away from the building.
Verne was talking. “Men like Bix Beiderbecke represented a tradition in jazz in which for the first time—”
She listened. His voice was low and harsh. He was very nervous, she realized. He was sitting with his back to her, facing the control board. On and on his voice droned. After a while he put on a record and the sound of his voice was replaced by Paul Whiteman’s band. He got up from the board and came over toward the window.
Again he gaped at her, his hands stuffed into his pockets. His expression was impossible to read. His face moved, his eyebrows twitching, the corners of his mouth going up and down. Barbara went over close to the window. They were only a few inches apart.
Suddenly Verne turned and ran back to the board. He snatched up his papers and sat down, adjusting the long rod of the microphone.
“—Beiderbecke’s contribution to the field of Chicago jazz is unfortunately rated too low because of his early and tragic—”
She went back to the chair and sat down. A group of people opened the street door and came in. They stared curiously through the window at the men talking. One of them, a girl about fourteen, began to giggle. She pounded a young boy with her on the arm. Their parents led them on out of the waiting room down the hall and around the corner. Barbara sat back in the chair and tried to relax.
At nine-thirty the door op
ened and a woman came quickly into the waiting room. She stopped, breathing hard, her slim body quivering. She gazed around her, eyes bright, her chest rising and falling, breathing almost like some kind of animal. She was tall and angular, with jet black hair falling down her shoulders in two heavy braids which widened at the ends into plump tufts. She shot a rapid, keen glance at Barbara and then padded over to the great window. With something small she tapped against the glass. It gave off a tiny clicking sound; probably a coin.
Verne looked up, startled. He and the woman stood gazing at each other, the woman breathless and flushed, Verne expressionless and grim-faced. He nodded curtly to her and then returned to the board. The woman continued to watch him for a few minutes. Then she moved away from the window. She walked across the waiting room and sat down in a chair a little way from Barbara.
Barbara studied her out of the corner of her eye. What kind of person was this slender, oddly-dressed girl? Was she waiting for Verne? Would she leave soon? The woman did not appear to be going. She opened a small purse and took out a cigarette. What strange shoes she had on—they were woolly, furlike. Her legs were bare; she had no stockings on. Barbara began to wish she would go. The brightness of the woman’s clothes disturbed her; she could not seem to ignore her, no matter how she sat. She picked up a magazine and turned the pages, but it did not help.
The woman was looking at her, now. Watching her silently, her shining black eyes fastened on her.
She leaned forward. “Say, darling. Do you have a match?”
Barbara’s head jerked up. She shook her head dumbly and returned to the magazine. Her cheeks were turning scarlet; she could feel the blood rushing up. The woman was still looking at her. Why didn’t she stop? How long was she going to sit, leaning toward her like that?
The woman got to her feet. She walked around the waiting room. After a while she wandered off down the corridor. Barbara heard her talking to someone. Presently she came back, skipping from side to side carelessly, her arms folded. She was humming under her breath, repeating one syllable over and over:
“La-la-la, lalalala, la. La-la-la—”
She spun around, one hand on her hip, her skirt sweeping out. Her cigarette jutted from her thin mouth, still unlit. How tough and cold she seemed. Except for her eyes. They were bright and hot, too bright. At last she sat down again. Her long fingers drummed on the arm of the chair, tapping in time with the music that came from the wall speaker. She was so much in motion. Agitated. Was she nervous? Or just restless?