Part 4 (1/2)
”Research for a paper on the poetry. Remember, I read you some?”
”I know I'm a dummy, but I can't tel one from the other. Were they the poems about England?”
”That was Wordsworth.”
”He made me want to travel.” Angela looked toward the plaid drape closed tight across the window that helped keep out the cold. Was that what Angela dreamed of these days? ”Do you think we ever wil ?”
”I'l have summers off once I start teaching. Angie, Angie,” she said, excited, ”I know what we'l do. We'l train someone to run your shop by then.”
”What does al that poetry have to do with phys ed anyway?”
”Literature is part of the curriculum. I have to take it.”
Angela was gazing at the drapes. ”Seriously, let's start dreaming about where to go, al right, baby?”
She slipped an arm around Angela's slender waist and pul ed her close, nuzzling her bel y with her nose.
Angela stepped back, her voice tight. ”Not right now, baby. The cramping.”
”I'm sorry.” Jefferson turned to her books to hide the tears that leapt to her eyes. Maybe she was near her time too. There was no reason to feel rejected. Angela was sick tonight, wasn't she?
At the bedroom doorway Angela stopped. ”Jefferson, are you going to your grandparents' for Easter?”
They'd be playing the newest opera recording they'd bought. The house would smel like honeyed ham. The dessert Jel -O would s.h.i.+mmy on a flower- patterned plate. She tried to keep a wary tone from her voice as she said, ”You know I have to spend the afternoon there.”
”Just checking. I'l go to my parents'.” Angela closed the bedroom door almost too careful y. Jefferson had complained about the violence of doors slammed in anger.
She'd heard the hope, then disappointment, and final y surrender in Angela's few words. They went through their tug-of-war each holiday, Angela ready to make a partial break from her parents, Jefferson too ful of guilt. Would there ever be a time they could stay home, cook their own turkeys and hams, maybe next fal go in to see the Thanksgiving Day parade together?
She sighed into her cup of coffee. How could they love each other, be each other's family, be al they could be to each other and to themselves while their parents were stil alive? The cloud sat so heavily on her she stared at her books more than she worked on her report.
Chapter Eight.
When Thanksgiving came and Angela arrived back from her parents' place on Cannon Street, she fel crying into Jefferson's arms.
”I can't stand another holiday with them, Jefferson! I won't do it. If I have to stay here alone Christmas Day, I wil .”
”Ange, my sweet girl, what happened?”
”My mother, with her matrimonial campaign. I tel her I'm happily married and she bites her lip and looks away like I stabbed her with the carving knife.
Don't they know it's 1976, not 1906? I can't stand it.”
Jefferson held Angela closer. She couldn't let her stay home alone Christmas Day. Yet she couldn't refuse to go to her grandparents'. She couldn't show up with Angela. ”I know, I know,” she said to comfort Angela. ”I get the silent treatment. Maybe it's not as bad, but it doesn't feel good either. They don't want to hear about anything that has to do with you, not even what a fine cook you are. Night school, that's al I can talk to them about.”
Nothing was wrong with the way her parents had raised or treated her. She was too different, like one of those babies stolen from their beds and replaced by changelings.
She stroked Angela's hair, trying to exude strength. This would pa.s.s, she rea.s.sured herself. It had before. Angela would never refuse to go to Cannon Street, especial y for Christmas. Would never make her choose between families. She kissed her hair, then her cheek, her neck, saying, ”I love you, Angie, it'l be al right.”
Angela went stiff, thrust her arms straight out, and pushed her away. ”I don't want to be kissed right now! The last thing I want is that. Leave me alone.”
The bedroom door slammed and Jefferson sunk to the couch, stunned.
They'd gotten through it. The next week brought snow. From a window at the little print shop where she worked, she could see that the few boats bobbing against the marina docks were covered in it. She scrubbed at the deep ink stains on her fingers in the shop bathroom, then jogged through the splas.h.i.+ng slush toward the station. At the beauty col ege, she leaned in the doorway and waved. ”I'm late,” she cal ed over the roar of dryers, glad there was no time to face Angela after last night. The big-eyed little baby d.y.k.e, Tam, who hung around the shop, total y crushed out on Angie, was out of high school for the day, sweeping the old wooden floor with her push broom. She waved, and Angela lifted shampoo-lathered hands from a customer's hair in greeting.
The conductor was used to Jefferson's wild dashes to catch the 3:22 and held his departure signal until she'd flung herself aboard. As soon as she hit her seat she opened her German text and began to translate. Would Margo be around to practice on today? She noticed a fingernail she hadn't gotten clean and worked at it with Jarvy's old penknife, which she'd found under the boards of their motorboat up at the lake.
Her monster cloud was with her, so she kept active, but it was bit by bit enveloping her. Between cla.s.ses she stood on some steps under the overhang of a building and watched the snow fal . The city, she breathed. She drank in the movement of the streets, wide and narrow. Now that the weather had slowed everything, the music of the city seemed louder. She seemed to hear it rush through her veins. It was crazy, she knew, to love such a large anonymous ent.i.ty, but the sounds of motors, of horns, of beckoning whistles, of the thrumming power plants of huge buildings-these, with the soft, nearly constant backup of her parents' record col ection or the cla.s.sical WQXR, had been her lul aby before they moved to Dutchess and when they came back to see a show or to shop. She'd never heard rain on her roof while growing up here, but watched the s.h.i.+ne of its wetness transform the streets into winking pools of reds, yel ows, greens. The sight was both exciting and comforting, ful of promises that could not be kept elsewhere.
She ducked into the student center to remove her soaked shoes and socks and warm her feet by a radiator. Dinner was her usual special-of-the-day bowl of cafeteria soup, with a rol and b.u.t.ter, spiced by the growing thril of being back in the city, of feeling as if she belonged in col ege, and of her daily al otment of independence. She loved having her Dutchess nest and loved Angela, except for how quirky she was being these days, but plunging into Manhattan four days a week had ended her exile. The city would keep its promises now. She would find a way to balance dejection with joy.
She stifled yawns through an introductory education course. Out the fourth-story window the snowflakes seemed larger and faster. She'd never had trouble traveling to Dutchess after school, but it hadn't snowed like this for years. If she made it, would she be able to return for Margo's cla.s.s tomorrow night?
She wasn't inventing an excuse to see Margo as she gal oped down the stairs and into another building. She needed the a.s.signment for the weekend in case she got stuck.
As always, a few students waited after cla.s.s to speak with Margo. Jefferson caught her eye. Did Margo stop dawdling then? Jefferson wrote the a.s.signment in her book and they walked together into snow-muted streets, ankle-deep in the cold, wet stuff.
”Do you want to stop for coffee?” she asked. Always before they had gone for coffee with a group of students.
Laughing, Margo clasped her arm. ”I must get home to feed Hermann.”
”Hermann?” Jefferson asked, fearing the worst.
”My marmalade cat. Want to meet her?”
”You mean now?” She felt about twelve in al her self-conscious awkwardness.
The street was so brightly lit a spotlight might have been focused on it, yet its shadowed doorways were deep, as if hiding secrets.
”You are worrying about your train,” Margo said, and gave a liquid shout of laughter that seemed to climb toward the rooftops. ”I thought you had heard the radio reports. A train derailed. Penn Station is fil ed with people who should have been whisked home hours ago. Come, we'l cal the railroad from my apartment, find out if you're stranded.”
So Jefferson walked through the unreal city at Margo's side, making herself slow to match smal Margo's pace. She felt rudderless, knowing what she should do, but having no wil to do it and no one to help her turn away from the blooming, doomed excitement inside her. Cars and trucks had al but disappeared. It was as if a party had been cancel ed and no one had notified her and Margo. They were the last revelers, looking for a celebration. She should go to the station at once, cal Angela, but being with Margo lifted her mood, and the snow would not stop decorating for the party. She let its dreamy spel embrace her.
Margo lit a candle, then another, using a streetlamp to find the way through her apartment. ”I like this lighting better than electric bulbs, don't you?”
The shadows danced around them on the wal s. ”Real y?” she asked. ”You live in this light?”
”Not to grade papers.” Margo walked close to Jefferson. ”I don't think I'l be grading papers tonight.”
Margo was tiny. She played with Jefferson's fingers. Jefferson said nothing, but her blood pumped and rushed and heated her unbearably.
”The phone is over here,” Margo said, leading her to the kitchen table. The apartment was not a bad size for the city. Except for stacks of books and folders, it was neat. The dark furniture looked wel cared for, though far from new, al light blues and greens. Margo leafed through a phone book and read her the number. It was busy. They looked at each other across the table. Jefferson dialed again. Busy. Margo. Busy. Busy. Busy. Margo. Margo.
”Maybe Angie wil know.”