Come Along with Me (17 page)

“Good-by,” she said, and noticed that he had taken her check. She smiled deprecatingly at him and he waved gallantly, and she thought, at least he never dreamed I was anything but a nice lady, someone's wife on a vacation.

She lunched alone at the same table, although no one came to sit next to her. She had a second cocktail and although she felt that properly she might be eating strange sophisticated foods—subtle casseroles, spices, wine—she chose for herself a salad and coffee, and thought, at home I'd be having an egg. She lingered over her coffee, watching people come in and sit down, arrive late for appointments or early, drink or eat, speak to one another, laugh, apologize, greet acquaintances, go out again. No one bothered her; the waiter did not hover over her table indicating by his patient watchfulness that the management disapproved of attractive women sitting alone here for over an hour; her lunch, carefully chosen, would not cost more than she could pay, and she had a clear general impression of belonging in this scene of movement, of passage, that sitting here so quietly in the corner she had somehow achieved a status which enabled her to meet these moving creatures as equals.

This is what I have always wanted to do, she told herself with conscious satisfaction, this is the way I have been waiting to live, I have been intending to do this for a long time; right now at home Mrs. Hartford has finished eating whatever was in the refrigerator and is reading the paper, sitting at the kitchen table; perhaps Don is home already. This is where
I
belong, right here.

At about three o'clock she got up and took her coat; she had left enough of a tip for the waiter so that he came over quickly and pulled the table away and reached for her coat, but she shook her head and said, “I'll carry it, thanks, it's so warm,” for some reason not wishing him to know that she had only come down from upstairs. She went through the restaurant, not knowing where she was going but feeling strongly that she must certainly seem like a happy woman who was going to keep an agreeable appointment; she felt this so strongly that she almost believed that somehow, perhaps in the next minute or so, she would find herself appointed, engaged, entreated, and she hesitated in the lobby, wandering over to look into the windows of the sleek jewelry shop, stopped by the florist's, and even spent a minute looking raptly at the hand-painted ties in the window of the men's furnishings shop.

After a few minutes she was no longer able to persuade herself that she was waiting for someone and so she went back to her room, liking the thought that she had a completely private place here, with her own suitcase set down next to the dresser and her own book on the arm of the chair. She sat by the window for a few minutes enjoying almost as a visitor might the sounds of the traffic below, and she thought complacently that she might shower now, and change her clothes, and in an hour or so go downstairs and perhaps out onto the street, and wander watching people until she chose to go into some other quiet shining place and have her dinner. She might go to a movie afterward, or come back to her room, she might fall into conversation with someone and come back to her room briefly, excited and laughing, to change hurriedly into the black evening dress, brushing her hair with little dancing motions, touching herself with more perfume.

The phone by the bed rang shortly, and then again, and at first she thought it was part of her new life which had suddenly become so real that it was perfectly possible for some vaguely glimpsed stranger to be telephoning her now to ask her to dine, to dance, to go off to Italy, and then she thought could it be that man from Chicago? and then that he did not know her name and could hardly have left his luncheon appointment to follow her, and then she knew of course it was Don. As the phone rang again sharply, almost in Don's angry tones, she lifted her hand from it and turned away, but the realization that he would have to give her some money in any case made her turn back and answer it. “Hello?” she said, hoping until she heard his voice.

“Elsa?”

“Of course, Don.”

“For heaven's sake, what are you
doing
? I've called half the hotels in town and your sister's, and scared them half to death.”

“You should have read my note.” I want to wear pretty clothes all day long, she was thinking, remembering him as she heard his voice, I want to be beautiful and free and luxurious.

“I
read
your note—what on earth is the matter?”

“Well, if you read my note then you know I'm not coming back.” I shouldn't have said that, she thought in panic; he didn't ask me if I
was
coming back; suppose he had accepted the fact that I wasn't coming back and now I've given him the idea that I might . . .

“Don?” she said.

“Look,” he said, and his voice was subdued, but she knew so well all the tones of all his voices that these changes no longer meant anything now to her; if Don hoped to convince her at this late date that he could be reasonable after she had offended him so deeply, she would not be deceived. “Suppose you just forget this whole thing?” he said.

Trying to make it sound as though it's all
my
fault, she thought. “I like it here,” she said.

“Elsa,” he began, and then stopped. “We can't talk over the phone,” he said. “If you won't come back now why not at least meet me somewhere and we can sit down and talk sensibly?”

“No,” she said childishly, and then smiled to herself, thinking that after all he had been at one time an engaging companion and since she could now afford to choose her own friends he would have to be very entertaining indeed to hold her attention. “Maybe I will,” she said.

“You sound funny,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“Let me see,” she said, one finger reflectively at her cheek, as though he could see her. “I can be at Henry's Restaurant at seven. You may take me to dinner.”

There was a short silence, and then he said, “Right. I'll be there at seven.” He sounded exactly like a man making a date; perhaps, she thought jubilantly, he perceives that I am to be pursued rather than commanded, and she had already begun to sketch out mentally a more flattering version of the conversation with the man from Chicago, to tell him about at dinner.

“Good-by,” she said.

“Mrs. Hartford broke two of the blue cups, by the way,” he said. “Good-by.”

As she hung up she was wondering, most daringly, if she might just possibly wear the black evening gown, but she knew that she could not afford to expose herself to his ridicule, particularly since the black evening gown was as familiar to him as it was to herself, and she decided reluctantly to put on again the dark-red dress she had worn away from home that morning.

She slept again, for an hour or so, and read her mystery story, and did her nails in a new dark-red polish to match the dress, and brushed her shoes. At five minutes to seven—it would certainly do no harm to keep him waiting for a minute or so—she slipped on her beaver coat and went out of the door of her room; she left her housecoat thrown across the bed and her slippers awry on the floor and powder on the glass top of the dresser and a handkerchief on the chair; her mystery story lay open across the arm of the chair and her used towel on the bathroom floor; she turned as she went out and decided to pick up everything when she came home.

She went down in the elevator as she had done before, very conscious that she was a lady who had chosen to dine out with a gentleman rather than having dinner sent up to her room, very much aware of the fact that for the first time she moved knowingly and of choice through a free world, that of all her life this alone was the day when she had followed a path she made alone; she walked across the lobby toward the outer doors with the feeling suddenly very strong that if she desired she might turn and without explanation to anyone leave the hotel by another door, or go even back to her room and refuse to answer the phone.

Free and at peace, she thought as the doorman held the door open for her and she passed out onto the street with dignity and a half-smile for the doorman's enforced kindness; free and at peace and alone and no one to worry me; she had not gone ten steps from the doorway when the nagging small feeling which she knew clearly now as fear and which had been following her cautiously for hours, perhaps for weeks and years, stepped up suddenly as though it had been waiting outside the door for her, and walked along beside her. The loving concern with which she put her feet down one after another on the sidewalk became without perceptible change, terror—was the cement secure? Down below, perhaps no more than two or three feet below, was the devouring earth, unpredictable and shifty. The sidewalk was set only upon earth, might move under her feet and sink, carrying her down and alone into the wet choking ground, and no one to catch her arm or a corner of her coat and hold her back.

Above her, the neon signs swung dangerously, dipping down almost to her head, bringing their live shattering wires so close that she almost put up an arm to protect herself, and then remembered that a mere arm was no protection against live wires or the weight of the falling signs—could she run? A sign shortly ahead of her, advertising a delicatessen (and one knew how badly these places were cared for, a hand-to-mouth existence and let the insurance take care of the emergencies) was swaying dangerously and obviously loosening; carefully she estimated the direction of its fall, not daring to slow her steps for fear some slight change in timing might mean disaster, not daring to run, with no one to hide behind, no one to say “Watch out, there!” If she could pass under without looking up she was perhaps safe—but beyond, the shuddering of the traffic had shaken a sign reading S
HOE
R
EPAIR
; was that a wire swinging wild?

She pulled her coat tighter around her, looking from side to side. She was almost alone on this block, and she told herself that it was an hour when most people were at home or in restaurants or at least somewhere not on the streets, and then it came to her that it would be generally regarded as fortunate that only one woman was going down the street when the sign fell; suppose it had been during a heavy traffic hour, people would tell one another, shivering pleasantly and knowing that they rarely passed along this particular street, suppose it had been sometime when crowds of other people were near, suppose fifteen people had been under the sign when it fell instead of just that poor woman; well, they would say to one another wisely, lightning never strikes twice in the same place, at least
that
street is safe for a while.

She saw herself turning and going back to her hotel, explaining to the desk clerk and the elevator operator that she had changed her mind about going out, that it looked like rain or that she had sprained her ankle or that she felt a cold coming on? She turned once and saw with sinking horror the precarious rocking of the signs overhead, the dangerous slipping sideways of the upper stories of the buildings, the final and unutterable emptiness of the street; what can I do? she asked herself, who will help me? She could hear in her mind the proprietor of the delicatessen berating himself for not having taken care of his sign when he first noticed it was insecurely fastened, explaining to the police and the doctors and the faces in the crowd that he never dreamed it might fall, telling the strangers looking with grim curiosity at the poor woman that it had been there without falling for twelve, fifteen years, and it seemed to her that she could hear the strangers in the crowd telling one another, “Well, that's the way it goes—perfectly all right for fifteen years and then one day—it's all over. Who was she, do you know?”

What am I doing? she wondered abruptly; this is madness, this is idiotic; I am not supposed to be
afraid
of anything; I am a free person, and the path I have chosen for myself does not include fear. I am walking down the street because it is a pleasant walk to the restaurant where I am meeting a fascinating man for dinner. I have been down this street before and nothing happened to me or to anyone else, and if anything happens tonight it might just as well happen to the next person instead of me. How have I managed to stay safe this long? she wondered.

She was struck by the thought of how suddenly visible she was. An enemy, hidden in a second-floor room, peering out through the half-open window, could shoot her easily even with a small pistol and most probably escape and never be detected; not even an enemy, but a stranger, mistaking her for someone else, never knowing until later that she was the wrong one, the one who need not have been killed. Or, even worse, a madman, chuckling and raising the gun and estimating, telling himself he would shoot the tenth person who came, or the first woman who walked by wearing a fur coat, or anyone who glanced upward at his window where he waited unseen, shaken with silent laughter. Then a window ahead showed movement; was he there? Perhaps in the car turning into the street, the red car slowing down not for the corner, perhaps looking out the back window aiming carefully to compensate for the movement of the car, and he would be finished and away while the strangers passing a block away stopped and stared, and screamed, and then hurried, too late to be of any assistance.

What, on the other hand, was to prevent the red car, or any other, from driving up onto the sidewalk and crushing her against the side of the building? These things
did
happen, and perhaps the people they happened to had wondered, looking up, if the red car were not coming dangerously close to the curb, and then thought, that crazy driver ought to be arrested, and then, in the last second of sudden panic, tried to turn, seeing at the last the horrified face of the driver, pulling at the useless wheel and calling for help while the passers-by, useless against the weight of the car, watched in sickness, moving against one another and turning away their heads; or—suppose a pane of glass fell suddenly from a window and crashed shatteringly down onto her head without her ever seeing it fall? Or if she slipped suddenly while she was watching the red car and the buildings, turned her ankle in the high-heeled shoes and fell and smashed her face against the stone while people going by laughed for a minute before hesitating and then realizing . . .