Some Other Town (7 page)

I should explain that Ford only knows of my blanket because I once mistakenly mentioned it to him. How I had turned the heat down to fifty-five and purchased an electric blanket.

Ford was beside himself once again. “An electric blanket, Margaret? An EB?”

I did not at first understand. “Yes, so?” I said, and tried not to sound defensive.

Ford explained. “It's another of the signs here, Margaret. Spinsters sleep with electric blankets. Old maids. Don't you see? It's all those empty beds they crawl into. My god, Margaret, next you'll be telling me you're taking up flannel.”

I gave him my best steely stare. “No, Ford,” I said. “I will not be telling you this.” Which I said because I had just then decided not to talk to Ford at all.

But yes, the truth is sometime in November two years ago, I indeed started sleeping in flannel. It grows cold here in winters, and when I began waking with sore throats, swollen glands, well yes, I turned to flannel nightgowns. Lanz. White eyelet ruffles at neck, wrist, and hem.

It is no particular sign, Ford, I said, when once again we were
speaking. There are, I'm quite sure, married women in this town, sated single women as well, who don flannel for bed winter nights. What one wears to one's bed is no sign of sleeping alone.

Although it is true those long nights I did sleep alone. That in fact I was growing lonely.

Which brings me, if loosely, back to Ben. How it was that I met Ben Adams.

It is Ford who talks me into the gallery opening where I first meet Ben this fall. He tells me I really do need to get out more, and as luck would have it, some graduate art students are throwing a little gala in town, an opening for their group graduate art show. It will do me good, Ford says, to get out and see some new people. “Look,” he says, “you can be my date.” Which means his boyfriend of the evening has just fallen through and Ford himself is in need of a date.

“All right, Ford,” I say. I am, as I've said, his oldest friend. I cannot let him go to a gala alone.

So then, Ford picks me up at eight and we are off to the gallery opening. The gallery, it turns out, is not really a gallery. It's a storefront, abandoned in the wake of this town's recent scourge, the country's thrall with urban renewal. We are not happy here with urban renewal. The wide arc of its great iron wrecking ball wiped from the face of our town a good number of fine old buildings, and in their place left us temporary structures. That is the government's
term for them, temporary commercial structures. They are actually just low-slung tin trailers, in which local merchants make do while we wait for a grand new multi-tier mall to throw us into its grim urban shadow. We thought it could not get worse. But then in place of our lovely old downtown alleys, with all the intrigue and refuse and back entrance they allowed, we were given a bricked-over promenade, where now the homeless camp out, and lost tourists convene, and teenagers roam free range.

No, we are not fans of urban renewal, mere thought of it knocks us off topic and leaves us speechless or sputtering. I have only mentioned it here to explain why we have empty storefronts, still awaiting their own demolition, right in the middle of town. And why Ford's graduate art students are now holding an opening in one of them.

It is an oddly cheery place for an opening, this store, considering that it's condemned. From far down the block, we see bright-colored lights shining hopefully from its plate-glass window. And as we draw near, we hear music and people laughing. It sounds like a very big turnout.

At the door we stop, look in through the glass at the backs of them, men and women, standing fashionably, artfully dressed in drapey dark clothes, plastic cups of beer in their hands. A young crowd, I can tell, younger than I. Well of course. Ford's graduate students, undergraduates too, maybe a few junior faculty. Budding artists all of them as well. I can only imagine how little we'll have in common.

“After you,” Ford says, opening the door and bending in a gallant low bow. I blink at the spotlights behind him, and take a quick look around. Not for the art, which, as I'd guessed, is large,
predictable, and cartoonish, also hung from the walls by fish wire. Not for some face I might recognize since, with the exception of Ford, I know no one in town still in art, no one in school, no one, that is, who would think to come to a graduate student art opening. And not even for the refreshments that I know must be near. The keg of beer from the corner grocery downtown, Blue Jim's, whose owners rarely check IDs. Or the long folding table set to one side, filled with homemade hors d'oeuvres on paper plates.

No, one foot in the room, what I am looking for now is the possibility of a side door, with luck by the restroom down a long hall. And beyond that, the hope of a remaining back alley. It is never too early at large parties, I have learned, to plan one's nearest escape route.

“Ford!” a young man calls from center room right. “Ford! Oh look, Ford is here!” he calls, now to the room in general. Heads turn our direction, Ford grins and waves, his arm held high. He is known here, of course. Ford is a perpetual attender of galas, aspiring tenured faculty as he is. Not to mention real working artist among this sea of grad student poseurs. He has tonight, I have only just noticed, dressed himself well for the part, retaining his workday paint-spattered boots and artfully oil-smudged jeans. Only his shirt is clean, although it is old, a blue chambray with frayed sleeves rolled. Working-artist, painter-in-oils, too-passionate-to-change-just-for-this is written all over him. It must be consoling to the others to see one so clearly defined.

Dropping his arm, remembering me again, Ford turns and asks would I like a drink? He can go find me a beer. “Why yes,” I tell him. “Yes, Ford, a beer.” And I know then I won't see him for the rest of the night, or for as long as I plan to stay. It will work out well for us both.

So I turn to look for that side door, there must be one somewhere, all these old buildings have a second way out. I ease past tight circles of students, I am heading for the back wall. But the room is crowded and after I have squeezed by the first of the young artists and a second group of mere hangers-on, judging by their styleless black sweaters, I find there is no clear path forward.

I stand facing the backs of several young men, heads turned in toward each other the better to hear, telling rank stories from life-drawing class and periodically loudly guffawing. I wonder how I can make myself heard.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Sorry, coming through.” I tap at the nearest shoulder. And turning, mistaking me no doubt for his date, someone he must have only just met and has clearly already forgotten, the man hands me a cup of beer.

“Here,” he says, “I got this for you,” and turns back to his fellow storytellers.

The cup is cold in my hand, the beer fresh and still foaming, and I realize just how thirsty this party has made me. I spot a small folding chair to the side, next to an empty wall, and think better of abandoning ship. At least not so soon or directly. First refreshments, I think. Refreshments before escape, to be sociable.

I sit down and take a drink of my beer. While it's indeed one of Blue Jim's, it is also tastier than I'd remembered, and for a while I just sit and look at my cup, happy to have found a seat.

But then, gradually, it begins to dawn on me. The floor, what's with this floor? Looking down as I am, I notice that something is off at my feet. With so many people crowded into the store, I could not in fact earlier see much of it. But now, with this space opened up here around me, I see that each of the floor's large
checkerboard tiles has been painted with some sort of symbol. Black paint on white, white paint on black. Angular, sticklike symbols. The floor vibrates with their bold strokes. And I see then the reason there's no art on this wall is that it has moved instead to my feet. The tiles of this floor are the point here, a kind of graduate student installation, an art stealth attack from below.

I study the primitive markings. One vertical line, two branches rising off it, a skeleton grasping at the sky. A capital A with a circle above it, a mountain balancing the sun. A small frail cross made out of sticks, dazed and skewed to one side. A capital P drawn in three straight lines. A thunderbolt. An M. A backwards R. Now foreground, now background, now black white, white black. All pulsing the store's linoleum. It is a dizzying dance below. Patterns emerge, a sequence, repetitions, and I find I cannot stop staring.

“Runes,” he says.

She sits, head down. “Runes,” he says again. “What you're looking at, they're runes. Or somebody's idea of them.”

He surprises himself. He has spoken to no one tonight. He knows no one here. He does not know what made him go to her and speak. It was not like him. But so much now is not like him.

He has been watching her since she entered. A tall woman. People notice tall women, but that isn't it. Something, maybe the way she is smiling, but not smiling. Attractive, in her way, and
smiling. Standing next to the tall man, also smiling, then laughing and waving to the others. People know the man, he is happy to be here. But the woman is not. She smiles again and doesn't, looks past the man. She is not really here.

Attractive woman, yes. He would say that. Unusual, wild sort of hair, rust color, gold. The room's spotlights catch in it, gleam. A tall woman, leaning now toward the man, her head to one side to hear him. He likes that she doesn't look at him, keeps her eyes on the room. Nice eyes, dark, open. Frank. And that smile. He thinks he sees something there. As though maybe. Maybe.

It quickens his heart. Something like hope. You know, he wants to say to her. Don't you?

He watches the man leave her side, watches as she stands for a moment, then starts working across the room. He likes how she moves. Gracefully dipping, easing around the others. Stopping near one side. There, she's found a chair. She sits. No longer the smile.

Out of habit he takes the small notebook from his coat, begins to sketch. She stares at the floor and does not move. He studies her profile. Strong definition, good bones. And she's a bit older, he sees that now too, a little older than the others in this room.

She does not belong here. She sits alone. It makes him want to go to her.

Runes?

I keep my head down, look at the floor. I do not know this man
now standing here. I do not know where he has come from. But I know this. He has been watching me, I have felt it. He has been watching for some time now.

It is in most women, I think, this signal that a man is staring. It's an alertness, a cellular response, chromosomes pointing like a pack of trained hounds at some treed and hyperventilating quarry. Some kind of mating sixth sense. Women do not need to see the man staring to know. Although I can indeed see this new one before me, that is, the hems of his pants. I can see where they meet the tops of his shoes. And I can see he is not wearing socks.

I am interested all right, but I do not yet lift my head, I do not stare this new man in the eye. The fact is, it just now feels nice to be watched. It is not often lately I am ogled, and for the moment I am enjoying it.

“Runes,” he says again. “Ancient alphabet. Norse, Anglo-Saxon. Inscriptions mostly. Charms. Curses, maybe.”

I study the floor more closely. Lines vibrating on linoleum. That's what I see.

“Supposed to bring back the dead,” he offers. “If you do it just right. Find just the right runes.”

I look up. And I am surprised. He is older, not like the others here, like Ford's student friends. Older but not old, a big man with unruly gray hair cut short to his head. A handsome man, strong. Now backing up, unsure.

“Bring back the dead?” I say. “Some alphabet.”

He smiles. He looks at me, just looks. I do not miss the kind smile, the good green eyes.

“Bring back the dead?” she says.

She looks wary. He has frightened her. He has offered too much, too soon.

Doesn't matter, he says to her, shrugging. And then he wants to say more. He has questions. He wants them to talk.

But the room is too crowded, too loud. He can't think. “Look,” he says. “Want to leave?”

She studies him. What does he mean?

The words came out wrong. All his words are coming out wrong. A moment more and it will be over. One of them will say well, enjoy the show and then she will stand, find the tall man she came in with, disappear.

All he knows is he wants it not to be over.

“Want a beer?” he asks, forgetting she already holds one. “There's the Hogshead. We could go have a beer.”

It is all he can think of, the Hogshead. He thinks it's still here. Dark, knotty-pine. She might like it.

She frowns. “No, not the Hogshead.”

She says it quickly. Sets her jaw, looks back at the floor. Again he has said something wrong. He shouldn't have asked. Why did he ask?

She sits, she is quiet. It is over.

“Sure OK,” he says. He tries not to make it sound like retreat.

She looks up. “Coffee,” she says. “How about coffee?”

But now “Margaret? Margaret?” I hear. And I realize it's editor Celeste, demanding and dire, at my door. Celeste now with something important. More immediate than daydreams of Ben.

Blinking, head down, I do not right away answer. Instead I reach for the flat before me, eye there the middle column, lift and adjust it a pica to the right, as though I need just to finish this one last thing before I can be interrupted. Another nudge to the column back left. Then at last looking up, “Oh, Celeste,” I say, surprised. “It's you.” And smiling, as though happy to see her, albeit a little dazed, engrossed in my work as I have been, “Come in, come in,” I tell her.

“I'm here about Joe,” Celeste says.