Barbara Greer (2 page)

She stopped the car at the foot of the wide granite steps and waited with the motor running, her arms stretched forward on the steering wheel. People were beginning to file out of the building now. She looked for Carson. Then she saw him, sounded the horn and waved. ‘Carson!' she called. He saw her, smiled, and started down the steps toward her. His jacket was off, slung over his shoulder, held hooked in a finger of his right hand. His shirt collar was unbuttoned, tie loosened. He looked young and tired and cheerful, and as he walked out of the building's shadow the sun caught his dark hair, momentarily bleaching it, and she had a sudden vision of how he would look as an older man, how he would look at fifty. And she thought at once: How distinguished he'll look with grey hair! The thought made her smile and she was still smiling when he came to the side of the car, bent and kissed her. ‘What's so funny?' he asked her.

‘When you were right
there
,' she pointed, ‘the sun made your hair look white! Now I know what you'll look like twenty years from now—just like Spencer Tracy!'

‘It feels white already,' he said. ‘Want me to drive?'

‘I'll drive.'

He tossed his jacket across the back seat, went around the front of the car and climbed in beside her. He slumped in the seat. ‘Christ, it's hot,' he said.

‘Terrible!' she said.

She started the car forward, and as another car turned in front of her, she gave it two short, scolding blasts with the horn.

‘Hey,' Carson said, ‘That's Clyde Adams.'

‘Beep-beep, Clyde Adams!'

‘You're in a good mood tonight.'

‘I'm in a silly mood,' she said. ‘How was your day? Busy?'

‘Yes. Hot as hell, mostly.'

‘Poor darling!'

At the end of the drive she turned right, toward the centre of town. ‘Where are you going?' Carson asked.

‘I've got to buy some French bread,' she said. ‘I've got a surprise. At least I hope you'll think it's a surprise. I mean I hope you'll be pleased.'

‘What sort of surprise?'

She smiled. ‘You'll see.'

‘French bread means somebody for dinner. Who is it?'

‘You'll see.'

He sat back, stretching his long legs forward. He clasped his hands behind his head, fingers interlaced, yawned widely and closed his eyes. ‘Let's see,' he murmured, ‘who could it be? The mayor of Locustville? The chief of police? Spencer Tracy, maybe? No—I'll bet it's good Old Nancy Rafferty.'

‘How did you guess?' she asked.

‘Who else drops in for surprise visits?'

‘Are you angry?'

‘Why should I be angry?'

‘Are you pleased then?'

‘Yes. No. I don't care.'

‘Sometimes I think you don't like Nancy,' she said.

‘Oh, I like her. But—'

‘But what?'

‘Well, she's always dropping in at times like this. Doesn't she know I'm going away tomorrow?'

‘Yes.'

‘You see? My God, this is my last night at home for six weeks. Why do I have to spend it with Nancy Rafferty?'

‘You
are
angry.'

‘No, no,' he said. ‘It's just that—well, she always picks the damnedest times to drop in. I suppose she's spending the night.'

‘I asked her to, yes.'

‘Ah. I thought so.'

‘You wouldn't want her to drive all the way back to Philadelphia at night, would you? Besides, it's going to work out perfectly. Your plane's at eight tomorrow morning. Flora doesn't get to the house till nine. Nancy can stay with the kids while I drive you to the airport.'

‘I thought we were going to take the kids to the airport?'

‘Oh, but this is so much simpler,' Barbara said.

He said nothing.

Barbara slowed the car now and pulled up against the kerb in front of the delicatessen. ‘Will you run in and get a loaf of French bread, darling?' she asked him. ‘And, oh yes, a jar of olives.'

He got out of the car and went into the store. She sat behind the wheel, shoulders back, tapping a little rhythm on the steering wheel with her fingertips. She turned her face to the sun which, though it was past five o'clock, was still warm and bright, and closed her eyes, letting the sunlight form swirling, reddish specks against her eyelids. Her skin felt pleasantly tight and warm, the way her whole body used to feel—at the farm—after a day of tennis or a day of lying, doing absolutely nothing, by the pool. She thought: Here it is June twenty-something, twenty-fifth, the summer seems half over, and I haven't played tennis at all; there is no pool in Locustville and no time any more to do absolutely nothing. She felt, rather than saw, Carson come back to the car. He opened the door, slid across the seat beside her, and she continued to look at the fiery image of the sun through her closed eyes.

‘Are you asleep?' he asked her.

‘No, just thinking.'

‘What about?'

She opened her eyes and started the car. ‘About Nancy,' she said. She swung the car in a wide U-turn and headed back along the Pike toward home. ‘I feel so sorry for her, Carson,' she said.

‘Sorry for Nancy? Why?'

‘She's all alone, she has nobody to tell things to. No mother or father. Only us.'

He said nothing, merely stared ahead at the road. They were moving slowly now, with the out-of-city traffic.

‘All alone, in Philadelphia,' she said.

‘She always talks as though she had plenty of fun in Philadelphia.'

‘Yes, but—well, talk is one thing and the way she really lives is something else again.'

‘She's got boy friends all over the place. My God, to hear her talk every man in Philadelphia is trying to go to bed with her.'

Barbara frowned. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘but she isn't happy.'

‘Why doesn't she marry one of those guys?'

‘Perhaps—perhaps they don't ask her. I don't know.'

‘Why doesn't she get a job?'

‘She has a job.'

‘What kind of job is that—going through nurse's training?'

‘She wants to be a nurse.'

‘Well, she wanted to be a teacher once, too, remember? She went back to school and got an M.A. Then she decided that she wanted to be a lawyer. She went to law school for a year. All she's ever done is go to school.'

‘Well,' she said, ‘I think nursing is it. I think that's what she really wants to do.'

He yawned again. ‘Well, there've been a lot of things that Nancy has really wanted to do. She really wanted to be an interior decorator once, and another time she really wanted to run a ski lodge in Vermont, and—'

‘Please!' Barbara said sharply. ‘Please don't criticise her. After all, Nancy is my dearest friend. I'm sorry you don't like her, but—'

‘I do like her,' he said ‘But, my God, she's nearly thirty. What she ought to do is get married.'

‘Marriage,' she said sarcastically, ‘is the solution to everything, isn't it?'

‘Look,' he said ‘I'm not trying to pick a fight! I merely said—'

‘You resent her, don't you? And your reasons are pretty transparent!'

‘What are they? What are these transparent reasons?'

‘You resent her simply because she's someone from the outside world. And she reminds me how much I hate this place!'

‘I resent her because she's always barging in on us without an invitation, that's all,' he said. ‘I resented it when she joined us on our wedding anniversary. And when I came home from four months in South America, I resented having Nancy on the welcoming committee with you. And tonight—Jesus Christ, Barbara—'

‘No, no,' she said. There were tears in her eyes and she brushed at them quickly with her wrist. ‘You resent her because she's my best friend!'

‘Have you ever noticed that the minute she shows up you and I start fighting?'

‘That's not true!'

‘It is. She's an unhappy, mixed-up girl—not even a girl, a grown woman. And being around her makes you unhappy, too.'

‘Listen,' Barbara said, ‘If you'd heard what she told me this afternoon—'

‘What?'

‘No. I can't tell you. I promised her.'

‘Something awful, I'm sure, that involved a man.'

‘Yes.'

‘You see? That's all I said. She ought to get married.'

‘It's not that easy,' she said.

‘She talks about all the men who are fighting over her—'

‘Those men!'

‘Ah,' he said. ‘I thought so. She invented them.'

‘I didn't mean that. What are you doing, calling her a liar?'

‘She's the only girl in the world who's always available for a last-minute blind date on New Year's Eve,' he said.

She turned to him sharply. ‘How can you be so horrible!' she cried. ‘How can you?'

‘Please, keep your eyes on the road …'

‘Oh!' she sobbed. She pressed her foot on the brake pedal, slowing the car. ‘You'd better drive,' she said. But she didn't stop the car. She continued, slowly, in the crowded lane of traffic.

‘All right,' he said ‘I'll drive if you want.'

She ignored him. ‘I thought it was going to be such a wonderful evening,' she said. ‘I thought we'd have a little farewell party—for you. I thought we'd have such fun. Now you've ruined it.'

‘Why is it
me
who's ruined it? It seems to me that—'

‘That
I've
ruined it, is that what you mean? Don't you know what ruins everything?
Locustville
ruins everything! And we're in Locustville because of you!'

He sat back in his seat. ‘All right, Barbara,' he said quietly. ‘The rules. Remember the rules.'

‘The rules involve your being a little considerate of me, too.'

‘Very well. I'm sorry. I apologise. I'm sorry that I said anything to hurt your feelings. Nancy is a sweet, wonderful girl and I'm just dying to see her again.'

‘And the rules include not being sarcastic!'

‘I'm sorry. And the rules include apologies from both of us.'

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I'm sorry, Carson.'

‘There. Now it's all over.'

‘Yes. All over.'

They drove on in silence.

A few minutes later, she said, ‘Darling, anyway, be
nice
to her tonight. Will you please? Because I do feel sorry for her. And try to
act
as though you're pleased that she came tonight—your last night before your trip and so forth. Will you?'

‘Sure,' he said. ‘Sure I will.'

‘Because she loves us so, she really does! In a way, she depends on us. I really think so. Because she has no mother or father—only a few crazy aunts and uncles that she can't stand—no brothers, no sisters! Don't forget, darling, that she and I were room-mates at college. She used to come to the farm for vacations and weekends. Mother and Daddy sort of adopted her, really! And we spent that year in Hawaii together, and she was one of my bridesmaids. I feel—oh, I feel sort of responsible for her! I really do! So be nice to her tonight, will you, Carson?'

‘Of course I will,' he said.

‘Even if she gets—you know, Nancy-ish. And talks the way she does sometimes. Be nice to her.'

‘I will.'

‘Promise.'

‘I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.'

‘And don't be sarcastic, Carson!'

Barbara took her left hand from the wheel and let it trail out the car window, getting ready to signal for her turn.

Their house was in a section of Locustville called Sunrise Heights. It was a name that had been given to it by the developer, since the subdivision was arranged across the side of an east-facing hill. Sunrise Heights itself was divided into three smaller sections—like Gaul, Barbara often said. In one of these, the streets were named for flowers—Arbutus Lane, Bluebell Lane, Columbine Lane, Daffodil Lane. In the second, where Barbara and Carson lived, the motif was trees—Appletree Lane, Bayberry Lane, Cherry Lane, Dogwood, Evergreen (the street names in, each area followed an alphabetical pattern.) And in the third, it was precious and semiprecious stones—Amethyst, Beryl, Coral, Diamond and so on, through Ruby. The three parts of Sunrise Heights were also separated architecturally. In the floral-streeted section, the houses were all Colonial; in Barbara and Carson's, they were Ranch; in the precious stones section, they were Modern.

All the houses in Sunrise Heights were ‘pre-built with custom details,' which meant that Barbara and Carson, when they were buying their house on Bayberry Lane, had been given a choice of six Ranch-style floor plans and had been able to select their interior colour scheme. Optional, at extra cost, were such features—which the Greers' house had—as a two-car semi-attached garage, a flagstone terrace, and such decorative touches as window boxes and the golden rooster weather-vane. Sunrise Heights, though it was a development, fortunately had only a slight ‘development look.' On the whole, the area had been well used. The streets, which were winding and followed the contours of the hill, were planted with trees, the houses were well spaced and well landscaped. If there was any similarity, or feeling of monotony, it came from the fact that the houses were all about the same size—three or four bedrooms—and had been built to cost about the same, between twenty-five and thirty-five thousand dollars, and all—even the Greers' Ranch-style three bedroom house—showed strong signs of south-eastern Pennsylvania's regional preference for brick, as opposed to wood, construction. Carson and Barbara were not particularly fond of Sunrise Heights, or even of their house. It was not, as they often said, the sort of house they eventually wanted. They considered Locustville only temporary. Still, they had lived in Locustville, and in their house, for more than five years. Barbara Greer turned now into Bayberry Lane and drove up the gentle, winding hill. Bayberry Lane houses, by choice, were not numbered. Signs, with the owner's names pricked out in reflector lights, were used instead. Sage … Bryson … Bishop … Hodgson … Greer … the little signs read as she drove up the street and turned into the driveway.