Before and Afterlives (23 page)

When I stroll through Kinsman, I often stop stock still in my tracks for strange reasons. Here I see you everywhere. In the school yard, the grocery store, or at the Rexall’s. Leaning over a water fountain, pulling your hair from your face. Ru
nning through town square, to the park, where you left me that horrible day, so long ago. Yes, I remember. Did you think I would forget the pain you caused me, or how it was inflicted? I was attempting to be the bigger person, but now I see you have changed indeed, and I no longer know you. The Sarah Hartford who was my best friend would never have answered my letters with silence.

I suppose your mother finally got to you. When I say your mother, I mean this town. When I say this town, I mean this town with its one miserable Main Street and its overabu
ndance of churches. No more than three thousand people live here and yet there are fifteen churches that come to mind readily. What I mean to say is this town has you believing in its one screen drive-in movie theater, its Dairy Oasis, its Wildwood Café with the admittedly fantastic coffee, its park that consists of a water fountain, trees, a baseball diamond, and cemeteries. Granted, the cemeteries are well-groomed, and in autumn the trees light up with brilliant colors. But this town is not where you imagined yourself forever.

What happened to New York City? What happened to San Francisco? What about Europe? You said you’d die if you never made it to Paris. Now that I’m back, I discover that the only time you ever left this place was for a year and a half of college in C
olumbus. You never even left Ohio. Then Tom asked you to move in and you went to him. You went to him blindly, your arms outstretched, eyelids lowering. A sleepwalker.

That day in the park, it must have been fifteen years ago, you said you had something to tell me. You asked me to sit beside you on the bench near the water fountain. There were birds perched on the ledge of the fountain, dipping into the water for a drink, turning to stare at us, heads cocked at qui
zzical angles. Robins, I think, though I saw at least one blue jay among them, arguing. You said you loved me, but there was something you had to tell me. You said—

You said—

Damn you. Now I am crying. I can’t even finish this letter. My hands are shaking so badly I want to hurt you. To hell with you, Sarah Hartford. Who needs you anyway? You are cruel, mean-spirited. Also thankless.

Signed,

Alice Likely (Or have you erased this name from memory?)

I’ve taken a job and found a bed to sleep in. I sell corn by the roadside. For every bag I sell, I can keep a dollar. I pick the corn every morning, while Mr. and Mrs. Carroll feed their livestock, fill up the water trough, milk the cows who have calves that won’t suck, and attend to the children. They are a busy family, the Carrolls, too busy to check references, although I provided them. I am passing through on my way to California, where friends await me. Or so I have told them. How strange and liberating, this easiness in making up an identity. The Carrolls see me as a free spirit, a gypsy, someone from the 1960’s, “new-agey”, according to Mrs. Carroll, who has a friend who reads tarot cards and burns incense, and knows about these things.

“How long do you need work?” asked Mrs. Carroll when I came into her yard. She was beating a rug on her porch steps. Dust spun in the air around her like tiny galaxies. She smacked the throw rug, then looked back at me for an answer.

“A few weeks,” I said. “I just need to make some money and have a place to sleep for a while.”

“Do you have references?” She lifted her chin a little, a
ssessing. I said that I did, and handed her a list of names, phone numbers, addresses in New York City. I made up the zip codes and phone numbers. What does a New York City zip code look like? I am no better than Sarah.

Now I have meals with the Carrolls at noon and six o’clock in the evening. They have three children: Betsy, Peter Jr., and Be
nnie. Betsy is seventeen and last year’s Corn Queen. Peter Jr. is fifteen and a 4-H member. Bennie, ten, continually asks me what it’s like to be a girl. He’s curious and Betsy will not tell him.

It is a strange dynamic, this being with other people. When S
arah and I were friends, we had no desire for contact with anyone but each other. Now I speak to twenty or thirty strangers each day, by the roadside, while I bag up a dozen ears of corn. They say hello, thank you, do I know you, how have things been going, that top is very flattering, how are the Carrolls treating you? The men call me blue eyes, sweetie pie, honeyface, miss, little miss, blondie. The women call me dear, dearie, sugar, they do not refer to my body.

I saw Sarah’s mother two days ago, in Hoffman’s grocery store, picking through the green peppers. I was shopping for the Ca
rrolls, but as soon as I saw Mrs. Hartford I dashed into the soup aisle. I watched her shop for an hour, following behind so she wouldn’t see me, ignoring my own shopping, so that I had to go back and finish after she’d gone. I couldn’t bear to face her. How that woman hated me, though at first she’d thought me sweet and cute, would ask if I wanted anything, a cup of tea, some Kool-aid. Then she went cold. I still don’t know what I did to deserve such treatment. Sarah used to say it’s because I didn’t come from a good family. I said, “What? How could she think that? My mother—”

I stopped talking. I didn’t know what to say, only that I wanted to defend myself. Sarah patted my shoulder to co
mfort me.

“Your mother is a sweet lady,” said Sarah. She looked up at the ceiling, and her eyes rolled up as if she were thinking deeply. F
inally she said, “She works at the factory, like my father. She loves you but is not home very often. My mother believes a woman should be at home with her children. Also, your father left when you were just a baby. He was a drinker. But I think you’re better off without him.”

“
I
a
m
better off without him,” I shouted. “And my mother works her fingers to the bones! Who does your mother think she is? Not everyone has the luxury to stay at home with her children.”

“I know, Alice,” Sarah said. She leaned in and hugged me. “I know. She doesn’t matter. It’s just you and me, ok?”

I’ve mailed Sarah the card I stole at Rexall’s. I realized I’d never mentioned where she could find me. Did I feel stupid? Yes, indeed, I did. So I sent the card and wrote for her to meet me in the park in two days. I will give her another chance, and if she still chooses to not see me, then maybe
I
wil
l
set out for California. Somewhere in the West, the Southwest even, where there is more space. Space enough to make a life out of nothing. I will be a pioneer of space, living off my wits and my good fortune. I will sit by the roadside and sell beaded necklaces while my skin turns tan and leathery. I will read people’s fortunes in the palms of their hands for twenty dollars. People believe in things that aren’t particularly believable. They wait all their lives for strangeness, for miracles.

I eagerly await our reunion.

Sarah,

I hope this card finds you well. Saw it and thought of you immediately. I have been hopelessly sending you letters, as
king you to reply, and yet I never provided an address. I am red with embarrassment. Please meet me in the park, by the fountain, you remember, at noon tomorrow. I miss you dearly.

Always,

Alice

No word from Sarah. Neither did she show up at the park yesterday. Although I did see two police officers, strolling in the general area. I nodded and smiled when they looked at me, then sat on the park bench and took out a book that Betsy lent me.

The policemen approached. They took off their caps and asked what I was doing. Reading, I told them. They nodded. “Are you waiting for anyone?” they asked. I said that I was indeed waiting for someone. “Who would that be?” asked the taller officer. I was immediately suspicious, so I told them I was waiting for Betsy, that I worked for her family. They said, “In that case, we’ll need you to wait for her outside the park, Miss.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with. But you’d be doing us a f
avor if you read your book elsewhere.” They put their hats back on and smiled. They waited for a while, badges glinting. Finally I stood to leave.

Why did she not meet me? My face is burning. I am so a
ngry that I screamed at Bennie to leave me alone when I arrived back at the Carroll farm and he began pelting me with questions. I’ll apologize later. For now I can only sit on my bed and cry. I wish my mother were still alive. Where is our house though? I can’t even remember what road we lived on. Was our front door blue or green?

Dear Sarah,

You said, “Alice, I have something to tell you.” Do you remember? Does it hurt to be reminded? “You are not real, Alice,” you said. “You are not real. Do you hear me? I made you up, Alice. You are not a real person.”

I hate you, Sarah Hartford. How could you be so filled with cruelty? But don’t worry. I’ve given up on you. You won’t hear from me again. I wish you only the best for the future. Give Ron my regards.

Sincerely,

Alice Likely

I write this hastily, as I’m preparing to leave this town for good. It is home to me no longer. But now I wonder if it ever was. It was Sarah who I came home to in the morning, in the evening, and in the night. Now I know that she is in fact not receiving my letters. They have come between us in a way in which I never would have imagined them capable.

Yesterday, after the incident in the park with the police officers, I was lying in bed, crying, because I couldn’t think of anything else more appropriate, when I became angry enough to write Sarah a hateful letter, a last letter. I was ready to give up, but only if I had a chance to give her a piece of my mind. This time I decided to do things differently. I planned on delivering my letter in person, and walked across town to the Hartford house on my own. I was through with dodging her mother, through with waiting. I had waited for so long in the darkness before someone called out my name, before the light came and freed me. Uncountable days, miserable, curled up in a fetal position. A fairy tale princess, like the ones in the stories Sarah used to read me. Waiting for someone to free them, their hands pressed against the lid of a glass coffin, struggling. Not again, I decided, and opened the front gate of the Hartford house and climbed the front porch steps and knocked on the door. Three sharp raps, and it opened.

It was her that answered. Mrs. Hartford. She stood there in a floral print housecoat with an apron tied around her waist. How small she was. I looked down on her. Looked down on her gray hair, stringy and unbound, spreading over her shou
lders. Gray sacs of flesh sagged under her eyes. She wore no makeup. She wore no pearls. She looked up at me, not smiling, and said, “Can I help you?”

“I’m h-here—” I said, stuttering. As small as she was, she still frightened me. Her panty hose had rolled halfway down her legs, just below her kneecaps. I wanted to bend down, pull them up for her. Brush her hair into something respect
able.

She chuckled. “You certainly are,” said Mrs. Hartford. “What do you need, dear?”

“I’m here for her,” I said. “I’ve come for Sarah. Where is she? Sarah!” I shouted beyond Mrs. Hartford’s head, hoping she’d hear. “Sarah, where are you?”

“
Yo
u
,” Mrs. Hartford whispered. Her mouth twitched wordlessly.
“
Yo
u
,” she said again, and then Mr. Hartford was behind her, his face a map of wrinkles, his hair salt and pepper. What had happened to that vigilante? The man who would save others who could not save themselves? Where was he now? He could not save anyone, could not save Sarah.

“What’s going on here?” asked Mr. Hartford, his blue eyes moving back and forth between us, piercing. Mrs. Hartford reached up and slapped me. My cheek burned and then she was hitting me on my shoulders, my arms, my chest, her hands las
hing out randomly. I pushed out, away from her, and she followed me down the porch steps.

Mr. Hartford grabbed hold of her shoulders and turned her around to face him. She buried her face in his chest, sobbing. Her chest heaved. He looked over her shoulder at me and shook his head as if I was his own child. As if I was his own, disappointing child. Is this how he sometimes looked at S
arah? Is this how they made her feel when she said she wanted to leave her husband?

“Please leave,” said Mr. Hartford. “Or I’ll call the police, Miss, and have you arrested. Don’t come back, and stop wri
ting those horrible letters. Go on, get out.” He nodded towards the front gate.

I stepped backwards slowly. Before I turned to go, I looked up at Sarah’s old bedroom window. The lace curtains blew in the breeze. And behind them, I saw a face, the idea of a face, looking down at me.

I closed the gate behind me and ran away from the house, away from the sobbing.

Now I am writing this. It’s early morning. I’ve gathered my clothes and some food from Mrs. Carroll. Before I left the kitchen she paid me for picking and selling the corn. She slipped me two fifty dollar bills along with what she owed, and told me to be safe. Her hands closed around mine and they felt scratchy and worn. I kissed her cheek.