Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (4 page)

 
          
 
Ann stood.

 
          
 
Put on your coat!

 
          
 
Ann put on her coat.

 
          
 
Now, march!

 
          
 
No! thought Ann Leary.

 
          
 
March!

 
          
 
"Ann," said her mother, "don't
keep Tom waiting another minute. You get on out there now and no nonsense.
What's come over you?"

 
          
 
"Nothing, Mother. Good night. We'll be
home late."

 
          
 
Ann and Cecy ran together into the spring
evening.

 
          
 
A room full of softly dancing pigeons ruffling
their quiet, trailing feathers, a room full of peacocks, a room full of rainbow
eyes and lights. And in the center of it, around, around, around, danced Ann
Leary.

 
          
 
"Oh, it is a fine evening," said
Cecy.

 
          
 
"Oh, it's a fine evening," said Ann.

 
          
 
"You're odd," said Tom.

 
          
 
The music whirled them in dimness, in rivers
of song; they floated, they bobbed, they sank down, they arose for air, they
gasped, they clutched each other like drowning people and whirled on again, in
fan motions, in whispers and sighs, to "Beautiful Ohio."

 
          
 
Cecy hummed. Ann's lips parted and the music
came out.

 
          
 
"Yes, I'm odd," said Cecy.

 
          
 
"You're not the same," said Tom.

 
          
 
'TSfo, not tonight."

 
          
 
“You're not the Ann Leary I knew."

 
          
 
“No, not at all, at all," whispered Cecy,
miles and miles away. "No, not at all," said the moved lips.

 
          
 
"I've the funniest feeling," said
Tom.

 
          
 
"About what?"

 
          
 
"About you." He held her back and
danced her and looked into her glowing face, watching for something. "Your
eyes," he said, "I can't figure it."

 
          
 
“Do you see me?" asked Cecy.

 
          
 
“Part of you's here, Ann, and part of you's
not." Tom turned her carefully, his face uneasy.

 
          
 
"Yes."

 
          
 
"Why did you come with me?"

 
          
 
"I didn't want to come," said Ann.

 
          
 
"Why, then?"

 
          
 
"Something made me."

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
"I don't know." Ann's voice was
faintly hysterical.

 
          
 
"Now, now, hush, hush," whispered
Cecy. "Hush, that's it. Around, around."

 
          
 
They whispered and rustled and rose and fell
away in the dark room, with the music moving and turning them.

 
          
 
"But you did come to the dance,"
said Tom.

 
          
 
"I did," said Cecy.

 
          
 
"Here." And he danced her lightly
out an open door and walked her quietly away from the hall and the music and
the people.

 
          
 
They climbed up and sat together in the rig.

 
          
 
"Ann," he said, taking her hands,
trembling. "Ann." But the way he said her name it was as if it wasn't
her name. He kept glancing into her pale face, and now her eyes were open
again. "I used to love you, you know that," he said.

 
          
 
"I know."

 
          
 
"But you've always been fickle and I
didn't want to be hurt."

 
          
 
"It's just as well, we're very young,"
said Ann.

 
          
 
"No, I mean to say, I'm sorry," said
Cecy.

 
          
 
"What do you mean?" Tom dropped her
hands and stiffened.

 
          
 
The night was warm and the smell of the earth
shimmered up all about them where they sat, and the fresh trees breathed one
leaf against another in a shaking and rustling.

 
          
 
"I don't know," said Ann.

 
          
 
"Oh, but I know," said Cecy.
"You're tall and you're the finest-looking man in all the world. This is a
good evening; this is an evening I'll always remember, being with you."
She put out the alien cold hand to find his reluctant hand again and bring it
back, and warm it and hold it very tight.

 
          
 
"But," said Tom, blinking,
"tonight you're here, you're there. One minute one way, the next minute
another. I wanted to take you to the dance tonight for old times' sake. I meant
nothing by it when I first asked you. And then, when we were standing at the
well, I knew something had changed, really changed, about you. You were
different. There was something new and soft, something . . ." He groped
for a word. "I don't know, I can't say. The way you looked. Something
about your voice. And I know I'm in love with you again."

 
          
 
"No," said Cecy. "With me, with
me"

 
          
 
"And I'm afraid of being in love with
you," he said. "You'll hurt me again."

 
          
 
"I might," said Ann.

 
          
 
No, no, I'd love you with all my heart!
thought Cecy. Ann, say it to him, say it for me. Say you'd love him with all
your heart.

 
          
 
Ann said nothing.

 
          
 
Tom moved quietly closer and put his hand up
to hold her chin. "I'm going away. I've got a job a hundred miles from
here. Will you miss me?"

 
          
 
"Yes," said Ann and Cecy.

 
          
 
“May I kiss you good-by, then?"

 
          
 
"Yes," said Cecy before anyone else
could speak.

 
          
 
He placed his lips to the strange mouth. He
kissed the strange mouth and he was trembling.

 
          
 
Ann sat like a white statue.

 
          
 
"Ann!" said Cecy. "Move your
arms, hold him!"

 
          
 
She sat like a carved wooden doll in the
moonlight.

 
          
 
Again he kissed her lips.

 
          
 
"I do love you," whispered Cecy.
"I'm here, it's me you saw in her eyes, it's me, and I love you if she
never will."

 
          
 
He moved away and seemed like a man who had
run a long distance. He sat beside her. "I don't know what's happening.
For a moment there ..."

 
          
 
"Yes?" asked Cecy.

 
          
 
"For a moment I thought—" He put his
hands to his eyes. "Never mind. Shall I take you home now?"

 
          
 
"Please," said Ann Leary.

 
          
 
He clucked to the horse, snapped the reins
tiredly, and drove the rig away. They rode in the rustle and slap and motion of
the moordit rig in the still early, only
eleven
o'clock
spring night, with the shining meadows and sweet fields of
clover gliding by.

 
          
 
And Cecy, looking at the fields and meadows,
thought, It would be worth it, it would be worth everything to be with him from
this night on. And she heard her parents' voices again, faintly, "Be
careful. You wouldn't want to lose your magical powers, would you—married to a
mere mortal? Be careful. You wouldn't want that."

 
          
 
Yes, yes, thought Cecy, even that I'd give up,
here and now, if he would have me. I wouldn't need to roam the spring nights
then, I wouldn't need to live in birds and dogs and cats and foxes, I'd need
only to be with him. Only him. Only him.

 
          
 
The road passed under, whispering.

 
          
 
"Tom," said Ann at last.

 
          
 
"What?" He stared coldly at the
road, the horse, the trees, the sky, the stars.

 
          
 
"If you're ever, in years to come, at any
time, in
Green Town
,
Illinois
,
a few miles from here, will you do me a favor?"

 
          
 
"Perhaps."

 
          
 
"Will you do me the favor of stopping and
seeing a friend of mine?" Ann Leary said this haltingly, awkwardly.

 
          
 
"Why?"

 
          
 
"She's a good friend. I've told her of
you. I'll give you her address. Just a moment." When the rig stopped at
her farm she drew forth a pencil and paper from her small purse and wrote in
the moonlight, pressing the paper to her knee. "There it is. Can you read
it?"

 
          
 
He glanced at the paper and nodded
bewilderedly.

 
          
 
"Cecy Elliott,
12
Willow Street
,
Green Town
,
Illinois
,"
he said.

 
          
 
"Will you visit her someday?" asked
Ann.

 
          
 
"Someday," he said.

 
          
 
“Promise?"

 
          
 
“What has this to do with us?" he cried
savagely. "What do I want with names and papers?" He crumpled the
paper into a tight ball and shoved it in his coat.

 
          
 
"Oh, please promise!" begged Cecy.

 
          
 
". . . promise . . ." said Ann.

 
          
 
"All right, all right, now let me
be!" he shouted.

 
          
 
I'm tired, thought Cecy. I can't stay. I have
to go home. I'm weakening. I've only the power to stay a few hours out like
this in the night, traveling, traveling. But before I go . . .

 
          
 
". . . before I go," said Ann.

 
          
 
She kissed Tom on the lips.

 
          
 
"This is me kissing you," said Cecy.

 
          
 
Tom held her off and looked at Ann Leary and
looked deep, deep inside. He said nothing, but his face began to relax slowly, very
slowly, and the lines vanished away, and his mouth softened from its hardness,
and he looked deep again into the moonlit face held here before him.

 
          
 
Then he put her off the rig and without so
much as good night was driving swiftly down the road.

 
          
 
Cecy let go.