Kate Wilhelm in Orbit - Volume One (31 page)

“Or the intense cold. I think I read that breathing in the cold causes as many heart attacks as overexertion.”

“Well, it’s cold enough out there. About zero by now, I guess.” He scooped out some of the snow and held it against the thermostat. “The furnace must be behind this wall, or under this area. Feel how warm it is.”

She put her hand on the wall and nodded. “Maybe we can fasten the cup of snow up next to the thermostat.” She looked around and then went to the bulletin board. She removed several of the notices and schedules there and brought him the thumbtacks. Crane spilled a little snow getting the tacks into the paper towel and then into the wall. In a few minutes there was a rumble as the furnace came on and almost immediately the station began to feel slightly warmer. Presently the woman took off her coat.

“Success,” she said, smiling.

“I was beginning to think it had been a mistake after all, not going to the diner.”

“So was I.”

“I think they are trying to get the snowplows going. I saw a red light a couple of minutes ago. It went out again, but at least someone’s trying.”

She didn’t reply, and after a moment he said, “I’m glad you don’t smoke. I gave it up a few months ago, and it would drive me mad to have to smell it through a night like this. Probably I’d go back to them.”

“I have some,” she said. “I even smoke once in a while. If you decide that you do want them…”

“No. No. I wasn’t hinting.”

“I just wish the lights were better in here. I could get in a whole night’s work. I often work at night.”

“So do I, but you’d put your eyes out. What—”

“That’s all right. What kind of work do I do? An illustrator for Slocum House Catalogue Company. Not very exciting, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, you’re an artist.”

“No. Illustrator. I wanted to become an artist, but… things didn’t work out that way.”

“I’d call you an artist. Maybe because I’m in awe of anyone who can draw, or paint, or do things like that. You’re all artists to me.”

She shrugged. “And you’re an insurance salesman.” He stiffened and she got up, saying, “I saw the policy you were looking over, and the briefcase stuffed full of policies and company pamphlets and such. I knew an insurance salesman once.”

He realized that he had been about to ask where she was going, and he clamped his jaw again and turned so that he wouldn’t watch her go into the ladies’ room.

He went to the window. The wind was still at gale force, but so silent. With the door closed, the station seemed far removed from the storm, and looking at it was like watching something wholly unreal, manufactured to amuse him perhaps. There were storm windows, and the building was very sturdy and probably very well insulated. Now, with the furnace working, it was snug and secure. He cupped his hands about his eyes, trying to see past the reflections in the window, but there was nothing. Snow, a drift up to the sill now, and the wind-driven snow that was like a sheer curtain being waved from above, touching the windows, fluttering back, touching again, hiding everything behind it.

She was taking a long time. He should have gone when she left. Now he had the awkward moment to face, of excusing himself or not, of timing it so that she wouldn’t think he was leaving deliberately in order to dodge something that one or the other said or hinted. She had done it so easily and naturally. He envied people like her. Always so sure of themselves.

“Which face are you wearing tonight, Randy?” Mary Louise reached across the table and touched his cheek, then shook her head. “I can’t always tell. When you’re the successful salesman, you are so assured, so poised, charming, voluble even.”

“And the other times? What am I those times?”

“Afraid.”

Drawing back from her hand, tight and self-contained again, watchful, he said, “Isn’t it lucky that I can keep the two separated, then? How successful a salesman would I be if I put on the wrong face when I went to work?”

“I wonder if mixing it up a little might not be good for you. So you wouldn’t sell a million dollars’ worth of insurance a year, but you’d be a little happier when you’re not working.”

“Like you?”

“Not like me, God forbid. But at least I haven’t given up looking for something. And you have.”

“Yeah. You’re looking. In a bottle. In someone else’s bed. In buying sprees.”

“
C’est la vie
. You can always buzz off, you know.”

“And add alimony to my other headaches? No, thanks.”

Smiling at him, sipping an Old Fashioned, infinitely wise and infinitely evil. Were wise women always evil? “My poor Randy. My poor, darling. You thought I was everything you were not, and instead you find that I am stamped from the same mold. Number XLM 119543872—afraid of life, only not quite afraid of death. Someone let up on the pressure there. Hardly an indentation even. So I can lose myself and you can’t. A pity, my darling Randy. If we could lose ourselves together, what might we be able to find? We are so good together, you know. Sex with you is still the best of all. I try harder and harder to make you let go all the way. I read manuals and take personalized lessons, all for your sake, darling. All for you. And it does no good. You are my only challenge, you see.”

“Stop it! Are you crazy?”

“Ah. Now I know who you are tonight. There you are. Tight mouth, frowning forehead full of lines, narrowed eyes. You are not so handsome with this face on, you know. Why don’t you look at me, Randy?” Her hands across the table again, touching his cheeks, a finger trailing across his lips, a caress or mockery. “You never look at me, you know. You never look at me at all.”

He leaned his forehead against the window, and the chill roused him. Where was the woman? He looked at his watch and realized that she had been gone only a few minutes, not the half hour or longer that he had thought. Was the whole night going to be like that? Minutes dragging by like hours? Time distorted until a lifetime could be spent in waiting for one dawn?

He went to the men’s room. When he returned, she was sitting in her own place once more, her coat thrown over her shoulders, a sketch pad in her lap.

“Are you cold again?” He felt almost frozen. There was no heat in the men’s room.

“Not really. Moving about chilled me. There’s a puddle under the funnel, and the snow is gone, but heat is still coming from the radiator.”

“I’ll have to refill it every half hour or so, I guess.”

“The driver said it’s supposed to go to ten or fifteen below tonight.”

Crane shrugged. “After it gets this low, I don’t care how much farther it drops. As long as I don’t have to be out in it.”

She turned her attention to her pad and began to make strong lines. He couldn’t tell what she was drawing, only that she didn’t hesitate, but drew surely, confidently. He opened his briefcase and got out his schedule book. It was no use, he couldn’t read the small print in the poor lighting of the station. He rummaged for something that he would be able to concentrate on. He was grateful when she spoke again.

“It was so stupid to start out tonight. I could have waited until tomorrow. I’m not bound by a time clock or anything.”

“That’s just what I was thinking. I was afraid of being snowed in for several days. We were at Sky Mount Ski Lodge, and everyone else was cheering the storm’s approach. Do you ski?”

“Some, not very well. The cold takes my breath away, hitting me in the face like that.”

He stared at her for a moment, opened his mouth to agree, then closed it again. It was as if she was anticipating what he was going to say.

“Don’t be so silly, Randy. All you have to do is wear the muffler around your mouth and nose. And the goggles on your eyes. Nothing is exposed then. You’re just too lazy to ski.”

“Okay, lazy. I know this, I’m bored to death here. I haven’t been warm since we left the apartment, and my legs ache. That was a nasty fall I had this morning. I’m sore. I have a headache from the glare of the snow, and I think it’s asinine to freeze for two hours in order to slide down a mountain a couple of times. I’m going back to the city.”

“But our reservation is through Saturday night. Paid in advance.”

“Stay. Be my guest. Have yourself a ball. You and McCone make a good pair, and his wife seems content to sit on the sidelines and watch you. Did you really think that anemic blonde would appeal to me? Did you think we’d be too busy together to notice what you were up to?”

“Tracy? To tell the truth I hadn’t given her a thought. I didn’t know she didn’t ski until this afternoon. I don’t know why Mac brought her here. Any more than I know why you came along.”

“Come on home with me. Let’s pack up and leave before the storm begins. We can stop at that nice old antique inn on the way home, where they always have pheasant pie. Remember?”

“Darling, I came to ski. You will leave the car here, won’t you? I’ll need it to get the skis back home, and our gear. Isn’t there a bus or something?”

“Mary Louise, this morning on the slope, didn’t you really see me? You know, when your ski pole got away from you.”

“What in the world are you talking about? You were behind me. How could I have seen you? I didn’t even know you had started down.”

“Okay. Forget it. I’ll give you a call when I get to the apartment.”

“Yes, do. You can leave a message at the desk if I don’t answer.”

The woman held up her sketch and narrowed her eyes. She ripped out the page and crumpled it, tossed it into the waste can.

“I think I’m too tired after all.”

“It’s getting cold in here again. Your hands are probably too cold.” He got up and took the funnel from the wall. “I’ll get more snow and see if we can’t get the furnace going again.”

“You should put something over your face, so the cold air won’t be such a shock. Don’t you have a muffler?”

He stopped. He had crushed the funnel, he realized, and he tried to smooth it again without letting her see what he had done. He decided that it would do, and opened the door. A drift had formed, and a foot of snow fell into the station. The wind was colder, sharper, almost deliberately cutting. He was blinded by the wind and the snow that was driven into his face. He filled the funnel and tried to close the door again, but the drift was in the way. He pushed, trying to use the door as a snowplow. More snow was being blown in, and finally he had to use his hands, push the snow out of the way, not outside, but to one side of the door. At last he had it clear enough and he slammed the door, more winded this time than before. His throat felt raw, and he felt a constriction about his chest.

“It’s getting worse all the time. I couldn’t even see the bus, nothing but a mountain of snow.”

“Ground blizzard, I suspect. When it blows like this you can’t tell how much of it is new snow and how much is just fallen snow being blown about. The drifts will be tremendous tomorrow.” She smiled. “I remember how we loved it when this happened when we were kids. The drifts are exciting, so pure, so high. Sometimes they glaze over and you can play Glass Mountain. I used to be the princess.”

Crane was shivering again. He forced his hands to be steady as he pushed the thumbtacks into the funnel to hold it in place next to the thermostat. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Did the prince ever reach you?”

“No. Eventually I just slid back down and went home.”

“Where? Where did you live?”

“Outside Chicago, near the lake.”

He spun around. “Who are you?” He grabbed the back of a bench and clutched it hard. She stared at him. He had screamed at her, and he didn’t know why. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You keep saying things that I’m thinking. I was thinking of that game, of how I never could make it to the top.”

“Near Lake Michigan?”

“On the shores almost.”

She nodded.

“I guess all kids play games like that in the snow,” he said. “Strange that we should have come from the same general area. Did your milk freeze on the back steps, stick up out of the bottle, with the cap at an angle?”

“Yes. And those awful cloakrooms at school, where you bad to strip off snowsuits and boots, and step in icy water before you could get your indoor shoes on.”

“And sloshing through the thaws, wet every damn day. I was wet more than I was dry all through grade school.”

“We all were,” she said, smiling faintly, looking past him.

He almost laughed in his relief. He went to the radiator and put his hands out over it, his back to her. Similar backgrounds, that’s all, he said to himself, framing the words carefully. Nothing strange. Nothing eerie. She was just a plain woman who came from the same state, probably the same county that he came from. They might have gone to the same schools, and he would not have noticed her. She was too common, too nondescript to have noticed at the time. And he had been a quiet boy, not particularly noteworthy himself. No sports besides the required ones. No clubs. A few friends, but even there, below average, because they had lived in an area too far removed from most of the kids who went to his school.

“It’s only two. Seems like it ought to be morning already, doesn’t it?” She was moving about and he turned to see what she was doing. She had gone behind the counter, where the ticket agent had said there was a telephone. “A foam cushion,” she said, holding it up. “I feel like one of the Swiss Family Robinson, salvaging what might be useful.”

“Too bad there isn’t some coffee under there.”

“Wish you were in the diner?”

“No. That bitch probably has them all at each other’s throats by now, as it is;”

“That girl? The one who was so afraid?”

He laughed harshly and sat down. “Girl!”

“No more than twenty, if that much.”

He laughed again and shook his head.

“Describe her to me,” the woman said. She left the counter and sat down on the bench opposite him, still carrying the foam cushion. It had a black plastic cover; gray foam bulged from a crack. It was disgusting.

Crane said, “The broad was in her late twenties, or possibly thirties—”

“Eighteen to twenty.”

“She had a pound of makeup on, nails like a cat.”

“Fake nails, chapped hands, calluses. Ten-cent-store makeup.”