Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend (9 page)

He jogged through the streets of Cedar Bend at first light before the heat settled in, staying in shape, beating back the
years, though it was getting harder to do. Slowly he could feel his legs going, and on rainy days the old knee injury flashed
little twinges of pain as a reminder of his boyhood follies. Sometimes he went by the Bradens’ two-story brick. Quite often
he did that. Running, then stopping for a moment, looking at the front steps where he and Jellie had stood the previous Thanksgiving,
remembering the subtle, unspoken signals they’d both sent that night without being sure the other was receiving them.

In June he wrote a piece on the role of tax incentives in attacking large-scale social problems.
The Atlantic
surprised him by taking it, sending a check for $1,200. He knocked out a heavy-duty, academic version of the article for
the
Journal of Social Issues,
and that one had wings, too, with the following spring projected as the publication date. Michael knew his department head
would dismiss the first as catering to popular taste and the second as not having sufficient stature in the field of economics,
though it was an okay journal in its own niche. But he didn’t much care anymore what members of the administration thought
about his work, so none of that bothered him.

By mid-August he was wired tight. East of him a 747 would be loading at Heathrow one of these days, Jellie settling onto her
seat with a book, Jimmy Braden running around the cabin looking for a pillow and blanket. She’d once said Jimmy was a master
at sleeping on airplanes but absolutely panicked and couldn’t sleep at all without his pillow and blanket. So rounding up
his bedroom gear was always his first chore after boarding. Michael could picture Jellie in her demure, wire-rimmed reading
glasses, glancing at a book, then out the window as the big plane lifted off and brought her back toward Cedar Bend.

Classes started in less than a week, and Michael was in his office fussing around, hoping he might see Jimmy Braden, which
would be his signal Jellie had returned. The phone rang.

“Hello, Michael, how are you?” Her voice was warm, soft, the diction clear and crisp as always, except when she was sitting
in Beano’s talking to a man about secret things she felt and thought he might also feel.

“Jellie—are you back or what?” He noticed his voice shook just a little, and he didn’t like it. American males have their
standards, after all.

“Yes, we got in late last night. Jimmy’s still sleeping, but I’m all fouled up timewise, so I’ve been up since four o’clock
wandering around. Did you get the picture I sent?”

“I did indeed. Thank you. You looked well and happy.” He didn’t say anything about hanging it on his wall. This was an intricate
dance along the halls of ambiguity, and Michael was feeling his way, not wanting to open up things too rapidly.

“Yes, I am feeling well. I ran into one of my old friends from India on the tube in London. She got me back into yoga, and
it does wonders for my body
and
my mind.”

Oh, Jellie, Jellie, he was thinking, don’t say anything about your body. Give a poor man space to breathe, space to be less
wicked than you already have made him in his impure thoughts.

“Michael, any chance we might meet some-where? I’d like to talk, but I don’t want to come to your office since I suspect Jimmy
will be up at the university as soon as he comes to.”

“Sure, anyplace. You name it.”

“How about the bar at the Ramada out by the shopping center?”

“Fine. When?”

“What time is it now?”

He looked at his watch. “Twenty to eleven.”

Silence on the other end for a few seconds. “Would eleven push you too hard? I’d like to be gone when Jimmy wakes up so I
don’t have to think up some reason for going out.”

“No, that’s fine. I have the Shadow tied down outside the building. Eleven, then?”

“Yes… Michael?”

“I’m here.” Too cool, being way too cool.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you.”

“Me too, Jellie. See you in twenty minutes.”

It was only a ten-minute ride out to the Ramada, so he went down to the mailboxes, collected a pile of book advertisements
and a very pleasant invitation from
The Atlantic
editor to send some more pieces. That got him thinking for a moment: maybe he could hack it as a free-lance writer. Not enough
in that to keep him going, probably, but he could take early retirement, annuitize his retirement fund, and maybe pick up
ten or fifteen grand a year just by fiddling around with his word processor.

There was also a letter from the University of California Department of Economics inviting all of its Ph.D. alumni to a reception
at the winter meetings in Las Vegas. The usual, Michael got it every year. But he never went, even though he was grateful
for the degree and sent them money when they asked for it.

He pulled the Shadow out into traffic getting heavier as the students returned for the fall semester and rolled down Thirty-second
Street, bumping into Route 81 about ten blocks farther on. The highway ran a winding route through one of the nicer sections
of Cedar Bend, and he leaned the Shadow into the curves, noticing a slight valve tick needing attention.

Jellie was already seated when he got there. It was dark in the lounge, and he couldn’t see her at first, partly because she
was back in one of the corner booths off to his right.

“Michael, over here.”

Jellie. After all these months, there she was and calling out to him. Black hair gathered high, big-hooped silver earrings,
light yellow summer dress with sandals. Walking toward her, feeling clumsy, estranged from her. She held out her hand, Michael
took it and slid in beside her. She kissed him on the cheek, then, butterfly-quick, leaned back and looked at him. He was
gone again, over the hill just seeing her, hands sweating and heart valves ticking like the Black Shadow.

“You’re all suntanned, Michael. You look great, just wonderful, and no preschool haircut yet.”

“Nah, I’ve been putting it off. I hate going to barbers, something to do with loss of manhood, maybe. More likely because,
when I was about four years old, the only barber in Custer threatened to cut off my ears if I didn’t sit still while he was
working on me.”

She laughed. “Really? Did that really happen?”

“Yes, it did. My childhood was one long charge through the brambles of anxiety after that. You look wonderful, too, Jellie.
I’ve thought about you a lot.”

She looked down, then up at Michael, then down again. The bartender came around the bar and over to where they sat, lighted
a small candle on the table-top, and asked what she could get for them. Jellie ordered a club soda with lime. Michael asked
for a St. Pauli Girl, which the bartender didn’t have, so he settled on a Miller’s.

While they waited for their drinks, Jellie asked him about his spring and summer. He told her about the two articles, and
her eyes widened when he mentioned
The Atlantic.
“Hey, that’s the big time. Congratulations.”

The bartender came back. Jellie insisted on paying the check, so he let her.

Michael held up his beer, and she touched her glass to his. “What shall we drink to, Michael?”

“How about survival. If not that, retirement.”

“Michael, you’re just the same.” Her chastisement was gentle. “How about we drink to a nice summer day and your success in
writing.”

“And to your safe return,” he said.

“How’s the Shadow running?”

“Good, overall. It’s a perpetual battle, but good. I took it down into Tennessee this summer, but didn’t stay long. The Smokies
are a nightmare; they’re thinking of limiting the number of tourists that can visit there. Then I rode it out to Custer and
stayed a week with my mother.”

“How is she?”

“Old, and getting more fragile every day. I’m afraid we’re not more than two years away from a nursing home or something along
those lines.”

Jellie didn’t say anything for a while. He drank his beer, she drank her club soda and lime. He took out his cigarettes and
offered her one. She refused. “I’ve stopped smoking. Something about yoga that leads to that, not sure what it is.”

He nodded and flipped open the Zippo, lit his, and leaned back against the padded booth. She slid over farther so she could
turn and look straight at him.

Michael was tired of the dancing. “Where are we, Jellie, the two of us? It’s been a long nine months for me.” After he said
it he wished he’d moved into this a little slower. Typical male fashion—no fore-play.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. He’d forgotten just how gray her eyes were until she kept them on his for at least ten
seconds.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking, Michael.” Those were bad-news words, he could tell. Something in the words themselves, something
in the way she said them. What they felt for each other didn’t require thinking. It required acting, not thinking. The happiness
from seeing her again started draining down and out of him.

She paused, then went on. “I had the words all ready to say, but it’s much harder than I thought it would be. I’d convinced
myself the way I felt about you was a kind of girlish infatuation with a different sort of man than I’d ever encountered before,
or at least not for a long time. But with you here looking at me with those good brown eyes, your hair drifting over your
shirt collar and all, it’s more difficult… a lot more difficult.”

“Say it, Jellie. I already know what’s coming.”

“I suppose you do, and I’m going to say what I have to say before I get to the point I can’t say it. We’ve got to cut this
clean before real trouble starts.” He was prepared for it, but that didn’t stop the harpoon from entering his chest and going
out the other side. “Jimmy asked me several times in the days before we left for England if there was anything wrong with
me. He said I was acting a little strange. It was you, Michael—no,
us
. I was thinking about us, fantasizing about things I don’t even want to mention.”

“That’s all right, Jellie, I’ve had the same kind of images in my mind since the day I first saw you. Mine would just blow
you away if I started talking about them.”

“Women have those thoughts, too. Let me go on. In ways you’ll never know, and I don’t want to talk about, I owe Jimmy a lot.
Look, we both know Jimmy. He’s a little goofy in certain ways, but he’s very kind to me.

“Jimmy was crushed when the best schools wouldn’t accept him for his doctorate. His grades were good, but only because he
worked so hard. God, his parents just hammered and hammered at him about the whole idea of success. But Jimmy does not have
a truly fine intellect. He knows that and has come to terms with it, though it bothers him because of the world in which he’s
chosen to earn a living, a world where he’s constantly reminded of his limitations just by being around people like you, Michael.”

“Oh, hell, Jellie…” He started to do a foot shuffle into something resembling modesty, a little dance called the South Dakota
backstep. But she’d have none of it and interrupted him.

“Michael Tillman, don’t play the country boy with me, please. It’s not becoming, and I know better. You scare Jimmy. He knows
he’s not in your league. He could write all his life and never get an article accepted by the journals in which you’ve published.
I don’t mean to imply you don’t work hard, I know you do, in spite of the casual way you seem to operate. And Jimmy likes
you. He likes you a lot, and he’s appreciative of the good ideas you give him. If he ever makes full professor, you’ll be
responsible for it in good part.”

“Jimmy’s all right, Jellie. He’s a lot different than me, but I respect him for the way he keeps his head down and the numbers
crunching. I couldn’t do that.”

He lit another Merit and took a drink of his beer. This was turning into something a little unpleasant, and he didn’t want
that to happen with Jellie. She was floating off, getting loyalty and Jimmy’s shortcomings and her own emotions all tangled
up. Chewing on him in small ways as a means of protecting herself from her own feelings.

“Jellie, let me try and say what I think you’re telling me. You feel good things for Jimmy, among them at least a kind of
love, I’m sure. You’re a loving person. And you feel a gratefulness toward him for something I don’t know about and won’t
ask about. Though I have a feeling India works into it somehow—I figure you’d tell me if you wanted me to know, even though
it wouldn’t affect how I feel about you no matter what it is. And you want to make sure our feelings for each other don’t
go any further than just that—feelings. Have I got it right?”

She nodded, tears in her eyes.

He had momentum and kept rolling. “Here’s the bottom line, Jellie Markham Braden: I’m in love with you, truly and powerfully
in love. I guess I knew it when you walked in the dean’s kitchen a year ago in your blue suit and black boots, knew it when
we sat on the back steps that day. Christ, teeter-totters in the park. Do you have any idea of how much I’ve wanted you, all
of you, everything that makes you up, tangible and otherwise? The whole works, that’s what I want. As much as I can get in
the years I have left, and I’m no youngster anymore. Do you understand that, Jellie, how deeply I feel?”

“Michael… don’t.” She reached in her purse, took out a handkerchief, and put it against her eyes for a moment. The bartender
was not insensitive; she had a feel for what was going on and turned up the television to cover their conversation. Michael
nodded at her in thanks, and she gave him a little wave.

He put his hand on Jellie’s neck, the first time he’d ever touched her in that way. Her skin felt exactly as he’d known it
would, and the sensation ran up his arm, went down somewhere inside of him, and made a low, sad sound for all the times he’d
never feel it again. “It’s okay, Jellie. We’ll make it work. We’ll put some bandages on the cuts and promise not to look under
them ever again. I’m not sure I can stay in the same town with you, but I’ll try. Really, I’ll try, Jellie. Maybe we can eventually
work it out so we can have coffee at Beano’s now and then. Maybe it’ll spiral down and we can do that.”