Some Other Town (27 page)

So we'll all read our notes from Steinem on Monday and say oh it's just Lola again. Except that Lola will arrive and reach for her mail and look as disbelieving as the rest of us. And then there will be nothing left for any of us to do but just stand in the hall awhile more and stare at our pink slips in silence.

Until Lola again, Lola herself will rally. She will remember how much we have all of us always disliked it here. And “Well now ladies,” she will say in her big Texas drawl. “Time we had us a party.”

Frances will jerk her head up and stare as though she cannot have heard Lola right. “Party?” Does she really think this calls for a party? I will look too and wonder well what really to Lola does not call for a party? The other editors will stare in silence as well.
And after another minute or two, we will all just turn and go back to our suites and start clearing our desktops and drawers.

But now I'm aware of a distant sound, muffled, repeating, urgent. Bones looks up sharply from his Sally Ann and calls, “Margaret! Telephone! For you.” He points his bowls toward my suite. Bones is nearest the solarium door, he can hear that my desk phone is ringing. Since Marcie is slumped out here with us all, she was not able to buzz the call through.

I rise and walk slowly down the hall. I am in no hurry to answer the phone. Most likely it is only some printer on the line, wondering where are those flats I promised? Well yes, that was months ago. But still.

The phone rings again. It is irritating that Marcie could not just pick up first. I do not like taking anonymous calls. Why doesn't Marcie go back to her post?

I decide to let the phone ring. Marcie will get the idea. She will know then to hurry back to her desk and do her acting-receptionist duty. That is, properly buzz me through.

My phone rings again. Well, it's clear Marcie is not going to help out here. So I sigh and lift the receiver. And though my heart isn't in it, “Steinem Associates,” I say. “Margaret here.”

For a moment there is only a small scratching sound. Static, snow on the line.

Then “Margaret,” I hear on the other end. “Margaret, it's Ben.”

I take a quick breath. I listen. “Ben?” I say. And I feel a strange heat start low in my chest and rise up into my face. “Ben Adams?” I hold the receiver tight.

“Is that you, Ben,” I try again. Ben now all of a sudden calling? Ben after all these months? Ben from out of nowhere now here on the line. “Ben,” I say. “Is that really you?”

Because it occurs to me of course it cannot be. It is just my imagination again. Ben cannot just like that be back, here on the phone on a workday. Real Ben is gone, disappeared. He is someone I need to go find.

And it occurs to me next that if this voice on the phone is not now just in my mind, then it must be some kind of prank. An impostor calling on the line. Right, I think, that must be it. Some doppelganger has got my number.

But “Yes, Margaret, it's Ben,” the voice says. And I know of course that it is. No one but Ben has such a lovely low hum to him. I would know that resonance anywhere. It is Ben, all right. Calling now out of the blue.

“You sound far away,” I say then. Which is true. Our connection is sketchy, his voice sounds like an echo. “Are you calling long distance, Ben?” I do not know why I ask him, it is not of course the point here.

“Long distance?” Ben says. “No, Margaret.” And then after a pause, “Well yes. In a way.” Another pause. Ben seems to be having trouble here. “Well I mean I am calling from the farm.”

“The farm, Ben! You're at the farm?” And I think well aha, I was right. All these months Ben's been gone he was out at his farm. I would have found him today in any case. He has only called now just to throw me off—

“Margaret,” the voice says, “have dinner with me tomorrow. Can you?”

I do not right away answer, as though I need to check my calendar. Which is not of course it, I am actually only trying to breathe. “OK, sure, Ben,” I say. And then just like the first time with Ben this fall, I cannot seem to stop. “Thanks, OK sure,” I say again. “Yes that would be nice, Ben. Thanks.”

“Good,” Ben says. “About six.” And then I hear a click.

“But wait, Ben,” I am going to say. “Tell me—are you all right?” And where have you been? Why did you go? Why is it you haven't called?

It is too late. The line is dead. Ben did not even say good-bye.

My god, I think, my mind spinning. Ben Adams has called. Ben is back. He's all right. And he wants to have dinner.

I sit at my desk and I smile at the window. Ben Adams is back! And I wish then there were people to tell. Not the editors of course. But people. Don't you get it? I would say, take them by the shoulders, and give them all a good shake. Ben Adams is back and wants me to come to dinner! I stand up from my chair, kick off my shoes, and make happy little hops in a circle.

But then I stop—what am I doing here?—and stand still. The thought has just occurred to me “Why?” For what reason has Ben called and not before? Dinner, yes. But what more? To start again? Is that why Ben called? Is that what it is that Ben wants?

Then, as long as I'm on the topic, “And what is it exactly I want?”

Well that is the question, I think, isn't it? That has been the question all along.

And I sit back down and I put on my shoes.

He has to see her one more time. He calls to invite her to dinner.

She answers before the phone rings.

Margaret, he says. It's Ben.

He does not remember the rest. But she is coming, tomorrow he will see her again. As she pulls up the drive, she will smile very big and wave to him from the car. And she will run to him then, he will hold the door open wide.

He stops, feels his heart rip in two.

Reeling from Ben Adams's call, I return to the editors in the solarium. And while they still slouch in their chairs and think their own thoughts about Monday, I find I can no longer think at all. Or rather I can think now only of Ben, of how it will be with Ben again. And the thought that occurs, well the memory really, is the one I return to most often. A difficult one, and one I've not yet explained. The last one in fact that I have of him.

I should say here that while we recovered, Ben and I, from that night and that kiss at my doorstep, while we went on seeing each other this fall, it was, as I'd guessed, not the same. Ben was careful not to bring up love again, or for that matter William Holden. And whenever he drove me back to my house, I was careful never to linger.

In this way we got through to Thanksgiving well enough and on up to Christmas vacation. And then for a while, I did not hear from Ben Adams at all. I assumed he'd gone home to his Ellen to spend the holidays back in the West. For three weeks there was simply no word. But in January on the year's coldest day, much to my surprise and relief, there was Ben Adams again at my door, ringing and ringing the bell.

By the time he awakes, she is already up and starting her bath. He opens his eyes, stares at the ceiling, hears the bathwater running.

“Ellen,” he calls and walks to the bathroom door. He knocks once. “I'm leaving now, Ellen.”

He knocks once more. “Ellen?”

For a moment he waits. There is only the sound of the water.

He turns and walks to the bedroom door, opens it, takes a breath. Steam from the bath has not reached the hall, the air feels cool and good in his lungs.

He is careful to close the door after him. It shuts with a small, single click.

Outside, at the stone wall that borders the Merrills' front lawn, he stops, takes a seat. The Merrills' house faces theirs, directly across Dublin Drive, the wide circular street where he lives. Now lived. He does not think the Merrills will mind his sitting awhile on their wall.

He needs to think. He has just left his wife of twenty-one years, he has said good-bye from the other side of a door. A simple act in the end, twenty-one years in the coming.

For days before, they had talked. She agreed. It was true. There was nothing left now for either of them. How strange it turned out, that it could be so close, so possible as not to end. You stayed on for years or you left in a morning and the difference was the click of a door.

Jason Plumbly, twelve years old and the street's paperboy, rides his bicycle fast down the walk. Swerving in close, reckless in his race to deliver the news, he hurls a rolled paper toward the Merrills' front steps. It misses and lands in the junipers instead, while Jason speeds on up the street.

To the left and a little behind him, he hears a door open. Willard Merrill has emerged for his paper. Willard calls, “Hey there, Benny.” He does not seem surprised to see Ben sitting on his stone wall. “Great day, hey?”

His name is not Benny, no one who knows him calls him Benny. Willard is being neighborly here. It is how the people on Dublin all talk, hale and grinning as they invariably are, to keep from knowing each other.

He nods to Willard, watches as Willard, who is nodding as well, retrieves his newspaper from the shrubs. Turning back toward the steps, Willard offers a jaunty wave. “Take 'er easy, Benny,” he calls, and escapes back into his house.

It is no good, he thinks, sitting here on the Merrills' stone wall. Now Willard and the rest of the Merrills too will be looking out their front window, asking each other if he is OK, if he will just go on sitting like that in their yard.

It is getting late. Soon Rick Butler across the way will be opening his garage. He will wave, wonder too what's going on there across the street. And the Randolph twins will be out on their Big Wheels making loud ratchety noises in their drive. They will stop and stare, point.

He stands and begins to walk. Up ahead, leaf blower roaring, Jim Plander stalks his lawn, head up, ready with more neighborly greetings. Marilyn Francis drives by, station wagon full of groceries, honks merrily, drives on.

He walks faster. From out of nowhere Jason Plumbly swooshes his bicycle past on the right.

He takes two steps more. And staring then only at the young birch that stands at the exit from Dublin, he begins to run.

“Margaret,” he calls. The leaf blower roars, no one can hear. Margaret, Margaret.

Ben stands on the front step, stomping the snow from his boots, and tells me he needs to talk. We need to talk.

He asks if he can come in. “Please,” he says, “it's important.” He has no jacket, he is wearing just his old flannel shirt.

“Yes of course,” I tell him. “Come in. You will freeze standing out there like that.”

Once inside—before I can say here, come sit here with me, warm up, and how was your Christmas—he tells me he and Ellen are through.

“What, Ben?” I say. “What?” You've left your wife? Ellen? I am going to say.

But I do not because now without stopping Ben tells me more. There has been a change of direction, he says. He will not be going back West again. And at the end of the semester he'll be leaving town here as well.

And then Ben says he's been doing some thinking.

“Come with me, Margaret,” he says. “Come. We'll leave here together.”

I look at Ben. I am not sure I know what I'm hearing.

“We'll go on the run,” Ben says.

Still looking, I start to smile. It's a joke, right? “‘Go on the run'? That's good, Ben.”

“No,” he says. No. He has begun all wrong.

Ben takes a breath, starts over. He knows it may sound sudden, he says. He knows we haven't known each other long. He knows it hasn't always gone well. But he has been thinking, for a long time he's been thinking. About us. About leaving, about just taking off. About starting all over again.

Ben stands before me. He is serious. “Things are different now, Margaret. I'm free. We're free.”

I look at Ben. This cannot be happening. Ben must be talking about somebody else.

“Come away with me, Margaret.”

I turn my head, try to breathe.

“This is our chance, Margaret. Say something.”

Air, I am thinking, we need air. But I turn back, look up. Ben is upset, he does not know what he's saying. I do not want to upset him more. “Look, Ben,” I say. “Could we talk tomorrow? You are
just back in town. You have been through a lot.” I watch his face closely. “I think we should talk tomorrow,” I tell him. “We will both feel better tomorrow.”

Ben looks at me, questioning now. “No Margaret. Not tomorrow.” He shakes his head. “I will not feel any different tomorrow.”

And oh no, I think, oh no. Not again. Not all the declaring again. And I pray Ben will not start in.

“I love you,” Ben says. He wants me to hear. “I love you and things are different now.” He opens his hand, extends it.

I step back.

Ben looks at me. “I love you, Margaret. I have left my wife and I love you.”

I watch Ben's face, I listen. There is something new in his voice now, I can hear it. Something shifted and plaintive. I can see it as well in his eyes. Ben has just told me again that he loves me. He loves me! And he wants me to say now I love him too. To say it was only the fact of his marriage that kept me from saying it before.

I watch Ben, he is waiting. And yes, I would like to tell him. Yes, I love you, I have loved you now for a while.

But still I cannot speak, cannot think. Cannot stop all of the thinking. Because this is the truth. I do not know what it is I am feeling. And I do not know why. But here is what I suspect. If I were to say now Ben Adams, I love you, and we were to rush into each other's arms, we would neither of us know what then. The awful, long settling in? Facing each other, confirming. Reassuring each other, ourselves. Yes, I do love you, yes. Yes, yes, yes. And then the thousand domesticities, the endurance. The day after day after dayness, both of us down in some basement rec room, stretched out in our Barcaloungers.