We All Fall Down (15 page)

The instant he heard her voice he remembered her face. Everything happened at once—the sound of her voice on the phone, then the flash of her features and the instant knowledge of where he had seen that face: in the picture on the bureau in that bedroom he had destroyed almost a month ago. He had completely forgotten about the picture in its chrome frame. He had been about to dash it against the wall when he paused, looked at the portrait of the girl for a long moment—dark hair falling to her shoulders, eyes slightly slanted, the hint of a smile on her lips but not quite a smile, as if she were trying to decide whether to smile or
not and the camera caught that hesitation. For some reason, he replaced the picture undamaged on the bureau before continuing his frenzied assault on the room.

He had not given the picture another thought until:

Hello.
And then:
Who is this?

He had winced at the hesitancy in her voice, more than that, her apprehension or maybe even fear, as if she was afraid of whoever was on the other end of the line. Did she answer all phone calls that way?
Is this what we did to her?

Ever since Harry told him about the key, Buddy couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. Even though she had been a cipher, a zero, blank, like a connect-the-dotsiace in a comic-page puzzle. Then, he began to wonder about her. How she must have felt walking into her bedroom and seeing all that damage.
But I didn’t pee against the wall, somebody else did that.
He was surprised to find that he had a girl on his mind whom he had never met. He had known a lot of girls, but had never
had
a girl. Agonized over crushes—although he was convinced they were not crushes at the time but anguished love that would never end—Alice Currier in the sixth grade with her hair like melting caramel and Cindy Dennedy with whom he had his first dance in the ninth grade and Debbie Howington, the love of his life sophomore year, Debbie of the full tight sweaters and pouting tips who smiled at him one day and ignored him the next, who deigned to accept his invitation to the movies one night and then called the next day to cancel, all of which caused him to shun the female sex, made him think of becoming a monk in a monastery somewhere. And here he was, all involved—in his thoughts, anyway—with a girl he did not know, a girl he had never met but a girl he knew collected small glass animals, had had a poster of Billy Joel on her wall (which he had torn to shreds), a
girl Harry Flowers had used as a victim to protect himself as well as Marty and Randy. And Buddy, too.

That’s why he found himself at the telephone that afternoon, woozy with the booze, filled with compassion for that poor poor girl, dialing the phone as if he were performing some tragic ritual, then astonished and shocked when he heard her voice.

As usual, when it came to the opposite sex, he had failed abysmally in what he had set out to do. Yet, he hadn’t been quite sure what he had set out to do. Apologize? Not sure. But what else? He did not know.

After hanging up dismally, a failure at whatever he had planned to do, blaming the booze—he should have called when he was cold sober, icy (but then he wouldn’t have had the nerve, would he?) and weary now with his thinking and drinking and his usual ineptitude, there was only one thing left to do:

Have another drink.

Which he did, of course, although it failed to erase the girl’s face from the terrible thing his memory had become.

He began to follow her. Breaking his own rule and disregarding Addy’s questioning glances, he chove his mother’s car to school. Then, grateful that Wickburg Regional dismissed classes thirty minutes earlier than Burnside High, he drove to Burnside and waited for Jane Jerome to emerge. He followed slowly, almost stalling the car, as she walked to nearby Burnside Hospital where, he surmised, she visited her sister. He sat rigidly behind the wheel waiting for her to reappear, trying not to think of Karen Jerome in her hospital bed. Once or twice, he had telephoned the hospital to inquire about her condition. The answer invariably was an impersonal “Stable—no change.”

Jane Jerome remained in the hospital for different periods of time—sometimes a few minutes, sometimes an hour or so, sometimes the remainder of the afternoon. On those days when she left the hospital after only a brief visit, she waited for the Wickburg Mall bus. Buddy then drove ahead, parked in the garage adjacent to the Mall, and was waiting for the bus when it disgorged passengers, Jane among them, at the Mall’s entrance.

Following her from store to store, he tried to act casual, bought magazines which he pretended to read when she waited by only a few feet from him. She browsed leisurely, not buying anything, lingering at certain counters, pausing to riffle dresses hanging from the racks. He learned to be careful, to keep a certain distance, discovering in Filene’s the danger of multiple mirrors. He came upon his reflection unexpectedly, startled to see himself reproduced in a dozen different angles, and almost panicked, wondering whether she had spotted him in one of the mirrors and was leading him on a merry chase.

Fleeing the store, he sat on a plastic yellow bench near the dry fountain, chipped and peeling, as if it were diseased. When she emerged from Filene’s a few minutes later, she wandered toward the escalator. He watched her ascend to the second level, saw her moving along the second-floor guardrail, her head barely visible. After a minute or two, he stepped on the escalator and as he alighted, spotted her going into a bookstore at the far end of the corridor.

In the bookstore, he discovered the merits of peripheral vision: how you could see things without looking directly at them. He was able to open a book at the
Best Seller—20% Off
display and still see her in profile as she leafed through magazines ten feet away. When she closed a magazine with finality, he guessed that she was about to
leave the store and he closed the book—he had no idea of its title or what it was about—and left the store before she did. That should convince her, if she had become suspicious, that he was not following her.

In front of the New Age Clothing store, he knelt on one knee as if checking the shoestrings of his Nikes and saw the flash of her legs as she passed by. He remained on his knee as she went beyond the escalator and continued to Marsh’s, disappearing into the doorway. He waited awhile, counting to five hundred slowly, and then made his way into the store, walked warily through Housewares and Home Furnishings. She wasn’t in sight. He checked out Women’s Clothing and Summer Fun and even drifted through Men’s Clothing before going to the down escalator. Halfway down, he spotted her below at the perfume counter, sampling the spray from a blue bottle. As he stepped off the escalator, she had drifted to the counter containing scarves and draped a red scarf across her chest before letting it settle back on the counter like a small collapsing tent.

Inhaling the remnants of perfume as he went by the counter, he looked for her without trying to look as if he were looking for her. Sighed impatiently at the sudden absurdity of what he was doing. Spying, for crissakes, on a girl he didn’t know. Didn’t see her anywhere—was she hiding behind a display case watching his befuddlement? He felt stupid, realizing the futility of what he had been doing. His legs were restless as he stood there, indecisive, glancing at his watch, a frown on his face, acting as if he were waiting for someone who was late. Where was she? This pointless chase of his. But it wasn’t pointless. He had found out a lot about her. Found out that she was bored and restless and kind of sad, too. She had not smiled at all, had never looked amused or entertained by anything she had encountered.
Seemed to be sleepwalking, killing time, hating to go home, maybe, the way he hated to go home.

He spotted her again as she pushed through a revolving door leading to the outside world. Hurrying, he sidestepped two elderly women, one of them with a cane, as he headed for the door. Pausing at a window next to the door, he saw her standing at the curb beneath the bus stop sign. For the first time, he
really
looked at her. Her blue plaid skirt fell in pleats and her pale blue sweater was fuzzy. She lifted her face as a gust of wind tousled her hair. Her hair was long enough to touch her shoulders, so black and shining that he thought it might squeak if he grabbed a bunch of it. Her features were delicate: small nose, high cheekbones, lips bare of lipstick. At that moment, she took a deep breath and her breasts rose in the sweater, straining against the fuzzy material. Looking away quickly, he felt dirty, like some kind of pervert. Yet, aroused at the same time. When he looked at her again, the bus was pulling up and she stepped toward it. A moment later, she had boarded the bus, the door closing behind her with a sigh. Watching the bus lurch away, he began to miss her. Which was ridiculous, of course, because he did not even know the girl.

The next day, she followed the same routine—hospital visit, then the bus to the Mall—and he trailed her from store to store as she drifted again, aimlessly. Because he was able to anticipate her movements, he didn’t stay close to her, although he enjoyed being in her vicinity. Growing careless, he strolled by one of those multiple mirrors in Filene’s and was stunned to see her reflection along with his own. Swiveling away, he almost collided with her, his right hand and her left hand touched briefly as they turned toward each other, so close that he smelled her perfume or cologne, something light and airy and springlike. The scent
compounded his confusion and embarrassment. “Sorry” he muttered, aware of her mouth slightly open in surprise, her eyes startlingly blue, the blue of a child’s crayon. Flustered, he stumbled away, cheeks flaming, disgusted with himself, swearing silently, damn it, damn it. Was his cover blown? His face known, his anonymity gone forever? He wondered as he left the store whether he should risk following her again. If he didn’t, how would he ever meet her? The question surprised him. Why should he want to meet her? Shrugging the thought away, he headed for the parking garage, eager to get home, to seek the solace of the bottle.

Vowing to be extra careful, hoping she would not remember him, he followed her for the rest of the week. He refused to speculate about why he continued to observe her. Did not want to figure out his motives or reasons. All he knew was that she gave a purpose to his afternoons. He was pleased by the sight of her, the way she mewed, her habit of touching her hair lightly now and then, her head tilted slightly.

On Friday, he knew that he would not see her again until the following Monday and he took more chances, shortening the distances between them. Then drew away, afraid of another encounter. Yet wanting an encounter.

Standing on the second level, he saw her come out of Miss Emily’s Styles below. From this distance, she seemed forlorn, lonely, abandoned. An immense pity welled in him.
I told them she gave me the key,
Harry Flowers had said.

Getting on the escalator, he floated pleasantly downward. He glanced up as he prepared to step off the bottom step, saw the girl across the lobby looking hesitant, as if she were wondering what to do next. More than hesitant, sad.

That’s when he tripped and fell. Did not really trip. The trick knee that had kept him out of basketball suddenly gave way as he stepped off the escalator, went all hollow on him, and he was propelled forward by the moving step, falling finally as if from a vast height, his nose brushing the tile floor, his elbow singing with pain as it struck the floor. Humiliated as he lay on the floor, wondering if his nose was broken, his arm aching as he raised his fingers to touch his nose—was it broken, bleeding?—he was relieved at the absence of blood. Disgusted, however, he did not raise his head, did not want to look up and see anybody, especially the girl, as he felt a crowd gathering, feet scuffling, heard murmurs and a clear child’s voice saying:
He faw down.
No blood, nose intact. He opened his eyes and saw the small forest of legs around him and began to protest, as he muttered, “I’m all right, I’m all right, my trick knee,” rising slowly by degrees, his nose numb, checking it with his hand, still no blood, his elbow still ringing with pain. Shamefaced, cheeks pounding, trying to ignore the faces around him, some sympathetic, others amused, old people, young people. He was surprised at the size of the crowd and looked to where he had seen the girl standing. She was gone. He breathed a sigh of thanks. Maybe she had not seen him fall so ingloriously, maybe had turned away before he went crashing to the floor.

“You okay?” A security guard in cop’s uniform frowned as she regarded him, waving off the small crowd at the same time.

“Sure,” Buddy said. “My trick knee.” The words echoed in his mind as if he had said them a million times in the last few minutes. Maybe he had. “I’m fine,” he assured the guard, wanting to get away. Walking away, in fact, even as he said the words, but carefully, not wanting to fall down again, second time in three minutes.

Responding to a sudden urgency for fresh air, grateful that his knee had righted itself and that he was barely limping, he headed for the nearest exit, aware of the eyes of the gathering at the escalator following him.

The air on the sidewalk was pleasantly bracing and he inhaled sharply, rubbing his elbow as if the pain could be eradicated that way. His nose was still numb but did not seem broken. He touched it tentatively.

“Does it hurt badly?”

He turned at the voice and saw the girl standing there, Jane Jerome, frowning, face tender with concern.

More blushing, more blood bouncing around in his cheeks. “It’s okay,” he said. “My trick knee.” Damn it:
my trick knee
again. Shame suffused him once more as he realized she had seen him fall down so stupidly, after all.

“I fell down once, too,” she offered. “My first day at Burnside after we moved there?” The curl of a question mark at the end of the sentence touched her words with beauty. “My heel broke and here I am, in a new school, right, and I start off by falling down in front of everybody….”

Rubbing his elbow, listening to her voice, looking at the lips speaking those words, Buddy Walker fell instantly and irrevocably in love with Jane Jerome. At exactly 2:46 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in May at the Mall in downtown Wickburg.