After the War (16 page)

Oh God, how trite I am, thought Cynthia. I am truly, utterly banal, I cannot stand myself (no wonder Derek is not in love with me). Roosevelt dies and I weep for my father, who was a mean old drunk, actually, and I have a big sex dream of Derek, who is also mean. I can’t stand myself! she thought again.

Out in the early, still faint sunlight, beyond the white dotted-swiss ruffles of Cynthia’s bedroom curtains, the new-bloomed flowers, mostly white, surrounded the barely lapping waters of the pool—from this distance, Cynthia’s distance, like a wreath. A May Day wreath, although it was only April, April 13, which was a terrible day, so far.

Could Harry be dead?

No, he could not, Cynthia firmly told herself. Things do not happen in that symmetrical way, bad things do not come in threes, nor in twos for that matter. She added things up a little vaguely, not quite daring to count specific events.

Or maybe Derek was dead somewhere, wherever he was?

Appalled then, shocked and frightened by her own line of thought, Cynthia jumped briskly out of bed and headed into the bathroom where she turned on the water for her bath, adding an extra dollop of scented salts—although she knew that self-pity deserved no reward, or extravagant comfort.

Breakfast, however, was better. For one thing there was Odessa. And fresh orange juice and coffee and hot rolls.

“Oh, Odessa, I was afraid you’d be back at Miz Bigelow’s again today.”

“Oh, no’m.” A pause. “Miz Bigelow, she’s real upset. So upset over Mr. Roosevelt even if it seemed like she never held with him, with his ideas before, and the things she said about his wife. But she came home from this drive she took and she say how she had seen Mr. Byrd, Mr. Russell Byrd what’s dead in Texas? And then she say of course not Mr. Byrd hisself but that little old boy, that Graham.”

Odessa delivered herself of this—for her—longish monologue while passing through the swinging doors between the dining room and the kitchen, walking with her own unique highly personal mixture of haste and delay, which gave an odd rhythm to her speech.

“Dolly thought she saw
Russ
?”

Somewhat confused herself, still, from waking to such dreams, Cynthia did not grasp all this about Dolly.

“Yes’m. She thought was like in a dream, there she was out in the rain in that little old car. Thinking on Mr. Roosevelt, and there was Mr. Byrd, and him dead too.”

“Odessa, I had the most terrible dreams last night.”

Odessa’s whole face seemed to grow wider, and to brighten. She and Cynthia had got into the habit of exchanging dreams, and usually she was sympathetic when bad ones were announced. But at that moment she said, “I had me this real good dream. Dreamed Mr. Harry come home.” She added, more softly, “And then Horace too.”

Cynthia stared, genuinely amazed. Much more than in her own dreams she believes in Odessa’s dreams. Odessa’s dreams are far less frequent and are flimsier than Cynthia’s crazy dreams are, and Odessa’s quite often come true. A week before Russell Byrd died (or got killed, or whatever, with that Negro soldier), Odessa had a terrible dream that Russ was in a fight, and she wouldn’t even tell Cynthia how the end came out, not
until there was the actual news of Russ, and then she covered her face with her hands, and she said, “I swear before the Lord, I never tell another dream.” And she hadn’t, not until today, until this good dream of Harry. And of Horace. So that now for several minutes at least, Cynthia was really happy, thinking of Harry, of Harry back at home with her—and the war all over and everything okay.

But then she thought that of course, after all, Odessa’s dream might not come true for months and months, or even years—and even if it does mean that Harry is all right (and can all Odessa’s dreams be so accurate, really?), Roosevelt would still be dead, and Russ (not that she cared about him so much anymore; still, it had been shocking: a body once as close as humanly possible to your body, now cold, and gone). And Derek was still off God-knows-where, very likely with Someone Else.

Go jump in the pool
. That is what her father would have said, if he were around. So what if it’s cold, still April?
It’ll do you good, toughen you up
.

And her mother: There’s nothing like really really cold water for the skin, it’s better than any astringent.
Marvelous
. You won’t need a face-lift.

Cynthia shivered, and gulped hot coffee, and she wickedly thought, Well, it’s good they’re not here.

And she wondered again if Harry’s theory about concrete swimming pools was right, that keeping them full of water all winter prevented cracks. Maybe that was true in Connecticut, but not down here.

An hour or so later, acting on an impulse not unlike her father’s “Go jump in the pool,” Cynthia was in her car, and
somewhat formally dressed, with a flowered straw hat and very clean white gloves, and driving, full of purpose, toward Hilton.

For in that hour she had been seized by an idea, or rather, she herself had seized on a plan that, instead of deflating, gets better and better as she thinks of it: she will go to the law school there, the law school at Hilton instead of Georgetown. No need at all to live in Washington after the war. And indeed, why didn’t she think of that before?

Actually, Cynthia observes to herself, she has been overcome by the weather, the quintessentially lovely April day, more beautiful yet as it slowly and softly moves toward high noon, gently warming, with an infinitely subtle brightening of light. The needles on the pines that line the road are a vivid green, eroded red clay banks are moist and slick, and the creeks that she crosses, on narrow white concrete bridges, are a pale swollen sandy brown, swift, with their cargoes of flimsy trash, the winter detritus of dead leaves and broken-off twigs and branches. Cynthia opens the car window to the highest, slightest breeze, which just barely ruffles her hair as she thinks, Oh yes, I’ll go to law school at Hilton, and Harry and I will stay on in Pinehill and be happy almost forever, after the war.

On the Hilton campus mimosa was everywhere in bloom, trees hung with pale red-edged powder puffs among the lacy green leaves. Cynthia, having parked near the old stadium and asked for directions—and noted how extraordinarily young the students all looked—headed along white hard-gravelled paths (among all those almost-children) toward the law school, a large prim brick building whose white steps she ascended, and walked down a wide dingy corridor until she reached a sign: “Law School Office.”

Where she found, seated behind a desk, as though she belonged there—of all people, Abby’s old friend, the daughter of Irene Lee and poor dead Clifton, little Betsy Lee. A perfect small blond girl, with tiny perfect freckles across her tiny, retroussé nose. And a too loud, flat-accented voice—as though, Cynthia later thought, she assumed that anyone old enough to be a friend of her mother’s was probably deaf. Which Cynthia, who at forty-five usually felt more like twenty-five (which is closer to what she looked), was not, not deaf at all, and for that matter not a particular friend of Irene Lee’s.

“This old friend of my daddy’s got me this wonderful job,” Betsy explained as Cynthia remembered hearing from someone—no doubt it was Dolly—that poor little Betsy had managed to flunk out of Sweet Briar.

Cynthia said, “How nice,” and then she explained, “I guess I want to see someone about admissions. To the law school.”

A simple enough statement, but Betsy looked as though Cynthia had made an outlandish proposition. But then some light seemed to dawn on her face—the wrong light, as things turned out. “Oh, you mean Abigail’s changed her mind
again
? And here I thought she was all settled up at Swarthmore with her nice Jewish beau. From the nicest family, she said. Real interesting people, and smart, of course.”

“No,” Cynthia firmly interrupted. “As far as I know, Abby is still very happy at Swarthmore, and she is with Joseph a lot of the time, and she certainly doesn’t want to go to law school. She’s very determined to be a doctor. But I do, I want to go to law school. Here.”

“But—” But you’re much too old, grown-up ladies don’t go to law school, or any other school, just a few girls in any
graduate school. Betsy’s face and her sudden staring silence said all that, in marked contrast to her noisy voice, and much louder in effect.

And so Cynthia further explained about Georgetown Law, her acceptance there and her decision to postpone—as, simultaneously, she thought, Why am I explaining anything at all to this dim baby girl? She hurried to finish. “So I think I’d like an appointment with the dean.”

“Well, Dr. Montague’s up to Nags Head, where they’ve got this lovely home. For Easter. He’ll be back—oh, come next Tuesday.”

“Then could I please make an appointment?”

Betsy’s fixed smile persisted, as did her cast-in-concrete point of view; you could hardly call it an idea. She said, “But, Miz Baird, this year there’s not but five young coeds in the whole law school, and Dr. Montague’s said as how two of them anyway just might flunk out.” (Clearly she liked this possibility.)

And you, you little moron, you just managed to flunk out of Sweet Briar, not an easy thing to do—Cynthia managed not to say. Instead she stood up and announced, “Well, week after next would be most convenient for me. Could you send me a note as to time?” She very much doubted that Betsy could, and decided to manage for herself on the telephone. She could easily pass herself off as an old friend of Dr. Montague’s, from somewhere.

Driving back to Pinehill, on that ravishing April day, Cynthia thought of—she vividly remembered their first drive down to Pinehill from Connecticut, she and Harry with little Abigail in the backseat of their old (but terribly smart) wood-bodied Caddy. How young and hopeful they had been, and
how broke! (They and the whole nation, all in their thirties then.) And how beautifully flowing the gentle land had looked.

And her mind had been full of memorized lines from Russ Byrd’s poetry, Cynthia recalled, with a small sad private smile, adding: And my heart full of lust, for Russ.

Oh
shit
, she in a summarizing way added vaguely: no wonder things turn out as they do.

What she least wanted, Cynthia realized as she approached her own house, was to be in that house, right then. On a quick impulse she turned her car, and headed in a direction that led out of town. Toward The Pines, where she had not been since that fateful night with Derek—and which at this hour should be very quiet, very likely no students, quite possibly no one there at all.

As she drove she was still thinking with some irritation and amusement (less of that) about silly stupid Betsy Lee, and the whole business of the subtext: “Nice girls don’t go to law school, and certainly nice grown-up ladies don’t.” Well, Cynthia announced to herself, in that case all the more reason. I’ll go to law school in Hilton, and I’ll be the best lady lawyer around (for surely that is what she would be called). I’ll be the best around, the best lawyer, and maybe less of a lady.

At The Pines there were only a couple of cars in the parking lot, to which Cynthia paid scant attention, only noting the number. She walked in, observing the curious brightness of early-afternoon sunlight on the varnished, pine-finished tables and benches, and the walls of the narrow booths. Seeing no one around, she settled into a booth near the front, across
from the cash register where, presumably, there would soon be a person in charge.

She lit a longed-for cigarette, and in an idle way she looked around at the gaudy neon-tubed jukebox, the big framed photos of giant football stars from Pinehill and from Hilton—from other days.

She noticed then, somewhat less idly, that there was a couple in one of the booths, down and across the room—who were, as the phrase went, all over each other. Necking. Students, in the spring, Cynthia surmised; rutting season. She noted then the man’s blond hair, at the same time seeing the woman’s long rich brown, and her broad fat shoulders, in a flowered dress.

It was Deirdre Byrd, and the man was Derek. Of course.

Frozen there, her blood chilled, Cynthia thought, I could get out of here before they’d know I saw them. However, just at that moment the owner of The Pines padded over to her, small and plump, in his dirty white apron, his foolish face expectant. “And what might be your pleasure today, young lady?”

Speechless, Cynthia stared at him—a character in the nightmare unfolding before her, her own nightmare, and one that was familiar to her: Deirdre and Derek McFall kissing, there in a booth in The Pines, in broad daylight. And then this minor actor offering her food.

Not wanting to hear the sound of her own voice in that room, Cynthia whispered, “Just a little tomato salad, please.”

But she had forgotten to give it the local accent, toe-may-toe, and so the small fat man repeated it as she had said, “Oh, toe-mah-toe salad. Coming right up.” Very loud.

Of course they had heard, Cynthia stared down at her
ashtray, the table, at her knees. As she began to hear what she had known would come next, the quick steps of Derek, approaching, as, behind him, Deirdre was heading into the ladies’ room.

“Well,” Derek said, “such a surprise—” His hand outstretched, his smile just faintly ironic. “I’m doing some more Russ Byrd interviews, and we nipped out for lunch.”

“Oh really.” Cynthia for an instant grasped his hand, and she smiled too, and her smile lied, as his had. Her smile told him (it must have) that she had seen them kissing, but also said (and this was the lie) that she didn’t care.

It was all like a play that she herself might have written, or a dream she had dreamed. Her own nightmare.

Of course a minute later Deirdre was there beside Derek, freshly made up, in a tight pale pink sweater, with pearls. The two women remarked on how well the other was looking, how they really must get together.

It was an unbearable, understandable, quite horrible small exchange.

Cynthia cut into it, abruptly asking, “What’s ever happened to that Negro soldier? The one with Russ on the train when he died?”

Derek answered. “Very interesting. He got clean and clear out of that little Texas jail, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since. There’s a rumor that he was let out by some of his own people, who didn’t want to see him lynched. Oddly enough.”