Riding the Bus With My Sister: A True Life Journey (13 page)

Everyone seems at ease, which makes sense. In the drivers' room, there are no rainstorms or demanding timetables or passengers squabbling about fares. "What soap opera?" I say to Jacob. "This place is pretty nice."

Jacob says, "Believe me, it ain't always so peaceful."

With an almost imperceptible nod, he beckons me into the corner. "If you knew what this room has seen. Guys come in here, they gripe about the union, they gossip about each other. Some of them can get pretty hot under the collar."

He talks about drivers attacking company policies, whispering rumors of their colleagues' infidelities and financial troubles. "But that's not all that gets folks going. Sometimes," Jacob says and sighs, "it's Beth."

"But she's not doing anything," I say, as Beth delivers her card to Karl for signing, asking him about his slipped disk.

"Well, some of us are her defenders, and some..."

And some, I know, thinking of the stories she's already told me, rail on about her when she's not here. They mock her chatter, get on a soapbox about her joblessness, and grumble about the way she, and some other riders, require extra personal attention.

Jacob's words, and Beth's stories, conjure up what I've learned is a typical scene: One of Beth's foes is grousing about her, casually stirring up others. The complaining escalates into a quarrel when one of her protectors speaks up on her behalf, then ratchets up even higher when, moments later, she is spotted shuffling off a bus toward their sanctuary. The angry guy bounds to his feet, fuming at the plate-glass window, and if that doesn't cow Beth into retreating, he seizes the door handle so she can't let herself in. At this point Beth sometimes does leave, but sometimes plants herself in the parking lot outside and heckles him back, until her enemy is enraged and red-faced, shaking his fist.

Clearly, not all the drivers are professors and dreamers. But just as clearly, it seems to me, Beth could handle her adversaries better.

Earlier, when she was gloating about a confrontation in the drivers' room, I'd said, "Maybe you could give them some privacy in here. It
is
where they relax during the workday."

"I'm not hurting
anybody.
There's no reason I can't go in."

"Then maybe you could tell them you're sorry you've gotten them upset in the past, but you'd like to work things out now."

"I'm not sorry," she said. "They're
jerks.
I don't say I'm sorry."

So the bad blood goes on. In fact, about six months ago, a particularly stressful confrontation occurred.

A few new drivers had just come on board. For Beth, such events are momentous occasions. Throughout the weeks of training, she'll peer around corners to get a look, bursting with questions for anyone who's met the newcomers. Are they nice? Fun? Good-looking? The bosses, she knows, will be singing her praises during training, saying, "If you worry about making a wrong turn when you get started, there's this young lady who rides all the buses. She knows all the drivers, all the routes, all the times and checkpoints. She'll make sure you don't get lost." Beth will keep a vigil at the postings outside the dispatcher's office, and when they change every Saturday at noon for the following week, she'll run her small fingers down the list, searching for unfamiliar names. Finally, one will appear, listed beside the assigned run. The next Monday, she'll dress in her most glorious purple, paint extra layers of magenta and tangerine on her toenails, arrive at the appointed corner early, do a foot-to-foot shift in time to some inner countdown, until—there! Riding over the hill in a shiny silver steed, destination banner flying: a new face, a new voice, a new birthday card recipient waiting for her at the top of the steps, where this uninvited fuchsia squiress will assist him the rest of his way.

Beth may never have heard of King Arthur, but she understands chivalry. So as the weeks pass, she observes the new drivers' courtesy to herself and others. Then, the subject choosing her lord, she will adjust her travels accordingly.

But sometimes, these quests do not fare well. "New guys come in," Jacob confides, "and think they can look good, take her to dinner, be nice—and then they can't stand her anymore."

Six months ago, Beth became besotted with a new driver, Henry. He's a fortyish, broad-shouldered, broadly smiling guy, and, with his brown hair, bronze-tinted skin, and slight Hispanic accent, he reminds me of Desi Arnaz. After his bus training, Henry would walk with a sprightly step across the drivers' room, clapping other drivers on the back. Out on the road, he'd sweep up to a stop where Beth was waiting, proclaiming, "Beth, my darling!" He told her, "Me and you, we're like a stamp and an envelope, like peas in a pod. You're my riding buddy. You should win the Golden Steering Wheel Award." She instantly granted him a slot in her Top Ten.

Every day, Beth climbed bright-eyed onto his bus, primed for an hour of conversation, of feeling loved and indispensable. They were two loyal companions, venturing through the world, slaying dragons, or tilting at windmills, or whatever they pleased—what did it matter? They were filled with stuff and possibilities, and they were together.

The one hour on his bus slid into two, the two into five.

Maybe somewhere in their travels, Henry longed to say, "Hey, all's well and good, darling, but could you give me a breather now and then?" Perhaps he was too tactful to be as direct as Rodolpho had been, or felt guilty because he'd encouraged the collaboration.

Only after three months did he begin to object. He was in the drivers' room one evening, packing up to leave, with no one else around. Beth knew this; that was why she'd stopped in. As Beth tells the story, he said to her, "Beth, sweetie, the bosses just asked me into the office. They've been getting calls from some passengers who are complaining about you talking to me."

"They
have
?" Beth said.

"And," he went on, "the other drivers are growing jealous about how much you're choosing me over them."

"They
are
?"

"And a lady yesterday said, 'Every time your little missie gets on the bus, you never ask her for a pass. Maybe she doesn't have one this month—'"

"I
do
have one. And so
what?
Iz not her bizness."

"I don't understand why people do what they do, but I think you should know that people are talking." Then he got up and, with an apologetic smile, made his way to his car.

"Iz
wee-ard
" she mused to other drivers when she drifted onto their buses the next day. After all, even the surliest of riders were not routinely phoning the bosses about her conversations with the other drivers. And why would the drivers give even one thought to her time with him?

The drivers heard her out. Some said, "He's making up stories." Some said, "Henry's a good guy, so what he says must be true." Some said, "True or not, just lay off for a while."

"Well," she concluded, "if he wants me to stop he'll tell me to stop." By noon she'd jumped onto his bus as if nothing had happened, and didn't notice that she chatted more than he.

The rest of the story, I learned from other sources. One day, when Beth was elsewhere, Jacob entered the drivers' room to find, among the quiet crowd, Henry sitting there on break. Jacob called over to his table, "I hear you're having trouble with Beth."

Henry set down his newspaper. "I can't take it," he said.

At this point the truth is up for grabs. All I know from speaking with people who were in the room at the time is that Jacob and Henry briefly commiserated, then exchanged words, and then things somehow got so heated up that Henry jumped out of his seat and Jacob strode toward him and soon voices were bellowing and the other drivers in the room were saying, "Hey, guys, settle down, take it easy." The two moved closer anyway, glaring, jabbing fingers...

Another driver leapt to his feet, put his arm around Jacob, and then everyone calmed down. In the morning, both apologized.

Days passed. Unaware of the argument, Beth rode on, brushing off the quietness in Henry's voice and the distance in his eyes. But she knew something had changed. She wrote me letters about it.

To Sis.

Hi. Henry told me to Play it cool for a While that's what he said. No I said. some of it okay. I can't Wait to see you. I hope by theN Henry should be back. to his own self.

Cool Beth

To R.

Hi. Henry told me agaiN. Henry is diffrnce. He will get Back to his own self. I hope soon.

Cool Beth

But whenever we were speaking and the topic of Henry came up, her normally blaring voice would get slight and wispy, as if she was coming to the heartbreaking realization that someone who had once cared about her no longer did. I'd heard this bleakness in my own voice when I'd suffered some rejection, and I tried to tell her what I'd learned in life: how, just as she spots birthdays far ahead, so too can she learn to spot trouble before it arrives.

"Beth," I told her, "sometimes when we like someone a lot, we push harder than they can take, like you did with Rodolpho. Sometimes they try to tell us differently than Rodolpho did, but we just don't want to hear. This is why you might need to set limits for yourself with Henry."

In her small voice she'd repeat her refrain, "Henry will tell me when he wants to." I pointed out that he had, tactfully. But she insisted he had not. His wishes hadn't been blunt enough for her to hear, or accept.

I wanted to protect her. I wanted to take her by the hand and show her, as Merlin showed the young boy who would become King Arthur, that if you fly above the world like a hawk and look down, you will see that there are no boundaries between countries, and that might make you think that there are no boundaries between people. Yet there
are
boundaries between people, trust me, Beth: invisible lines that separate what you want from what they can give, borders you need to respect.

I imagined emotional devastation, Beth needing my support for months. I did not realize that she had other people who could take her by the hand, and that one of them would ultimately get through.

But that, I later learned, is what happened. Every night she discussed Henry with Jesse. In fact, for some time it was all she talked about during their nightly phone calls, and during the moments when they lay beside each other in bed. Jesse is an attentive listener, offering advice only when it's asked for. Whether this restraint results from his generally subdued personality, his slowness with speech, his southern gentility, or their trust in each other, I don't know, but for a decade Jesse has listened devotedly on the phone, and lain comfortingly beside Beth, as she has filled him in on the pinnacles and valleys of her life. There were a few occasions early on when her babbling and not-taking-no-for-an-answer manner got to him; he threw things around. Then his aides had long talks with him about controlling his temper, and ever since he has listened to and supported Beth, and when he's had his fill, he gets on his bike for another sixty-mile ride.

"Leave Henry be," Jesse finally advised in his drawl, "till he decides to come around."

So I received her final letter on the subject:

Dear Sis,

I give up. I don't know about Henry. Oh well. That's His lost. Not my.

Cool Beth

Now, as Jacob and Beth and I stand at the plate-glass window, facing the yellow forsythia down by the employee parking lot, Henry rolls up in his bus. He jumps out with the engine running, and jauntily makes his way toward the drivers' room.

Beth regards him from our lookout. Then she pockets the birthday card and says, "I'm ready to go," her voice resonant once again.

Well, I think, maybe she arrived here slowly, but here she is, having survived the pain of a friendship that went bad, not dwelling on the past as she sets out into the future. Perhaps she is dreamily adventurous, sometimes impractically so. But Beth is no mere knight's servant. She is directing her own adventure. She might seem at first like Sancho Panza, but she is really Don Quixote.

We wave farewell to Jacob and the drivers, and she pushes open the door. Then we stride out, passing Henry, and mumble an indifferent goodbye.

Beth says, "Play it again.
"

I say, "You've already heard it fifty times. What's so special about Donny Osmond?
"

"
Play it.
"

"
Which side?
"

"
One Bad Apple.
"

"
That's not a side, it's a song. This is a forty-five, so there's an A-side and a B-side.
"

"
Don't be mean. And do a puzzle with me, too
."

"
I don't want to do puzzles. I don't like puzzles
."

"
I like puzzles.
"

"
I know. You're the Jimi Hendrix of puzzles.
"

"
Who?
"

"
A famous guitarist
."

"
Donny. Play Donny.
"

I sigh and reach over to the portable record player sitting on her bed with us and pick dust off the needle. I know how to do things like pick dust off a needle now because I'm in junior high. I know how to roast a chicken so it's ready when Mom comes in from work because she says we're too old for babysitters. I know how to do a spitfire twirl with my baton (but I can't catch it as well as Laura catches hers). I know how to ride my bike to the five-and-ten with Max. I know that Beth likes "Puppy Love" while I like "People Are Strange.
"