Some Other Town (10 page)

“Margaret,” I say. And we shake on it.

He smiles very big, relieved. It is a wonderful smile, broad and true, and I think well we are going to be all right here. He cannot have a murderous heart, this Ben Adams. He is only as uncomfortable in this gallery as I, and it would do us both good now to leave. This loud room and its swarm of faux student artists are wearing on both of our nerves. We have had our fill of faux artists, I will say to Ben Adams over coffee.

We end up at the truck stop in town. Well actually outside of town, just off the highway that skirts our town limits. It's the only place I know that serves coffee this late, although it will not be good coffee, I warn Ben. They leave the pot sitting on some warmer all night, probably since the truckers first stop for their dinners. Truckers are notorious for their early dinners.

The place is empty when we arrive, and we take the big corner booth. The waitress doesn't mind, she tells us. It's not like she's expecting a big party to walk in and need to sit here or anything. She says she is not even sure why they put in a booth that sits eight if you squeeze in a little, considering most people, well truckers, usually come here alone. Unless maybe they've brought a buddy along to sit in the cab beside them. Or a wife, she has seen that too. But it's not like they come here to socialize, those truckers, mostly no one sits in this booth.

“Except young couples like you two,” she says. Then she tells us now don't mind her, she'll just be in the back. We can help ourselves to a refill, it's free. And she gives us a wink, like she has seen us before, she knows we want to be alone.

Ben thanks the waitress, he makes it sound like he means about the refills. And when she is gone he says, “Sorry,” as though it is somehow his fault the waitress thinks we're together. Then he takes a big drink from the mug she has left him and smiles and tells me, “Good place,” as though I have chosen it especially for its coffee.

He is a kind man, this Ben Adams. He does not mock waitresses, there is that. I lift my mug in a little salute and give him a big smile back.

Ben sits, takes a look around. “Funny about truck stops,” he says. “You only go to one when everything else is closed. Which means you don't normally go at all. But they're OK, truck stops. Quiet.”

“Big improvement,” I say. What I mean is over that storefront. “What were those art students thinking?” Renting a one-room store for a show? And then inviting all of their friends. There was not even enough space for the paintings, let alone all their guests and dates. “Those artists need to be more selective,” I say. And then I tell Ben how before urban renewal, a man used to sell magazines in that shop. There was just enough room for a few newspaper racks, some postcards, and a back counter for wind-up toy dildos.

“The Dead Eye,” Ben says. “I remember the place.”

“You do?” I look at him. “Funny, I don't think I have seen you around.”

“No, I mean I remember from before. When I was a student here.” Ben gives his coffee a stir. “A long time ago.”

“Oh,” I say. “Student.” And I look at him and try to think would I have known him then. But Ben is older than I am, I can see that. We could not have been here the same time.

“In art,” Ben says, and gives me a little smile. “When I was a graduate art student.”

“Oh,” I say again. And try to think what I have just said about graduate art students. How much I have already offended.

“You're right, by the way, about too many paintings. We did it too, we all painted like madmen then too. Like somehow it mattered. Like people needed to see what we saw.”

“Well,” I say, just to make it clear, “that's all right. Painting is OK.” I do not say how I once painted too. “I just do not care much for the shows,” I say. “Too hot, too crowded.” And without meaning to I give a grim little scowl.

He smiles again. “Your friend's idea?” Like that's why I came, like I have a boyfriend in the art department so I had to come too.

“His idea,” I agree. And then “Ford,” I say. “His name is Ford. He asked me to come because his date didn't show.”

Again Ben looks surprised. I did not need to go into detail.

“So, what brought you out?” I say, adroitly changing the subject.

Ben smiles and says oh just a whim. He was downtown, he saw the poster, he thought he'd drop by. Maybe see someone from the old days. “But I didn't know anyone. No one at all.”

He reaches for one of the packets of sugar the waitress has left for us. Spins it once on the table.

“No, I mean what brings you to town?” I say. I am now just making conversation. The sugar-packet spinning I have seen before and it is making me nervous. Men do this I've noticed on first dates. Not that this is a date. It is just something I have noticed.

Ben goes on spinning the sugar. Then he looks up and says well,
that's kind of a long story. “I'm teaching some art classes here. Painting, oil and acrylic. Normally, I teach somewhere else, but I swapped with a painter from here. It's a program they have, lets you try out a new place for a year.” And then he tells me he's renting a farmhouse a few miles out of town. That this summer he started a garden.

“OK,” I say. Like I agree with him.

OK? I am not making sense. But I have just now noticed something new, a major point I had previously missed. And I sit now staring, off balance.

The editors, I notice, have gone silent. They sit at the table all waiting for me. I look up, Lola gives me a quick nod to the side, and I snap back to attention. Frances has returned. She has something new now to discuss, it seems, something important and unrelated to romance. She is ready to get down to business.

Shifting forward, she catches us in her reptilian bead and clears her throat for our attention. “You know,” she says, striking a casual tone, “I heard from the Personality today.”

The Personality? We at the table give a collective gasp. Hearing from the Personality can never be good. We all of us lean in.

Frances, gratified, continues. “She called to say she had heard from Steinem that our catalog was out—that our new readers would soon be available. And she wondered if she could get a review copy or two.”

Lola, jaw jutting, looks concerned. “No,” she says. “She didn't.”

“She did,” Frances says. “Calm as a cadaver, she asked for one of our books. That's what she said, ‘Oh just something from your catalog.' Steinem told her I'd help her out.”

“But—” Lola begins.

I shoot Lola a glance and nod in the direction of Celeste. And to distract us from going any further down this path of catalogs and upcoming readers, I join in and divert back to romance.

“The Personality,” I say. “Now there's someone we haven't heard from for a while. Isn't she overdue for a visit?” Then I lower my voice and, although I know it's not likely, say, “Oh my gosh, do you suppose she and Steinem are through?”

I whisper the Steinem part. He would not like us talking about him. Dr. Steinem is a private person, also annoyingly good-natured—a short, slight, bald man in his fifties, who, except for an overly large head that in some light makes him look extraterrestrial, appears to be entirely of no interest. He is not one, that is, to suspect of true romance. Which is why it's not known at the sanatorium proper about Steinem and the Personality. Specifically, about their affair.

Or so we suppose that is what it is, given we have no real proof. Still, almost everyone at the Project believes it's an affair that they're up to, going on now for almost a year, ever since Steinem first contracted the Personality to make audio tapes for our series.

I should explain that we call her the Personality, or sometimes the TV Personality, only as our little code, in case Dr. Steinem is near. Actually the woman is Miss MaryBeth Malone. She's a well-known figure in children's TV and hosts a national show in L.A. She is also well-known for marrying a famous old crooner revered
for his hits and a few feature films made during the Second World War. Most people would recognize the crooner and the name Miss MaryBeth Malone.

We have had visits at the Project from the Personality before, when she's flown in for one of the tapings. First she records at a university studio in town, then arrives by midday at the Project. The Personality is a small, handsome woman, probably pushing forty-five. Steinem himself, as mentioned, is small, and there's the matter of that large bald head. It is not clear what the Personality sees in him. But when he comes out to greet her in the fourth-floor foyer, and they stand there together, short and beaming, we all have to admit how much they appear the perfect little, if aging, wedding-cake couple.

Not that we then see much of them. Always they spend the rest of the day off in Steinem's office, always with the door firmly closed. The editors and I cannot say, therefore, we have in any way got to know MaryBeth. This does not in the least, however, keep us from disliking the woman.

Lola in particular seems to hold a grudge. It is, we all think, because of the crooner, that the Personality is cuckolding him. Lola has a thing for the crooner, possibly even a crush. She is, and points it out often, probably the man's number one fan. She has seen all his movies. She has each of his records, even the early hard-to-find Christmas ones. Long before the Personality came on the scene, Lola has been on the old crooner's side.

“You can tell about a man by his work,” she says. “You watch a few of his films, you listen to any of his albums, you hear him sing ‘O Come All Ye Faithful'—it just breaks your heart,” she says. She cannot forgive the Personality for what she is doing to him.

Actually, Lola takes an interest in the crooner not just from his movies and albums. She tunes in as well every early December for his television Christmas special, with the crooner and MaryBeth and their grandchildren. Well, actually, Lola says, MaryBeth and his grandchildren by a previous marriage. He wed MaryBeth later in life, she is twenty years younger than he and also happens to look great on camera. Together, they put on a fine show every year. The crooner always dons a red wool knit sweater and sings a few songs by the fire, with cutaways to MaryBeth listening sweetly nearby, fulfilled in the season of joy. MaryBeth is good at looking fulfilled, and when the camera moves in for a close-up, she has a way of tilting her head and contentedly closing her eyes that makes you think she might really love the old crooner.

The show moves on then, Lola says, and when her husband has finished another carol or two, there's usually one more cut to MaryBeth, this time with a book in her lap. The camera pulls back to show this, to show how she sits by the family's tree, her full-length taffeta red-plaid skirt spread out strategically around her. And then smiling and dropping her eyes to the page, she begins reading a Christmas story, something short and generally moving. She looks at the camera, Lola says, and pauses after most of the sentences.

Frances interrupts. “Yes, of course,” she says. “We know all about that show, Lola. It was the Christmas show that sold Steinem on her.” And then Frances quickly runs through the rest. How Steinem liked the way MaryBeth read by that tree. “Good pacing,” he said. “The woman can certainly enunciate. Just the ticket for our new tapes.” And then he gave her a call at her studio, offered her grant money the next day. And within
the week, MaryBeth arrived here at the Project to negotiate her contract with Steinem.

“Negotiate, right,” Lola says. And then says what all of us think, that most likely the affair began right then, MaryBeth's first day at the office. “It does throw a new light on the Christmas special,” she adds, sadly shaking her head.

Frances coolly watches Lola. “Well, that may be,” she says. Then straightening herself and getting back to the point, “But now the Personality wants to read our readers, don't you see?”

She turns, looks sharply at me. “Margaret, we must talk.” And when I stare back at her like I have no idea why and try for a bemused sort of smile, she adds, “About that little secret of ours.”

Secret? Good lord. I can't believe Frances brought up our secret. And in front of Celeste at that. It is something we don't speak of in public. Frances has got to know better. And I look at her now and I hold my smile dead hard on her.

The students grow restless. They rush to paint, they do not first try to see. He knows he must stop them, slow them down.

He points them to paintings he was taught to teach. He brings in museum slides, throws images large and grainy on the walls. Stand back here, he tells them. Soften your gaze. Do you see?

This one, he says. Cathedral in morning light. The cathedral, its great doors, yes, but it is the light that you see. It is that
one early morning. Look, he says. Do you see? Even now it is there, rising from that wall, the ghost light of that one day just beginning.

Imagine, he says. To paint light.

They stare. They do not understand.

He walks to a window, opens it wide. Then here, he says. Look. Look here. He points to the line of oaks just outside, the great oaks that circle their building, shielding it from the river.

Look. What do you see?

Trees, they tell him. Oak trees. Branches. And leaves. Black branches, black-green leaves.

Look harder, he says. What more?

Sky? someone says. There's sky.

He nods. And?

They stand, looking.

And light, he says. Do you see the light? There through the branches, through all the leaves, there. The trees are on fire with that light. It is the light that's to see, not the trees.

They look. They do not see a fire. They do not even know what they are looking for.

One day, he tells them, you will. When you are thinking of nothing at all, you will look up and you will see the light in the trees.