He asked others.
“Oh, you mean Delli,” a pale blond boy said. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Was she in school today?” Peter asked, looking around him at other girls, distracted. “I’m supposed to … it’s my job to drive her home.” Someone laughed.
“She hasn’t been in school since Wednesday or Thursday, if I’m not mistaken,” the pale boy said officiously, his delicate face sustained by the pleasure of self-acknowledged superiority. A small group, mostly girls, had assembled around Peter.
“She was in on Thursday,” a girl’s voice reported, “but she’s been out since then.”
“Where has she been?” said Peter, the question hurled at the group like an accusation, as if Delilah’s absence were the result of their conspiracy against him.
“If you’ve been hired to drive her, as you say, you ought to know,” the pale boy said.
“Delli is sick,” someone said, a short girl behind a taller one.
“We all know that.” The pale boy tittered.
“Shut up, you creep. I mean, she’s really ill. Delli is …”
“Don’t be so maudlin,” the boy said, winking at Peter. “You’ll make us all cry.”
“What’s the matter with her?” Peter spoke to his informant, an unbreasted robin with freckles and glasses. They walked down the steps together.
“I’m not sure,” the girl said in a confidentially reverent voice, as if they were standing at the sickroom door. “I spoke to Delli’s mother on the phone yesterday. They’re all very worried about her.”
“I see,” he said, worrying not seeing, haunted by premonitions of possibility.
“Delli told me all about you. My name’s Nancy, by the way.”
“My name’s Peter, Nancy,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
“What did Delilah tell you about me?”.
“Just that she knows you … that you drive her home. I really have to go now. I have a ballet lesson.” She extended her hand.
Peter shook the hand, returned it, offered Nancy a ride home, on the house — an opportunity to find out about Delilah — which she promptly refused.
“I couldn’t,” she said, looking away.
“Why not?”
“You know.” Her face reddening.
“What do you mean?”
“Delli’s my best friend. Good-bye, Peter.” A coy smile.
“What do you think’s the matter with Delilah?” he called after her — prettier from behind, he noticed — but Nancy went on, sighed, turned the corner without looking back.
For hours afterward, for the rest of the day Peter worried about Delilah’s illness (like, what does really ill really mean?), worried that it had been brought on by something he had done, or something he hadn’t done. He was vulnerable either way. And anxious.
So in the evening, concerned about Delilah, Peter decided to call her home to say that he was a friend from school, and inquire, as a friend might, about how she was, but once inside the phone booth he lost his nerve. Afterward, driving around aimlessly, he tried to make sense of his behavior. What was he afraid of? he wanted to know. The only answer that came to mind was Nancy’s insinuation: You know. But of course he didn’t. And he did. A woman he had never seen before waved at him. He smiled back at her. “Taxi, taxi,” she called as he passed her, and Peter looked around, surprised that there was no cab in sight. For a moment, abstracted, he had forgotten that he was driving one. He was sometimes haunted, sometimes forgetful.
Lois, coming up from the quicksand of a dream, had wakened abruptly during the night, caught in the grip of some dim terror, alone — Peter asleep, unavailable. And the dream, which remained only a shadow, returned to taunt her, repeating itself in her mind, against the knowledge of her will. A small girl again (almost, it seemed, a dwarf), she was walking on the boardwalk at Coney Island; a faceless boy, who reminded her of Stanley, was holding her hand. Carnival music blaring from a loudspeaker somewhere overhead. And fireworks in the sky like waves of light, like bomb bursts, like acrobatic clouds. “Is it the Fourth of July?” she asked her companion, who didn’t know. “It’s somebody’s birthday, I think,” he said. Then, among the explosions of firecrackers there was a louder noise; a real explosion, it seemed, shaking everything, water and sand spilling over onto the boardwalk, drenching her ballet slippers. Her companion said not to worry; it was part of the display. She wanted to believe him, but in front of them the boardwalk came to a sudden, jagged end, falling off like a cliff into nothing, into unending black space. And people, other couples, were walking blithely over the edge, some were even singing. Her companion began to sing, “Allons enfants de la patrie, vive la guerre, vive la guerre, vive la guerre,” which wasn’t the way it went. People around them cheered. What worried her most was that because of the explosion, there wouldn’t be any way of getting off the boardwalk. “Follow me,” her companion said, an older man now — and soon, without much difficulty, they were on the beach. It was lovely: the sand bone-white and gleaming, as though it were made of glass. And everyone there seemed to be in love with someone else, as if it were impossible to be there and not be in love. Her mother and father were embracing on a blanket at the water’s edge when a wave went over them. When the water receded they were gone. “Don’t panic,” her companion said, “people drown at the beach every day. It’s an ordinary occurrence.”
The next moment she saw her mother, waves buoying her up, floating like a log toward the shore. The man put his hand over her eyes.
“I want to see,” she said. “Please.”
“It’s better that you don’t know,” he said, leading her to another part of the beach. She tried to free herself of his hold, but he was so much stronger than she that there was nothing she could do; it was pointless to struggle — her fate, such as it was, in his hands.
He was stroking her hair, consoling her.
“I didn’t hate her,” she said, crying. “I didn’t.”
“No one’s blaming you, dear,” he said gently. He was holding her down, one of his hands inadvertently touching the inside of her thigh. He, her guardian, seemed to be undressing her — for what purpose? she wondered — when it struck her that she was being raped, by a man old enough to be her father. She tried to scream but no sound would come out, the sound of her terror knotted in her throat; she kicked him to free herself, hitting him in the neck with the side of her shoe. Afraid that he would attack her again if she gave him the chance, she continued to kick him until it was clear that he was helpless. Someone was coming. She ran. The water getting deeper as she went, impeding her progress. A voice calling to her, several voices, a police siren. She decided to turn around, to face what she had done — the enormity of it gripping her — when she awoke.
The more she thought about the dream — the dream haunting her against her will — the more frightened she became. She felt terribly alone, as if everyone she knew (or had ever loved) had suddenly died.
“Peter,” she said, leaning over him, “are you awake? Peter?” Shaking him. “Talk to me.”
He grunted, moved imperceptibly.
“Peter, help me. Talk to me. Please,” she begged him.
“Impossible to stop at every traffic light,” he moaned.
“Peter … please!” She knew, though she continued to shake him, that it was no use, that when he was like this, he was impossible to wake up. “I’m alone,” she said to his ear.
He rolled from his back to his side. “The traffic,” he mumbled.
“Peter, I need to talk.” He wasn’t there.