“…what they look like but…that’s all.”
“Sisters or brothers?”
“…didn’t have any.”
After silence he shook his head.
She shrugged.
He closed the book and searched for speech: “Let’s pretend—” and wondered what was in the block of writing below the lists—“that we’re in a city, an abandoned city. It’s burning, see. All the power’s out. They can’t get television cameras and radios in here, right? So everybody outside’s forgotten about it. No word comes out. No word comes in. We’ll pretend it’s all covered with smoke, okay? But now you can’t even see the fire.”
“Just the smoke,” she said. “Let’s pretend—”
He blinked.
“—you and I are sitting in a grey park on a grey day in a grey city.” She frowned at the sky. “A perfectly ordinary city. The air pollution is terrible here.” She smiled. “I like grey days, days like this, days without shadows—” Then she saw he had jabbed his orchid against the log.
Pinioned to the bark, his fist shook among the blades.
She was on her knees beside him: “I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let’s take that off!” She tugged at the wrist snap. His arm shook in her fingers. “Here.” Then his hand was free.
He was breathing hard. “That’s—” he looked at the weapon still fixed by three points—“a pretty wicked thing. Leave it the fuck alone.”
“It’s a tool,” she said. “You may need it. Just know when to use it.” She was rubbing his hand.
His heart was slowing. He took another, very deep breath. “You ought to be afraid of me, you know?”
She blinked. “I am.” And sat back on her heels. “But I want to try out some things I’m afraid of. That’s the only reason to be here. What,” she asked, “happened to you just then?”
“Huh?”
She put three fingers on his forehead, then showed him the glistening pads. “You’re sweating.”
“I was…very happy all of a sudden.”
She frowned. “I thought you were scared to death!”
He cleared his throat, tried to smile. “It was like a…well, suddenly being very happy. I was happy when I walked into the park. And then all of a sudden it just…” He was rubbing her hand back.
“Okay.” She laughed. “That sounds good.”
His jaw was clamped. He let it loosen, and grunted: “Who…what kind of a person are you?”
Her face opened, with both surprise and chagrin: “Let’s see. Brilliant, charming—eight—four pounds away from being stunningly gorgeous…I like to tell myself; family’s got all sorts of money and social connections. But I’m rebelling against all that right now.”
“Okay.”
Her face was squarish, small, not gorgeous at all, and it was nice too.
“That sounds accurate.”
The humor left it and there was only surprise. “You believe me? You’re a doll!” She kissed him, suddenly, on the nose, didn’t look embarrassed, exactly; rather as though she were timing some important gesture.
Which was to pick up her harmonica and hail notes in his face. They both laughed (he was astonished beneath the laughter and suspected it showed) while she said: “Let’s walk.”
“Your blanket…?”
“Leave it here.”
He carried the notebook. They flailed through the leaves, jogging. At the path he stopped and looked down at his hip. “Uh…?”
She looked over.
“Do you,” he asked slowly, “remember my picking up the orchid and putting it on my belt here?”
“I put it on there.” She thumbed some blemish on the harmonica. “You were going to leave it behind, so I stuck a blade through your belt loop. Really. It can be dangerous around here.”
Mouth slightly open, he nodded as, side by side, they gained the shadowless paths.
He said: “You stuck it there.” Somewhere a breeze, without force, made its easy way in the green. He was aware of the smoky odor about them for two breaths before it faded with inattention. “All by yourself, you just found those people in the park?”
She gave him a You-must-be-out-of your-mind look. “I came in with quite a party, actually. Fun; but after a couple of days they were getting in the way. I mean it’s nice to have a car. But if you’re rendered helpless by lack of gasoline…” She shrugged. “Before we got here, Phil and I were taking bets whether this place really existed or not.” Her sudden and surprising smile was all eyes and very little mouth. “I won. I stayed with the group I came in with awhile. Then I cut them loose. A few nights with Milly John, and the rest. Then I’ve been off having adventures—until a few nights ago, when I came back.”
Thinking: Oh—“You had some money when you got here?”—Phil.
“Group I came with did. A lot of good it did them. I mean how long would you wander around a city like this looking for a hotel? No, I had to let them go. They were happy to be rid of me.”
“They left?”
She looked at her sneaker and laughed, mock ominous.
“People leave here,” he said. “The people who gave me the orchid, they were leaving when I came.”
“Some people leave.” She laughed again. It was a quiet and self-assured and intriguing and disturbing laugh.
He asked: “What kind of adventures did you have?”
“I watched some scorpion fights. That was weird. Nightmare’s trip isn’t my bag, but this place is so small you can’t be that selective. I spent a few days by myself in a lovely home in the Heights: which finally sent me up the wall. I like living outdoors. Then there was Calkins for a while.”
“The guy who publishes the newspaper?”
She nodded. “I spent a few days at his place. Roger’s set up this permanent country weekend, only inside city limits. He keeps some interesting people around.”
“Were you one of the interesting people?”
“I think Roger just considered me decorative, actually. To amuse the interesting ones. His loss.”
She was pretty in a sort of rough way—maybe closer to “cute.”
He nodded.
“The brush with civilization did me good, though. Then I wandered out on my own again. Have you been to the monastery, out by Holland?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve never been there either, but I’ve heard some very sincere people have set up a sort of religious retreat. I still can’t figure out if they got started before this whole thing happened, or whether they moved in and took over afterward. But it still sounds impressive. At least what one hears.”
“John and Mildred are pretty sincere.”
“Touché!” She puffed a chord, then looked at him curiously, laughed, and hit at the high stems. He looked; and her eyes, waiting for him to speak, were greener than the haze allowed any leaf around.
“It’s like a small town,” he said. “Is there anything else to do but gossip?”
“Not really.” She hit the stems again. “Which is a relief, if you look at it that way.”
“Where does Calkins live?”
“Oh, you like to gossip! I was scared for a moment.” She stopped knocking the stalks. “His newspaper office is awful! He took some of us there, right to where they print it. Grey and gloomy and dismal and echoing.” She screwed up her face and her shoulders and her hands. “Ahhhh! But his house—” Everything unscrewed. “Just fine. Right above the Heights. Lots of grounds. You can see the whole city. I imagine it must have been quite a sight when all the street lights were on at night.” A small screwing, now. “I was trying to figure out whether he’s always lived there, or if he just moved in and took it over too. But you don’t ask questions like that.”