Ida shivered and stirred. “How could anyone ever sleep with all this chatter buzzing in her ears?” she asked.
“It lives and breathes,” June told Bob. “It walks among us.”
Ida suddenly was awake and upright in her seat. She looked all around her, as if she had forgotten where she’d been sleeping. She said, “Where is my Baby Ruth? I want it.” And June, wincing, took a breath and told her friend, “As I was just explaining to young Bob, here: we are prepared for melancholy, but we must also and at the same time steel ourselves against the likelihood of sorrow.”
THE BUS PULLED OFF THE HIGHWAY AND ONTO A PATCH OF DIRT SEPARATING the pavement from the ocean. The driver cut the engine and Bob could hear the wind coming off the water, buffeting the bus’s exterior; he could hear the even sound of the receding waves raking pebbles down the shore. June was looking to her left, away from the sea. “There it is,” she said.
The Hotel Elba was built up in the Victorian style, rounded shingles, a covered wooden walk along its facade, a conical tower rising from its southernmost aspect. The tower held itself at a slant, its weathervane bowing in what looked a gesture of deference or bashful welcome; actually the tower, along with the rest of the hotel, was sinking into the ground. Bob thought the hotel was handsome but hungry-looking. It must have been very grand once.
“Mansfield,” the driver called out.
From the vantage point of the bus Bob could take in the town in its entirety, two roads sitting in the shape of a T, the highway, and a road running east and into a darkening forest. The sun had not set but the storefronts along the highway were closed for the day, or forever. Up the road, Bob saw a movie theater and a diner, both apparently open for business, but not a soul about to take part in either experience. June stared at this somber portrait, saying nothing. A light came on above the bus driver’s head and he made a notation on a clipboard hanging off his dash.
“Mansfield,” he said again.
He opened the swinging doors and a stiff wind poured in, traveling the length of the bus, disturbing each passenger in his or her turn and annoying the dogs, who growled at the unseen force. Ida’s and June’s hat feathers were bobbing as they stood to gather their things.
The driver exited and stepped to the rear of the bus, opening the hold to attend to the baggage. There came a thump from outside and Ida, craning her neck to look out the window, said, “He’ll break the guillotine, the fool!” Taken by a panic, Ida and June hurried down the aisle, with the dogs at their heels, and Bob following after the dogs. There had been no discussion about his presence among them but he thought to keep on until he was told in clear language to stay away. He slunk from the bus and stood at a distance, watching the driver unload the baggage while the women pointed out this and that bag’s fragility while also explaining the man’s many mistakes to him. The baggage was stacked in a tall pile and Bob took refuge behind it.
The driver lingered, dabbing at his face with a hanky and looking up at the women expectantly. Perhaps he thought them wealthy eccentrics, and that they might bestow some outsize gratuity upon him. But time passed in silence and the women did not offer the driver any cash bonus or even a kind word, and so he tucked the hanky away and returned to the bus, flopping into his seat in a gesture of petulant defeat. In a moment he sat up straighter, as if inspired; turning the key in the ignition, he started revving the engine and dropping it in and out of first gear while standing on the brake, actions that prompted a backfire, a voluminous black cloud of burned soot that surrounded both women, who coughed and sputtered and waved their hands to chase the smoke away. The bus driver tooted his horn and eased the bus back onto the highway; June, cleaning the grime from her face with her handkerchief, said, “Credit where it’s due, Ida. The man knows his instrument.” Ida stood motionless, seething in place, and she couldn’t speak, or didn’t. Meanwhile, a joyful-looking man with one arm stepped out of the Hotel Elba and crossed the highway to stand before June and Ida. “Good evening, good women!” he said.
“Mr. More,” said June, inspecting her handkerchief. “What is your news?”
“Just that I was minding my business at the front desk when I happened to look up in time to see the pair of you engulfed in a plume of exhaust. Can you imagine my surprise?”
“I can imagine it,” said June. “I should think it was probably quite a lot like our own surprise, only not nearly so unpleasant.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. More. He pointed his chin at the place where the bus had been. “It looked as though he meant for it to happen, was that your impression as well?”
“That’s right.”
“And what transpired, to bring the driver to such a vengeful place? I do hope that your talent for friendshipmaking has not left you?”
“Not totally, no. It has become, I will admit, less reliable. Or perhaps it is that there are fewer we wish to be friends with in the first place. Your own talent for observational clevernesses is still evident.”
“Yes, I’ve hung on to it. I keep thinking it might become suddenly useful someday. It is a weapon against the rest, is it not?” He brandished an invisible sword and made his face warlike, slashing on the air. Now the sword vanished, and his face resumed its kinder attitude, and he asked, “What would you say to a nice bowl of soup?”
“Perhaps not on the highway,” June said.
Mr. More turned to face Ida. “Hello, Ida.” When Ida did not reply, Mr. More observed, “Ida isn’t speaking at all, is she?”
June said, “She has had a long day.”
“We all have had one.”
“Ours was uncommonly long, Mr. More.”
Mr. More said, “Take comfort, strong Ida, the day is near to passed.” But Ida was voiceless still. “Do you think she’ll resume speaking in time for rehearsals?” Mr. More asked.
“She will speak sooner than that or I miss my guess.” June began cleaning Ida’s face with her handkerchief.
“I can’t recall what Ida’s feelings about soup are?”
“Our feelings about soup are that we enjoy it, Mr. More, but not to the degree that we wish to discuss it quite so much. And, that you have brought up the soup twice before we have even entered the hotel does not fill me with optimism at the prospects for our success here.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because I know you, Mr. More. If you are so aggressively pushing an appetizer, then there is likely not so very much behind the appetizer.” She pointed at the hotel. “Why is there no playbill in the front window announcing the coming performances?”
Mr. More began shuffling his feet, and a look of alarm came over his face. “Well, now, I have something to say about that actually, June.”
“Will you admit to us that you have not had the playbills printed?”
“I repeat: I have something to say. Why not let me say it?”
Ida made a clearing-the-throat noise and spit onto the highway. This was a gesture made to command the attention of the group, and the gesture was a success. Said Ida: “You obviously have not had the playbills printed, Mr. More. As such, there must be very little public interest in the performances scheduled to commence four nights hence. In this way you have broken our contract, of which I have a copy on my person. Shall I show it to you? Shall I bring your attention to the clause regarding a kill fee? Perhaps you’re telling us our run will be canceled. Well, what a disappointment that would be to us. We four living beings, we four creatures, who have been toiling in our rented rooms for several months now, months that we’ve been tinkering, preparing, inventing, destroying, and building up again, in spite of illness and irregular heating and an unspeakable communal toilet situation, and with no per diem offered by you, our own private savings hurrying away, Mr. More. The show must go on, they say, and a fine saying it is — a fine theoretical sentiment. And we are troupers is that not so, June?”