“I'm going to take a leave of absence from the college,” she had told Daniel on Sunday, when he was reading the newspaper. But hours later, when they were lying on opposite sides of the bed that tremendous elephant of the affair snug between them - he had brought it up again. “Maybe you shouldn't,” he said. She had looked at him carefully, not sure what he was trying to imply. Did he not want her around 24/7, because it was too uncomfortable? Did he think she cared more about her career than her daughter?
“Maybe it will help Trixie,” he added, “if she sees that it's business as usual.”
Laura had looked up at the ceiling, at a watermark in the shape of a penguin. “What if she needs me?”
“Then I'll call you,” Daniel replied coolly. “And you can come right home.”
His words were a slap - the last time he'd called her, she hadn't answered.
The next morning, she fished for a pair of stockings and one of her work skirts. She packed a breakfast she could eat in the car and she left Trixie a note. As she drove, she became aware of how the more distance she put between herself and her home, the lighter she felt - until by the time she reached the gates of the college, she was certain that the only thing anchoring her was her seat belt.
When Laura arrived at her classroom, the students were already clustered around the table, involved in a heated discussion. She'd missed this easy understanding of who she was, where she belonged, the comfort of intellectual sparring. Snippets of the conversation bled into the hallway. I heard from my cousin, who goes to the high school. . . crucified. . . had it coming. For a moment Laura hesitated outside the door, wondering how she could have been naive enough to believe this horrible thing had happened to Trixie, when in truth it had happened to all three of them. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the room, and twelve pairs of eyes turned to her in utter silence.
“Don't stop on my account,” she said evenly. The undergraduates shifted uncomfortably. Laura had so badly wanted to settle into the comfort zone of academia - a place so fixed and immutable that Laura would be assured she could pick up just where she left off - but to her surprise, she no longer seemed to fit. The college was the same; so were the students. It was Laura herself who'd changed.
“Professor Stone,” one of the students said, “are you okay?” Laura blinked as their faces swam into focus before her. “No,” she said, suddenly exhausted by the thought of having to deceive anyone else anymore. “I'm not.” Then she stood up - leaving her notes, her coat, and her baffled class - and walked into the striking snow, heading back to where she should have been all along.
* * *
“Do it,” Trixie said, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She was at Live and Let Dye, a salon within walking distance of her home that catered to the blue-haired set and that, under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have been caught dead in. But this was her first venture out of the house, and in spite of the fact that Janice had given her father a pamphlet about how not to be overprotective, he was reluctant to let Trixie go too far. “If you're not back in an hour,” her father had said, “I'm coming after you.”
She imagined him, even now, waiting by the bay window that offered the best view of their street, so that he'd see her the minute she came back into view. But she'd made it this far, and she wasn't going to let the outing go to waste. Janice had said that when it came to making a decision, she should make a list of pros and cons - and as far as Trixie could tell, anything that made her forget the girl she used to be could only be a good thing.
“You've got quite a tail here,” the ancient hairdresser said.
“You could donate it to Locks of Love.”
“What's that?”
“A charity that makes wigs for cancer patients.” Trixie stared at herself in the mirror. She liked the idea of helping someone who might actually be worse off than she was. She liked the idea of someone who was worse off than she was, period.
“Okay,” Trixie said. “What do I have to do?”
“We take care of it,” the hairdresser said. “You just give me your name, so that the charity can send you a nice thank-you card.”
If she'd been thinking clearly - which, let's face it, she wasn't - Trixie would have made up an alias. But maybe the staff at Live and Let Dye didn't read the newspapers, or ever watch anything but The Golden Girls, because the hairdresser didn't bat a fake eyelash when Trixie told her who she was. She fastened a string around Trixie's
waist-length hair and tied it to a little card printed with her name. Then she held up the scissors. “Say good-bye,” the hairdresser said.
Trixie drew in her breath at the first cut. Then she noticed how much lighter she felt without all that hair to weigh her down. She imagined what it would be like to have her hair so short that she could feel the wind rushing past the backs of her ears. “I want a buzz cut,” Trixie announced.
The hairdresser faltered. “Darlin',” she said, “that's for boys.”
“I don't care,” Trixie said.
The hairdresser sighed. “Let me see if I can make us both happy.”
Trixie closed her eyes and felt the hairdressers scissors chatter around her head. Hair tumbled down in soft strawberry tufts, like the feathers of a bird shot out of the sky.
“Good-bye,” she whispered.
* * *
They had bought the king-sized bed when Trixie was three and spent more time running from nightmares in her own bed straight into the buffer zone of their own. It had seemed a good idea at the time. Back then, they had still been thinking about having more kids, and it seemed to say married with a finality that you couldn't help but admire. And yet, they had fallen in love in a dormitory bed, on a twin mattress. They had slept so close to each other that their body heat would rise each night like a spirit on the ceiling, and they'd wake up with the covers kicked off on the floor. Given that, it was amazing to think that with all the space between them now, they were still too close for comfort. Daniel knew that Laura was still awake. She had come home from the college almost immediately after she'd left, and she hadn't given him an explanation why. As for Daniel, she'd spoken to him only sporadically, economic transactions of information: had Trixie eaten (no); did she say anything else (no); did the police call (no, but Mrs. Walstone from the end of the block had, as if this was any of her business). Immediately, she'd thrown herself into a tornado of activity: cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming underneath the couch cushions, watching Trixie come back through the door with that hatchet job of a haircut and swallowing her shock enough to suggest a game of Monopoly. It was, he realized, as if she was trying to make up for her absence these past few months, as if she'd judged herself and meted out a sentence. Now, lying in bed, he wondered how two people could be just a foot of distance away from each other but a million miles apart.
“They knew,” Laura said.
“Who?”
“Everyone. At school.” She rolled toward him, so that in the plush dark he could make out the green of her eyes. “They all were talking about it.”
Daniel could have told her that none of this would go away, not until he and Laura and even Trixie could get past it. He had learned this when he was eleven years old, and Cane's grandfather took him on his first moose hunt. At dusk, they'd set out on the Kuskokwim River in the small aluminum boat. Daniel was dropped off at one bend, Cane at another, to cover more ground. He had huddled in the willows, wondering how long it would be before Cane and his grandfather came back, wondering if they ever would. When the moose stepped delicately out of the greenery spindled legs, brindled back, bulbous noseDaniel's heart had started to race. He'd lifted his rifle and thought, I want this, more than anything.