Authors: Elizabeth Collison
Possible, that is, but not likely.
So I give it more thought, I stare at the dark house, I consider the time of day, and what is likely, I think, is that Ben Adams is still at school teaching. Or painting somewhere by himself. Or then again out running errands. Danger? Errands? Just now there is no way to tell. There is only the fact that Ben is not here. And I have come all this way for nothing.
I shift back into gear and turn around. And as I make my way down the drive, I think how my plan for Ben still needs work. Specifically, it needs a timeline.
Well then, tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow I will try again. I will find Ben Adams tomorrow.
Thursday morning. Again I awake from the dream. Again I do not know what to make of it. Just now in the dream when I checked my side mirror for the angry large man in the van, I could see him as though he were facing me, standing not two feet in front, inclined at a threatening angle. I could see then his face swell and grow flushed, his teeth clench, his mouth stretch into a wide, mean sneer. And I knew he would scream anew at me, thrust a fist, offer something profane.
But as I watched, things took an unexpected turn. I could not at first tell what was happening. But when I looked again, I saw that his face had begun inexplicably to soften, to melt and then to run. His dark eyes dissolved into dagger-shaped stars, his mouth into a large flaccid oval. And his nose, which I had not noticed before, ballooned up to a great bloodred ball.
He began then to dance before me, spinning and waving his hands in my face, kicking a leg in the air. I stood blocked by his goofy, macabre clown dance with no room to go around, while
beyond I could see the truck from the dream beginning its climb to the bridge.
The clown spun on. “Stop,” I screamed, and tried to push past. But then laughing high-pitched and wild, he threw out both arms and grabbed me.
Far ahead on the bridge the truck started to skid. “Stop,” I screamed. “Stop.” But the clown held me tight, I could not break his grip. And as the truck began then to dive, he only held tighter, closer. “Saved,” he whispered. “You are saved.”
I watched the truck falling, again could not breathe. And knew the clown got it wrong.
But now something new from outside, a great sloshing sound, some ocean wave breaking. Now, first thing this early day. It is Mrs. Eberline again, I am sure of it. Up to her old senseless tricks even before I have got out of bed.
I rise, go to the window, look down for the telltale red hood. But I am too late, Mrs. E has already beat her crablike retreat and is just closing her front door behind her. I keep watch at that door, I have a feeling it is not the last of Mrs. E yet this morning. And in a minute or two the door opens again, and Mrs. Eberline scurries out carrying a large metal pail.
From my view one story above, I see the pail's nearly full, the liquid there foul and suspicious. I barely have time to wonder what now Mrs. Eberline has in mind when I see her break and
make a run for my yard. Then arcing the pail in a short backswing, she hurls its dark contents with all her coiled heart directly at my silver maple. Whatever it is makes a tsunami-like crash directly at center trunk, wildly splashing the grass below and leaving immediate black, parched craters.
Mrs. Eberline does not wait to watch this last part. She only snatches the pail back in close to her, turns, and runs for her side of the lawn. She is quick for a woman her age, for a hunched woman her age. She is back inside her front door before I can think to run down my stairs and stand outside in my nightgown, shrieking. Something I did early on living here, but that I have since reconsidered. There is no point in yelling, I've found. The damage is done and Mrs. E, it is clear, does not hold with remorse or restitution.
Still, as I've said, her forays of late have taken a more ominous turn. Always there has been some new attack. Just last week through my window, for instance, I watched her rush out of her house again, this time clenching a large glass jar. She held one hand clamped over the top and when she was clearly well past the property line onto my side of the walk, she turned the jar upside down. Then removing her hand from the opening, she shook the jar once, hard. Even from the distance of my second floor I could see what fell onto the cement. It was huge and black and multi-legged and had evidently been living in Mrs. Eberline's house. Looking up at my window to make her point, she stomped one foot down hard on the thing and turned, toe in, toe out. Then, wiping the sole of her shoe on my grass, she was off again running fast for her door.
Mrs. E is relentless, all right. Mean-spirited and confrontational.
Moreover, I have recently figured out, she is for the most part seasonal. The trick today with the pail, for example, is just some of her spring offensive, the dank liquid no doubt related to what she considers to be spring cleaning.
In fact even before her current blitzkrieg, in every season I have spent with her living next door there has been some new aggravation. I do not know how she thinks them all up. Late this past winter, for instance, I watched her carry an old cottage cheese carton out to her walk, just at the point where it meets mine. Then studiously ignoring my face at the window, she knelt by a small-lake-sized puddle and for the rest of the afternoon, scooping her carton and tossing, she fervently bailed the winter's last snowmelt from her side of the sidewalk onto mine.
Earlier, throughout the long months of snow here, she shoveled her whole front yard into a huge drift at my garage. She was the only one on our block this year with a grass lawn the entire winter.
And then earlier yet, in the fall, Mrs. Eberline struck again as I raked.
I should explain here that every autumn I do a great deal of hand raking. It is the silver maple again, it looms large in Mrs. E's life and mine. In autumn the tree sheds its flame-colored leaves in great abandon all over my grass, so every fall I am out cleaning up. And on one late afternoon as I was raking near dusk, as it was growing too dark to see, I heard a small scuffling noise close behind and knew again it was Mrs. E. Once more she had crossed the property line, no doubt up to something unnerving.
I turned, and saw that Mrs. Eberline was right behind me,
bent at the waist, digging with both hands deep into the leaves. She was searching the pile I had just raked together, throwing its leaves back out onto the grass until in fact there was no longer a pile. She had been following me as I raked, she had been following me it seemed for some time, judging by the now former piles.
“Mrs. Eberline!” I said. “What are you doing?” Which I should have known better than to ask. It is never a productive question. Mrs. Eberline usually does not answer, and regardless, it is generally quite clear, if not plausible, exactly what she is up to.
What I meant to ask was “Mrs. Eberline, why are you doing this thing?” Which is of course even less productive, since if Mrs. Eberline has reasons for her behavior at all, most likely they are perverse, and nothing she plans to divulge.
So normally what I would have done at this juncture is move on from questions to commands. Size up the situation and say, “Mrs. Eberline, stop that. Now.” Which is exactly what I said then on that afternoon I found her digging in my leaves. But as Mrs. E continued to dig, “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” I ordered, my voice rapidly rising.
Mrs. Eberline looked up, then pulled something green and egg-shaped out of the leaves. “For the squirrels,” she said, and held out the thing for me to see. A walnut, still in its bright chartreuse wrapping. It is how walnuts look in the autumn, I knew, as I had a tree full of them in my backyard. They had begun to fall along with the tree's leaves, which evidently had Mrs. Eberline concerned.
She stood up. “For the squirrels,” she said again. She stuffed the nut deep into her trouser pocket and glared at me. I did not
miss her point, that I could be so thoughtless as to rake up these walnuts along with my fallen leaves, to then throw them all indiscriminately into plastic lawn bags while the squirrels of our block went hungry.
It would do no good, I knew, to explain to Mrs. E that it was probably the squirrels themselves who buried the nuts in these leaves. The walnut tree is a hundred feet back, it is not likely the walnuts could have found their way here other than via squirrel.
That day on the lawn, Mrs. Eberline stared up at me. “Think of the squirrels,” she said and shook her head in disgust. Then she turned back to the pile of leaves I'd begun, stooped, and without having to look, retrieved yet another walnut. Rising, shaking the nut up at my face, “We'll git you fer this,” she shouted, furious for her starving little friends. By which, I supposed at the time, Mrs. E had some fauna-like karma in mind. That the day would come when I myself would go hungry and the squirrels would have left not one walnut.
So then, these are the sorts of things that can happen if you live next door to Mrs. Eberline. She will have the thought to rush out of her house and hurl something toxic at your maple. Or in a frenzy she'll dash again to your yard and thrash through your piles of downed leaves. She may do this because she thinks you won't catch her. Or because she thinks that you will. I myself have no patience for either.
Besides which, just now I am late to work. I have the morning bus to catch. But as I hurry out my door and head for the steps, I am stopped by what lies there spread-eagle. A young squirrel, roadkill no doubt from Mott Street, lying face up, mouth agape.
A note scribbled in crayon lies to one side, “SAVE BEN!” blasted across in block letters. Then at the bottom, in a small crabbed hand: “Before it's too late, missy.”
Sometimes now at night he cannot sleep. He wanders his farmhouse, looking into all the rooms. Stands, tries to remember what he is after. Tries to remember his heart beating, the sound of the floor at his shoes.
This farm, the house, his class and night studio, they will not be forever, he knows. Soon they will end, and thenâ
He climbs to the cupola, looks, steps out onto its narrow wood platform. Its widow's walk, that's what they call it. A name from New England where a century ago houses on ports had roof walks. Early morning, whalers' wives stood up on their walks watching the ships disappear, knowing they'd be gone a full year. And when it was time, they climbed back to their rooftops to wait for the white sails returning. Waited then days, sometimes forever, those young wives on their widow's walks.
Standing there on his own narrow walk, looking out at the dark sky, he imagines himself onto one of those ships, a large clipper with three sails billowing. The thought makes him long to set off. And high up then on his roof, he closes his eyes, feels the journey begin. Feels himself climbing great waves of the night, slipping silently down the other side.
While I do not much take Mrs. E's note to heart, on the bus into work this morning I renew my resolve to again go find Ben today. Right after I take the bus home at four. Even sooner if I can manage it.
But when I arrive at the Project, I can see it's going to be another full day. The series editors are all milling about in the hallway, excited and talking loudly. “Margaret,” they say as I pass through them. “Just look. You'll never guess.” They hold their breath while I ask, “Yes, what?” Then they all watch as Lola, waving a note, fills me in.
That is, first thing this morning in our Project mailboxes was a small card in Sally Ann's hand. It is how she and Bones like to communicate. When possible they prefer just to write. This note today said only that Sally Ann thought we might like to know: Today the first-grade early readers have moved on to words of two syllables.
The editors watch me take in the news. They want to make sure I understand. After months of preliminary outlines and notes, Sally Ann is at last multisyllabic. Her first storyâ“On Slippers and Zippers.”
It is a momentous day for first grade. And as I open my door and put down my purse, Mr. Bones calls me to Sally Ann's suite. Sally Ann and he want to hurry their new story to production, they'd like to start right away, they want to consult on the layout. Primarily, they say, they're concerned for the art, that it rise to the two-syllable challenge.
Bones and I are at odds on how to proceed. I tell Sally Ann the illustrators will have trouble with this story. That is, I am not concerned about the slippers, I tell her. There are a lot of different slippers to draw in the world, the illustrators will have a good time with those slippers. It is the zippers that concern me, I say. It is not easy to draw riveting zippers.
Bones nods his cereal bowls, says yes, he understands. He is himself concerned the story could turn out dull. But then consider the alternatives, he says. If we take out zippers, what are we left with? Really there are only clippers and flippers or possibly dippers. We cannot very well include strippers, he says.
And here he bangs his head into Sally Ann's shoulder and the two have a little laugh. Actually, Bones laughs and laughs, he is beside himself now over strippers. He says how maybe they could do a whole unit on slippers and strippers. Or better yet keep the zippers, they could call the unit strippers and zippers. Now there was an idea for the illustrators.
Bones laughs until he is snorting.
Which is only a small example of all that is wrong at the Project. And why we keep a secret. The secret I mentioned, the thing here the editors and I have to hide. Well at least, that is, the first half of it.
For this is the truth: We are just not any good at what we do here. In terms of both temperament and talent, we are all ill-suited to our jobs. To an editor, the editors cannot edit. Nor do they know how to write. I myself have no interest in paste-up. I am a bumbler at page imposition. Even Marcie is not much of an administrative assistant or wild about assisting in general.