Some Other Town (20 page)

Rufus, the interviewer explained here for readers who hadn't been following the show, poor old Rufus was the show's real-life dog, a wolfhound-Airedale mix that throughout most of the show lay at the foot of MaryBeth's chair. Rufus got an occasional close-up on screen, but he was not often written into the script. The producers did not think much of Rufus. He was not a particularly talented dog and mostly on camera he just slept.

But we kept him in the show, MaryBeth said, because a consultant, a child psychologist, once told the producers he thought it
was a good idea, a real dog on a show like ours. With so many puppets around, a dog might help ground the children. And besides, the psychologist added, children like dogs. Rufus would help the ratings.

So the producers kept Rufus in the show, MaryBeth said, but they just had me pat him once in a while. There wasn't much reference to Rufus, except that sometimes the other animals were not awfully nice to him. They teased him a lot. And the new puppet Arnold complained that Rufus was really too slow for TV. He, Arnold, a rabbit without any legs, could hop whole circles around him.

I suppose Arnold was right, MaryBeth said, because when I started backing out of my parking place that day that Rufus followed me out to the lot and suddenly realized he was lying right behind me, I honked but he just couldn't get out of my way. By then, of course, I couldn't get out of his either.

It was extremely unfortunate for the show. We could not very well tell the children I had backed over Rufus in the staff lot. But luckily we had already thought up the Magic Forest. So of course, it was a simple thing to write into the next day's script that Rufus had taken up chasing squirrels, that he was last seen following one in the direction of the forest.

Naturally then, in a few days we received our first letter from Rufus. He had met up with Sampson and his wife, and as it turned out, Sampson was fond of squirrel chasing too. Every day he and Sampson went out after them. In the forest there were squirrels enough for all. Which is why, Rufus wrote, he thought he just might stay, although he sent his best to the children. He certainly would miss all the children.

And so there in an article you have it, I'd say. She is a dangerous person, all right, Miss MaryBeth Malone. We none of us at the Project like or trust her. Well, excepting of course Dr. Steinem.

The editors and I are now back in our suites, pretending to work at our readers while waiting for the Personality to arrive. But it does no good, we are all of us far too rattled, so that rather than wait for our usual break we all rush out early to the solarium. We stand in a circle at the coffee cart and pour ourselves full steaming cups. She is late, we say. We cannot imagine what has happened to the Personality.

And then as it nears ten-thirty, as we finish our second coffees and still wait for the Personality, abruptly Celeste has something to offer. In a pause in the conversation, apropos of nothing at all, again she brings up Emmaline. Last night, she says, she read once more about ghosts. It was helpful, she says. She picked up a few new ideas, specifically on how to get rid of them. Ghosts, that is, most specifically Emmaline. And Celeste would like now to tell us about it, she wants now to know what we think.

We none of us look at her or look interested. We are tiring of Celeste and her ghosts. We have other concerns, the Personality primary among them.

Frances says, “Oh well, Celeste, just do as you please. We trust you will make the right decision. I believe you were leaning toward compassion, correct?” And she adds then she's sure compassion
will work well, just so long as it's not expected of her.

Celeste leans forward, glad she has finally engaged us. “Actually, the thing is,” she tells Frances, “I've decided to move on from compassion.” And she says she has been thinking things over and how it just seems that trying to grasp why ghosts hang on is not actually getting her anywhere—with Emmaline, or with anyone here. “As far as ridding us of her, however, there are a number of other things we can do, and I for one would like to give them a try. But I thought someone else might want to weigh in.”

And Celeste offers up then what she's considering. “There is, as I mentioned, sage. Ghosts are not partial to it, you know. But the trouble with sage is you must burn it and force the smoke into each crevice and corner. It just seems like a lot of work, not to mention damaging to the lungs. So I read then a bell would do nearly as well, you just have to make sure, as with sage, that you ring it in all the right places, in closets and attics and crawl spaces. You have to be very thorough. The idea is to get the stale air, where ghosts prefer to hang out, moving again to discourage general loitering. One book even suggested vacuuming, if you did not happen to have a bell.”

Which sounded again to Celeste like a lot of work. As did hanging convex mirrors on each wall or scattering rice on the floor. “Although the latter involves an interesting theory,” she adds. For reasons it didn't specify, the book explained that most ghosts, when encountering grains of rice, feel compelled to stop and count them. And because ghosts, it is known, are generally not good with numbers, they frequently forget where they are in the count and have to start over and over. If you put out new rice every night for a week, ghosts, the book said, find the prospect so daunting they soon leave for a less complicated haunt.

And then, Celeste says, the book suggested laying lines of blessed salt at all doors, which ghosts are not known to cross over. Or painting the doors red (ghosts, the book said, abhor red). “But my favorite,” Celeste says, “is the shoes.”

Shoes?

“Yes, shoes,” Celeste says. Here too, the book offered options. One approach, she explains, would be for all of us here to place a pair of our shoes, toes pointed in opposite directions, outside our suite doors every night. The conflicting directions of all those toes would confuse any ghosts who stopped by, and eventually deter them from the floor.

But the second option is even better. Which is to gather a pair of shoes worn by a ghost when still alive and place them outside the door, both toes in this case facing forward. The message would be clear to even a half-aware specter, and by morning both the ghost and the shoes would be gone.

Shoes, you say?

“Shoes,” Celeste says, and smiles her knowing smile. “They give permission to leave, don't you see? They will say to Emmaline as nicely as we can that we are no longer in need of her services. She is free to take off and pass over.”

Like the others here in the solarium, I am weary of Celeste's Emmaline, I have not been particularly listening. Instead my thoughts just as yesterday have turned back to Ben, well, back to Ben and
me. Although it's a relief to see they have not returned to where we left off, that is to our unfortunate undoing. The threat of lunch with the Personality, I must say, is gloom enough for one day. So then, while there's still time before she arrives, a few thoughts here of Ben in happier times, little things I happen to remember.

For instance, Ben, have I mentioned, is a hiker. He hikes, he takes exorbitant pleasure in hiking. So this past fall that is what we did a great deal, we hiked, Ben and I, together. When we were not having dinner or iced tea in the grass, we would stand up and take a short hike.

Which at first was a problem for me, as I do not much care for going on walks. Except of course for my occasional turns about the sanatorium grounds, now in the spring for example, when the land is fragrant and fecund. Other places, other seasons, however, I would just as soon drive as walk.

But Ben is a hiker, irrespective of season. It comes, I think, from living so long in a Western state. It must be their culture, to get out and hike, to take on mountains and deserts if they must. No doubt it's from all that ruggedness there, the raw terrain, the pioneer spirit that Westerners feel obliged to maintain.

But here in the Midwest, we do not have such challenging landscape. The soft curves of our loess hills and alluvial valleys do not call a man loudly to nature. Still, in the time that I knew him, given the smallest opportunity, Ben would lace on his boots and suggest we go out for a hike.

I should mention Ben's hiking boots here. Ben owns a pair of good leather boots. They are wonderful boots all in all, the leather well oiled and worked in. Soft, lovely boots, but sturdy, reliable, well, something like Ben. They are impressive, these boots, and I
think now one day I will buy hiking boots of my own. They may change my perspective on hiking, for that matter on nature itself. It could be just a matter of footwear.

But because I do not yet own any boots, when Ben and I hiked this fall I would put on my old running shoes. And then sometimes we'd just poke along the river for a while or tramp through what we call here “timber,” small stands of tall trees, odd outcrops of forest, planted by homesteaders a century ago to catch prairie winds in their branches.

And then, when we had run out of river and trees, mostly what we'd do for our hikes was go out and check on the crops. That's what the farmers here say. When they want to get out of the house and leave whatever they should really be doing, they say well, they had better go check on the crops.

Slackers that we were all this fall, Ben and I, we did a great deal of crop checking together. With our eyes down, our sightline on furrows, it kept us from looking too far ahead.

And now Marcie has joined us in the solarium. She is worried, she says, the Personality should have been here by now. Marcie booked her flight here herself, it was supposed to have landed at eight, the taping to end by nine-thirty. But then before we have time to turn hopeful, to think maybe something went wrong, maybe Steinem took back his invitation or at last the old crooner got wise, the elevator doors open and there stands the Personality, resplendent in shocking pink.

The elevator is next to the solarium, there is only the hallway between us and so there is no escaping it, the six of us are caught huddled here with our coffees, idling. And for a moment we all just look back at the Personality, we just stand where we are and stare.

We are first of all, as usual on her visits, surprised at how short she is. We cannot get past it, how short the Personality appears, shorter than on TV. It must be all those puppets, we think, compared to those puppets anyone would look bigger on TV. But then today there is something new. What has got our attention just now is all that pink she has on. We cannot take our eyes off her ensemble—that bright pink linen coat in particular, voluminous and ruffled and tied at the neck with a bow that is really, we think, too young for her.

“Why hello there,” the Personality calls, which is also something new for us. Never before on her visits has the Personality actually managed to greet us. Dr. Steinem has taken up all her time. But today “Hello, hello,” she calls to us, her voice pointedly musical, and waves with the fingers of both hands. It is the way a preschooler would wave, and we know right there it's a sign. The Personality has spent too much time around children, she can no longer separate them from her. Or for that matter, them from us.

She steps out of the elevator, and walks toward us. And although she is short, although she is in fact a rather squat little woman, she is also, we can see it today, really still quite beautiful. Her skin is dewy, her eyes are a startling blue, her hair a soft honey blond.

For
Magic Garden
, we know, the Personality wears her hair
down long and wavy and many days she even adds ribbons. It is not becoming, we think, for a woman in her forties, well, mid-forties, to wear ribbons on a regular basis. But today, we see, she has pulled her hair back and up, very smooth. It shows off her bones to her advantage, she cannot have missed that fact. And although it's true her hair is generally blond, now on closer inspection we can see that in front she is letting it go a little gray. It makes her look like she knows what she's doing, this gray hair. We would be wrong to underestimate her.

“Hello again, dears,” she says to us warmly, although from the “dears” it is clear she has no idea who of us is who. And then getting right down to business, she lifts her chin and in a commanding voice announces she is here to see Professor Steinem. Would one of us be so good as to let him know she is here? She believes they had a ten o'clock meeting.

She says all this as though she buys it herself, that she is just here at last for their ten o'clock. She enunciates well, Dr. Steinem is right about her impressive elocution. And then when she is finished speaking, she settles herself down into a solarium chair, throws the linen coat off her shoulders, and smiles up at us calmly. As though she has all day to wait until someone brings her Professor Steinem.

We are all six of us still standing at the coffee cart staring. But then Marcie snaps to, says, “Oh yes, Miss Malone, I believe Dr. Steinem is expecting you.” Then she hurries off as though she isn't sure but will certainly go check the appointment book.

The rest of us excuse ourselves too, that is, we pick up our coffee cups and nod at the Personality. We say how, well, we'd better be getting back to our desks. And MaryBeth nods and
smiles up at us, still very cool, as though she thinks maybe we'd better be getting back too.

On our way to our suites, we see Dr. Steinem coming down the hall. He does not seem to be in any hurry, he even stops and says something to Lola, something about the second-grade art, how nice we're on schedule again. He is acting quite normal, I think. We are all of us extremely normal here.

And then once in my suite—I have left the door open, but then that is normal for me—from where I sit I can hear Dr. Steinem say, “Miss Malone, welcome. So good of you to come again.” After which, he shows her back to his office. It is a long walk, his office is at the end of the hall and they have to pass all of us on their way. So while they walk, Dr. Steinem tells the Personality loudly how he has an interesting project planned for her. Though he warns her it is a rather big project this time, several tapes, it may mean several more trips. He understands that she may have to think about it.