Some Other Town (25 page)

Again I consider, hesitate. The truck stop? I am thinking.
Where the waitress thinks that she knows us? And did Ben just now say “our booth”?

Ben gives me a near pleading look. And so while I am concerned at his choice of venue, “Sure, Ben,” I say. And I wonder then if maybe he's just hungry. I've known men to act strange when they're hungry. And I think well to tell the truth I am myself a little hungry, the movie has been a strain on us both, we could both probably stand to eat. The truck stop is open, it will be OK. Their service is quick, we can order their late night breakfast special, and maybe Ben will perk up after a hash brown or two.

But at the truck stop, it does not get any better. Ben sits without speaking, without looking at me. He waits for his eggs and plays with his fork, walking it in an oval before him.

“Ben,” I say. “I would like to apologize for William Holden. I do not know what went wrong tonight, but I do not think William Holden was acting his age. Really, you have not seen him at his finest.”

Ben looks up. He seems dazed, as though he has been somewhere else.

“Margaret,” Ben says, and blinks. “Margaret,” he says, and grasps for the words. “Margaret, I have been thinking. That movie just now has made me think.”

“Yes, Ben?” I do not like this new tone in Ben's voice.

Ben takes a deep breath. “The fact is, Margaret,” he says, “I could not take my eyes off that movie. It was like watching my life just now. You don't know.”

I look at Ben, I am concerned.

He takes another breath. “The thing is, Margaret,” he says. “I feel sometimes like William Holden.”

“William Holden?” I am surprised, I cannot say that I see it. And I worry now where Ben is headed.

“Well not William Holden,” Ben says. “I mean I feel sort of like Hal, that drifter, that guy that he played. I feel sometimes like I am just jumping off trains. I do not even know at what towns.”

And then Ben says he is sorry, he does not mean to burden me here. “But Margaret,” he says, “I have to tell you some things.”

I sit very still and nod at Ben. And I think how I am sorry I ever brought up William Holden.

“Ellen says she thinks I am lost, Margaret. She says the last few years I have been just kind of wandering.”

Ellen? His wife? Ben Adams has brought up his wife. This cannot be good.

I nod again. I do not know why.

“Ellen sees things sometimes, Margaret. She does not miss much.”

Ben looks down at his hands. He sits silent and sad and away. And as I watch, something happens inside me. I see for the first time how alone Ben is, and I do not think I can bear it. Ben Adams is good, he is kind, he should not be feeling so bad. And I find I am wanting to touch him, to tell him it will be all right.

I do not, because now without warning he looks up. He is suddenly urgent, he wants me to understand. “It is like this, Margaret,” he says. “When I saw William Holden just now kicking the dirt and making trouble because really he didn't belong—the thing is, I knew he was onto something. The only one in the whole movie who was, well maybe except Mrs. Potts.”

Ben leans forward, more urgent still. “But the point is, Margaret, William Holden was onto something. I mean the man was
alive. He was on the run and alive. And he knew that he wanted Madge Owens.” Ben takes a long breath. “And he knew that he had a chance.”

Ben reaches for my hand. “Here is the thing, Margaret,” he says. “As I watched him just now, I knew something too. I knew all that he was is in me as well. Inside, that is who I am.” Ben keeps his eyes steady. “It's only outside I teach art and I'm married and I live in a four-bedroom house.”

I look at Ben. I try to make sense of his words.

He slows down. “But Margaret, you must know. It's worse when you are all those things. Because you cannot just jump the next train out of town. And you know it is no good, you cannot go on staring and staring at Kim Novak, not when you are married to Rosalind Russell.”

He takes another breath, speaks more slowly still. “It just isn't fair to Rosalind.”

Ben lets go of my hand and looks down. He stares at the table awhile, then begins walking his fork toward its oval again.

I watch him, I consider what he has said. And leaning in closer, I catch his eye. “So, Ben,” I say. “Is there something you should be telling me? Is there something I should know?”

He sits, then begins to nod. “Yes, Margaret,” he says. “There is.” He keeps his head down, but I can tell. How sad again Ben Adams is.

“Don't you see, Margaret?” He puts down his fork and stares mournfully at me. “I think I am falling in love with you.”

Love? For a very long moment I just sit. Then, without knowing what I am saying, “Oh dear,” I say. “Oh my. Love?” I try to think. When did this become love?

Ben reaches again for my hand.

I give him a little smile, and feel my jaw clench, my face grow hot. Still I cannot think.

Ben stares and looks even sadder. “So here's what it is,” he says, and he tells me then he has been thinking about things a great deal, even before the movie tonight. “And I think I'm in love with you, Margaret. That's just it. I think that maybe I am.”

I sit very still. Oh no, I think. Oh no, no, no, no. This wasn't the plan. “Oh Ben,” I say.

I look at my hand lying moist now inside his warm grasp and think of what Ben has just said. I think then of Ellen, his wife, a woman I have never met. And I do not know what to do.

I sit, head down, watching my hand in Ben's. And after a while, “Oh Ben,” I say. “There has been a big mistake.” And then I tell Ben I would like to leave. I would like very much to go home.

I look back up at his dear, sad face. “It is late, Ben,” I say. It's too late.

He drives her home from the truck stop. He opens the door for her, tries to smile, then pulls out of the parking lot fast. Things are not going well. He has just said he loved her, that is he thought maybe he might. She has not said that she might love him too. And it is important to him now to get her home fast and mercifully out of his truck.

It is quiet on the ride back. She isn't talking. He can just see her from the corner of his eye. She only just sits in the passenger seat
and looks straight ahead at the windshield. And he knows now it was wrong, a mistake, saying what he did about love.

But it worked for William Holden, he thinks. In
Picnic
just now, it worked for him. William Holden had swaggered and bragged all through the movie, he called women babes, he drove honking and honking to Kim Novak's house, and when he danced, he swiveled his hips, held his arms out wide, and clicked his fingers at the dark. William Holden was letting out a lot of stops, he was pretty much letting himself go, and people in town clearly liked it. He was charming them all, you could tell.

And you could tell, he thinks, there was something more too. It was not just all charm with William Holden. There was something else on his mind. So he'd watched for it, and at the Labor Day dance, when Hal and Madge danced on the dock all alone, it happened. William Holden pulled Kim Novak close to his chest, he turned her hand in his, palm to palm, looked into her eyes, and meant every move that he made. So that, no surprise, late in the movie when it came right down to it, he told Kim he loved her, just like that.

William Holden risked it all, and then he told Kim he needed to know, did she love him too? He said you love me, baby, you know it. And then he kissed her for luck and jumped back on a freight train for Tulsa.

It worked out for William Holden, he thinks. That kiss sold Kim Novak, at the end of the movie you know it. She is going to go with him, she will join him in Tulsa, they will start a new life there in Tulsa. It will work out for Kim and William Holden.

And at Margaret's house, as he walks her up to her door, Now, he thinks. It has to be now. You have to go after it. You have to try.

He reaches for her, turns her so she is facing him, holds her hard by the shoulders. And then everything happens at once. It is like
Picnic
all over again. It is William Holden now doing all the sure talking and holding. It is that drifter in
Picnic
.

“I love you, Margaret,” he says. He takes a breath, tries to think. Tries not to say more. But before anyone can stop him, William Holden is at it again, swaggering in the old bare-chested way, saying, “You could learn to love me, Margaret. We could start our lives over. Begin.”

She blinks, opens her mouth to speak.

He brings one hand under her chin and tilts her head back so that he is staring now into her eyes. “I love you, Margaret,” he says.

And then he cannot say he knows anything more. But you have to claim what is yours, he thinks, and he puts both arms around her, holds her close, and feeling her warmth, kisses her full on the mouth.

It stuns him and leaves him reeling. But he holds on, closes his eyes, goes for a long one the way William Holden kissed Madge. And there are no thoughts in his head at all. He wants now only to stay here at Margaret's front door, holding this strange lovely woman, holding and holding and kissing.

“Margaret?” A sniff. A pause. Then louder, “Oh Margaret, Margaret. How could you?”

It's Celeste again, upset and about to go into a howl. I come to at the sound. I am not sure what to say. And I think maybe now we should change the subject, return to the departed Earnest. We should all show more concern for Earnest.

But Frances is at it again. “A valid point, Celeste, dear,” she says. “How could Margaret? Really we'd all like to know.”

I look at Frances, surprised. As if most of them didn't know already. Really, Frances should take more responsibility here.

But Frances is not yet finished. She takes a quick drag on her cigarette. “And how could Margaret get away with it?” she says. “That is another question we've had. Personally I've suspected it was only a matter of time before somebody found us all out. Actually, I've known it all along. People never get off free with anything, you know. I believe we're all finally in trouble.”

Lola says, “Well now, Frances, whoa there, girl. Maybe the Personality just thinks we're slow. You know, a little thick. Reluctant to ride our high horses. That's why we don't trot out our books. And even if the gal does think somethin's up, who says she'll say so to Steinem?”

Here Lola addresses us all. “It's just her word against ours, am I right? Maybe she'll think Steinem won't believe her.”

Frances gives Lola a long look. “And maybe we're all sittin' in tall cotton here too. Isn't that how your people put it? No, we're in trouble, that's clear. We'll probably all lose our jobs. And we have Margaret mostly to thank. It was Margaret who thought up not publishing.”

I should be defending myself here. “Wait a minute, Frances,” I say. “This wasn't all my idea.”

Slowly Frances turns her cold stare to me.

“Well, all right, yes,” I say. “It was my idea. But the rest of you thought it was a good one.”

Celeste still is not sure what's going on. “You mean we'll never really turn out a reader? But what about all that grant money we've had? You mean we have nothing to show for it?”

Here Bones is out of the purse and unaccountably grinning. “That's right, Celeste. You're getting warm.”

Now Lola looks worried. “So what happens if Steinem figures it out? Or one of them ol' boy grantors? Do we have to give the money back?”

“Yet another good question,” Frances says.

The editors as one turn to me again. In a flash, they see unemployment, and a possible lawsuit, looming. And by my hiding their flats, by my saving their jobs, it is all clearly and only my fault.

“Well so much for teamwork,” I tell them. So much for Steinem Associates, Unified.

And washing my hands of the editors in return, I go back to a last thought about Ben.

That night at my door, I do not remember expecting Ben Adams would tell me again that he loved me, that then he would kiss me the way that he does. It is not how we've been—there's been kissing, yes, but not like this—and it takes me by surprise. But before I can think that, what a surprise it all is, here is how the next part of the night goes.

Ben moves in to where I am standing, takes hold of my shoulders, and turns me around to face him. Then for a very long while there is only Ben Adams, alive and holding me tight. And oh my, I think. I cannot say how all this has happened, what exactly it is happening now. Suddenly Ben is here leaning against me, declaring his love and kissing me. How did this happen, I am thinking.

“Ben,” I say. “Ben.” But I cannot then think what else to say, and Ben goes on kissing me still. Until—could it be?—I feel a kind of shaking begin low inside. And oh no, I think, no. This is no time for trembling arousal, much as it might be for others. There are things we need to get straight, Ben and I. What is called for is focus, not lust. But before I can fully finish that thought, now I feel I am shaking in fact. Shaking and shaking, my whole body is shaking and won't stop.

I try to breathe, to gather some wits. What exactly is going on here? It isn't normal to shake so. And after more thought, what occurs to me is this is something much more than just lust. That given our history and Ben's marital state, then these abrupt declarations of love, what we probably have here is shock. Shock can do this to a body, can't it? Make one shake uncontrollably and even writhe.

Which is possible, I think, until I think then no, wait. No. And I feel again what it is I am feeling and think my god. No, this is fear. That's it. What I'm feeling is fright. I'm afraid. At which point I feel something new rise from below, a breathtaking, blindsiding panic.