Three Women at the Water's Edge (43 page)

Dale looked at her watch: Forty minutes had passed since Hank’s call. He would be with Leland now. Had they embraced? Had his heart jumped to see her? Whenever Dale saw Hank, as he entered her apartment and said a pleasant hello to Carol, or came walking up the sidewalk to the school, Dale always felt that someone had just slugged her behind her knees with a baseball bat; she nearly fell over with love every time. Would he feel that way on seeing Leland? My God, what if he did? And what if Leland felt that way, too? And what if she invited him up to her room for an intimate drink before dinner?

Dale started walking again. Hank had not said that he would call her when he got back from the dinner, and she had had too much pride to ask him. Every night for months now they had talked with each other on the phone the last thing before going to sleep. If they didn’t talk tonight, it would break some kind of spell, some kind of chain—oh, if he slept with Leland, Dale would just die. She would
hit
him if he slept with Leland, she would grab a skillet from the rack and whack him on the head with it, then shove him from her apartment and tell him never to bother her again. And then she’d sleep around and sleep around, just to show Hank—to show him what? For she did not want to sleep with any other man. She did not want to shove Hank from her life. But how could he be so insensitive? How could he not know how terribly he was hurting her? But what could she have done? She had too much pride to say: Please don’t go see her. Please don’t sleep with her. Please at least promise me you won’t sleep with her. How goddamned nonchalant he was. Was it possible that he did not realize that she would be jealous if he had dinner with an old girlfriend? Was it possible that he would not be jealous if she had dinner with an old boyfriend?

Dale crossed the square and began to walk down the main street. She slowed her pace, hoping the objects in the shop windows would distract her. Kites, books, medicine, crazy T-shirts, leather boots, toys, scarves: These objects and the glass and bricks and wood that surrounded them seemed less physically real and less spiritually necessary than merely the word that named her lover:
Hank
. Other people fell in love and lived through nights of jealousy, but how? How did one fight it off? With walking, or alcohol, or sleep? How did one make the time pass? How could she make the time pass until tomorrow, when she would talk to Hank, to find out if he had slept with Leland? How would she make this evening pass, when she was here, alone on an empty street in the spring, and he was there, in a hotel with another woman? Jealousy dogged her steps. She wanted to lean up against a storefront and sob against the cold reflective glass.

“Hello, Miss Wallace, how ya doin’?”

A kid on a bike—for a moment she could not think of his name—slammed to a stop in the street beside her.

“Hi,” she said, smiling. It was Benny, a dull sweet boy from one of her biology classes. He had terrible acne and crooked teeth; she felt suddenly sorry: Who would ever fall in love with him? “Isn’t it lovely that spring’s here at last?” she asked, and at the same time thought: look at me, I can still speak normally, he has no idea just what kind of raging maniac I am at this moment.

“Yeah,” Benny said. “I can’t wait till it gets warm and we can go in the ocean. And I really can’t wait till school’s out. No offense.”

“Oh, there you are!” someone called.

Dale turned: a pretty girl with her blond hair braided and tied with striped ribbons wheeled up on her bike and came to a grinning stop facing Benny. “Mom said just an hour,” she said to Benny. “I’ve got homework.”

“Okay,” Benny said to the girl, and to Dale, “See ya.” He turned his bike around and went riding off next to the girl, casually showing off by taking his hands off the handlebar and sticking them in his windbreaker.

Dale watched the two kids disappear around the corner, and when she turned back to the storefront she saw in the reflection of the glass that she was smiling. So even pimply little Benny had a girlfriend; oh, it was the way of the world. Something in her heart went out to them, and came back pleased.

Love was magic. It tracked her steps like a jealous beast, and then suddenly changed forms and came grinning along easily: two young kids riding on bikes. Perhaps the reason that Benny was so dull in class was that he was daydreaming about that girl, who had taken the trouble to tie pretty striped ribbons in her hair. “Save me, Benny,” Dale whispered, and nodded her head and began to walk back down the street toward home. She felt for a moment slightly lifted up out of herself, as if she were not for a moment quite human, as if she could see it all, the patterns of life. And they would save her, Benny and all the other students who came into her classroom and confronted her on the streets of the town where she lived. They expected her to be someone: Miss Wallace, a grown-up and teacher, competent and all of a piece, strolling down the street enjoying the fresh spring air. Dale had signed up for courses at the university in Portland for that summer and the next fall. She wanted to get her master’s in education. It had been suggested to her by Mr. Hansen, the school principal, and some of the other teachers that she should become a counselor because she worked so well with the students, because they liked her so much, and she so obviously liked them. She had been asked to chaperone all the dances and major school activities, and she had been pleased and complimented by their favoritism. Oh, she did like the students, they refreshed her so. They
would
save her.

No. She would save herself.

Dale walked quickly back to her apartment, jealousy still chasing at her heels, biting at her heart, but she kept ahead of it, determined. She went up the stairs as hurriedly as she had come down them, and once inside the apartment went immediately to the coffee table to pick up the tests she had to grade.

“Hi,” Carol said, “I made some popcorn. Want a bowl?”

“Sure,” Dale said. She took off her jacket, hung it up, gathered together her necessary papers and pens and gradebooks and settled down on the sofa to work. She read: “The two functions of the root of a plant are: 1. to anchor the plant to the ground. 2. to provide the intake of nutrients for the plant.” The student had given the right answers. So. She had taught him something, even if it was only how to study for a test. Jealousy danced about, waving enticing colors, just at the periphery of Dale’s vision, but she focused on the tests, on the clarity of the white paper, the strength of the black or blue ink, the solemnity of the answers. From time to time, as she stopped to eat some popcorn or record a grade, she felt jealousy teasing at her gnatlike, pulling her attentions away. Yes, jealousy was gnatlike, a pest, a carrier of pestilence, and although it stung at the edges of her mind, it flew in her soul. It originated in her very depths, in her stomach and heart; it bred right at the side of hope and love. It was the most destructive passion she had ever come across, for even now, as she held herself tightly together, forcing herself to work, forcing herself
not
to think of just what Hank was doing at this moment with Leland at the oceanside hotel, it stung at her with such force that tears came to her eyes. She bit at her lips, at her fingernails, at her hands. She chewed the erasers of the top of two marking pencils.

But she did a week’s worth of work in one night. She graded all the tests, recorded all the grades, and prepared lesson plans for the next week. By ten o’clock she felt both totally exhausted, from all the work and from fighting back the allurements of jealousy, and strangely exhilarated. She could not keep from looking at her watch, wondering if Hank were on his way home now, or if he had gone up to the hotel room with Leland. That worry, that fear, filled her with an unpleasant energy. Yet she also felt triumphant. She stood in the bathroom in her blue nightgown and robe, brushing her teeth, glaring at herself in the mirror.

“Congratul
ations, Dale,” she said to herself, grinning phonily through the toothpaste foam. “You made it through the evening. I’m proud of you. You deserve a great big scotch. Or maybe you’d better ask Carol for one of her magic pills. Or maybe she’d just better go on and knock you in the head and put you out of your misery. God, how will I get through the night? Shut up, Dale, you’re a big girl now, you’re going to go have a stiff scotch and crawl into bed and fall sound asleep instantly. No pills. Now shape up.”

“Dale?” Carol asked from the other side of the bathroom door. “I hate to bother you when it sounds like you’re having such a good conversation in there, but I thought you might like to know that Hank’s here.”

Dale was able to see in the mirror just how her expression changed at Carol’s words. Her face broke into the most stupid and delighted smile she had ever seen on anyone. Her knees went weak. For a moment she thought she wouldn’t be able to leave the bathroom. For a moment she thought: let me die right now while I’m so overcome with pleasure.

But she opened the door and went out into the living room. Hank was sitting on the sofa where she had spent her long grueling evening, and he smiled to see her come into the room.

“Hi,” he said, casually, “want to come out to the farm and spend the night?”

Dale still grinned, dizzy with relief at the sight of him, but she spoke casually, “I don’t know. Do I?” What she meant to say, but could not, was: Did you sleep with her? Did you kiss her? Do you love me? Can I trust you?

“You do,” Hank said, and crossed the room and pulled Dale against him. They stood there a moment, simply holding each other. Carol cleared her throat and said loudly, “Well, good night, everyone, I’m going to bed.”

“I’m in my nightgown,” Dale muttered into Hank’s coat.

“That’s all right, we’ll just be in the car and then the house, no one will see you. I’ll bring you home in the morning in time to get ready for school.”

“All right, then,” Dale said. “Let’s go.”

In the car on the way to the farm she managed finally to say it, as nonchalantly as she could: “Did you have a good time tonight?”

“Oh, it was all right,” Hank answered. “Leland’s a nice girl, though a little screwed up, and to tell the truth I don’t think she’s all that bright. But she’s pretty, and she’s very nice. We had a good talk. I told her all about you.”

“You did? What did you tell her?”

“Oh, what you look like, and what you do, and how you make me laugh, and how you’ve made me feel whole again, and how I love you, and that I want to marry you.”

“And what did Leland have to say about all that?” Dale asked. She had to turn her face toward the window.

“She thought it was a wonderful idea. She thinks you sound perfect for me. She thinks I should ask you to marry me.”

“I think I’d like to meet this woman.” Dale laughed. “We could be the best of friends. How could you possibly think she’s not bright?
I
think she sounds absolutely brilliant.”

“Is that a yes?” Hank asked. He pulled the truck into the farm driveway and shut off the engine and turned to Dale.

“A yes?” Dale asked. “What do you mean?” Although of course she knew what he meant, and went cold all over with an emotion that was not quite just fear. She had been so giddy with relief at the sight of Hank, so childishly pleased that he had spoken about her to another woman, that she had let herself chatter away senselessl
y—and now what did she want to do?

“I mean to the question of marriage,” Hank said, and took both her gloved hands in his, so that she could not turn away.

“Oh,” Dale said. “Wow. Well.”

“Look,” Hank said, “we’ve got to talk about this sometime. I know how you feel about marriage. I know what you’ve been going through with your mother and sister. I don’t want to frighten you or make you back off. But I do want to marry you. The first time I got married was to please my family; and it was a mistake. Now I want to please myself, and the only way I can do that is to plan to spend all my life with you. I really can’t imagine ever being happy again without you in my life. I want to live with you, always.”

“Oh, Hank,” Dale said. “Never, ever, always. I’m so scared.”

Hank pulled Dale into his arms and held her to him for a long time. The bright outside farm light shone against the window of the truck’s cab in such a way that the glass acted as an imperfect mirror; Dale could see her reflection, her own solemn face. And it occurred to her that she would always have this: this gaze into her own eyes, this private vision, this single yet infinite certainty of self; she had come to attain that surety. Yet that knowledge gleamed back at her coldly—and how warm it was in Hank’s arms, how deeply satisfying it felt to be held so dearly. Perhaps she could do it, she thought: Paradoxes did exist. She could give herself; she could keep herself. There were no guarantees in life, but surely there was the chance that each marriage could be as different as each set of people.
Marriage
. Suddenly Dale shivered.