Clair De Lune (12 page)

“Were you out in it?” said Mae Dell.

“I mean, it looked like it was over your head. You could see it from the window.”

“That's where I saw it,” said Verna.

“I saw the moon,” Mae Dell said. “I don't remember any fog.”

“Your mind must have been in a fog,” said Gladys.

She was home before seven and by eight had graded a stack of papers. Recalling then that next week she would have to help judge the debates, she gathered up the books checked out last week, those dealing with World War I and subsequent history, and carried them in to the kitchen table. Consulting an index, she turned to a passage concerning the League of Nations and settled down to read. She was busily making notes when there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Toby appeared, grinning under a headdress of tattered turkey feathers; beside him, Frankenstein's monster in rumpled corduroys and a bright green sweater. “Boo!” said George.

They pranced in, pleased as punch with themselves, and flopped down at the kitchen table. They had just come from chorus and orchestra practice, rehearsing for the spring concert.

“Got a beer, Teach? We're dry as Kansas.”

George had to take off his mask to drink, but Toby kept the headdress on, the last remnant of his Indian suit resurrected from a toy box in his stepfather's garage. “You should have seen us tonight!” he said.

“We were great,” said George. “Poor ol' Miss Maxie! We sneaked in when her back was turned—”

“And when she turned around, George was sitting there at the piano with that green face.”

“Miss Maxie let out a yelp, and then she turned around the other way and Tobe had put on his feathers—” They broke up in laughter. “You'd a-loved it! Wish you'd been there.”

“Glad I wasn't,” Allen said, laughing. “Did she give you hell? She should have.”

“Nah, she kept her dignity and just waited. We took pity on her and took the stuff off.”

“Sweet kids, aren't you?”

She had found some potato chips in the cupboard and they finished those off, along with nibbles of cheese and sweet pickles. Nothing was said about last night. She might indeed have dreamed it—though sitting across the table from Toby, she couldn't help feeling just a little self-conscious. Unobtrusively under the chatter, she picked up the rubber mask and slipped it on.

“You've aged,” said George and went on talking.

Safely hidden behind the Frankenstein face, she felt more secure. “Listen,” she said, interrupting, “you know that debate they're having next week? I've got to be one of the judges. They seem to be cramming every extra activity into the last month of school. Tell me everything you know about the League of Nations.”

“It flopped,” said George. “What else do you want to know?”

“I want to know why. What are those kids likely to say about why?”

“Well, for one thing,” said Toby, “they're going to come down hard on the Treaty of Versailles.”

“June 1919, Hall of Mirrors.” She referred to the open book. “Tell me about it.”

“Well,” he began, and taking off his feathers, he told what he remembered from his history class. George put in a word here and there. And she made notes and asked questions till she figured she knew all she had to. They seemed to enjoy having their roles switched, teaching the teacher.

“Hey, was that ten o'clock?” Toby said. “I got to get home. How many bells was that?”

“Four bits,” said George. “It's only nine-thirty.”

“Anyway, I got to go. Murdstone's decree.”

“Guess I'd better go too. Got to practice. Thanks for the beer, Teach.”

“Thanks for your help,” she said. “Don't forget your feathers. And here's your face, George.”

“Keep it in case of ghoulies.”

“The only ghoulies around here are the two of you. Here, take it. 'Night, you-all.”

“'Night. Thanks.”

She stood for a moment taking in the fresh night air. She felt relieved; everything seemed back to normal. Turning back to the kitchen, she cleaned up the table and set the glasses in the sink. Funny, she thought, as she sprinkled soap powder and turned on the water, that none of them had mentioned last night. But they were busy with their high jinks at rehearsal, that and the League of Nations. Anyway, last night was last night, and maybe she had made it all up in her head.

But there had been fog. Verna said so. And Mae Dell saw the moon. “So there!” she said aloud and turned, startled, to find Frankenstein's monster at her door.

Caught between fright and laughter, she stopped with a tea towel in her hand and stared. The Frankenstein face, but no bright green sweater.

“I thought if it's not too late—”

He stood outside the screen door, and for a moment there wasn't another word out of either of them. Then he took the mask off. It was Toby's face, all right, but this was not the same boy who, moments ago, had sat at her table. He was not quite the same, but she recognized him. She knew him at once. She had been looking for him all spring, in the night, through the alleys and into the park, all over town, drawing closer and closer, never knowing that this was the one—not the other, but this one—nor that he would stand at her door with his heart in his mouth and a crooked green face in his hand. It hit her like a ton of bricks. “Come in!” she said.

Twelve

S
he drifted through the following day, twice removed. Somehow or other she got through her classes, but with only the faintest idea of what she had taught, and no idea what she had said to the Ladies at lunch at the Show-Me Cafe. Voices seemed to come from a great distance. And the only face she saw was Toby's. The rest were asterisks.

Somewhere along in the afternoon the dean summoned her to his office. His pink-and-white head shone like a peony bud, and he conveyed welcome news. Her contract had been renewed. All the teachers were reelected for the coming year. The formal documents would be ready for signing within a week or two.

“I'm greatly pleased,” he said, “that we'll have you on our staff again. I feel you're making a real contribution.”

She believed that she had thanked him.

She muddled blissfully through the rest of the afternoon and hurried home.

There had been others before him to whom she had been wildly attracted, though the attraction hadn't often taken her very close. She had imagined love (almost, but hadn't, made it once), but she had never loved, in the active voice—of that she was certain. That she did so now could be questioned. But that she was In Love, head over heels in some glorious concept, there could be no doubt. Nothing like this had appeared before on her landscape, and she advanced toward it unswervingly, like a confident walker in the night who, sure of his ground, walks into a pond and promptly, without so much as a flap of the arms, sinks like a stone. It was a strange, astonishing element, as new to Toby as to her, which they explored with curiosity and delight.

There was a ritual closely followed: the screen door left unlatched after dinner, the lights off except for the reading lamp, a record playing, and books open on the couch. Then the quiet sound of Toby letting himself in, coming through the dark kitchen, and with a grin of satisfaction settling into the thread-bare refuge of the big armchair. First they would go through the secular day, what each of them had done or said that might entertain the other. Then she would read to him, poetry, most often. He listened, leaning back, watching her, and then, settling deeper, “Talk to me,” he would say.

And she would begin, like Scheherazade spinning her lovely lies. She told him stories of what he would do some day, work as a reporter, or write the definitive book on Joyce. She would write books too, fiction, and poetry, and live in New York and come to visit sometimes, cross-country. And she would read poetry while Toby sat in the big chair and ate fresh strawberries dipped in sugar.

By that time they'd have gone through “Clair de Lune” and “La Mer.” And with scarcely a break in the words she would have wandered over and changed the music. Toby would rise from the depths of the chair and they would begin to dance, in this way daring to touch at last, then sink to the couch, still with the light on, holding on for dear life. They never had enough of marveling at each other, nor that each had chosen the other.

She knew that he was too young and she too old. She was a teacher, he was a student, and this was perilous business. She could be fired for this and land in her mother's lap like a cannonball. But not one part of this got through to her better judgment. “For love,” as Burton could have warned her, “is fire, ice, hot, cold, itch, fever, frenzy, pleurisy, what not?” It is also bats in the belfry and hot fudge in the veins.

She went forth by day in a perfect dither, carrying with her the night before. She overflowed with good will toward everything in sight. She quite astonished Maxine one day, coming at her with a flying tackle meant as a girlish hug. (How could she ever have been envious of Maxine?) As for the Ladies, she found them paragons. The very power of her ravished gaze was enough to rejuvenate them. And such was the measure of her bliss that she could pour it out to all takers and never miss a drop. She was a fountain of indulgence, handing out pardons and benisons on all sides, so full of benevolence and indiscriminate praise and giggles that Verna was moved to inquire one day if she was running a fever.

“You look flushed. You feelin' all right?”

“Never felt better in my life.”

“You better slow down. School's not over yet.”

She knew her behavior was less than seemly. She knew she was walking on her hands. But for the life of her, she could do nothing about it and wouldn't have if she could. It was incredible, this affair. She had come down in the orchards of Tantalus and she could eat.

She gorged herself. Her rooms were stocked like a pantry with the viands of romance—flowers, poetry, music, lucent syrups and spiced dainties. Scarcely Porphyro for his Madeline set such a heap as she, nor lavished them on a lover with so prodigal a hand.

She talked (all those glittering prophesies!). They listened to “Nights in the Gardens of Spain.” They played Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman and they danced. She no longer read poetry of her own; she was writing none. Possessed by the experience, she had no time to explore and interpret. In the thick of it, she could not see but only revel in it. And so they read other poetry, and they kissed and danced and ate fresh strawberries, thoroughly bedazzled by themselves.

“Toby?”

“Hm?”

“It's late.”

“I know.”

They had fallen asleep, propped up against the velvet cushions.

“It's after eleven.”

“Kee-rist,” he said, “why is it always after eleven!” He tightened his hold on her and within a moment was asleep again.

Down the street the steeple clock chimed the half hour. The elm branches stretching across the sidewalk scratched discreetly at the window. She leaned against him, feeling the rhythm of his breathing. He was clean-smelling and smooth and firm like soap fresh out of the wrapper. She loved him.

Why was it Toby, she wondered, why him and not George? She loved George too. But that was in another way. There was something about this one.... George had a purpose, he had somewhere he was going. But Toby was lost somewhere between a past he hadn't loved and a future he did not trust. Neither country was his. He was homeless. This narrow present was all his refuge. And so he had turned to her because she made it for him, and so it was that she loved him best, because of his homelessness and his need. She reached up and smoothed the dark stubble-cut head. “Toby?”

“Hm? Did I go to sleep again?”

“Only for a minute. Go home now, it's eleven-thirty.”

“I don't want to go.”

“I don't want you to go, but you've got to.”

He yawned and slowly untangled himself. “Always got to go blattin' off.”

In the dark kitchen they clung to each other, dead for sleep. The steeple clock chimed another quarter hour. Abruptly Toby pulled himself loose. “Nothin' for it,” he said and went home to climb through the window again.

They didn't see very much of George; he was hard at work, practicing for the spring concert. He had been called back to Kansas City for a second audition, which meant he was among the finalists for the scholarship. On nights when the orchestra and chorus rehearsed together, Toby would come to her afterward. But George went straight home to work on his audition piece.

It wasn't until the night of the college concert that the three of them went out again together—across town to Sutt's Corner. They were out to celebrate. The orchestra and chorus, under the guidance of Mr. Delanier and Miss Boatwright, had outdone themselves. George played a Chopin prelude, and after much applause, came back with a short piece by Satie.

“You were wonderful,” Allen said. “They loved you.”

“It was easy,” he said, “homegrown audience, predisposed.” A grin spread across his face. “It's not going to be this easy next week.”