Envious Moon(37)

But one other thing was beyond dispute that morning. Hannah was here, or was about to be here.





It took me a while, but I was able to figure out how to get back to the campsite by doing a great circle through a number of towns, ending up in Litchfield, and then making my way back.

I parked the car and for a time I sat on the hood and smoked and thought about what to do. The rain was so light that it felt cool and good on my skin. It felt like some kind of cure for my hangover.

If they thought I was here, it meant that they figured out that I had Victor’s car. I’m sure they didn’t think I walked here. Maybe I could have taken a bus. But I had to assume that the car was made and that they were looking for it. That I got lucky on my last pass. I couldn’t drive the car in the daytime anymore.

The school was maybe three miles away. I knew the general direction, and it would be an easy walk on the roads to get there, but the same rule applied. If they were out looking for me, a Portuguese kid walking a winding country Connecticut road would be easy to pick out. No, the only move was to go overland. To pick my way through the woods. And hope that I didn’t get lost.

I set off sometime after noon. I just plunged right in behind my campsite, forded the small brook by leaping from rock to rock, and then I was off among the trees. It was a young forest, a mix of birch and poplars growing close together, and the land rose up and down in small hills. It was beautifully green in here, though, and the cover was great enough that what rain there was did not reach me. It was hard work, this walk, as I had to make my way over brush and fallen logs, and now and again I took a break and sat down on a mossy stump and rested. Soon the woods grew more piney, and the trees were farther apart. The forest floor was covered with a soft blanket of pine needles and I moved more quickly.

Then coming down this long hill, I saw breaks in the trees in front of me and as I got closer I heard shouts, playful shouts, and I walked to the edge of the trees. In front of me I saw girls playing soccer. I was behind the school and these were the athletic fields. The field was maybe twenty yards away and I was in the dark trees and there was no way they could have seen me.

There were all kinds of girls. Blond girls and dark-haired girls. White girls and black girls. Girls with short hair and girls with ponytails that bounced on the back of their necks as they ran. I sat down against the base of a large tree and I watched them. I scanned their faces for Hannah but she was not among them. I would have seen her right away. My eyes would have gone to her. I couldn’t picture her playing soccer anyway. There was something nice about the game, though. The misty rain had stopped and a splintered sun appeared from behind the clouds. The green grass shone with moisture. And there were all those girls in motion, their shouts and their cries, the thudding of their feet, the calling of each other’s names, a blur of girls, moving as one.





Those woods became my friend. They wrapped that small campus like a blanket and for days I wandered through them like they were mine. I stood in their shadows and watched girls playing sports, walking to class, standing in small groups talking. I circled the whole place and there were only a few buildings out of the reach of my sight. I didn’t see any cops. I also didn’t see Hannah.

A few times I saw a girl at a distance that I thought was her, only to have the girl move close enough for me to realize I had been mistaken.

Emboldened by the darkness of night, I roamed the empty campus like I owned the place. There was one security guard, from what I could tell, and you could hear him coming from a mile away because he whistled when he did his rounds. I’d duck behind a building and wait until he had passed. I learned all the names of the buildings, especially the low brick ones near the soccer field that I took to be the dormitories. Spencer Hall. Fuller Hall. Salisbury Hall. Bradford Hall. They were two-floor square institutional buildings and I walked their lengths in the dark, hoping to see through one of the windows, to get a glimpse of my girl.

But these girls were scrupulous about keeping their shades drawn, and I never saw more than a passing glimpse of a figure between the edge of shade and the window. I was losing hope.

Coming back to the campsite after one of these missions, I emerged out of the dark woods to discover that Terrence had returned, and was on his lawn chair in front of his trailer. I didn’t want anything to do with him, but he was drinking beer and I wanted one. If he thought it odd that I appeared seemingly out of nowhere, he didn’t say anything. He motioned for me to sit down, and I did and he reached for his cooler and handed me a beer.

“How’s your girl?” Terrence asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“Haven’t found her?”

I looked toward where I had come from, the dark woods behind the campsite. “No,” I said.

“Why don’t you just call?”

“I don’t know that she’ll talk to me.”

Terrence seemed to be considering this. “How ’bout this?” he said.

I looked over at him. “What?”

“Pretend you’re delivering something.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious, boy. It’ll work.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have a uniform or anything.”

“It don’t matter. You don’t actually have to deliver anything. You just need to find out where she lives, right?”