Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(53)

I drove by. The lights were all off.

So you decided to go over to her house, is that it?

Something like that.

She stared at him for a long time. So is this something that’s going to be permanent? she said finally.

I don’t think so. No, he said. It isn’t. She wouldn’t want it to be either.

All right, Maggie said. But I will not compete for you. I won’t get into some kind of contest for you. I will not do that. Oh, goddamn you anyway, you son of a bitch.

She walked out of the room and down the hallway, and for the remainder of that day and on into the night Guthrie felt mixed up and wooden in all his movements and thoughts.





Victoria Roubideaux.

She was in the hallway at the high school in the afternoon when Alberta, the small blond girl from history, came up to her bearing something in her hand and said, He’s outside. He said to give you this. Here.

Who said?

I don’t know his name. He just stopped me and said give this to you when I saw you. Here, take it.

She opened the note. It was a folded scrap of cheap yellow tablet paper, with pencil writing scrawled on it. Vicky. Come out to the parking lot. Dwayne. She turned it over, there was nothing on the other side. Though she had never seen any of his handwriting before she believed this was what it would look like, this pencil-scrawl slanted backward. She didn’t think it was a joke. It was from him, no one else. She didn’t even feel much surprised. So he’d come back now. What did that mean? For most of the fall she had wanted that. Now late in the winter it had happened when she no longer believed in it or expected it. She looked at Alberta. Alberta’s eyes were wide and excited as if she were engaged in some daytime soap opera and some new shocking pronouncement was about to be made and she was only waiting for the cue to react to it.

She reached past Alberta matter-of-factly and opened the metal door of the student locker and took out her winter coat. She put it on and drew out her red shiny purse.

Vicky, what are you going to do? Alberta said. You better be careful. That’s him, isn’t it.

Yes, she said. That’s him.

She left Alberta and walked down the hall and out of the school building into the cold afternoon air, walking without rush, without hurry, in a kind of numbed trance, moving toward the icy parking lot behind the school. When she passed the last corner of the building she saw his black Plymouth waiting at the edge of the paved lot. He had the motor running and there was the familiar low muttering of the muffler, a sound that took her back to the summer. He was sitting slumped down in the front seat, smoking a cigarette. She could see the smoke drifting thinly out of the half-opened window. She walked up to him. He was watching her as she approached, then he sat up.

You don’t look too pregnant, he said. I figured you’d be bigger.

She said nothing to him yet.

Your face got rounder, he said. He studied her, looking at her steadily, a little critically as he always did, as he regarded everything. That calmness, a kind of distance he had, that you couldn’t touch. She remembered that now. It looks okay on you, he said. Turn sideways.

No.

Turn sideways. Let me see if it shows that way.

No, she said again. What do you want? What are you doing here?

I haven’t made up my mind yet, he said. I come back to see how you’re doing. I heard you were pregnant and living out in the country with two old men.

Who told you that? Haven’t you been in Denver all this time?

Sure. But I still know people here, he said. He sounded surprised.

Well, what of it? she said.

You’re mad now. I can see that much, he said.

Maybe I have a reason to be.

Maybe you do, he said. He seemed to be considering something. He reached forward and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. His motions seemed unhurried and calm. He looked at her again. Don’t be like this, he said. I come back to see you, is what I’m saying. To see if you’d want to go to Denver.

With you?

Why not?

What would I do in Denver?

What does anybody do in Denver? he said. Live in my apartment with me. We could take up our lives together. We could take up where we left off. You’re carrying my baby, aren’t you?

Yes. I have a baby in me.

And I’m the father, aren’t I?

Nobody else could be.

That’s why, he said. That’s what I’m talking about.

She looked at him in the front seat of the car. The motor was still running. She felt cold standing out in the open air in the parking lot. Six months had passed since he’d left and things had happened to her, but what had changed for him? He looked no different. He was thin and dark and his hair was curly and she still thought he was very good looking. But she didn’t want to feel anything at all for him anymore. She had thought she was over those feelings. She believed she was. He had left without telling her he was leaving and she was already pregnant then, and afterward her mother wouldn’t let her in the house and then she couldn’t stay any longer with Mrs. Jones because of her old father, so she had gone out into the country with the two McPheron brothers and as unlikely as that had seemed that was turning out all right, and lately it was better than all right. Now, unexpectedly, here he was again. She didn’t know what to feel.

Why don’t you get in? he said. At least you could do that. You’re going to freeze like a hunk of ice standing out there. I didn’t come back to make you get cold, Vicky.