“Greensleeves?” Sherry said. “You can answer my question now.”
I took a long breath and said, “Sherry, I love you—now, tonight. I know I do. What I don’t know is whether I’m in love with you. For keeps, I mean. I mean getting married. I daren’t make a mistake—I’m only going to get married once, and my children are only going to have two parents, if I can possibly, possibly arrange it. And so far I—oh, I know I ought to know by now, but I just—”
“No, wait a minute—it’s all right.” Sherry took my hand quickly. “That’s all I want right now in the way of an answer. It’s more than I thought I’d get. OK—question number two. Has today made any difference in your feeling about college? Are you going?”
Visions of catalogues, the Sorbonne, the Oregon campus, Fremont revolved in my head. “I—think so. Somewhere, anyway.”
“All right.” Sherry drew an enormous breath of his own and settled back. “Now I’m going to make a speech, and I want you to listen. I may never get it so well organized again.”
Rapidly, as fast as I’d ever heard him talk, he made his speech, frowning out over the darkening gorge. All this had been his fault, he said. He’d put too much pressure on me—that’s why I’d panicked. Now he had a sensible plan, been thinking of it all day—all week. He wanted me to enter Fremont, so I could be near him all the coming year. Next spring, he would graduate, and immediately go out and worm his way into a job. We could forget the graduate-school notion—Oxford and all the rest of it. He was ready, able, and anxious to quit being a penguin, to become sensible and practical. He saw perfectly well now that life should be logical, and he meant to make it be that way. He completely understood why I’d hesitated to rely on somebody as vague and impractical as he’d been, but he meant to quit being so—in fact, he had quit. By the end of the year, I’d see for myself how firmly he meant this; then maybe I’d be willing to go back to Fremont for my sophomore year while he began to earn enough for us to get married on, in case I decided to marry him. Please—would I please trust him and follow his plan, at least to the extent of enrolling in Fremont this fall. Would I just try it. Please.
He fell silent and, after a moment, turned slowly and looked at me. He was gripping my hand so tight that it was getting numb. I sat with my brain spinning futilely for another minute; then I had to say something. I said, “Sherry, I don’t know—Fremont, all this today, it’s your world. I was trying to find mine.”
“Make this one yours. Just let me be in it with you—for this one year.”
What’s wrong with that? I asked myself distractedly. Why not, for pity’s sake? I’ve got to make some decision about something—and this way I needn’t decide about Sherry until I’m really ready—besides, if I’m going to some college, why not Fremont? Why can’t I just say yes? Isn’t it perfectly simple?
“Greensleeves, maybe I’ve thrown it at you in too big a lump. Could you think about it this next week while I’m at Bell Landing, then tell me for sure when I come back? Could you do that?”
“Oh, yes. I can do that. I will do that, Sherry. I’ll probably do everything you want me to. I honestly can’t find any reason why I shouldn’t—it’s just that—”
It was just that something about all he’d said and the way he’d said it was dismaying me. Something was telling me I liked him better as a penguin—impractical and illogical and curious and just Sherry. Some dim conviction had got hold of me that we were both starting to compromise, starting to run counter to our natures—and that nobody can do that for long. I didn’t know whether to pay any attention to all this or not.
“It’s just that you like to worry,” Sherry finished for me, in a voice once more teasing and relaxed and like his own. “Well, save it for next week, when I’m gone. I have now waited exactly as long as I’m going to wait to kiss you.”
I’d just time to ask myself frantically if there was still some reason why he shouldn’t—but not enough time to answer, because he was already kissing me. And immediately I knew there was no reason at all why he shouldn’t, and every reason why he should. He loved me, I loved him, and people who loved each other kissed each other. What’s more they didn’t hold out on each other, either, or draw inward lines. I must not hold back from Sherry any longer—it wasn’t fair. I suddenly decided that the moment had come to find out whether I was playing for keeps.
In the middle of his kiss, I acted on my decision and obliterated my inward line. I can’t say precisely how I did this; probably I don’t need to. Anybody knows. It’s instinct or something; it’s what you’re usually fighting not to do—release your hold on caution, turn over all responsibility to somebody else, abandon yourself completely to one person and one moment in time. I simply let my body dissolve against Sherry and my brain go ahead and whirl and with the best of intentions tried to drown.
Well, I found out one thing, right away and without the slightest doubt. Sherry was as combustible as anybody else, and fully as able as Dave to ignite emotions in me too powerful to control. It was all too easy, and it happened all too swiftly, and the conflagration soon rose high and bright enough to scare us both. It was Sherry who abruptly, even roughly, thrust us apart and sprang up from the bench to put the width of the tiny clearing between us. There he stood for a moment, rigid, looking down into the vast blue-gray spaces of the gorge, while I sat slowly filling with the suspicion that the one decision I’d managed to make all summer had been disastrously wrong. When he turned to meet my eyes, I knew it for a fact.
He said, “Greensleeves, that wasn’t a bit smart—do you realize that?”
I realized it. In the space of a kiss, our whole relationship had changed. That line we’d crossed was behind us for good. We couldn’t go back now—and it had been nice and safe back there, and it was quicksand here. Moreover, I hadn’t proved a thing. Those fireworks had no real value as a proof of love—as I’d already learned from Dave, they could exist in a vacuum of dislike. My sole accomplishment in this last five minutes had been to make things a lot more complicated than they’d ever been before.
“I’m sorry, Sherry,” I whispered, and I was—very, very sorry, now that it was too late to do a thing about it.
“Never mind, we’ll handle it.”
Would we? Following that good “sensible” plan of his—seeing each other every day and every evening for the next twelve months? It was going to be a long, long year—and the pressure we felt now was nothing to the pressure we were going to feel. We wouldn’t be able to keep sensible plans or even clear heads; we’d probably wind up married before the year was out, ready or not, mistake or not, with all possibilities of free choice right out the window forever.
“Sherry—!” I said.
“Now, calm down. I said we’d handle it.” He came back and sat down beside me and took both my hands. “I’ll handle it, Greensleeves. Just trust me.” I sat in silent foreboding, frowning down at our hands. In a moment he added, in what I realized was rather a strange voice, “What I don’t understand—” and stopped.
I glanced up to find that the look he was giving me was a strange one, too—a very still and very searching one. I could almost hear his thoughts: until Monday night you kissed me just like always; after Monday night you stopped kissing me at all; now suddenly you kiss me like this. What happened Monday night? . . . I had a notion he was making some quite elementary deductions, too.
“Sherry,” I said unsteadily. “Sherry, I want to tell you something—about Dave.” His face changed—something flashed across it and was gone, wiping out all expression. He straightened, leaned back against the bench. I faltered, “I’ve been meaning to say this—”
“Wait!” he interrupted, with a fierce pressure on my hand. In a moment he added in a calm voice, “You don’t have to, Greensleeves.”
“But I really want to.” I was suddenly eager, anxious to. “I want to tell you everything about Monday night. It was—”
“Greensleeves, listen to me!” Sherry turned his face to me, waited a second as if he hoped I could read it without his speaking, then said gently, “Greensleeves, do you love me? You said you did.”
“Yes, Sherry, I do. Only—”
“Then don’t tell me anything about Monday night. I don’t want to hear it.”
“But, Sherry—” I said, and stopped, because something in his eyes finally got through to me and stopped me. I don’t want you to hurt me, they said. What good would that do?
I said, “But, Sherry—you’ll think it’s worse than it was!”
“No, I won’t.”
But I’ve been so burdened by it! I thought frantically—then realized that what I really wanted was to pass the burden on to Sherry, thus getting rid of it myself. And why should he let me do that, after all? It was my burden. When all was said and done, it had nothing much to do with him—only with my discovery of myself, which was far, far from complete yet, as this latest foray into the jungle of my motives showed all over again.
I silently accepted sole custodianship of the burden of Monday night and nodded. Sherry kissed me briefly—careful to keep it light—then stood up, saying it was time to go home now. That was the last we ever said on the subject.
We said little on any subject, all the long drive home. Not that there was any stiffness between us—on the contrary, there was such closeness that we felt no need to underscore it with words, and were free to be alone with each other, and let our minds drift and rest, and our emotions, too. Mine felt exhausted—it had been an eventful day, emotionally. I was too tired to sort it out, maybe too close to it. I simply let it go and thought about something else.
It was about half-past ten when we reached College Street. Sherry cut off the motor and lights and sat looking at me, while the night’s quiet and the paler, dimmer light from an old moon slowly crept in around us.
“This is the last I’ll see of you for a week,” he said.
“Yes . . . What time does your bus leave?”
“Early. I’ll be halfway home before you’re up.” He reached out for a handful of my hair, twining his fingers through it where it lay thickest on my neck. “And back before you know it, Rapunzel,” he added.
“Of course. A week’s nothing.”
“All the same, I wish I weren’t going.” His hand closed around the back of my neck and pulled me to him; he held me tight. “I’m scared to leave you. Greensleeves, come with me. Would you?”
“No, Sherry. You know that’s—”
“I know. Impractical, illogical, there’ll be another time. But I wish I could leave part of me here to keep an eye on you. I wish I could tuck you in my wallet with my other valuables and just touch you sometimes, to be sure you were still there. I wish it weren’t so many days and nights and hours until next Monday. Where’s your face? Turn it up here.”
He kissed me—like always—then slowly his hand twisted hard into my hair and it wasn’t like always—it was like that conflagration out on the cliff edge, it was like it was always going to be now whether we wanted it to or not. I fought free, and that hurt, because I didn’t want to fight Sherry, ever. But I knew right then I’d be fighting him for the next year, two years—or else surrendering—all because I’d done in a moment what he’d been very careful all these weeks not to do.
He got out of the car quickly and came around to open my door, standing there with the moonlight on his shoulders and his face in shadow. He said in a low, rapid voice, “Darling, I’m sorry. I said I’d handle it and I didn’t. I—”
“Never mind, Sherry,” I said as I got out. “Maybe we’ll learn how—in a year.”
He caught both of my elbows and held them tensely. “We could get married earlier. Lots of students do. They manage somehow.”
I said, “Let’s talk about it later—next time we see each other. Please, Sherry? Today’s over.”
After a moment he nodded, and his hands dropped. We walked the few yards along the sidewalk to the familiar cracked cement steps and started the long climb.
“I’ll tell you one thing—I’m in no proper mood for scrubbing floors,” Sherry muttered.
“You have to go to Herndon’s yet tonight?” I asked in dismay.
He gave me a faint sidewise grin. “Don’t worry. It’s not going to hurt me a bit to sweat at something for a while . . . I’m going clear into the house with you, if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t mind, though I didn’t know what he was up to until we stepped inside and I saw the swift but thorough glance he swept about the hall. It was quite empty. Upstairs, some faint voices on Miss Heater’s television were emoting throatily.
“All clear,” I said. It was the nearest we ever came to mentioning Dave.
Sherry turned back to me and smiled, the old gentle, quizzical, Sherryish smile with his greenish eyes questioning me above it. “Well—so long, Rapunzel. I love you. Don’t vanish in a cloud of pink smoke or anything while I’m gone, will you?”
“Sherry, I’m glad I went to your picnic,” I said. “I’ll always be glad.”
He grinned and said, “I told you so.” At the door he lifted my hand to his cheek for a second, then muttered, “I’ll see you in a week,” and ran rapidly down the steps. I stood on the edge of the porch and watched until I couldn’t tell his jacket from the moonlight—and kept on watching until some time after I was sure there was nothing but moonlight there. I think I must have known even then what I was going to do, though I didn’t yet know I knew it.
I went back into the house, and across the big dim hall and down the passage to my room, and kicked off my shoes and shed my clothes, intending to go right to bed. In fact, I was about to relieve the cuckoo of his weights for the night when my eye started hovering speculatively about my desk. First thing I knew, I was sitting at it, writing. Not in the journal. I wrote a story. It had nothing to do with Sherry, or me, or Dave, or a college picnic, or a cliff edge, or anything else that was supposed to be on my mind. It was a story about a young poorly born Viennese with a dreadful accent who comes to America and has a frightful time getting used to it and catching onto things and finding work. I’d liked that boy today; in the story I gave him a beautiful, gay girl named Sue to fall in love with him, and after fifteen or twenty pages of difficulties, I let them get married and go back in triumph to Vienna and live blissfully on the Ring-strasse for ever and ever.
It was nearly three o’clock before I finished.
A demented reaction, anybody will agree, to one of the most complicated days of my life. Only it didn’t feel demented. It felt like the sanest and truest reaction I’d had so far, and the most direct—right straight from the inner girl.
I came out of it gradually—like ether—and read over what I had done, and blinked about the room and, incredulously, at the clock. Then I got up stiffly, wandered over to the window still clutching my story like a talisman, and stood a few minutes looking out. It wasn’t even a very good story, I was aware of that; I didn’t know how to write a good story. But that didn’t mean I never would. The pages in my hand felt thick and comfortable. I had a world of my own, after all, right inside my head—a whole Wild West waiting to be tamed and made into a place to live. It was a bit like Dave’s world, come to think of it.
The moonlight had grown white and strong; it lay like snow on Mrs. Hockins’ rose garden and the lawn—Mrs. Jackson’s lawn, Dave’s lawn. I turned away from it and found my shaded desk lamp—no, not mine—throwing a single pool of light in a dim room full of somebody else’s furniture. It was somebody else’s room. I looked around it—at Georgetta’s white flats pigeon-toed in a corner, and Georgetta’s can of hair spray holding court on the dresser among her scattered hairpins and eye shadow box and shoe ornaments—and realized that the emotion I was feeling, with growing discomfort, was claustrophobia. Whatever my world was, this wasn’t it; this was Georgetta’s world,
and sometime during my absence today Georgetta had departed, with a snap of her gum, and she’d left me in another trap.
I think it was right then that what I’d already known, as I stood watching Sherry from the porch, rose to the surface to where I knew I knew it. I had to get out of here. I’d never find out who I was or what I felt about anything while my mind and every hour of the day were full of Sherry, and cliff hanging, and tangled-up emotions. I’d never have a chance to make a decision about him, either; it would just go by default, and we’d have to find out afterward whether it was right or wrong for us. Well, I wanted to know beforehand. I wanted out of the tangle for just long enough to think a minute. Detachment—that’s what I needed, and above all, distance. All I could accomplish here was to make this into a trap for two.
But where to go? How long to stay away? How soon to leave? The last question was easy; everything in me said immediately. The minute I could quit my job, wind things up—absolutely before Sherry came back, or I’d never be able to do it. But where? Uncle Frosty wouldn’t be home for another fortnight. Mary’s Creek? No detachment there. Well, someplace. Go someplace for a fortnight, and after that—well, that might be long enough. Mightn’t it? If not, then Oregon University and that sea of Americans. I had to take the plunge sometime; it might as well be while I was young and would still bounce, instead of really shattering to bits. But . . . maybe a fortnight would be enough.
I tossed my story onto the dresser and wavered over to the bed, swaying a bit from weariness and cerebration. Everybody ought to get lost once in their lives—it’s the only way to find yourself. Freedom is real, if you’ll just reach out and take it. I hoped Mrs. Dunningham was right.
I heard a familiar rasping, and the cuckoo popped out—rather draggily—to announce in progressively discouraged and reedy tones that the time was one—two—three o’clock. He couldn’t even make it to the final syllable, just gasped out “cuck—” and expired with his beak open, still hanging out of his little door. No need to take his weights off tonight—he’d completely run down.