Читать книгу Shadows At The Window - Linda Hall - Страница 9

I somehow managed to get through my work at the music store and my guitar lesson with my student Irma who, like she did every week, arrived early with foil-wrapped treats from her kitchen. Today, almond brownies. When she handed them to me she said, “You’re not as happy as I’d thought you’d be. Isn’t tonight a special night for you?”

I blinked. Had I told positively everyone?

“I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s have a listen to that chord progression you’re working on.”

“I practiced every day,” she said.

I’m convinced Irma spends whole days practicing the guitar her late husband used to play in a country band. It’s a beat-up Martin with a fantastic sound.

After the lesson, I put my head inside a cheerful bubble and finished the day. I attended my afternoon music-history class and made myself smile a lot. But later in the practice room, I couldn’t get my fingers to obey my brain’s commands on the piano. And as the clock moved steadily toward evening, I was slowly coming undone. I gave up on Beethoven and pulled out the notebook where I’d jotted down the lyrics to my unfinished worship song. I took my classical guitar out of the case and began. But as I went through the now-familiar melody, I paused midphrase. What did I think I was doing? How could I possibly think I could write worship songs to God? I tried to resolve the chords, but my fingers refused to find the final notes in the sequence.

For several minutes, I forced myself to work on it. I hit wrong strings and played chords that sounded like my life today—jarring, off key and dissonant.

I jutted out my bottom lip, blew my bangs out of my eyes and tried again, but no matter how much I pursued that piece, I could not finish it. I looked down at my trembling hands as if they belonged to someone else.

Why was someone sending me a picture of that girl? Why, when everything was just beginning to get good again? I sighed loudly. I can’t go out with him tonight. I can’t see Greg.

I had the feeling that Greg was going to ask me to marry him tonight. All the signs were there. Even Bridget, my roommate and best friend, had heard things. A few weeks ago, he’d taken both my hands, looked me in the eyes and said, “Two weeks. The night of our anniversary, we’ll go out. I’ve got it all planned. Don’t let anything interfere.”

I had looked into the depths of his blue eyes and said, “I don’t intend to.”

And why would I? Greg and I been going out pretty much exclusively for six months. I was twenty-nine, he was thirty. We were madly in love. So what were we waiting for?

I had already started picking out wedding colors. If he asked me tonight, we could be married in the spring. I’d even bought a Brides magazine—one—which I’d shoved into my top dresser drawer. I brought it out every once in a while to flip through it and dream, but it always made me feel a little like an impostor. I just couldn’t believe that could be mine. And now I knew it wouldn’t be.

I placed my guitar back in the case and closed it. I couldn’t marry Greg Whitten. I couldn’t be with him. We would have to break up. I sat there. I listened. Through the muffled walls, I could hear the other students practicing. Somebody was playing something darkly discordant, another was working on a classic Beatles tune, and still another was playing a blues number. I smiled. That was probably my new classmate Neil Stoner. A pale complected, serious young man, he plays both piano and cello—he transferred this year from a school out west. Neil and I—plus two bright-eyed sophomores named Tiff and Lora—were working on a music-history project. Sometimes I felt like a big sister to all of them.

Since I’d seen that picture on my computer screen, I’d thought about it a million times. It occurred to me that I could ask Stuart—he might have an idea how to find out where the e-mail had come from. I knew there were ways to do that but I didn’t know how. If anyone would know, Stuart would.

I dismissed that idea as soon as it came to me. I didn’t need Stuart nosing around in my business. Earlier, I’d Googled the e-mail address, but came up with nothing. I knew enough to realize that anybody in the whole world, good guy or bad guy, could sign up for a Hotmail account. And then get rid of it just as quickly. It could be someone clear on the other side of the world—or it could be someone living right next door. That thought chilled me as I looked at the closed door of my practice room. Was I vulnerable in here? Was I vulnerable everywhere?

I thought about Greg. My love was probably making plans for tonight, maybe even getting flowers. Greg is very romantic. I shut my eyes, bent my head and leaned my cheek against the cool white piano keys. Suddenly I was remembering a man from a very long time ago who wasn’t so romantic.

“Stop it, please! You’re hurting me!”

“If you and Moira would listen to me for once instead of always trying to fight me on everything, I wouldn’t have to keep you in line like this.”

I closed my eyes, trying to quash those thoughts, but they simmered on the surface. Stop it, I told myself. Think about good things, about pleasant things. Doesn’t the Bible encourage this, after all? I’d been trying to live by its precepts since I’d become a Christian seven years ago.

So why should this happen now? It just wasn’t fair.

A tear fell onto the piano keys. I put my music books back into my bag, got out my cell phone and, before I could change my mind, called Greg at his home, a place I hoped he wouldn’t be. The phone rang once and I had a horrible feeling that he might answer it. What if he’d gone home early? I was counting on him not answering. It rang twice. I held my breath. Three times and I began to relax. On the fourth ring it went to the machine, and I said as pleasantly as I could, “Greg? It’s me. Sorry I missed you.” I coughed a bit for effect. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel tonight. I know, I know, but I am just so totally sick. I don’t know what’s come over me, but you really do not want to be around me tonight. You might catch it. I’m surprised I can even talk this long on the phone without running to the bathroom. It came on me so suddenly. So, hey, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. We’ll reschedule.” I hung up and very carefully and deliberately turned off my cell phone. Then I bent my head into my hands. I’d just told another lie in a long string of lies to the person I wanted to spent the rest of my life with.

When I got home to my apartment, I went into my room, and closed the door. I pulled my two big suitcases out from under my bed and haphazardly began stuffing clothes and books inside. When one suitcase was filled with my music books and composition papers, it became obvious that I couldn’t take everything. But when I got to where I was going, wherever that was, I wouldn’t be able to send for my stuff. Because I would have disappeared. Like I had eight years ago. Except I hadn’t, had I?

My mistake, I thought, as I crammed in T-shirts and jeans and socks and sweaters, was in ever thinking that I could have a normal life—get married, have children, go to church and pick out china patterns—like a regular person.

If I got in my car right now, I could miss rush hour maybe. I looked out my window to the street three stories below. Bridget and I live on a semi-busy avenue lined with old brownstones like ours. It’s also a pedestrian street with lots of ancient trees and people who walk dogs or jog or push baby carriages along the cement sidewalk. The church spire towers on the left, and I confess to often sitting right here, just to catch a glimpse of my beloved. I sat at the window and cried for all that I was about to lose.

And this is the way Bridget found me an hour later, sitting on my bed, clutching a book of poems that Greg had bought me, crying. I quickly dried my eyes on the ends of my sleeves and said, “What are you doing home so early?”

“Oh, Lilly!” She dropped the high heels she’d been holding and raced to my side. “You look so sick! Greg called me and told me you guys aren’t going out tonight. Do you want me to stay home with you? Was it something you ate? Why don’t I make some of my chicken soup?” She sat beside me, placed her perfectly manicured fingers on my forehead and looked at me sadly. Then she noticed the mess on my bed. “What’s all this?”

If there is another person I didn’t want to lie to, it’s Bridget, but again, I didn’t think I had a choice. We’ve shared this apartment for four years, and I value her wisdom and her friendship more than I can say. I could never lie to her and yet—and yet—I had and I would continue to do so.

I said, “I thought maybe of going home…I don’t know.”

“Are you that sick, Lilly?” Her eyes were wide as she sat beside me in her mauve designer suit. She pulled her stockinged feet up underneath her. Bridget works in a downtown Boston office. The first thing she does when she walks in the door from work is pull off her heels and groan about sore feet. She does this absolutely every day, even before she removes her coat.

Four years ago, when the rent on this place went up, it became apparent that with my music-store salary, I wasn’t going to be able to afford a somewhat pricey, top-floor walkup on my own. It has basically three rooms: two bedrooms and a large living space which is a combination living and dining room with a kitchen nook in the back. It’s a cute place, and even though it’s as expensive as the sky, I didn’t want to give it up. Plus, I love the location.

I let it be known around the church that I needed a roommate, and Bridget came and saw me. We’ve been best friends ever since. She seems so very sleek and sophisticated, but she bakes tollhouse cookies on the weekend, knits socks for her nieces and nephews and knows the names of all our neighbors.

She was sitting beside me, a worried look on her face as she raised her flawlessly waxed eyebrows. Even at the end of the day, her auburn hair shimmered and fell into place like in a TV commercial.

“And you’re going to need your music books there? A whole suitcase full of them?” She looked at me and then something seemed to register. “Oh Lilly, you really are sick, aren’t you? Does Greg know? When did you find out?”

I put up my hand. I had to stop her. “No, no. I’m not dying. I’m okay. Well, sick, but okay. I’m just organizing. I was feeling a speck better, so I decided to organize.”

“And you’re going home?”

“I don’t know. I’m just not thinking. I…” And then I began to cry deep, heaving sobs. I just couldn’t stop myself.

Bridget hugged me. “I’ll stay with you. I don’t have to go to that stupid company dinner tonight. I’ll call right now and cancel so I can be with you here. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“No, Bridget, you don’t have to. Really. Don’t miss your dinner on account of me.”

“My dinner is nothing compared to the welfare of my best friend.”

I looked down at my hands. Quietly, I said, “I lied to Greg. I’m not really sick, Bridget. I’m just afraid.” I looked at her. “I can’t go into it. It’s complicated and has to do with a whole lot of stuff that happened to me before I came here, before I met Greg.”

“But honey, everybody gets afraid. Everything is different for you now. You’re a Christian. The past is in the past and you and Greg love each other.”

I shook my head. Oh, if it were that simple. And as I looked up into the pretty face of my best friend, I thought about the pretty face of another best friend from a long time ago. Her name was Moira Peterson. At a time in my life when no one was my friend, we two clung to each other as if drowning.