As Charles’s Jaguar approaches the Newark Airport exit, Anne is taking a mental inventory of what she’s packed for her overnight trip to Chicago: jogging shoes for her run by the lake, a suit for her tour of a South Side textile factory she’s thinking of contracting, a dress for dinner, slacks and a shirt for the flight home. Usually these quick mental scans reassure her. Not this time.
Anne looks out the window at the airport approach road lined with squat, graceless buildings. Suddenly the world seems a bleak, senseless place. Dread sweeps over her. The day after tomorrow she’ll have the abortion.
She looks over at Charles. The other night, in the middle of a conversation, he forgot what they were talking about. She reaches over and touches his forearm. “I hate to be going away right now.”
“It’s only overnight.”
“Overnight can be a long time.”
“Anne, don’t worry,” he says, not taking his eyes off the road.
“I can’t help it.”
“What about the pregnancy?”
“It may just be that stress has been throwing off my period. You know how that sometimes happens to me.”
Charles pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
“Oh, shit, give me one,” Anne says.
Charles hands her the pack and she lights one. He doesn’t.
The cigarette tastes hot and acrid, but she keeps smoking it. “I don’t understand why you fired Nina.”
“Let’s face it, Anne, she wasn’t delivering.”
“But she’s a friend.”
“I know she is. And I hope she can remain one.”
“Would you mind if I called her?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Look, Anne, it wasn’t easy for me. I think a fallow period would be best.”
“I don’t know if I can just let her go like that.”
“For Christ’s sake, Anne, the woman is losing her touch. And I’m not going to let friendship or anything else stand in my way.”
There it is again, that tone in his voice, that harsh, heartbreaking tone. It scares Anne.
“Your work’s going well, that’s the most important thing,” she says, almost to herself.
Charles pulls up in front of the terminal, they get out, and he retrieves Anne’s bag from the trunk.
“You can still surprise me, Charles.”
“I hope the trip is a success.”
Anne throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, long and hard, not wanting to let go.
“I’ll call you tonight,” Charles says.
“I love you.”
Anne picks up her bag and walks to the terminal doors. She turns and smiles at Charles. He smiles back and waves. She walks into the terminal and then turns for one last look. The car is gone…
As Charles pulls away from the terminal he reaches for his car phone and punches in Emma’s number.
“Hello?”
“Listen, Emma, I’ve got some appointments today, let’s take the day off. Don’t bother coming in.”
“But what will I do with myself?”
“I hope you’ll write.” Charles smiles-she’s at a loss without him.
“Of course.”
“I’ll call you tonight. I’ll try to make it down there so we can get a little work done.”
Charles listens to Miles Davis as he drives across Pennsylvania, propelled by his need to understand Emma, to discover what it is in her past that she guards so warily. He looked up Munsonville in his atlas and there it sat, surrounded by other small towns, black dots connected by red lines on a green background. It was there, in that western Pennsylvania town, that her life-and their book-began, and he needs to see it in three dimensions, to smell it, hear it, feel it, to find Emma’s place in it.
It’s afternoon when he exits the turnpike. The countryside is bleak-low hills littered with mobile homes and sagging barns. As he approaches Munsonville, the scene grows bleaker still, the small houses close together, aluminum-sided, painted dreary shades of light green or dark brown; the children playing in the ratty front yards look ill-kept and furtive, suspicious of life already. In the center of town, the houses give way to nineteenth-century brick buildings. The only businesses that seem able to survive on the beat, forsaken streets are bars and pizza parlors. Some of the empty storefronts have droopy For Rent signs taped to their windows; others just sit there, hollow and abandoned. A very pregnant girl wearing a dirty Palm Springs sweatshirt slowly pushes a young boy in a stroller.
Charles finds the palpable air of decay evocative, almost romantic. He thinks of Emma walking these streets, wonders which house she grew up in, wonders where her mother lives. Emma said she’d remarried. What’s the stepfather like?
Munsonville High is set on a rise just outside of town, an imposing American Gothic edifice built in a more optimistic time. The hallways have that deserted, slightly eerie after-school feeling. Charles walks past posters warning of HIV transmission and the dangers of cigarettes, past a cabinet filled with dusty trophies, until he comes to a frosted-glass door that reads: Guidance Office. He knocks.
“Come in.”
The front room is empty, but a woman is sitting at a desk in one of the four small offices that open off it. She’s reading something in a folder. A sign on her desk identifies her as Claire Eldredge.
“Ms. Eldredge?”
“Yes.”
Charles guesses she’s in her late fifties, large, one of those round-faced women who has probably looked the same since her mid-twenties. She wears her glasses on a chain, a loose gray dress, no makeup. Claire Eldredge’s one vanity appears to be her hair, which is an unnatural brown, styled in a helmet of tight curls.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“I rarely leave before six. This job just keeps getting harder.” She looks at Charles expectantly.
“My name is Charles Davis.”
“The writer.”
“Yes.”
If Claire Eldredge is impressed, she does a good job of disguising it.
“Have a seat. What can I do for you?”
“One of your former students works for me. I’ve become a little concerned about her.”
“What’s the student’s name?”
“Emma Bowles.”
Claire Eldredge’s face grows grave. She leans forward on her elbows.
“I believe she graduated five or six years ago,” Charles says.
“Emma never graduated.”
“She didn’t?”
Claire Eldredge closes the folder on her desk and puts it aside. She takes a pencil out of a cup and turns it between her fingers.
“Emma was gifted, but I could never reach her. She was very much a loner.”
“Can you tell me anything about her family?”
“The father ran off when Emma was very young. Helen Bowles wasn’t the most stable person to begin with.”
“Her mother?”
“Yes. She painted. Or did at one time. Went to art school in Chicago. Fancied herself a bohemian. Dressed outlandishly. Hated Munsonville and wasn’t shy about letting people know it. They lived above the hardware store downtown. She drank. Pills, too. The household was chaotic. Emma did all the shopping, cooking. Not that there was much of either. Helen wouldn’t let Emma have a life of her own. Personally, I think she hated her daughter for being bright and talented.”
“She certainly is talented.”
“More than once she came to school with bruises. She’d often start to cry for no reason. We did a couple of home visits, but Emma always defended her mother. Afterward everyone said they saw it coming.”
“Saw what coming, Ms. Eldredge?” Charles asks too quickly.
Claire Eldredge looks him in the eye. “What exactly are your concerns, Mr. Davis?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure. She seems so unhappy, so unstable. I want to know why.”
“There’s bound to be instability with a history like hers. I’m glad she’s working for you. Give her my best.”
“Ms. Eldredge?”
“I’ve said too much already. It’s all in the past. Everyone deserves a second chance.”