Dance of the Happy Shades

a feeling of love, if that is what you want to call it, strong enough to pretty near crumple me up and knock me over. Ted Forgie was an announcer at the Jubilee radio station for six months, around the time I was finishing high school. Momma said he was too old for me—she never said that about Clare—but all he was was twenty-four. He had spent two years in a San with T.B. and that had made him old for his years. We used to go up on Sullivan’s Hill and he talked about how he had lived with death staring him in the face and he knew the value of being close to one human being, but all he had found was loneliness. He said he wanted to put his head down in my lap and weep, but all the time what he
was
doing was something else. When he went away I just turned into a sleepwalker. I only woke up in the afternoons when I went to the post office and opened the box with my knees going hollow, to see if I had a letter. And I never did, after that one. Places bothered me. Sullivan’s Hill, the radio station, the coffee shop of the Queen’s Hotel. I don’t know how many hours I spent in that coffee shop, reciting in my head every conversation we ever had and visualizing every look on his face, not really comprehending yet that wishing wasn’t going to drag him through that door again. I got friendly with Clare in there. He said I looked like I needed cheering up and he told me some of his stories. I never let on to him what my trouble was but when we started going out I explained to him that friendshipwas all I could offer. He said he appreciated that and he would bide his time. And he did.
    I read the letter all the way through and I thought, not for the first time, well reading this letter any fool can see there is not going to be another.
I
want you to know how grateful I am
far
all your sweetness and understanding. Sweetness
was the only word stuck in my mind then, to give me hope. I thought, when Clare and I get married I am just going to throw this letter away. So why not do it now? I tore it across and across and it was easy like tearing up notes when school is over. Then because I didn’t want Momma commenting on what was in my wastepaper basket I wadded it up and put it in my purse. That being over I lay down on my bed and thought about several things. For instance, if I hadn’t been in a stupor over Ted Forgie, would I have taken a different view of Clare? Not likely. If I hadn’t been in that stupor I might have never bothered with Clare at all, I’d have gone off and done something different; but no use thinking about that now. The fuss he made at first made me sorry for him. I used to look down at his round balding head and listen to all his groaning and commotion and think, what can I do now except be polite? He didn’t expect anything more of me, never expected anything, but just to lie there and let him, and I got used to that. I looked back and thought am I a heartless person, just to lie there and let him grab me and love me and moan around my neck and say the things he did, and never say one loving word back to him? I never wanted to be a heartless person and I was never mean to Clare, and I did let him, didn’t I, nine times out of ten?
    I heard Momma get up from her nap and go and put the kettle on so she could have a cup of tea and read her paper. Then some little time later she gave a yell and I thought somebody had died so I jumped off the bed and ran into the hall, but she was there underneath saying, “Goon back to your nap, I’msorry I scared you. I made a mistake.” I did go back and I heard her using the phone, probably calling one of her old cronies about some news in the paper, and then I guess I fell asleep.
    What woke me was a car stopping, somebody getting out and coming up the front walk. I thought, is it Clare back early? And then, confused and half-asleep, I thought, I already tore up the letter, that’s good. But it wasn’t his step. Momma opened the door before the bell got a chance to ring and I heard Alma Stonehouse, who teaches at the Jubilee Public School and is my best friend. I went out in the hall and leaned over and called down, “Hey Alma are you eating here
again
?” She boards at Bailey’s where the food has its ups and downs and when she smells their Shepherd’s Pie she sometimes heads over to our place without an invitation.
    Alma started upstairs without taking her coat off, her thin dark face just blazing with excitement so I knew something had