In One Person

earlier wanting to
write
in a library. But Miss Frost didn’t betray my intentions—namely, becoming a writer. (I had not yet been candid with my good friend Elaine on the writing subject; my desire to be a writer and my
other
desires were still kept secret from Elaine.)
    “We can try to run our lines
quietly
,” Elaine said, in an abnormally soft voice—for her.
    “No, no, dear—you must feel free to run lines as they should be said, onstage,” Miss Frost told Elaine, patting my friend’s hand with her much bigger hand. “I think I know a place where you could
scream
and no one would hear you.” As it turned out, the concept that there was a contained space in the First Sister Public Library where one could scream unheard was not as much of a miracle as the room itself.
    Miss Frost led Elaine and me down the basement stairs to what, at first glance, appeared to be the furnace room of the old library. It was a red-brick building of the Georgian period, and the building’s first furnace had been coal; the blackened remains of the coal chute were still hanging from a transom window. But the hulking coal burner had been toppled on its side and dragged to an unused corner of the basement; its replacement was a more modern oil furnace. Quite a new-looking propane hot-water heater stood near the oil-burning furnace, and a separate room (with a door) had been assembled in the vicinity of the transom window. A rectangular notch, near the basement ceiling, had been cut in one wall of the room—where the remnants of the coal chute dangled from the lone window. At one time, the coal chute had run from the transom window into the room—formerly, the coal bin. It was now a furnished bedroom and bathroom.
    There was an old-fashioned brass bed with a headboard of brass rails, as sturdy-looking as prison bars, to which a reading lamp had been affixed. There was a small sink and mirror in one corner of the room, and in another corner, unconcealed, stood a solitary sentinel—not an actual guard but a toilet with a wooden seat. There was a night table by the bed, where I saw an orderly stack of books and a squat, scented candle. (It smelled like cinnamon in the room; I guessed that the candle concealed the smell of oil fumes from the nearby furnace.)
    There was also an open wardrobe closet, where Elaine and I could see some shelves and hangers—with what appeared to be a most minimal assortment of Miss Frost’s clothes. What was unquestionably the centerpiece of the small room—“my converted coal bin,” Miss Frost called it—was a bathtub of Victorian opulence, with very visible plumbing. (The floor of the room was unfinished plywood, and the wiring was very visible, too.)
    “When there’s a snowstorm, and I don’t feel like driving or walking home,” Miss Frost said—as if this explained everything that was at once cozy but rudimentary about the basement room. (Neither Elaine nor I knew where Miss Frost lived, but we gathered it must have been within walking distance of the town library.)
    Elaine stared at the bathtub; it had lion paws for feet, and lion heads for faucets. I was, I confess, fixated on the brass bed with the prison-bars headboard.
    “Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to sit but the bed,” Miss Frost said, “unless you want to run lines in the tub.” She seemed not in the least concerned that Elaine and I might ever
do
anything on the bed, or take a bath together.
    Miss Frost was about to leave us alone, to actually close the door on us—in her makeshift bedroom, her expedient home-away-from-home—when Elaine Hadley exclaimed, “The room is
perfect
! Thank you for helping us, Miss Frost.”
    “You’re very welcome, Elaine,” Miss Frost said. “I assure you that you and William can scream your heads off in here, and no one will hear you.” But before closing the door, Miss Frost looked at me and smiled. “ If you need any help running lines—if there’s a question of emphasis, or a pronunciation problem—well, you know where to find me.” I didn’t know that Miss Frost had noticed my pronunciation problems; I’d actually spoken very little in her company.
    I was too embarrassed to speak, but Elaine didn’t hesitate. “Now that you mention it, Miss Frost, Billy has encountered only one difficulty in Ariel’s vocabulary, and we’re working on it,” Elaine said.
    “What difficulty is that, William?” Miss Frost asked me, with her most penetrating look. (Thank God there