Who Do You Think You Are

snow. She did not pay much attention. It was wet, pretty snow, coming straight down in big flakes. She wondered if it would be snowing in Banff. She hoped so, she liked the idea of lying in bed and watching it. It snowed more or less steadily for two days, and late Thursday afternoon when she went to pick up her ticket at the travel agency they told her the airport had been closed. She did not show or even feel any worry; she was a bit relieved, that she would not have to fly. How about trains, she said, but of course the train didn’t go to Calgary, it went down to Spokane. She knew that already. Then the bus, she said. They phoned to make sure the highways were open and the buses were running. During that conversation her heart began to pound a bit, but it was all right, everything was all right, the bus was running. It won’t be much fun, they said, it leaves here at half-past twelve, that’s twelve midnight, and it gets into Calgary around 2 p.m. the next day.
    “That’s all right.”
    “You must really want to get to Calgary,” the grubby young man said. This was a most ramshackle informal travel agency, set up in a hotel lobby outside the door of the beer parlor.
    “It’s Banff, actually,” she said brazenly. “And I do.”
    “Going to do some skiing?”
    “Maybe.” She was convinced he guessed everything. She didn’t know then how commonplace such illicit jaunts were; she thought the aura of sin was dancing round her like half-visible flames on a gas burner.
    She went home thinking she would be better off, really, sitting on the bus, getting closer and closer to Tom, than lying in bed unable to sleep. She would just have to ask the teacher to move in tonight.
    The teacher was waiting for her, playing Chinese checkers with Anna. “Oh, I don’t know how to tell you,” she said; “I’m so awfully sorry but something’s happened.”
    She said her sister had had a miscarriage and was in need of her help. Her sister lived in Vancouver.
    “My boyfriend is driving me down tomorrow if we can get through.”
    This was the first Rose had heard of any boyfriend, and she immediately suspected the whole story. Some flying chance the girl was off on; she too had smelled love and hope. Somebody’s husband, maybe, or some boy her own age. Rose looked at her once-acned face now rosy with shame and excitement and knew she would never budge her. The teacher went on to embroider her story with talk of her sister’s two little children; both boys, and they had been just longing for a girl.
    Rose started phoning, to get somebody else. She phoned students, wives of the men she worked with, who might be able to give her names; she phoned Dorothy who hated children. It was no use. She followed leads that people had given her, though she realized these were probably worthless, given only to get rid of her. She was ashamed of her persistence. At last Anna said, “I could stay here by myself.”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    “I did before. When I was sick and you had to go to work.” “How would you like,” said Rose, and felt a true sudden pleasure at so easy and reckless a solution, “how would you like to come to Banff?”
    They packed in a great rush. Fortunately Rose had been to the laundromat the night before. She did not allow herself to think about what Anna would do in Banff, about who would pay for the extra room, about whether Anna would in fact agree to having a separate room. She threw in coloring books and story books and messy kits of do-it-yourself decorations, anything she thought might do for amusement. Anna was excited by the turn of events, not dismayed at the thought of the bus ride. Rose remembered to call ahead of time for the taxi to pick them up at midnight.
    They almost got stuck driving down to the bus depot. Rose thought what a good idea it had been to call the taxi half an hour ahead of time, for what was usually a five-minute drive. The bus depot was an old service station, a dreary place. She left Anna on a bench with the luggage and went to buy their tickets. When she came back Anna was drooped over the suitcase, having given way to sleepiness as soon as her mother’s back was turned.
    “You can sleep on the bus.”
    Anna straightened up, denied being tired. Rose hoped it would be warm on the bus. Perhaps she should have brought a blanket, to wrap around Anna. She had thought of it, but they had enough to carry already, with the shopping bag full of Anna’s books and