Dalecarlia Drive, my heartbeat quickened. Number 436 Dalecarlia stood right there on the corner, surprisingly close. I drove to the end of the block, made a U-turn, pulled the Gremlin under a large orange-leafed maple half a block down from her house.
I had brought a newspaper to hide behind, thinking of movie stakeouts. But with the rain coming down hard now, my face through the windshield well obscured, the newspaper seemed hardly necessary.
Her house was a split-level, with a bay window and faux brick siding a shade of burnt yellow. An ordinary house, really, nearly identical to the one next door. The lawn had recently been cut. A high fence, barely weathered, surrounded the yard.
In the driveway sat a blue Delta 88.
I cut my lights, left the motor running. For a moment I was unable to move. She was home. She had to be.
The rain fell between us. Even so, I felt exposed. If she looked out onto the street at this moment, the way unhappy people are supposed to look out windows on rainy days, she would certainly see me. The light above her front door was on. The morning paper still lay on her doorstep.
I turned on the cellular phone and nervously dialed her number, my thumb on the red button ready to cut off the call. It rang once, then again, then I realizedâAlicia had seen my car before; she'd know it was me out here. I had parked the Gremlin in back of the funeral home where Alicia had stood under the green awning passing out directions. I had walked down the steps and climbed into my car. Surely she had watched me.
I could almost see her sitting at her bedroom window now, leaning out, squinting into the rain. I pressed the hang-up button, let down the hand brake, and drove slowly away.
That Sunday, I was relieved to be returning home to Columbia to see my mother. I had promised her a visit, and since I had nothing to do on my day off anyway but worry over my future and daydream about Alicia, I was happy for a change of scenery. Not that I was looking forward to being around my mother, who lately had been driving me crazy with her career harassment and her talk of Thea, but I knew I needed to leave St. Louis, if only for a day, to gain some perspective on what had been a whirlwind couple of weeks.
After an early start, I arrived at 102 La Grange before she was expecting me. From the living room came a loud wave of
The Pirates of Penzance:
"I am a Pirate King!" the stereo blared. "And it tis, it tis a glorious thing to be a Pirate King!" I went into the living room and turned the volume down.
"You're early," my mother said, emerging from the back hallway, the Sunday crossword in hand.
"The boarders must love that stuff." I flipped through the
Independent
that was sitting on the dinette and picked out the metro section.
"What stuff?" she asked.
"Gilbert and Sullivan."
"It's good for them," she said.
"At ten in the morning?" I sat on the living room couch and opened the paper to the obits. "They're graduate students. I assure you they're asleep."
"What kind of a greeting is this?"
"Sorry, Mother. One can only take so much 'taran-tara!' at this hour."
She sighed. "People don't appreciate language anymore. Plays on words," she said, turning the stereo off. "I sometimes wonder if the end of rhyme didn't go hand in hand with the end of happiness." She sat down next to me on the couch, throwing aside her mostly finished crossword puzzle, and gave me a quick hug.
"Cheer up." She smiled and then started singing half seriously: "Ah, leave me not to pine/ Alone and desolate;/ No fate seemed fair as mine,/ No happiness so great!"
"And what are you so happy about?" Music always cheered her up, but she seemed in particularly good spirits.
"Oh, nothing," she said. "I've been reading some old letters. Have you had breakfast? I had in mind a visit to Country Carl's."
Country Carl's was a diner on the other side of the university that I hadn't visited since college. There was a waitress named Alma with a pile of red
I had brought a newspaper to hide behind, thinking of movie stakeouts. But with the rain coming down hard now, my face through the windshield well obscured, the newspaper seemed hardly necessary.
Her house was a split-level, with a bay window and faux brick siding a shade of burnt yellow. An ordinary house, really, nearly identical to the one next door. The lawn had recently been cut. A high fence, barely weathered, surrounded the yard.
In the driveway sat a blue Delta 88.
I cut my lights, left the motor running. For a moment I was unable to move. She was home. She had to be.
The rain fell between us. Even so, I felt exposed. If she looked out onto the street at this moment, the way unhappy people are supposed to look out windows on rainy days, she would certainly see me. The light above her front door was on. The morning paper still lay on her doorstep.
I turned on the cellular phone and nervously dialed her number, my thumb on the red button ready to cut off the call. It rang once, then again, then I realizedâAlicia had seen my car before; she'd know it was me out here. I had parked the Gremlin in back of the funeral home where Alicia had stood under the green awning passing out directions. I had walked down the steps and climbed into my car. Surely she had watched me.
I could almost see her sitting at her bedroom window now, leaning out, squinting into the rain. I pressed the hang-up button, let down the hand brake, and drove slowly away.
That Sunday, I was relieved to be returning home to Columbia to see my mother. I had promised her a visit, and since I had nothing to do on my day off anyway but worry over my future and daydream about Alicia, I was happy for a change of scenery. Not that I was looking forward to being around my mother, who lately had been driving me crazy with her career harassment and her talk of Thea, but I knew I needed to leave St. Louis, if only for a day, to gain some perspective on what had been a whirlwind couple of weeks.
After an early start, I arrived at 102 La Grange before she was expecting me. From the living room came a loud wave of
The Pirates of Penzance:
"I am a Pirate King!" the stereo blared. "And it tis, it tis a glorious thing to be a Pirate King!" I went into the living room and turned the volume down.
"You're early," my mother said, emerging from the back hallway, the Sunday crossword in hand.
"The boarders must love that stuff." I flipped through the
Independent
that was sitting on the dinette and picked out the metro section.
"What stuff?" she asked.
"Gilbert and Sullivan."
"It's good for them," she said.
"At ten in the morning?" I sat on the living room couch and opened the paper to the obits. "They're graduate students. I assure you they're asleep."
"What kind of a greeting is this?"
"Sorry, Mother. One can only take so much 'taran-tara!' at this hour."
She sighed. "People don't appreciate language anymore. Plays on words," she said, turning the stereo off. "I sometimes wonder if the end of rhyme didn't go hand in hand with the end of happiness." She sat down next to me on the couch, throwing aside her mostly finished crossword puzzle, and gave me a quick hug.
"Cheer up." She smiled and then started singing half seriously: "Ah, leave me not to pine/ Alone and desolate;/ No fate seemed fair as mine,/ No happiness so great!"
"And what are you so happy about?" Music always cheered her up, but she seemed in particularly good spirits.
"Oh, nothing," she said. "I've been reading some old letters. Have you had breakfast? I had in mind a visit to Country Carl's."
Country Carl's was a diner on the other side of the university that I hadn't visited since college. There was a waitress named Alma with a pile of red
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