He blinked his eyes against the sun. The bat was rolling, he heard the sound of it, it seemed to be the only sound on the street. The sun was bright in his eyes, memory sharp and swift and sudden, blinding in its intensity, rooting him to the sidewalk in a brilliant splash of canyon-filtered sunshine, it is too still in this house.
The sunshine is coming through a small window in the entry hall. It crosses the air with flecks of dancing dust motes, the apartment is very still. He can hear a clock ticking someplace in the living room, and another sound below that, a swishing sound, he cannot place it, he does not know what the sound is. They are the only sounds in the apartment, this house is too still. He does not move from the doorway because the stillness has reached out for him, is surrounding him now, it is too still, too unreal, he has walked into something that threatens to suffocate him. The dust motes seem to move more quickly, to whirl and to advance upon him with the stillness, he knows something is wrong, he cannot move.
The carpet is deep and green and he turns his eyes to it now, really listening, but pretending he is only studying the carpet in this silent house, where are the noises? He can see separate strands of wool in the carpet, he can see a stain, his ears are reaching for sound, but there is none, they are always mistaking her for Italian, Ma lei è italiana, sicuramenter, and she answers always with a strange pleased mysterious smile, No, non sono italiana, but tells them nothing more, it is too quiet in this apartment. He wants to scream.
The dust motes tirelessly climb the shaft of sunlight.
“Hey, are you coming?” L.J. called.
Buddwing blinked his eyes. He was breathing hard, and his hands were clenched at his sides. He blinked again and looked toward the voice, the calling voice, and saw someone in a black leather jacket whom he recognized only dimly. Did he know this person? Had he ever really known this person, had he... yes, of course, L.J., of course, the boys, of course, yes, he knew them, surely he knew them, surely they were very important. He was taking a step toward his friend in the black leather jacket when the door in the brownstone across the street opened, and his heart quickened, and he turned as she came down the steps.
6
She had already reached the sidewalk by the time he crossed the street, moving swiftly on her long black legs, turning east immediately and striding toward Broadway with her head bent and her ponytail crest flying.
“Doris!” he shouted, but she did not turn, and he yelled, “Doris!” again and then began running after her. Behind him, he could hear L.J. calling to him, but his voice sounded very far away and indistinct. Doris was wearing black pumps with tiny French heels, and she scuttled over the sidewalk in giant flying steps; God, she was a fast walker. “Hey, wait up!” he called. She did not turn. Running, he caught up to her and fell into step beside her.
“Hi,” he said.
She turned toward him, startled, and the first thing he noticed was that her eyes were not brown, they were green. She looked at him with that peculiarly suspicious shocked incredible outraged look most New Yorkers wear when they are accosted by total strangers, and then performed the magic trick of tilting her nose snobbishly, raising her eyebrows aloofly, and twisting her mouth disgustedly, all at the same time. She quickened her already breathtaking pace, her little behind pumping vigorously as her long legs chewed up concrete, and left him behind her on the pavement.
“Hey, Doris!” he yelled, and ran to catch up with her again, falling into step beside her once more. “Slow down, will you?”
“I am not Doris,” she said. She had a bright perky little voice heavily garnished with the tones and rhythms of New York, familiar to him, pleasant to his ears.
“Sure you are,” he said.
“Will you please get away from me?” she said, but she turned to take a look at him, and then again lifted her nose, and raised her eyebrows, and twisted her mouth, and would have begun walking faster but he suspected she was getting out of breath.
“I’ve been waiting for you for a half hour,” he said. “What took you so long in there?”
“That,” she said, “is none of your business.” She looked at him sideways, and again lifted her nose, to give the impression she was looking down at him, although he was at least five or six inches taller than she. Still, she was a pretty tall girl, five-six or five-seven, he imagined. Her nose was slightly longer than he remembered it, but very nicely shaped, with a slightly precocious Saturday Evening Post tilt to it. Her lower lip protruded a bit, in either a purposeful or natural pout, he wasn’t sure which. She kept walking speedily, and he walked beside her, listening to the noise of her shoes on the sidewalk. Every now and again, she stole a glance at him as if ascertaining that he was still there. Finally, she stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, put her hands on her hips, which were very narrow and practically nonexistent, a boy’s hips almost, and said, “Would you like me to call a cop?”
“Well, no,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t. What do we need a cop for?”
“You don’t need a cop, but I think I do,” she said.
“Well, Doris, if you feel you need—”
“And my name is not Doris.”
“Then what is it?”
“My name is... that’s none of your business,” she said.
“Well, it is my business because I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Nobody asked you to wait for me,” she said.
“Didn’t you hear me calling you on Eighty-ninth Street?”
“On where?”
“Eighty-ninth Street. And Broadway. Where you got the cab.”
“You followed me here? All the way from...”
“Well, I yelled after you, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”
“No, I didn’t hear you.”
“Well, I sure yelled loud enough.”
“What did you yell?”
“I yelled ‘Doris!’”
“I am not Doris,” she said.
“Then what is your name?”
“My name is Janet, and goodbye,” she said, and turned away from him and began walking at her furious clip again, her head bent, her black ponytail angrily bouncing along behind her, trying to keep the wiggle out of her behind, but failing miserably. He began running again, but saw that she had stopped on Columbus Avenue to wait for the light, so he took his time catching up with her and then said, “What were you doing in that brownstone, Janet?”
“I was visiting my brother. Is that all right with you?”
“That’s fine with me. What was he doing there?”
“For Pete’s sake, he’s a writer, he lives there,” Janet said. “Listen, I wish you’d stop talking to me. And following me. Really, I wish you would. I’ll call a cop, I really will.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re bothering me, can’t you see that?”