— But, is that all? Above them the strings withdrew for a long-due trouncing by the solo, filling the space around her with the presence of empty sound. — And Edward after all, you’ve grown up since then haven’t you and…
— There! you, there it’s not even a smile no you let people try to do something they can’t you know all the time they can’t you let them try anyhow you just watch and, and then when it’s too late and you smile that sad smile and it’s still in your eyes that you knew all the time that’s why it’s wait, wait where…
— My cab’s out there Edward, I…
— Your what? what’s…
— My cab, I called a cab for the next train and it’s…
— Cab you didn’t tell me you called a cab wait…
— I can’t, really…
— No but, wait wait I’ll ride over with you… he came still clutching the beer can, crowding her for the front door, leading her the way so anyone watching might have thought it was she pursuing him over the grown grass, through light ending the day with a lustrous quality that brought to vivid life the yellows in what green remained past the crucified crabapple and torment of honeysuckle, grape and rose, toward the drive where he got the cab’s door opened for her, stared at the can in his hand and then jammed it in the corner of the seat starting to follow.
— But Edward…
— No wait…! Behind them, in exultant pursuit of its routed enemy, the orchestra burst full tilt from the studio — wait let me run back and turn that off just a second, wait…
— But driver…
— You wait a second now lady, you’ll wait two hours for the next train.
— All right… The door slammed with the cab’s lurch, — hurry then. Hurry… And she was swept down that arboreal veterans’ ward, its splintered inmates staggered at parade rest for her plunge out the hedge, flung round the corner past the scarred pepperidge tree and hurled up the open highway in the careering interior teeming with static the entire way to the station where he turned to indicate the can couched in the corner of the seat.
— You don’t want to leave something like that in my cab, lady…
The only trash basket in sight was one metal and smashed flat, the only voice one spilling urgency from the radio of a police car parked emptily by. Unseen now, unpursued, she rose to the elevated platform with steps as ponderous as the concrete stairs that took her to the top but one, and there stopped dead. He’d looked at her full before he’d turned away, before her voice brought him round again, books and papers disheveled under one arm wrapped outside with the Turf Guide and appearing in his shoulders’ sag to grow heavier each slow step toward her. — Hello Stella… He stopped out of reach.
— Jack? She paused, and took the last step up. — How are you.
— Stella Bast… his arm fell from a gesture of wellbeing — I’m, as you see…
— Yes it’s, it’s Stella Angel now I…
— Way it’s supposed to be Stella, honest oaf get half the kingdom too?
— But what…
— Old king having trouble with his price earnings ratio offers his beautiful daughter and half his kingdom for somebody to straighten things out, the halfbaked prince botches it some honest oaf crawls out of the woodwork gets the production lines humming and taps the old king for…
— Jack please he, he just died and…
— And you’re on the next train out.
— Why would you say that.
— Just figured you’d done it Stella, put him out of action and…
— It was my father who died Jack he, you’re still drinking aren’t you…
— And you? been out here to a party? He was staring at the thing in her hand, its contents dangling — or you the new Miss Rheingold…
The platform shuddered with a train going through in the wrong direction and a tremor lingered in her frame, turning away, following its lights receding as though desperate to lose distinction among lights signifying nothing but motion, movement itself stilled by distance spreading to overwhelm the eye with the vacancy of punctuation on a wordless page. She reached an empty trash bin and dropped the can clattering into it. — I’d forgotten what you could be like.
— Tried to myself but I gave that up too. I said some cruel things to you then didn’t I Stella.
— Yes but, I’d forgotten almost, you don’t need to feel…
— No, no I meant every word.
— Jack, you…
— What? he followed her again.
— No, nothing… she stood staring out where burning neon forced the eye to read. — How did you end up in a place like this.
— I haven’t ended up.
— I heard you’d married.
— Did you.
— I thought, Jack what a waste I always knew you cared so, so strongly so bitterly I just never knew what it was you cared about…
— It would take a woman to say that wouldn’t it, something like that.
— I didn’t mean, no, no never mind I’m, I’ll wait up there for the train you’ll want to sit back here won’t you, in the smoker, it was nice to see you…
— Sorry I bothered you Stella, next time…
— Please, stop it!
— What, the minute you see me you start to…
— Well what are you doing here! What are you doing in a town like this the first time I’ve seen you in, in all this time and you’re wandering around a train platform with your old books and papers your hair messed and your, a hole in your trouser seat you look…
— Tell you the truth Stella it’s a little embarrassing I’m, you see I’m out here with a repertory company plays, you know, same God damned plays over and over I’m just coming from rehearsal’s why I’m still in this costume…
— What a waste…
— Little comedy we’re putting on now I could probably get you the ingenue lead just get up there and play yourself, doing it right down here at the firehouse it’s sort of a grim fairy tale called Our Dear Departed Mem… she put a hand on his arm as the train shuddered in beside them and he turned and looked at her, down the length of her. — All right come on, he passed his hand down her waist — I’ll ride you into town… and they entered the car out of sight behind its filthy windows as its lights too receded and became mere punctuations in this aimless spread of evening past the firehouse and the crumbling Marine Memorial, the blooded barberry and woodbine’s silent siege and the desirable property For Sale, up weeded ruts and Queen Anne’s laces to finally mount the sky itself where another blue day brought even more the shock of fall in its brilliance, spread loss like shipwreck on high winds tossing those oaks back in waves blown over with whitecaps where their leaves showed light undersides and dead branches cast brown sprays to the surface, straining at the height of the pepperidge tree and blowing down the open highway to find voice in the screams of the electric saws prospering through Burgoyne Street — like the Erinyes… came in a mutter up the stepped concrete to the station platform where Mrs Joubert, hemming her throng between the arriving shudder of the train and a billboard freshly inscribed Party tonite at Debbys cespool breng youre own spoon and straws, caught her lapels against a gust.
— All right boys and girls stay together, the car on the left here stop pushing! Can’t you get the door oh, can you help us? Mister…
— Bast yes, yes I’d be…
— That door there yes thank you, if you can help me get them settled? or are you with the others…
— Me? No the other what, I’m…