And, too, she was becoming more open to casual conversations than she had been before Marc’s departure. She found herself chatting briefly with other residents of the Shithouse. Before she had rarely spoken to anyone there besides Peter and Gretchen — who had been Marc’s friends through the theater — and the couple on the first floor from whom she had bought a handmade silver necklace. And at work she seemed to be functioning as more of a social being.
Part of it, she knew, stemmed from her availability. Other men had followed in Sully’s wake, with more or less subtlety but with the same lack of success. She was open and friendly in most cases but she was simply not interested.
But not everyone who talked to her was a man on the make. She felt that she must be projecting more warmth, that she must give the impression of greater openness. More people were waving hello on the street; more casual acquaintances would stop into the Lemon Tree to exchange a few words.
Peter confirmed it for her. “You’ve changed,” he said. “I suppose everyone’s told you that.”
“As a matter of fact, you’re the first. How have I changed?”
“You seem less uptight, I guess.”
“Maybe I am. How?”
“I don’t know. You’re easier to talk to.”
“Did I used to be hard to talk to?”
“I shouldn’t say that, because you and I hardly ever talked. I think the first time we rapped at all was the night Marc split. But before that, I don’t know, it was a feeling I got from you. Vibrations. Like walking past a restaurant and just knowing they’re not going to want you in there with sandals. I always felt that you wanted to be left alone.”
“And I’m opening up now?”
“Well, maybe it’s that I know you better than I did. But you look better, did you know that? You look more, alive.”
“Well I feel better, Peter.”
She did little long-range planning. She would get up around nine and cook breakfast and do the dishes. Then she would read or play the radio until it was time to open the shop. For lunch she would pick up a sandwich and a container of coffee from the diner down the block. After she closed at night she generally took a long walk around town. The weather had turned warmer and her response to spring, somewhat delayed this year as was the season itself, was strong.
In the course of her walk she would stop to pick up something for dinner. She had turned lazy toward the end of her time with Marc, and dinner more often than not consisted of something canned or frozen. Now, with only herself to cook for, she cooked everything herself. Her meals were not elaborate, but they were good and inexpensive and she enjoyed preparing them.
Periodically she would tell herself that she ought to move out of the Shithouse. She was paying too much for too little, and the building had always depressed her. There had been times when she could barely stand to look at it from the outside, times when she had had to force herself to walk in the door. The Shithouse’s one advantage no longer applied in her case. She was pledged to stay in New Hope at least until fall and had pledged to herself to stay longer than that. So she would have no qualms about signing a year’s lease on an apartment or on investing money in furniture.
The point came up in conversation with Tanya Leopold. The young actress was a local girl who lived with her parents, but who lately spent most of her offstage time with Bill Donatelli, a bushily bearded abstract painter who lived across the hall from Linda and who, as far as she could tell, was incapable of speech. At least he had never talked in her presence. Tanya told her she had to move soon or forget it for a few months. “A lot of people come up for the season. For one thing there are more jobs in town and the people who come to take them need to stay somewheres. And there’s people like the ones who run the art gallery on Bridge Street. They live in Philly and move here in June and just stay open during the season. Plus the freaks and college kids who move in for the summer. There’s probably still time to find something, but another two weeks and that’s it.”
Now, with time a concern, she made a decision. She would stay at the Shithouse. She would stay for no better reason than that it seemed to suit her, she seemed to functioning well, and so for the time being she would opt for the evil she knew. The building would always be depressing, but her segment of it could become pleasant enough. She already kept it neater and cleaner than before. It was not merely that she had more time and inclination, but that it was simply easier to keep a place neat when only one person lived in it. And there was no reason why she could not improve it further. A few dollars’ worth of paint would make a world of difference. Sully might spring for the paint and brushes. If not she could spare the money herself. A new bedspread, some halfway decent curtains — she couldn’t afford to do everything at once, but it would be fun doing it a little at a time.
And it would give her something to do. One of the reasons for long walks after work was that they shortened the gap between dinner and bedtime, the hours when solitude could become desperate. There was just not that much she could do with those hours. She took books from the library and read them, she listened to the radio; she dealt out hands of solitaire. Twice she walked to Lambertville for a bottle of wine and brought it back across the bridge and drank it. But private drinking held little appeal for her; it was a last resort, and one she rarely felt the need of.
There was no movie within walking distance. There was the Playhouse, but seats were not inexpensive and she had never been that much of a theatergoer. In the time she had been with Marc, first in New York and then here, she had seen far more plays than she cared to.
Occasionally she went to the Raparound and sat over a cup of coffee for an hour or two. The problem was that she hated to go alone, not because she minded sitting by herself, but because she looked as though she were waiting to be approached. She had enough men coming on to her without sitting around asking for it.
“You ought to get out more,” Tanya told her one afternoon. She was at the Lemon Tree and Tanya had stopped in to handle the dolls, tap experimentally on the African drums, and chat idly while she examined the stock. “You must go nuts spending that much time looking at four walls.”
“I don’t mind it.”
“No? It would, have me walking across the ceiling in no time at all. I need people, conversation.”
If she required conversation, Linda thought, her affair with the silent painter smacked of masochism. “Besides,” Tanya, went on, “how are you going to meet somebody?”
“Going to meet who?”
“Well, anybody.”
“Who am I supposed to meet?”
“Well, you won’t know his name until you meet him, Linda. A man, like. You don’t want to be a nun, do you?”
Did she? She was unsure of the answer and had spent recent weeks trying to avoid the question. She said, “I don’t really want to meet anybody just now.”
“It’s like horse riding. When you have a bad fall the thing is to get right back on again.”