out. Said to me, “Say, who’s that?” Why, that’s Lavinia Nebbs, prettiest maiden lady in town, I said. “She’s beautiful,” he said. “Where does she live?”’ Here the druggist paused uncomfortably.
‘You didn’t!’ said Francine. ‘You didn’t give him her address, I hope? You didn’t!’
‘I guess I didn’t think. I said, “Oh, over on Park Street, you know, near the ravine.” A casual remark. But now, tonight, them finding the body, I heard a minute ago, I thought, My God, what’ve I done!’ He handed over the package, much too full.
‘You fool!’ cried Francine, and tears were in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry. Course, maybe it was nothing.’
Lavinia stood with the three people looking at her, staring at her. She felt nothing. Except, perhaps, the slightest prickle of excitement in her throat. She held out her money automatically.
‘There’s no charge on those peppermints,’ said the druggist, turning to shuffle some papers.
‘Well, I know what I’m going to do right now!’ Helen stalked out of the drugshop. ‘I’m calling a taxi to take us all home. I’ll be no part of a hunting party for you, Lavinia. That man was up to no good. Asking about you. You want to be dead in the ravine next?’
‘It was just a man,’ said Lavinia, turning in a slow circle to look at the town.
‘So is Frank Dillon a man, but maybe he’s the Lonely One.’
Francine hadn’t come out with them, they noticed, and turning, they found her arriving. ‘I made him give me a description – the druggist. I made him tell what the man looked like. A stranger,’ she said, ‘in a dark suit. Sort of pale and thin.’
‘We’re all overwrought,’ said Lavinia. ‘I simply won’t take a taxi if you get one. If I’m the next victim, let me be the next. There’s all too little excitement in life, especially for a maiden lady thirty-three years old, so don’t you mind if I enjoy it. Anyway it’s silly; I’m not beautiful.’
‘Oh, but you are, Lavinia; you’re the loveliest lady in town, now that Elizabeth is—’ Francine stopped. ‘You keep men off at a distance. If you’d only relax, you’d been married years ago!’
‘Stop sniveling, Francine! Here’s the theater box office, I’m paying forty-one cents to see Charlie Chaplin. If you two want a taxi, go on. I’ll sit alone and go home alone.’
‘Lavinia, you’re crazy; we can’t let you do that—’
They entered the theater.
The first showing was over, intermission was on, and the dim auditorium was sparsely populated. The three ladies sat halfway down front, in the smell of ancient brass polish, and watched the manager step through the worn red velvet curtains to make an announcement.
‘The police have asked us to close early tonight so everyone can be out at a decent hour. Therefore we are cutting our short subjects and running our feature again immediately. The show will be over at eleven. Everyone is advised to go straight home. Don’t linger on the streets.’
‘That means us, Lavinia!’ whispered Francine.
The lights went out. The screen leaped to life.
‘Lavinia,’ whispered Helen.
‘What?’
‘As we came in, a man in a dark suit, across the street, crossed over. He just walked down the aisle and is sitting in the row behind us.’
‘Oh, Helen!’
‘Right behind us?’
One by one the three women turned to look.
They saw a white face there, flickering with unholy light from the silver screen. It seemed to be all men’s faces hovering there in the dark.
‘I’m going to get the manager!’ Helen was gone up the aisle. ‘Stop the film! Lights!’
‘Helen, come back!’ cried Lavinia, rising.
They tapped their empty soda glasses down, each with a vanilla mustache on their upper lip, which they found with their tongues, laughing.
‘You see how silly?’ said Lavinia. ‘All that riot for nothing. How embarrassing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Helen faintly.
The clock said eleven-thirty now. They had come out of the dark theater, away from the fluttering rush of men and women hurrying everywhere, nowhere, on the street while laughing at Helen. Helen was trying to laugh at herself.
‘Helen, when you ran up that aisle crying, “Lights!” I thought I’d die! That poor man!’
‘The theater manager’s brother from Racine!’
‘I apologized,’ said Helen, looking up at the great fan still whirling, whirling the warm late night air, stirring, restirring the smells of vanilla, raspberry, peppermint and Lysol.
‘We shouldn’t have stopped for these sodas. The police warned—’
‘Oh, bosh the police,’ laughed Lavinia. ‘I’m not afraid of anything. The Lonely One is a million miles away now. He won’t be back for weeks and the police’ll get him then, just wait. Wasn’t the film wonderful?’
‘Closing up, ladies.’ The druggist switched off the lights in the cool white-tiled silence.
Outside, the streets were swept clean and empty of cars or trucks or people. Bright lights still burned in the small store windows where the warm wax dummies lifted pink wax hands fired with blue-white diamond rings, or flourished orange wax legs to reveal hosiery. The hot blue-glass eyes of the mannequins watched as the ladies drifted down the empty river bottom street, their images shimmering in the windows like blossoms seen under darkly moving waters.
‘Do you suppose if we screamed they’d do anything?’
‘Who?’
‘The dummies, the window people.’
‘Oh, Francine.’
‘Well …’
There were a thousand people in the windows, stiff and silent, and three people on the street, the echoes following like gunshots from store fronts across the way when they tapped their heels on the baked pavement.
A red neon sign flickered dimly, buzzed like a dying insect, as they passed.
Baked and white, the long avenues lay ahead. Blowing and tall in a wind that touched only their leafy summits, the trees stood on either side of the three small women. Seen from the courthouse peak, they appeared like three thistles far away.
‘First, we’ll walk you home, Francine.’
‘No, I’ll walk you home.’
‘Don’t be silly. You live way out at Electric Park. If you walked me home you’d have to come back across the ravine alone, yourself. And if so much as a leaf fell on you, you’d drop dead.’
Francine said, ‘I can stay the night at your house. You’re the pretty one!’
And so they walked, they drifted like three prim clothes forms over a moonlit sea of lawn and concrete, Lavinia watching the black trees flit by each side of her, listening to the voices of her friends murmuring, trying to laugh; and the night seemed to quicken, they seemed to run while walking slowly, everything seemed fast and the color of hot snow.
‘Let’s sing,’ said Lavinia.
They sang, ‘Shine On, Shine On, Harvest Moon …’
They sang sweetly and quietly, arm in arm, not looking back. They felt the hot sidewalk cooling underfoot, moving, moving.
‘Listen!’ said Lavinia.
They