Familiar Spirit

Chapter Two

After the break-up, Sarah had gone to stay with Peter and Beverly Marchant, her closest friends. They were supportive and undemanding, and it was a comfortable place to stay, but nevertheless Sarah was anxious to find a place of her own. Until she did, she knew she would feel displaced and uneasy, in limbo. Once she was settled, she could start to work out the details of her new life. Maybe she would find she didn’t miss Brian quite so desperately, in a room of her own.

Going back to the Marchants’ apartment, Sarah drove down Speedway—and swore at her subconscious for being so predictable. There were other routes, just as simple and just as fast, for getting to 45th Street, but every day Sarah found herself making the same turn and driving down Speedway as if the route were pre-programmed and she could not deviate from it. In her mind it was “the way home.” Even though it was not her home anymore.

Driving down Speedway, Sarah had only to glance to the right as she passed East 33rd Street, to catch a glimpse of the building at the corner of Helms and 33rd and the driveway there. One look was enough to tell her if Brian’s beat-up old blue pickup truck was parked there—and if it was parked alone or with Melanie’s brown Datsun.

No matter what she saw—if the truck was there alone, or with the car, or absent altogether—Sarah felt the same dull despair, followed by a flush of shame. Why did she put herself through this silly ordeal, day after day? It was better not to know if Brian was in or out, with Melanie or alone. It was nothing to do with her.

Her hands tightened on the wheel and her foot pressed harder on the gas as she glimpsed the blue and the brown together in the driveway. “I hope they drive each other crazy in that little rat-hole,” she muttered, a hot, murderous wave of jealousy passing through her.

A few minutes later she had parked her car in the large parking lot of the complex where the Marchants lived. Engine off, Sarah remained seated in the car for a few minutes, her head against the steering wheel. She breathed slowly and deeply, consciously relaxing herself, flushing the jealousy and anger out of her system. She had cried and raged and cursed and confessed all sorts of secrets within the comfortable confessional of the Marchants’ home, but it was time for a change. It was time to stop talking and thinking so incessantly about Brian and the relationship that had not worked out, time to embark on something new.

And today was a good day to begin, she reminded herself as she got out of the car. She forced up feelings of pleasure in herself like an adult coaxing a sulky child. A house! A whole, wonderful, cheap house all for her very own! Pete and Beverly would be pleased for her. Walking along the concrete path that wound between the apartment blocks, Sarah imagined Beverly’s enthusiasm, and managed a smile herself. Sweet Beverly could always be counted on.

Beverly and Sarah had met as freshmen, thrown together by the whim of the computer as dormitory roommates. They had quickly become the closest of friends, and had continued to room together until Beverly’s marriage to Pete Marchant, an assistant teacher who was working on his doctorate in psychology. Sarah and Beverly were now graduate students in the American Studies division at the university, uncertain what they would ultimately do with their degrees, but both reluctant to leave the familiar comforts of Austin and academia. Sarah and Pete had liked each other from the start, and when Sarah began dating Brian, the two couples had spent a lot of time together. Since the break-up, though, Pete and Beverly had sided wholeheartedly with Sarah, effectively declaring war on Brian. Their response cheered her, although she was ashamed to admit it. Except in the depths of tearful misery, Sarah liked to voice the civilized sentiments of the modern lover, and told all her friends that they mustn’t take sides. But, in honesty, Sarah was pleased to hear Pete and Beverly express their anger against Brian, although sometimes it seemed but a dim reflection of her own.

As she opened the door to the Marchants’ apartment, Sarah felt herself at once enveloped by the comforts of their world. The air was filled with the warm fragrance of roasting chicken, and soft, eerie music which Sarah recognized as the soundtrack from a German film called Heart of Glass—modern German cinema being one of Pete’s enthusiasms.

“Hello,” called Sarah, closing the door behind her. Pete’s hollow-cheeked, pale face appeared above the bar separating kitchen from living room. “Hello, with you in a second. I’m just basting the chicken. Want some wine?”

“Sure,” said Sarah, tossing her books onto the big brown couch. “We can celebrate. Where’s Bev?”

“She ran out to the store. What are we celebrating?” He popped out of sight again, and Sarah heard the oven door close and the refrigerator door open.

She sank down onto the gold shag rug, leaning her back against the couch, and waited until Pete appeared, bearing two large glasses filled with white wine.

“I found a house,” she said, reaching up for her glass and smiling.

Pete grinned back, his normally melancholy face transformed. “Great! Where is it?”

“You know West 35th Street? The other side of the expressway, the way we drive to Mount Bonnell?”

He nodded.

“There’s a house by the back gate of the National Guard camp. An old green house, set way back from the road. We must have passed it a hundred times. I remember wondering who lived there. It never occurred to me it might be for rent.”

He frowned, obviously trying to visualize it.

“Maybe you never noticed it. It is pretty far back from the road, and it blends in with the trees around it. I noticed it because I thought it was cosy and mysterious at the same time.”

“You’ve got the whole house?”

“The whole house, all to myself. And—you won’t believe this—only eighty-five dollars a month!” She laughed at his expression.

“Oh, I get it. A dollhouse, right? Two feet by two feet.”

Sarah shook her head, still laughing. “It’s huge! Two bedrooms. And so much land around it I could grow my own vegetables and keep chickens in a pen in the back—”

Now Pete laughed. “You’re dreaming! Is this place for real?”

“Absolutely. It’s a real, down-to-earth, old-fashioned farmhouse with a rent fixed sometime in the past. The windows are all covered with leaves so it’s like a treehouse, or a house in the middle of a forest. It’s magical.”

Pete leaned forward and touched her face with the back of one hand. “Hmmm, no fever. You didn’t eat some funny mushrooms today, did you?”

She made a face. “I’m not high, I’m just happy. I found a house—a perfect house—and I’m looking forward to living there. That’s the whole story.”

The door opened then and Beverly came in clasping a bag of groceries. Pete leaped up and took the bag from her. “Sarah’s found her dreamhouse,” he said. “We’re celebrating.”

Beverly rushed across the room and dropped to the floor beside Sarah, embracing her.

“Sarah, that’s marvelous! Where is it, and what’s it like? Cheap and two blocks from here, I hope.”

“Cheap, but on the other side of Lamar. The other side of MoPac, in fact,” Sarah said. She began to recite a litany of the new house’s marvels, enjoying the dramatics of Beverly’s reactions as her pretty, expressive face mimed first astonishment and then delight.

Pete soon joined them on the floor with the bottle of wine and a glass for his wife. “How did you happen to find this prodigy of cheapness and space?” he asked.

“Well, that’s a sort of a strange story,” Sarah said. She leaned back against the couch and extended her glass to be refilled. “I was sitting in the commons, reading, when I had the feeling I was being watched. So I looked up and, what do you know, I was being watched. There was this skinny, red-haired girl standing and staring at me. I caught her eye and smiled but she didn’t smile back. She started to give me the creeps. Then she came over to me with a piece of paper in her hand. I thought she was going to try to convert me to something—those types are always coming up to me—but she just asked me if there was a bulletin board around, for advertising. I told her I thought there was, but she should ask at the information desk. But she didn’t move, she just stood there, kind of flapping the paper at me, and giving me this look.

“Well, you know me,” Sarah said. She paused to sip her wine. “I had to ask. And, for a wonder, it wasn’t krishna consciousness or Scientology, but something I really was interested in. A house. She told me she was moving, and trying to find somebody who could move in now, in the middle of the month. When she mentioned the rent, I thought I’d heard wrong. I knew I had to see it.”

“The hand of fate,” Beverly said. “Did she tell you that in order to qualify for the special low rent you’d have to join the Universal Life Church or take up TM?”

“Nothing like that. Although it wouldn’t have surprised me, coming from her. I almost expected something even weirder from her. She gave off such a strange aura—Pete, quit smirking! If you’d met her, you’d have to agree. There was something about her that made me uneasy from the start, and it wasn’t just the way she stared at me. I’d be willing to bet she’s mixed up in something weird.”

“I wasn’t smirking,” Pete said, striving to look blameless. “I certainly wouldn’t want to argue about your response to her. I’ve experienced the same thing myself with certain people. It seems instinctual, but later you usually find that there were plenty of rational reasons for disliking that person. It may be a matter of body language, or their choice of words, or even body odor. On a subconscious level, all sorts of—”

“My love,” said Beverly hastily, catching hold of Pete’s arm, “is dinner going to be ready anytime soon?”

Her question threw him, and for a moment he looked confused. Then he said, “I need to steam the broccoli; once that’s done, the chicken and potatoes will be ready. Prob­ably in about ten minutes?”

Beverly nodded and nudged Sarah. “Go on. About how strange she was.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She had been interested in Pete’s diversion—she was looking for reasons to substantiate her feelings about Valerie. But that could wait—the kind of meandering, theoretical, philosophical/psychological discussions Pete and Sarah loved to get into usually bored Beverly. “The whole thing was strange,” Sarah went on. “Not the house. I mean, the house is great. I think. So far. At least . . .”

Beverly laughed. “I don’t believe it! You’re talking yourself out of it!”

“I’m not!”

“But something upset you,” Pete said.

“The girl?” said Beverly.

Sarah nodded. “It was the way it happened. It was as if she was looking for me, as if she knew—the way she stared at me, like she was reading my mind. How could she have known I was looking for a house? What made her pick me, out of all the people sitting around the commons this afternoon?”

“It’s called luck,” Beverly said. “Or maybe she was attracted to you, because you looked so nice.” She rubbed her shoulder against Sarah’s and gave her a kittenish look.

“Maybe you don’t really want the house,” Pete said. “Maybe you’re just not ready for making the commitment to a house of your own.”

Was he right? The image of the house resurfaced in her mind, and with it a pang of longing. She wanted to live there. The house might have been made especially for her. “Of course I want the house,” she said. “It’s perfect. I knew the moment I saw it. And if I’m not ready to live by myself, I should be. Brian and I are finished. I can’t hang around here as if I expected him to call me back. The only thing that upsets me is Valerie.”

“Perhaps she’s an excuse,” Pete said. “A focus for all your doubts.”

Sarah grimaced and shook her head hard. “No. There’s a reason for my feeling this way. There’s something very odd about how this happened—something very odd about her. When we were at the house and I decided to take it, she informed me that she’d already told the landlady my name. She was that sure of me. Before I’d even seen the place. How could she have done that? How could she have been that certain?”

Pete shrugged. “She was lying. Maybe it was all a part of her game, to tell you that. All a part of her own strange reality. You sensed something disturbing about her—maybe she’s whacko, a nut-case.”

“To use the scientific terminology,” Beverly said wryly. “You didn’t give her any money, did you?”

Sarah shook her head quickly. “No. She gave me the landlady’s name and address. The rent is due the twenty-second.”

“Maybe you should call her,” Pete suggested. “Just to make sure everything is fair and square, and to let her know about you. That might make you feel better about it, too.” He stood up. “I have to attend to dinner. Would one of you ladies set the table?”

“When did you plan to move in?” Beverly asked as she and Sarah distributed the flatware on the round, glass-topped table in a recess of the large living room.

“I thought maybe this weekend.”

Pete looked in from the kitchen. “I have a student with a van,” he said. “I’m sure I could talk him into helping us on Saturday morning. It shouldn’t take more than a trip or two to get all your things moved.”

“The things his students do for extra credit,” said Beverly.

Sarah concentrated on the pepper grinder she was holding, placing it precisely in the center of the table as she replied. “Brian has a truck, you know. And he could move the heavy things for me.”

“Sarah,” said Beverly, sounding dismayed.

“You don’t have to ask him,” Pete said.

Sarah turned away from the table. She had to look at one of them, so she chose Pete. “Brian might as well do it,” she said. “All my stuff is at his place, after all. And he said he’d do it.”

Pete was silent. Sarah saw him look at Beverly, cautioning. Then he said gently, “We could easily take care of it, Sarah. You don’t have to worry about it. You don’t even have to see him.”

Sarah shook her head. “That’s silly. Of course I have to see him. It’s his apartment, and we have to sort out our things, decide what belongs to him and what to me. We bought a lot of things together during—”

“I could do it, Sarah,” Beverly said. “You could just tell me—I remember your things from when we lived together.”

Sarah half-turned so she did not have to face either of her friends directly. She tried a laugh. “Look. Brian exists. My things are in his apartment. It’s not going to kill me to see him, and it’s the most sensible way to handle this. I have to get used to it, and so do you. I can’t have a nervous breakdown every time I run into him on campus. This is a small town, and we know the same people and we go to the same school—I can’t avoid him forever. I have to see him sometime, and it might as well be this weekend.”

Pete went back into the kitchen. Beverly moved closer to Sarah, touching her arm. “You look. You don’t have to be sensible, you know. We won’t think any less of you. I know you’re tough and all that; I know you’re capable of going over there and packing up all your stuff and being cool and perfectly friendly to that jerk, but you don’t have to do it. There’s no point, if it might upset you. You don’t have to put on a front for anyone; you don’t have to prove anything. Don’t rush it. Just wait until you happen to run into him . . . wait until you’re well and truly over him before you try to see him.”

“But I am over him,” Sarah lied. “Mostly, anyway, I think. How can I know for sure unless I see him, to test myself? I’ve gotten used to being alone . . . but then, you know, we were drifting apart even before he met this Melanie. It was just a matter of time, really.” She looked cautiously at Beverly to see how her story was being accepted.

“I always thought you could do better,” Beverly said. “Honestly, Sarah. I mean, O.K., I’ll admit Brian’s a hunk, and he’s very nice—at least, I always thought he was nice until this business—but . . . I could never see you spending the rest of your life with him. He’s so lazy. You know, in five years you’ll be a professor somewhere, and Brian will still be living in that same little apartment with all his books and records and games, and he’ll be taking classes in Zen and the art of basket-weaving, or something equally useful, and he’ll be no closer to getting a degree than he is now. And he’ll be perfectly content.”

Sarah had to smile and admit the accuracy of Beverly’s prediction. “All right, he’s not ambitious . . . but he’ll find himself eventually. Is it better to be ambitious than to be happy? You know he’s intelligent, and talented, and good-natured. A much nicer person than I am, really. And he did so much for me—he was so good to me—all the time, little things and big ones. He’d—” She faltered and broke off, trapped again by memories. Brian’s warmth, his smile, the way he said her name when he had one of his surprises for her.

“Oh, Sarah,” Beverly said softly, sadly.

Pete came back into the room with the platter of roast chicken. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said.

“I’m all right.”

“Of course you are,” Beverly said softly as they all sat down to dinner.

Brian was not mentioned again that evening, but Sarah was so aware of the unspoken name that she sometimes felt he was physically in the room with them, Pete and Beverly ignoring him out of loyalty to her. It gave her an odd feeling, but she did not mention Brian again, either, observing the unspoken rules—and then wondered who the rules were for, who was being protected. They talked about Sarah’s new house, and the oddity of Valerie, and an experiment Pete had been observing in the psychology department. They talked about books, and watched a well-meaning but extremely dull local arts program on television, and played a game of Scrabble. By the time she went to bed, Sarah felt ready to burst with self-restraint and self-denial. In bed at last, alone and free, her thoughts flew greedily to Brian.

He had been so good to her, and always there; she had basked in his love, or blinked and moved away, annoyed by its intensity, but it had seemed a constant, like the sun. It had never really occurred to Sarah that someday Brian would leave her, that the bright, nourishing beams of his affection would be directed at someone else.

Before the final surprise of Melanie, Brian had specialized in good surprises. He would send her flowers, or mysterious telegrams signed “Alexei” or “Nikolai”; he set up a midnight treasure-hunt across a nearby golf course which ended in a cache of champagne and fried chicken for a moonlit picnic; he hired a local band to serenade her on her birthday.

And he had been just as thoughtful, just as clever, just as determined to please her in bed. Once, Sarah remembered, she had discovered a vibrator under her pillow, and looked around to find Brian watching her with his wickedest grin. Another time it had been a can of whipped cream and a jar of chocolate syrup; another, massage oils. He had been an inventive and seemingly tireless lover, quick to learn what she liked, and so eager to provide it that she believed him when he said that his pleasure came from giving her pleasure.

So much love, so much attention—Sarah dreamed of a man beside the bed who brought a pillow down on her face while she slept, and woke, thrashing and panting for air, hot, breathless and disoriented, thinking frantically of escape when Brian put his arms around her and tried to comfort her.

Escape! Fully awake, the thought seemed traitorous and absurd. Sarah’s dreams made her feel guilty, and she winced away from Brian’s smile and tried to find ways around his generosity. He tried to give her more, and she asked for less.

Finally, it seemed, he had taken her at her word, and given her less, so that now she had nothing. She was free now, freer than she had ever wanted to be. Tears came to her eyes, but she fought them off. She didn’t want another miserable, wakeful night spent going over that dreadful litany of mistakes, quarrels, misunderstandings and lost hopes. They’d had more good times together than bad, she and Brian, but the memories that clung now were the ones with burrs, the prickly, uncomfortable ones. Sarah wanted to remember the good times, the long, safe, sexy nights, the lazy mornings; she wanted a sweet memory with which to lull herself to sleep, hand between her thighs.

She commanded a memory: Brian’s lips on hers, the two of them together in bed. But that was too vague. She had to pick out a moment in time, some time when he had been hers.

She remembered coming in from class one afternoon, trudging up the stairs, her head down. She hadn’t seen Brian waiting for her, hadn’t even known he was there until he pounced, grabbing her tightly from behind.

Sarah had squealed, and then giggled as he pawed her and breathed heavily in her ear, but the books in her arms were uncomfortable, slipping. “Brian, could I put my books down?”

“Ha! ’oo ees thees Brian? ’E cannot ’elp you now!”

One book fell. Wincing with annoyance, Sarah let the rest of them go. Why did she worry about such trivial details? Why couldn’t she just forget everything else and play, as Brian did?

But he had done a good job of distracting her. His hands caressing her breasts through the silky material of her blouse, his breath hot in her ear, became the only important things. He tumbled her to the ground, and tugged her jeans partway down, and touched her until her panties were wet and she was wriggling with impatience, but he held her down, held her hands down, not letting her touch him or undress herself, laughing at her, murmuring, “Ah, no, you naughty girl, we’ll keep our clothes on and stay out of trouble.” And he’d gone on teasing her, sucking her breasts through her blouse, until—

She knew what happened next; it was what always happened next. But she was helpless to visualize it. Instead she saw Brian’s face change, saw him melancholy, no longer loving or lustful. And she heard him say, “Melanie needs me. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Brian wasn’t hers anymore, not even in her fantasies.