J R

— 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…