Alice Adams - To See You Again - Stories

Sunlight strained through a chink between the draperies, but I did not want to open them; I did not want to see (again—ever) that network of concrete filagree, so precariously stuck together, nor the acres of casinos just beyond. I did not want to see Las Vegas again, not ever.

That knowledge came over me with the force of cold water, a wave, and in the neutral temperature of that room I shivered for a moment, standing there perfectly still, and resolute. Then, suddenly galvanized, I rushed into motion. I pushed everything barely folded into my canvas bag (my “backpack”); for a moment I stared at my slightly awry image in the mirror, but decided to do nothing about how I looked, no effort at order.

I was thinking that David might come in at any moment, for whatever reason. Or someone might stop me, leaving the hotel with my suitcase. Or, worst, I might not have enough money for air fare. Right then I decided to go home by Greyhound; there was a chance that David could have been at the airport, but he would never go by bus; I could not say why but I was absolutely sure of that. I hoped I had enough money for the bus.

My heart had risen to the top of my chest and it beat there violently, so that it was hard to breathe. But I made it from the room to the elevator without meeting David in the hall, and he was not, of course, in the elevator, going down.

Despite trembling legs and a displaced heart I got across the lobby; probably, actually, I was not the first person to leave that place, in that condition. Also I guessed that my suitcase could have looked like an oversized handbag, if anyone wondered.

A bellboy handed me into a waiting taxi, and I had to say “Greyhound” twice before the driver understood; I was having trouble with my voice, and probably that is an uncommon destination from Caesar’s Palace. As we flashed past those miles of casinos (the bus station was a long way off, worse luck) I thought, I knew , that I should have left a note for David, but I was really running scared, and besides, what could I have said, beyond something dumb about neither of us being quite the person the other one thought, which he had undoubtedly figured out on his own. What can you say to a person who really likes it in Las Vegas—who thinks it’s real?

My first piece of luck: there was a bus just leaving for Reno, where I would have to change for San Francisco. The long way home. It was also more expensive than the more direct way, through Bakersfield, would be, and I had just enough money, in fact three dollars over (the three that I did not put into that machine, which must have meant something). I could have a hamburger in Reno. I bought my ticket and I got on, just in time.

The bus lurched into motion, out of the station, and onto a freeway where there were casinos all over the place. Again. But fairly soon we were past all that, and heading out into the desert.

I settled down for a fairly long trip, maybe boring, maybe in some ways a little frightening, so much desert. But from then on I was going to be all right, I thought.

The very old couple, of whom everyone at the beach is so highly aware, seem themselves to notice no one else at all. Tall and thin, she almost as tall as he, they are probably somewhere in their eighties. They walk rather slowly, and can be seen, from time to time, to stop and rest, staring out to sea, or to some private distance of their own. Their postures, always, are arrestingly, regally erect; it is this that catches so much attention, as well as their general air of distinction, and of what is either disdain or a total lack of interest in other people.

Their clothes are the whitest at the beach; in the ferocious Mexican sun of that resort they both wear large hats, hers lacy, his a classic panama.

They look like movie stars, or even royalty, and for all anyone knows they are, deposed monarchs from one of the smaller European countries, world-wanderers.

Because there is not much to do at that resort, almost nothing but walking and swimming, reading or whatever social activities one can devise, most people stay for fairly short periods of time. Also, it is relatively expensive. The Chicago people, who have come as a group, will be there for exactly ten days. The couple who have the room just next door to that of the distinguished old couple will be there for only a week—a week literally stolen, since he is married to someone else, in Santa Barbara, and is supposed to be at a sales conference, in Puerto Rico.

But the old people seem to have been there forever, and the others imagine that they will stay on and on, at least for the length of the winter.

And while everyone else can be seen, from time to time, to wonder what to do next—the Chicago people, apparently committed to unity of action, were heard arguing in the dining room over whether, or when, to rent a boat for deep-sea fishing—the two old people have a clear, unwavering schedule of their own. After breakfast, to which they come in quite late, as they do to all meals, they sit out on their small porch for a couple of hours. The girl in the room next door, who is named Amanda Evers, is passionately curious about them, and she tries to look through the filagree of concrete that separates the two porches. But she discovers nothing. (She is in fact too curious about too many people; her lover, Richard Paxton, has told her so. Curiosity contributes to the general confusion of her life.)

The old man reads his newspapers, a Mexico City News that he has delivered to his table each morning, at breakfast, and sometimes he seems to be writing letters—or perhaps he keeps a journal? The woman does not read the paper; she seems to be doing nothing at all—a thing that Amanda, who is restlessly energetic, cannot imagine. (Amanda manages a travel agency, in Santa Cruz, California; she often considers other careers.)

The arrival of the elderly couple, down at the beach, at almost precisely noon each day, is much noticed; it is when they look, perhaps, most splendid. In trim dark bathing suits, over which they both wear white shirts, in their hats and large dark glasses, advancing on their ancient legs, they are as elegant as tropical birds—and a striking contrast to everyone else on the beach, many of whom wear bright colors. One woman in the Chicago group has a pea-green caftan that literally hurts Amanda’s eyes.

The old people sit each day under the same small thatched shelter, a little apart from the others, at the end of the line. After a while they will rise and begin one of their long, deliberate walks, the length of the beach and back. Then, returned to their shelter, in a slow and careful way they divest themselves of the shirts, the hats and glasses; they walk down to the edge of the water, and slowly, majestically, they enter the lapping small green waves. After a not quite total immersion they return to the shelter, to rest. Even in such apparent repose, however, they both have a look of great attentiveness. They seem highly conscious of each moment, and very likely they are.

They take lunch quite late, and always, of course, alone, at one of the small restaurants down the beach. They are seen to chatter away to each other, and to eat rather little. But no one can ever overhear what they are saying, nor would anyone dare address them. Her accent, however, is recognizably “foreign”; his is English, probably—giving further credence to the theory that they are royalty, deposed.

And that notion is not entirely incorrect: those people are named Carlotta and Travis Farquhar, and once, if not royal, they were famous: Carlotta, originally Polish, as an actress, and Travis, a Scot, as an astronomer; an asteroid has his name. They both, simultaneously, reached their heights of achievement about forty years ago; since then, not entirely by choice, they have eased themselves into retirement. In Travis’s case, what was then called a nervous breakdown took two years from his life; coming out of it, he was, or felt himself to be, too far behind, in terms of research. He could still teach, of course, but he tired of that, fairly early on. And Carlotta, who took care of him during those years, had never been truly dedicated to the stage; later she was happy enough to yield her place to younger actresses, or so she said.