Kent Haruf - Plainsong

What ever became of Roger? Guthrie said.

What? She laughed. You’re asking about him at this time?

I got to wondering about him while you were in the bathroom.

He left. It was better for everybody.

So what was his story?

How do you mean? she said.

Well, how did you meet? Guthrie said.

She pushed herself up and looked at him. You want to talk about that right now?

I was just wondering.

Well. I was at this bar in Brush. It was a long time ago. A Saturday night. I was younger then.

You’re still young. You said that the other night too.

I know. But I was even younger then. I was at this bar and I met this guy who turned out to be my husband. He was a sweet talker. Old Roger sweet-talked me into seeing things his way.

Did he?

Then after a while it wasn’t sweet anymore.

She looked sad suddenly and he was sorry he’d said anything. He brushed her hair away again. She shook her head and smiled, bent to kiss him. He held her for a while and she felt very warm and smooth. In the bathroom she had put on cologne in addition to the nightgown. She kissed him again.

What if I was to ask you something else? Guthrie said.

What is it?

How about taking your nightgown off?

That’s different. I don’t mind that.

She raised up again and pulled the nightgown over her head. She looked very good in the lamplight.

That better?

Yes, Guthrie said. I believe it is.

Two hours earlier that evening he had driven past Maggie Jones’s house and all the lights had been turned off. So he’d driven around Holt awhile and had stopped and bought cigarettes and a six-pack of beer and afterward he’d driven out of town a ways, and about five miles south of town on the narrow highway he had made up his mind and turned around and driven back and stopped at her house, at Judy’s, the secretary from school. When she opened the door and let him in she smiled and said, Well, hello. Do you want to come in?

Now, afterward, as he was leaving, she said, You going to come back?

Maybe.

You know you don’t have to. But I’d like it if you did.

Thank you, Guthrie said.

For the rest of that night and the following day he believed it was just between the two of them. But other people in Holt knew too. He didn’t know how Maggie Jones knew, but she did. At school on Monday she came into his room in the afternoon after the last class.

Is this the way it’s going to be now? she said.

Is what the way it’s going to be, Guthrie said, looking at her face.

Don’t do this, damn you. You’re too old to play dumb.

He looked at her. He took his glasses off and wiped them and put them back on. His black hair looked thin under the light. He said, How did you know?

How big of a town do you think this is? Do you think there is somebody in Holt who doesn’t know your pickup?

Guthrie turned in the chair and looked out the window. The same winter trees. The street. The curbing across the way. He looked back at her. She was standing just inside the door watching him. No, he said, it’s not going to be like this.

So what was that, last night?

That, he said, was somebody that was turned out free for a night and didn’t know what to do with it.

You could have come over to see me. I would’ve been glad to see you.

I drove by. The lights were all off.

So you decided to go over to her house, is that it?

Something like that.

She stared at him for a long time. So is this something that’s going to be permanent? she said finally.

I don’t think so. No, he said. It isn’t. She wouldn’t want it to be either.

All right, Maggie said. But I will not compete for you. I won’t get into some kind of contest for you. I will not do that. Oh, goddamn you anyway, you son of a bitch.

She walked out of the room and down the hallway, and for the remainder of that day and on into the night Guthrie felt mixed up and wooden in all his movements and thoughts.

She was in the hallway at the high school in the afternoon when Alberta, the small blond girl from history, came up to her bearing something in her hand and said, He’s outside. He said to give you this. Here.

Who said?

I don’t know his name. He just stopped me and said give this to you when I saw you. Here, take it.

She opened the note. It was a folded scrap of cheap yellow tablet paper, with pencil writing scrawled on it. Vicky. Come out to the parking lot. Dwayne. She turned it over, there was nothing on the other side. Though she had never seen any of his handwriting before she believed this was what it would look like, this pencil-scrawl slanted backward. She didn’t think it was a joke. It was from him, no one else. She didn’t even feel much surprised. So he’d come back now. What did that mean? For most of the fall she had wanted that. Now late in the winter it had happened when she no longer believed in it or expected it. She looked at Alberta. Alberta’s eyes were wide and excited as if she were engaged in some daytime soap opera and some new shocking pronouncement was about to be made and she was only waiting for the cue to react to it.

She reached past Alberta matter-of-factly and opened the metal door of the student locker and took out her winter coat. She put it on and drew out her red shiny purse.

Vicky, what are you going to do? Alberta said. You better be careful. That’s him, isn’t it.

Yes, she said. That’s him.

She left Alberta and walked down the hall and out of the school building into the cold afternoon air, walking without rush, without hurry, in a kind of numbed trance, moving toward the icy parking lot behind the school. When she passed the last corner of the building she saw his black Plymouth waiting at the edge of the paved lot. He had the motor running and there was the familiar low muttering of the muffler, a sound that took her back to the summer. He was sitting slumped down in the front seat, smoking a cigarette. She could see the smoke drifting thinly out of the half-opened window. She walked up to him. He was watching her as she approached, then he sat up.

You don’t look too pregnant, he said. I figured you’d be bigger.

She said nothing to him yet.

Your face got rounder, he said. He studied her, looking at her steadily, a little critically as he always did, as he regarded everything. That calmness, a kind of distance he had, that you couldn’t touch. She remembered that now. It looks okay on you, he said. Turn sideways.

No.

Turn sideways. Let me see if it shows that way.

No, she said again. What do you want? What are you doing here?

I haven’t made up my mind yet, he said. I come back to see how you’re doing. I heard you were pregnant and living out in the country with two old men.

Who told you that? Haven’t you been in Denver all this time?

Sure. But I still know people here, he said. He sounded surprised.

Well, what of it? she said.

You’re mad now. I can see that much, he said.

Maybe I have a reason to be.

Maybe you do, he said. He seemed to be considering something. He reached forward and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. His motions seemed unhurried and calm. He looked at her again. Don’t be like this, he said. I come back to see you, is what I’m saying. To see if you’d want to go to Denver.

With you?

Why not?

What would I do in Denver?

What does anybody do in Denver? he said. Live in my apartment with me. We could take up our lives together. We could take up where we left off. You’re carrying my baby, aren’t you?

Yes. I have a baby in me.

And I’m the father, aren’t I?

Nobody else could be.