Steven Millhauser - Dangerous Laughter

Because the bed was almost always empty, I no longer hesitated by the chair. Instead I went straight past it and lay down on my back with my head on a pillow and waited for her to present herself. After a while she would greet me and sit down on the chair with her feet on the bed. Then she would talk to me about her plans for the future — she wanted to be a doctor, she wanted to help people, she wanted to travel — while I lay in the dark and tried to imagine Isabel stepping from an airplane, in some bright airport, somewhere.

It was during one of these afternoons in early August, when she sat in the chair with her bare feet resting near my lower leg, that she told me about an idea she’d been turning over in her mind. She’d been thinking about it, actually, for a long time, though she hadn’t been ready to face it, really. But now, thanks to me, she felt she had the courage to do it. Of course, it wasn’t the sort of thing you would just go ahead and do without giving it a whole lot of thought — you had to sort of sneak up on it, in your mind. And that’s just what she’d been doing, over these last weeks, and it felt right, so right, it really did. And so, to make a long story short, or a short story long, she was going to break out of the dark — let in the light — before the month was over.

A moment later she said, “You’re not saying anything.”

I said, “Are you really sure you—”

“Absolutely,” Isabel said.

Now whenever I entered she was full of plans. At first she’d thought to change things gradually — a dim candle at one end of the room, then on my next visit a lamp on the bed table, and finally the opened curtains — but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of announcing the new era dramatically. A complete break — that was the way to go. And once the darkness was gone, why, she could do anything — anything. She felt it in her bones. She’d always wanted to learn how to play tennis, for example, and had foolishly put it off. She wanted to see people, do things. She missed her aunt in Maine. She and I could go rowing together — there must be lakes around here. We could go swimming at that beach of mine. And as I lay back against the pillows, listening to her as she sat on the chair with her legs on the bed, I could feel her kicking her heels in excitement.

One afternoon as I climbed the carpeted stairs, on my way to the wooden stairs that led to the attic, it struck me that I hadn’t seen Wolf for quite some time. I had visited him occasionally, on the way to Isabel’s room, but not for the past few weeks or so, and I felt a sudden desire to see him now. I knocked on his door with a single knuckle — two light raps — and after a pause I heard the word “Enter,” uttered in a tone of mock solemnity.

I pushed open the door and saw in the mildly sunny room a big new desk against one wall. Wolf was sitting at it with his back to me, bent over a notebook. The shades had been replaced by white blinds, and through the open slats I saw sun-struck green leaves and bits of blue sky. The tall narrow bookcase was still there, fastened upright against the wall, but the stray piles of books were gone, in place of the sunken chair stood a red leather armchair with a red leather hassock, the room had an air of studious neatness.

Wolf turned to glance over his shoulder. When he saw me he frowned and then slowly began to smile; as his smile became fixed, his frown gradually lessened without disappearing entirely. With a flourish he indicated the red leather armchair.

As I walked over to it, he jerked his thumb at the desk. “The new dispensation.” He shrugged. “It’s very interesting. They want me to do well in school, but they think I read too much. Books as the enemy. Hence our new friend here. I call him Fred.” He patted the desk as if it were a big, friendly dog. “They think it’s good for my — what was that word they used? Oh yes: character.”

I sat down in the new chair, placing one leg on the hassock, while Wolf half rose and swung around in his wooden chair so that he straddled it, facing me. His crossed forearms rested on the back. On the bed I noticed a new plaid spread.

“And what have you been up to, David Dave?” he asked, looking at me with his air of amusement.

“Oh, you know. The library. Ping-pong. Nothing much. You?”

He shrugged a single shoulder. “The salt mines.” He nodded toward the desk. “Summer school. Punishment for dereliction of duty. Have I mentioned that I flunked three subjects? A family secret.”

I lowered my eyes.

“And look at this neat little number.” He swung an arm back to the desk and held up a booklet. “Driver’s manual. From the Department of Motor Vehicles, with love.” He tossed it back. “My father was very clear. Failure will no longer be tolerated.” He shrugged again. “They think I’m a bad influence on myself.” Wolf smiled. “They want me to be more like — well, like you.”

“Me!”

“Sure, why not? Straight A’s, the good life, all that jazz. A solid citizen.”

“They’re wrong,” I said quietly, and then: “Don’t be like me!” It came out like a cry.

“If you say so,” he said, after a pause.

We sat for a while in silence. I looked at the big pale desk, with its shiny black fluorescent light and its green blotter in a dark leatherish frame, at the new plaid bedspread, at the clean bright blinds.” Well then,” I said, “I guess—” and rose to go. Wolf said nothing. At the door I turned to look back at him, and he gave me that slow lazy smile, with its little touch of mockery.

In the darkness of Isabel’s chamber her plans were taking shape. The great event would take place on the last day of August, three days before the start of school. I lay on the bed remembering the first time I had entered the room; it seemed a long time ago. “Isabel,” I said, “do you remember—” “Are you listening?” she said sharply, and for a moment I did not know what she was talking about.

One night I woke and saw Isabel very clearly. She was wearing white shorts and a bright red short-sleeved blouse. She was leaning back on both hands, with her legs stretched out and her face tilted back, her hair bound in a ponytail and her mouth radiantly smiling. Her face was vague, except for the smile, with its perfectly shaped small white teeth and its thin line of glistening pink between the bright teeth and the upper lip. I fell asleep, and when I woke again I saw the same image, sharp and bright, and understood instantly where it had come from: I saw the dentist’s waiting room, the sunny glass table with the magazines, the glossy page advertising a special brand of toothpaste that whitened as it cleaned.

In the last days of August I had the sense of a distant brightness advancing, like an ancient army in a movie epic, the sun flashing on the polished helmets and on the tips of the upraised swords.

On the day before the final day, I said to Isabel, “Come over here.” My voice startled me with its harshness, its tone of aggrieved authority. There was silence in the dark. Then I felt, in the mattress, the pressure of a form, as she climbed onto the bed and settled down beside me. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered. “You’ll see.” I could feel her like a heat along my side. My cheek itched, as if tickled by Isabel’s hair or perhaps by a high ripple in the rumpled spread. My eyes were wide open. Images rose up and drifted away: a Chinese sage reading a book, bursts of sunlight on shady clapboards, a gray jacket hanging on a hook.

On the morning of the last day of August I woke unusually early. Even my parents were still asleep. I drank a glass of orange juice in the bright kitchen, tried to read on the back porch, and at last decided to go to the beach. As I stepped onto the sand I was surprised to see a scattering of people, standing about or lying on towels, and I wondered whether they were there because they had stayed all night. The tide was in. Over the water the sky was so blue that it reminded me of an expensive shirt I had seen in a department store. I laid out my towel, with my bottle of suntan lotion in one corner and my book in another, and then I set off on a walk along the wet sand by the low waves. Farther out the water solidified into patches of deep purplish blue and streaks of silver. In the shiny dark sand I saw my footprints, which stood out pale for a moment before the dark wetness soaked back. I tried to imagine a second pair of footprints walking beside mine, first pale and then dark, vanishing in the frilly-edged sheets of water thrown forward by the breaking waves. People were arriving at the beach, carrying towels and radios. Far up on the sand, a girl sat up, poured lotion into her hand, and began caressing her arm slowly, stretching it out and turning it back and forth. When I reached the jetty I walked out onto the rocks, sat for a while on the warm stone with my legs in the water, then swam out until I was tired. Back on my towel I lay down and felt the sun burning off the waterdrops. A girl from my French class waved to me and I waved back. Families with beach umbrellas were coming over the crest of sand by the parking lot. The beach was filling up.