Jane Smiley - Early Warning

“Really? We have three.”

“Luggy dug! You shud tay her.”

“Well,” said Janet. “Ask your mom. We can do lots of things together. I’ll take you Christmas shopping.”

The next thing was to write a note to her mom. It began, “Dear Mom and Daddy, I am doing really well, I got an A on the geometry test and I have to write a report about cells for biology. It isn’t due till next week, but it is almost done. If I turn it in early, I will get 10 % extra credit. Guess what? My roommate, Cecelia, is going to take a trip with her family at Christmas. They are going to”—Florida? Too close. Paris? Mom would like that but Dad wouldn’t. Australia? Perfect, except that Richie and Michael might blow up the plane before they got there. Caracas? Texas? Her parents went there all the time. She thought of something—“Disneyland. I guess she and her brothers have been there three times, and they love to go back. There is so much to do that”—she thought again—“they can barely keep their eyes open for dinner. Her dad just drops the kids off, and then he and her mom go do things in Hollywood.” She read it over. It was perfect. She signed, “Love, Janny,” with a little heart next to the “y,” sealed it up, and sent it.

Her mom was good about corresponding. She wrote back, “Darling, Thanks for your letter. So glad you are doing well. And enjoying yourself. Know you are being a good girl, as always. Wish the same could be said for you-know-who. Back to the principal’s office yesterday. Nothing very bad, though. Knew it was a mistake to put them in the same class, but now Richie is being put into the other class. Think the teacher, who is a man, can handle Michael if he is the only one. Exhausting! Saw Dr. N. the other day. He asked after you. Said you are happy and not worried. You aren’t worried, are you? Can’t help feeling sad for the North Vietnamese, but do think that the Vietnam War, and even bombing North Vietnam, makes it LESS likely that there would be nuclear war rather than MORE likely. So DON’T WORRY. Daddy is fine, and says to say love to you. Love, Mom.” Nothing about Disneyland.

Janet then wrote a note to Aunt Lillian, on a special note card with flowers, telling her that lots of the girls from far away, like her, were staying through Thanksgiving. Aunt Lillian wrote back, “Janny, I was hoping you would invite yourself! Hope you have time to help Debbie and Tina with the pies. Dean and Uncle Arthur are planning to do something very strange with the turkey, so the pies will be important.” When she wrote to say that she was staying for Thanksgiving, and that Aunt Lillian had asked if she could, her mom wrote back, “Maybe we will fly down and join you,” but then the weather was bad. They were not missed, at least by Janet. The turkey turned out to be delicious — Uncle Arthur and Dean took turns basting it with a mixture of apple cider, butter, and whiskey, every half-hour, so it took an extra-long time to cook, but they played charades. The pies were also good, apple and pecan, her favorite of Lillian’s many and always delicious pies.

The day after Thanksgiving, she tried the Disneyland gambit again, by postcard, to Richie: “Hi, Richie! Guess where my roommate is going for Christmas! Disneyland! She says that Tomorrowland is really great!” To Michael, she wrote, “Dear Michael, Get Nedra to tell Mom to take us to Disneyland! You would love Frontierland.”

A few days later, she thought she had done it: “Dear Janny, Must say, the constant whining about Disneyland is driving me crazy. Though hear it is a nice place. Daddy should visit his friends out there in Los Angeles and take us along. Christmas is not a favorite holiday! Everyone in the world should spend it traveling, the way they do in France.” However, no plans were made, and Christmas vacation approached.

Janet managed to get Cecelia up for classes, but not much else. Sometimes she went for days with the same clothes on, rolled in her bedclothes, her mattress showing. Janet tried to set a good example by making her own bed very carefully — hospital corners, the way Nedra had shown her — everything smooth and fresh, desk neat, closet straight. Cecelia didn’t take the hint. Janet woke up in the night and heard soft noises, but they were so soft that she couldn’t tell if it was crying or not.

On December 10, she received her train ticket, leaving December 17, returning January 10. She put it under her mattress and turned over in her mind the idea of saying that it had never arrived, or that she had lost it, but school would be closed, so someone, probably Aunt Lillian, would just buy her another ticket. On the night of December 16, after the Christmas pageant and party, she cried once, and then gave up. The next morning, she left Cecelia still bundled in her bed and went in a taxi with the two other girls who were taking the train. When she came back in January, her roommate was Martha, who was in advanced math classes. She never saw Cecelia again.

ANDY SAID, “Well, don’t you think it’s mysterious?” It was three months since the murder; Lillian was still upset, and Arthur seemed beside himself. “I’ve never seen Arthur so…so…I don’t know.”

“Who was murdered again?” said Dr. Smith.

“A friend of theirs, named Mary Meyer. She was shot in the head and in the heart, walking down the towpath in Georgetown in the middle of the day.”

“Have you ever met this woman?”

“I don’t think so, but it horrified me. I had nightmares about it, and we had to come home two days early.” Andy was lying on the mat, staring at the ceiling. She didn’t often avail herself of the mat, but Dr. Smith’s facial expressions could be unpleasant. His bushy eyebrows lowered over his eyes until they seemed to disappear. Sometimes he tapped the lead of his pencil on his teeth while she talked, which she found so distracting that she fell silent. What really horrified her was a thing that she was not comfortable telling: that Lillian and Arthur seemed to be falling apart. The injustice of this disturbed her. She said, “May I change the subject?”

“There is only one subject.”

“I went to Bendel’s to get a dress for a cocktail party at the Upjohns’ next week. Frank said it had to be Dior or Chanel, but I hated the Chanel, and the Dior looked very girlish to me, though brown. Brown is so dull. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.”

He coughed as if losing patience.

“Anyway, as I came into the vestibule, but before I opened the outside door, I saw Frank pass with a woman on his arm — rather a plain thing, I must say. I stopped in my tracks. I knew it was Frank — he was wearing his gray Brooks Brothers overcoat that I picked up at the cleaners’ the day before. And he was smiling. I registered that right away.”

“You didn’t recognize the woman?”

“Never saw her before.”

“Did you go out into the street?”

“I did. I watched them, and when they turned the corner, I followed them down Fifty-seventh Street.”

“Can you tell me their exact demeanor and posture?”

Andy’s hip began to hurt, so she crossed her ankles. Dr. Smith would be taking note of this, she knew. She said, “She looked upright and self-contained. Her elbows were at her sides, and her head was straight. Her shoulders were straight.”

“And your husband?”

“First he was holding her elbow, and then he put his arm across her shoulders.”

“Was he leaning toward her?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Smith wrote busily, then sniffed.

Andy said, “She didn’t look like a prostitute.”