Roseborough: A Novel

Chapter 5

81 Chapter Five 1 Anne draws her routine around her shoulders.Teaching,reading,attendingvariousmeetings,shedistances herself from Mary Lou’s unsettled world, feeling relieved that she will not be visiting it again. Still, certain words, words like dappled, or myth, or forest, or sounds, like the strum of a guitar, a crow calling, an oak branch blown against the eave of her study, evoke an astonishingly clear image of Echo standing in the shadows of the live oak tree, her slender neck seeming scarcely able to support the dark cloud of hair that frames her narrow face. Driven inside by December’s cold, Anne putters around her house. At an estate sale she picks up a nice old tilt-top table for her study. She finds, however, that when she puts it at the end of the love seat in front of the windows, the study looks crowded. She takes out a footstool and a small chair. Then she has to rearrange all the furniture, finally moving her desk away from the wall, where the Dufy hangs at eye level, to the windows that look out over her garden in the side yard. She likes the change. She can imagine the earliest blooms of the jonquils and narcissi, followed 82 Jane Roberts Wood by the antique roses. Today it looks bleak, but as early as March everything will begin to green up. Just before the holidays begin Christopher, surprisingly, sticks his head into her office. Wearing jeans and running shoes, he leans against the door frame, pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, and wipes his forehead. “Three miles,” he says. “Now, how about lunch? You can’t say no. It’s too close to Christmas. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria at one,” and without waiting for an answer, he is gone. She looks at the papers waiting to be read and marked. A stack of papers at least a foot high. Later, she tells them. She opens her file drawer, takes out the lunch sack filled with carrots , almonds, and tofu and drops it into the wastebasket. Tomorrow ’s soon enough to diet, she tells herself. And she’s curious about Christopher. Rumors about him have begun to fade, but still he remains mysterious. Obviously bright, good-looking in a craggy way, he is always alone. She imagines the woman with whom he lives—a woman who appreciates the sensual world and all its refinements. She believes that Christopher is a very sexy man. It’s his attitude, indefinable, but very much a part of the way he moves or watches a woman or leans into a conversation with her. But what she needs is a friend. Over beef tacos—they’re so greasy, so good—Christopher tells her about his plans (she notes the singular) for Christmas. “I’m looking forward to it. Can you imagine a more beautiful place in the whole world! The snow falling, the music, the city of Vienna. I’ve always wanted to be there at Christmas.” He probably lives alone, she thinks. His description of Vienna is lovely. She imagines flying off to Vienna. She would be dressed in her most casual clothes, but with tickets in her purse to the operas and the balls. “I’m flying to Vienna,” she would say, checking in. The woman behind the ticket counter would lift an eyebrow 83 Roseborough and smile. “Ah, Vienna,” she would sigh. But merely imagining sets Anne’s heart into a faster beat and she places her hand over it. “I think that sounds absolutely wonderful,” she says. “Someday , maybe. But I’ve never flown. I can’t. I’m totally neurotic about flying.” Without launching into the series of questions that usually follows this revelation, Christopher simply nods. Tempted by his reaction, so cool, she thinks, she almost tells him about Mary Lou and Echo. About climbing up to the tree house. It would amuse him, draw on his experience as someone who lives alone, almost certainly alone, but some reticence makes her hesitant to serve it up like an appetizer on his luncheon plate. Anyway the whole thing with Echo is beginning to seem unreal. After lunch she hurries back to her office determined to finish her papers and get her grades in early. But her ideas about Christopher have not changed, she decides, picking up a freshman paper. He is very, very sexy. And nice. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees a flicker...