Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams Richards

Author:David Adams Richards [Richards, David Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anchor Canada

SIX

At the front of Camellia’s lane botched with snow gone blue in the night, Sterling—a kind of colossus in the town, his figure always apparent—stood watching the house. Owen went by him and knocked on her door.

“Come in,” she said, and hurried him inside.

“What?” she said, turning and out of breath. “Have you seen my Reggie?”

He paused, secretly disappointed by her question. “No—what I want to know is—do you think you are in trouble?”

“No,” she smiled, “people always say silly things—”

“Are you sure?” he said angrily.

“Yes,” she said, taken aback, looking at him curiously.

“I’m leaving then. It is best I go—the boys on the mountain will be okay—they have done work like this all their lives—”

“Leaving?” A cloud came over her face. It was as if he could see her heart beating. She turned the radio down. As she did, she said softly: “Don’t go yet—you’re my only friend and we are going to find Reggie—and—”

He wanted to make her understand that he wasn’t running away, but how could he after she said this?

“If I go tonight, I think everything might be okay—Reggie might come back—but if I don’t, Camellia, what will happen—?”

“I’m not sure—” Camellia said, smiling slightly.

“If I go the rumors will stop.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “of course—yes. Would you like a sandwich—I have—I was—I mean I don’t want you to go—” And then taking a breath as if steeling herself to hear information she didn’t know, she sat down on the couch and stared at the corner of the room. “I don’t know what to do.”

Because she said this he suddenly took two hundred dollars and placed it in her hand.

“What is this for?” she asked. She stood, half-scared, dropping the money but looking beyond him.

“Just in case,” he said, as confused by what he had done as she was. He bent, his body trembling, and picked the money up. As he stood up he kissed her. Suddenly, so she couldn’t protest. She backed away as if he had burned her face.

“No,” she said, tears in her eyes, “no, Owen.” But she was staring beyond him now in panic.

He turned, and saw in the lower kitchen window Sterling looking in on them—his face almost beatific in its self-absorption. Owen ran outside, falling and picking himself up. But Sterling was gone, along the back lane and across a snowplowed track and over a crooked fence.

He went back to the house, where he calmed himself, leaning against the door.

“You keep the money—you must keep it.”

After saying goodbye, but promising himself never again to touch her, he moved quickly back up the dreary snow-filled street.

This final kiss—the third—had actually determined everything. He could not go. He knew this as he walked. The kiss would be in every house, exaggerated. It hadn’t been her doing. It had been his. Going wouldn’t do anything but jeopardize her.

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