A Passage from A CLEFT IN THE WORLD
I step from the building that had seemed chilled by Eleanor’s presence and back into the late April afternoon. Students cross the quad in waves, at once buoying my spirits. They eddy around the benches and tables, their courses sure. Smiling, I shake my head. How do they not run into lampposts always peering down at their phones? I drift toward an empty bench in the shade of a river birch, wondering how long it will be until Truman appears, or if I should head back to my office and await his call. I wave to a couple of sophomores, then pull out my phone and check my email. The receipt from the visit with Dr. Chu has made its way into my inbox. I let out a huff at the hit my credit card has taken and am grateful for good insurance. Without my job, I’d have no health care benefits, no medicine. I jerk my mind abruptly away from that thought before the jaws of my anxiety can latch onto it.
The slanting sun sifts through the leaves of the birch, dappling my lap and knees. I lay my head back on the back of the bench, imagining the new medication skirling through my veins, balancing the chemicals, quieting my worries. My stomach grumbles. I look up at the administration building where Truman meets with his mother and assume our dinner date is off. Eleanor Parker at Willa Cather.
[image error]When I was fourteen, I thought she looked like Kim Novak, the beautiful and mysterious Madeleine in the movie Vertigo, I’d seen on TV. She and Mr. Parker had come from Atlanta to attend the underclassmen awards day at Browning. Truman was awarded the freshman English award, and was stunned when English teacher, Miss Foxie Frame—our neighbor and friend—had called him to the stage a second time to present him a prize for poetry. At the reception afterwards, I longed to run to Truman, to give him a hug. But the sight of Mrs. Parker in a severely tailored suit at his side, stilled my feet. With her carefully sculptured hair and tasteful gold jewelry, the woman looked as though she’d been dipped in shellack. Truman had proudly introduced me to his parents as Georgie Bricker, my girl.
Mr. Parker’s eyes were amused as he took my hand. “How do you do, Miss ahh Bricker, is it?” The handsome planes of Truman’s young face, his blue eyes, the shape of his mouth and nose were mere counterfeits of Conrad Parker’s splendid features. He looked like a cross between Paul Newman and the prince in Cinderella. I’m sure I gawked at him.
But my enchantment with Eleanor Parker had fizzled like a dud firecracker when her moonstone eyes moved from Truman’s face to mine, skimmed me in the Easter dress my mother had made for me, the white sandals my father had polished for me that mornin[image error]g. Beneath the weight of her gaze, I’d felt like Ellie May Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies; the sash of navy ribbon at the waist of my dress a length of frayed rope. “Well. I’m happy to meet Truman’s . . . little friend.”
I had put out my hand as I’d been taught, hoping the little pearl ring Truman had given me for Christmas would glow. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Parker.”
She’d raised her painted on eyebrows and taken my fingers as though they might be creeping with lice. Just then, my parents had strolled over to congratulate Truman. I’d watched Mrs. Parker survey my mother—her three-year-old spring dress, her plain gold wedding band, her softly waving dark hair, her slender ankles in the special shoes she wore because one leg was shorter than the other. I’d watched Mrs. Parker look back at Truman’s happy face. She’d placed a manicured hand on his arm, the diamond in her wedding set the size of a fordhook butter bean. “Will you bring me a cup of punch, please?”
The laughter of young women returns me to the present. I still have a hard time imagining a young and happy Eleanor strolling here in this place that’s mine. The sun sinks toward the chapel and for a moment seems to impale itself on the steeple. A little shiver runs through me.
