Leta had plenty to do. She wanted to write a letter to her
sister Mabel. She wanted to hem a dress. She wanted to make dinner. She wanted
to read her magazine, finish reading the newspaper, read her book. The two
shelves of knick-knacks needed to be dusted and the collection of red glass
items she had on them needed to be washed. She could sort through her old
stockings, write her grocery-shopping list, telephone her sister Louise whom
she had not spoken to in more than three weeks. She could reorganize her
jewelry box. There were a number of tasks waiting for her attention and time,
but something else pulled at her. The sensation was almost outside of herself,
as if a spirit in the air blocked her from what she wanted to do and pushed her
to what she didn’t want to do.
Still, she did her chores. She washed, dried and put away the
supper dishes. She collected all of the trash in the apartment into one basket
and took it down the stairs and out the back to the larger garbage bins where
she emptied it, hoping that she might see someone and strike up a conversation.
She saw no one.
When she returned to the apartment, she washed her hands and
examined a blemish on her neck, a little scratch. She looked at her
fingernails. They were growing but not yet in need of a manicure. She retrieved
paper and her pen from a drawer in the buffet and sat at the table. “To my
dearest Mabel,” she wrote immediately and then stared at the blank paper for
what seemed like many minutes before standing up and pacing around the room. She
sat in her chair by the window and started to smoke a cigarette, but after a
few puffs, she put it out. There was a smudge on the window, and she made a
mental note to wipe it off later.
It was only eight in the evening. She had finished her supper
and washed and dried the dishes by six. She had been basically doing nothing
for two hours of this. Nothing else was pressing, and the nagging external
spirit led her to the bedroom, where she changed out of her house dress and
into something more elegant, selected earrings and a necklace, combed her hair,
and finally left the apartment. While she was preparing, she told herself that
if the telephone rang, she would stay home, but it did not. When she left the
apartment, she told herself that if the streetcar was not there or if there was
no one else waiting, she would return home, even though she had spent time and
energy preparing for the evening. However, the streetcar was waiting for her.
She rode the three stops to within one block of her destination—Larkin’s bar.
I’ll just sit quietly at the bar, she told
herself. I’ll just have a couple of
drinks, just enough to relax. Then I’ll go home.
Before she opened the door, she decided that if the place was
crowded, she would not stay. After all, she was really just there to settle her
nerves, to relax with a couple of drinks, to get out of the house where she was
alone and to be in the presence of others.
The bar wasn’t crowded, but it was full. She decided to stay.
There wasn’t a seat available at the bar, so she stood for a few minutes until
a generous young man gave her his. He didn’t look at her, not really. He simply
grabbed his beer stood and gestured. “For you, ma’am,” he said. She looked him
over, but he walked into the crowd before she finished. She sat at the bar. She
drank three scotches, and as she sat there, every three or four minutes, she
surveyed the room. The men all seemed younger, energetic, engaged, When she caught the eye of a couple of them
and smiled, they turned away quickly. Time passed.
At 1:00 a.m., she gathered herself together. The bar was
nearly empty by this time. The bartender was at the other end of the counter,
chatting with a couple of jolly young men. Leta took a deep breath and walked
out the door into the night.
To be continued.
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