“Couldn’t she swim?” said Edith.

Sabitha pushed the cushion between her legs. “Oooh,” she said. “Feels so nice.”

Edith knew all about the pleasurable agonies Sabitha was feeling, but she was appalled that anybody would make them public. She herself was frightened of them. Years ago, before she knew what she was doing, she had gone to sleep with the blanket between her legs and her mother had discovered her and told her about a girl she had known who did things like that all the time and had eventually been operated on for the problem.

“They used to throw cold water on her, but it didn’t cure her,” her mother had said. “So she had to be cut.”

Otherwise her organs would get congested and she might die.

“Stop,” she said to Sabitha, but Sabitha moaned defiantly and said, “It’s nothing. We all did it like this. Haven’t you got a cushion?”

Edith got up and went to the kitchen and filled her empty iced-coffee glass with cold water. When she got back Sabitha was lying limp on the couch, laughing, the cushion flung on the floor.

“What did you think I was doing?” she said. “Didn’t you know I was kidding?”

“I was thirsty,” Edith said.

“You just drank a whole glass of iced coffee.”

“I was thirsty for water.”

“Can’t have any fun with you.” Sabitha sat up. “If you’re so thirsty why don’t you drink it?”

They sat in a moody silence until Sabitha said, in a conciliatory but disappointed tone, “Aren’t we going to write Johanna another letter? Let’s write her a lovey-dovey letter.”

Edith had lost a good deal of her interest in the letters, but she was gratified to see that Sabitha had not. Some sense of having power over Sabitha returned, in spite of Lake Simcoe and the breasts. Sighing, as if reluctantly, she got up and took the cover off the typewriter.

“My darlingest Johanna-” said Sabitha.

“No. That’s too sickening.”

“She won’t think so.”

“She will so,” said Edith.

She wondered whether she should tell Sabitha about the danger of congested organs. She decided not to. For one thing, that information fell into a category of warnings she had received from her mother and never known whether to wholly trust or distrust. It had not fallen as low, in credibility, as the belief that wearing foot-rubbers in the house would ruin your eyesight, but there was no telling-someday it might.

And for another thing-Sabitha would just laugh. She laughed at warnings-she would laugh even if you told her that chocolate eclairs would make her fat.

“Your last letter made me so happy-”

“Your last letter filled me with rap-ture-” said Sabitha.

“-made me so happy to think I did have a true friend in the world, which is you-”

“I could not sleep all night because I was longing to crush you in my arms-” Sabitha wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth.

“No. Often I have felt so lonely in spite of a gregarious life and not known where to turn-”

“What does that mean-’gregarious’? She won’t know what it means.”

“She will.”

That shut Sabitha up and perhaps hurt her feelings. So at the end Edith read out, “I must say good-bye and the only way I can do it is to imagine you reading this and blushing-” “Is that more what you want?”

“Reading it in bed with your nightgown on,” said Sabitha, always quickly restored, “and thinking how I would crush you in my arms and I would suck your titties-”

My Dear Johanna,

Your last letter made me so happy to think I have a true friend in the world, which is you. Often I have felt so lonely in spite of a gregarious life and not known where to turn.

Well, I have told Sabitha in my letter about my good fortune and how I am going into the hotel business. I did not tell her actually how sick I was last winter because I did not want to worry her. I do not want to worry you, either, dear Johanna, only to tell you that I thought of you so often and longed to see your dear sweet face. When I was feverish I thought that I really did see it bending over me and I heard your voice telling me I would soon be better and I felt the ministrations of your kind hands. I was in the boardinghouse and when I came to out of my fever there was a lot of teasing going on as to, who is this Johanna? But I was sad as could be to wake and find you were not there. I really wondered if you could have flown through the air and been with me, even though I knew that could not have happened. Believe me, believe me, the most beautiful movie star could not have been as welcome to me as you. I don’t know if I should tell you the other things you were saying to me because they were very sweet and intimate but they might embarrass you. I hate to end this letter because it feels now as if I have my arms around you and I am talking to you quietly in the dark privacy of our room, but I must say good-bye and the only way I can do it is to imagine you reading this and blushing. It would be wonderful if you were reading it in bed with your nightgown on and thinking how I would like to crush you in my arms.

L-v-, Ken Boudreau.

Somewhat surprisingly, there was no reply to this letter. When Sabitha had written her half-page, Johanna put it in the envelope and addressed it and that was that.

When Johanna got off the train there was nobody to meet her. She did not let herself worry about that-she had been thinking that her letter might not, after all, have got here before she did. (In fact it had, and was lying in the Post Office, uncollected, because Ken Boudreau, who had not been seriously sick last winter, really did have bronchitis now and for several days had not come in for his mail. On this day it had been joined by another envelope, containing the check from Mr. McCauley. But payment on that had already been stopped.)

What was of more concern to her was that there did not appear to be a town. The station was an enclosed shelter with benches along the walls and a wooden shutter pulled down over the window of the ticket office. There was also a freight shed-she supposed it was a freight shed-but the sliding door to it would not budge. She peered through a crack between the planks until her eyes got used to the dark in there, and she saw that it was empty, with a dirt floor. No crates of furniture there. She called out, “Anybody here? Anybody here?” several times, but she did not expect a reply.

She stood on the platform and tried to get her bearings.

About half a mile away there was a slight hill, noticeable at once because it had a crown of trees. And the sandy-looking track that she had taken, when she saw it from the train, for a back lane into a farmer’s field-that must be the road. Now she saw the low shapes of buildings here and there in the trees-and a water tower, which looked from this distance like a toy, a tin soldier on long legs.

She picked up her suitcase-this would not be too difficult; she had carried it, after all, from Exhibition Road to the other railway station-and set out.

There was a wind blowing, but this was a hot day-hotter than the weather she had left in Ontario-and the wind seemed hot as well. Over her new dress she was wearing her same old coat, which would have taken up too much room in the suitcase. She looked with longing to the shade of the town ahead, but when she got there she found that the trees were either spruce, which were too tight and narrow to give much shade, or raggedy thin-leaved cottonwoods, which blew about and let the sun through anyway.

There was a discouraging lack of formality, or any sort of organization, to this place. No sidewalks, or paved streets, no imposing buildings except a big church like a brick barn. A painting over its door, showing the Holy Family with clay-colored faces and staring blue eyes. It was named for an unheard-of saint-Saint Voytech.