Not unless it had to be done.

He got in his car, started it, and drove down the hill to Jerusalem’s Lot.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

Susan (

I

)

 

He was sitting on a bench in the park when he observed the girl watching him. She was a very pretty girl, and there was a silk scarf tied over her light blond hair. She was currently reading a book, but there was a sketch pad and what looked like a charcoal pencil beside her. It was Tuesday, September 16, the first day of school, and the park had magically emptied of the rowdier element. What was left was a scattering of mothers with infants, a few old men sitting by the war memorial, and this girl sitting in the dappled shade of a gnarled old elm.

She looked up and saw him. An expression of startlement crossed her face. She looked down at her book; looked up at him again and started to rise; almost thought better of it; did rise; sat down again.

He got up and walked over, holding his own book, which was a paperback Western. “Hello,” he said agreeably. “Do we know each other?”

“No,” she said. “That is…you’re Benjaman Mears, right?”

“Right.” He raised his eyebrows.

She laughed nervously, not looking in his eyes except in a quick flash, to try to read the barometer of his intentions. She was quite obviously a girl not accustomed to speaking to strange men in the park.

“I thought I was seeing a ghost.” She held up the book in her lap. He saw fleetingly that “Jerusalem’s Lot Public Library” was stamped on the thickness of pages between covers. The book was Air Dance, his second novel. She showed him the photograph of himself on the back jacket, a photo that was four years old now. The face looked boyish and frighteningly serious—the eyes were black diamonds.

“Of such inconsequential beginnings dynasties are begun,” he said, and although it was a joking throwaway remark, it hung oddly in the air, like prophecy spoken in jest. Behind them, a number of toddlers were splashing happily in the wading pool and a mother was telling Roddy not to push his sister so high. The sister went soaring up on her swing regardless, dress flying, trying for the sky. It was a moment he remembered for years after, as though a special small slice had been cut from the cake of time. If nothing fires between two people, such an instant simply falls back into the general wrack of memory.

Then she laughed and offered him the book. “Will you autograph it?”

“A library book?”

“I’ll buy it from them and replace it.”

He found a mechanical pencil in his sweater pocket, opened the book to the flyleaf, and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Susan Norton.”

He wrote quickly, without thinking: For Susan Norton, the prettiest girl in the park. Warm regards, Ben Mears. He added the date below his signature in slashed notation.

“Now you’ll have to steal it,” he said, handing it back. “ Air Danceis out of print, alas.”

“I’ll get a copy from one of those book finders in New York.” She hesitated, and this time her glance at his eyes was a little longer. “It’s an awfully good book.”

“Thanks. When I take it down and look at it, I wonder how it ever got published.”

“Do you take it down often?”

“Yeah, but I’m trying to quit.”

She grinned at him and they both laughed and that made things more natural. Later he would have a chance to think how easily this had happened, how smoothly. The thought was never a comfortable one. It conjured up an image of fate, not blind at all but equipped with sentient 20/20 vision and intent on grinding helpless mortals between the great millstones of the universe to make some unknown bread.

“I read Conway’s Daughter, too. I loved that. I suppose you hear that all the time.”

“Remarkably little,” he said honestly. Miranda had also loved Conway’s Daughter, but most of his coffeehouse friends had been noncommittal and most of the critics had clobbered it. Well, that was critics for you. Plot was out, masturbation in.

“Well, I did.”

“Have you read the new one?”

“ Billy Said Keep Going? Not yet. Miss Coogan at the drugstore says it’s pretty racy.”

“Hell, it’s almost puritanical,” Ben said. “The language is rough, but when you’re writing about uneducated country boys, you can’t…look, can I buy you an ice-cream soda or something? I was just getting a hanker on for one.”

She checked his eyes a third time. Then smiled, warmly. “Sure. I’d love one. They’re great in Spencer’s.”

That was the beginning of it.

 

TWO

 

“Is that Miss Coogan?”

Ben asked it, low-voiced. He was looking at a tall, spare woman who was wearing a red nylon duster over her white uniform. Her blue-rinsed hair was done in a steplike succession of finger waves.

“That’s her. She’s got a little cart she takes to the library every Thursday night. She fills out reserve cards by the ton and drives Miss Starcher crazy.”

They were seated on red leather stools at the soda fountain. He was drinking a chocolate soda; hers was strawberry. Spencer’s also served as the local bus depot and from where they sat they could look through an old-fashioned scrolled arch and into the waiting room, where a solitary young man in Air Force blues sat glumly with his feet planted around his suitcase.

“Doesn’t look happy to be going wherever he’s going, does he?” she said, following his glance.

“Leave’s over, I imagine,” Ben said. Now, he thought, she’ll ask if I’ve ever been in the service.

But instead: “I’ll be on that ten-thirty bus one of these days. Goodby, ’salem’s Lot. Probably I’ll be looking just as glum as that boy.”

“Where?”

“New York, I guess. To see if I can’t finally become self-supporting.”

“What’s wrong with right here?”

“The Lot? I love it. But my folks, you know. They’d always be sort of looking over my shoulder. That’s a bummer. And the Lot doesn’t really have that much to offer the young career girl.” She shrugged and dipped her head to suck at her straw. Her neck was tanned, beautifully muscled. She was wearing a colorful print shift that hinted at a good figure.

“What kind of job are you looking for?”

She shrugged. “I’ve got a B.A. from Boston University…not worth the paper it’s printed on, really. Art major, English minor. The original dipso duo. Strictly eligible for the educated idiot category. I’m not even trained to decorate an office. Some of the girls I went to high school with are holding down plump secretarial jobs now. I never got beyond Personal Typing I, myself.”

“So what does that leave?”

“Oh…maybe a publishing house,” she said vaguely. “Or some magazine…advertising, maybe. Places like that can always use someone who can draw on command. I can do that. I have a portfolio.”

“Do you have offers?” he asked gently.

“No…no. But…”

“You don’t go to New York without offers,” he said. “Believe me. You’ll wear out the heels on your shoes.”

She smiled uneasily. “I guess you should know.”

“Have you sold stuff locally?”

“Oh yes.” She laughed abruptly. “My biggest sale to date was to the Cinex Corporation. They opened a new triple cinema in Portland and bought twelve paintings at a crack to hang in their lobby. Paid seven hundred dollars. I made a down payment on my little car.”

“You ought to take a hotel room for a week or so in New York,” he said, “and hit every magazine and publishing house you can find with your portfolio. Make your appointments six months in advance so the editors and personnel guys don’t have anything on their calendars. But for God’s sake, don’t just haul stakes for the big city.”

“What about you?” she asked, leaving off the straw and spooning ice cream. “What are you doing in the thriving community of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, population thirteen hundred?”