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good dancer.”
“Then let’s go dancing!” I said a little wildly.
“Goodnight, George.”
And before I could say anything else, she hung up.
15
I started to call her back, but when the operator said “Number, please?” sanity reasserted itself. I put
the phone back in its cradle. She had said what she needed to say. Trying to get her to say more would
only make things worse.
I tried to tell myself that her call had been nothing but a stratagem to get me off the dime, a speak
for yourself, John Alden kind of thing. It wouldn’t work because that wasn’t Sadie. It had seemed more
like a cry for help.
I picked up the phone again, and this time when the operator asked for a number, I gave her one.
The phone rang twice on the other end, and then Ellen Dockerty said, “Yes? Who is it, please?”
“Hi, Miz Ellie. It’s me. George.”
Maybe that moment-of-silence thing was catching. I waited. Then she said, “Hello, George. I’ve
been neglecting you, haven’t I? It’s just that I’ve been awfully—”
“Busy, sure. I know what the first week or two’s like, Ellie. I called because Sadie just called me.”
“Oh?” She sounded very cautious.
“If you told her my number was on a Fort Worth exchange instead of Dallas, it’s okay.”
“I wasn’t gossiping. I hope you understand that. I thought she had a right to know. I care for Sadie.
Of course I care for you, too, George . . . but you’re gone. She’s not.”
I did understand, although it hurt. The feeling of being in a space capsule bound for the outer
depths recurred. “I’m fine with that, Ellie, and it really wasn’t much of a fib. I expect to be moving to
Dallas soon.”
No response, and what could she say? Perhaps you are, but we both know you’re a bit of a liar?
“I didn’t like the way she sounded. Does she seem all right to you?”
“I’m not sure I want to answer that question. If I said no, you might come roaring down to see her,
and she doesn’t want to see you. Not as things stand.”
Actually she had answered my question. “Was she okay when she came back?”
“She was fine. Glad to see us all.”
“But now she sounds distracted and says she feels sad.”
“Is that so surprising?” Miz Ellie spoke with asperity. “There are lots of memories here for Sadie,
many of them connected to a man she still has feelings for. A nice man and a lovely teacher, but one
who arrived flying false colors.”
That one really hurt.
“It seemed like something else. She spoke about some sort of coming crisis that she heard about
from—” From the Yalie who was sitting in the doorway of history? “From someone she met in
Nevada. Her husband filled her head with a lot of nonsense—”
“Her head? Her pretty little head?” Not just asperity now; outright anger. It made me feel small
and mean. “George, I have a stack of folders a mile high in front of me, and I need to get to them. You
cannot psychoanalyze Sadie Dunhill at long distance, and I cannot help you with your love life. The
only thing I can do is to advise you to come clean if you care for her. Sooner rather than later.”
“You haven’t seen her husband around, I suppose?”