any old life

(This is a true story, sort of):

She likes his name--Byron. After the poet, of course; she had paid some attention at West Roxbury Latin and Grammar. His easy gracious manner set him apart from the young men who brought her their smudged forms to file, all of them so nervous, their hands so clammy. He held his hat in his hand in a way that suited her. Once he had even winked.

Thankfully, that morning she had pinched Edith's yellow silk blouse (even though Edith would pinch her when she saw) and was feeling presentable enough with her lipstick in place, her grown- up shoes, the spring light filtering in from the window behind her, warming the top of her head.

He walks in, hat in hand, and comes right up to her desk. Thank you Anne, for all your help these past weeks. I sure wouldn't have been able to keep all this paperwork straight without you.

All in a day's work, Byron. Congratulations on your fellowship. I bet your family is proud. Imagine! Byron Henry going all the way to Europe. Smile! she tells herself. Chin down, eyes up. Don't be such a perfect dope, she can almost hear Edith's coaching.

His grin is wry and warm in return as he pulls something out of his hat. Say Anne, I've got two tickets to the College Symphony tonight. It's my last night in town and I sure would like it if you came with me.

Later that night, well into the second movement he finally takes her hand. Afterwards, they walk across the Yard, through the Square and the students milling about, to his graduate club on Brattle Street. He orders gin for both of them. He laughs his easy laugh when she tells him stories about some of the professors and life with the girls in her boarding house. He tells her about architecture and the hold it has over him. Columns. Arches. Space. Numbers and angles, Anne! It's art and science intersecting with society! She forgets to remember to keep her chin down, eyes up. She can't stop smiling, dopey or not.

It's a shame I'm leaving tomorrow. We hit it off, I think. First thing, when I arrive in London, I'm looking for a motorbike. I could find one with a side-car he says slowly. She can't think of how to respond, so she laughs what she hopes is a tinkling, trilling laugh, and asks for another drink.

One week later, over tuna-melts at the Green Street Cafe with Edith, Anne replays this conversation again (for the millionth time really) in her head. While Edith goes on about this and that, Anne hears for the first time the question in Byron's statement. She looks up, over Edith's shoulder, and sees herself in a helmet, lipstick in place, the Thames, the Seine, the Rhone, one of those Rivers (she didn't pay that much attention in school) flowing along below--catching the dust that the motorbike kicks up in their wake.

Her mother and father come to the pier to see her off, to help her with her trunk. In her new handbag (a gift from Edith): a 4th class ticket, and phone number, lifted from one of the many forms in all those files that she will leave behind. Her mother doesn't say anything, only looks at her. Come on Mama. A girl's got to have an imagination or she'll end up with any old life.

(for A.H. and H.M.)