Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (i am reading a book TXT) 📕

of the highceilinged rooms and the same torn shirt, she would not’ve remembered him. And like the first time, as soon as he noticed he wasn’t alone he dropped his gaze to the floor and disappeared around a partition, into a small alcove. He walked without making a sound, on rubber-soled shoes. This time she knew he wasn’t a janitor because as she was leaving she heard the whispered voice of the old night watchman who came to close up telling someone that it was only five minutes until closing time; and when she looked over to see whom he was speaking to, she saw the gray uniform from the back, the shoulders wide and shaggy black hair curling over the collar. Waiting for the bus outside, she watched him come down the white steps and cross the street, never once looking up from the pavement.

July had no thoughts of her at all. He’d noticed her, but thought of her as no more than a brightly colored obstacle that he’d had to walk around twice. There were some things a person couldn’t dismiss: food, shelter, work, routine patterns for getting throughthe next day; but other people could be overlooked and viewed as dangerous and troublesome. He had plenty of things to occupy himself with. His life was running smoothly, and if it never changed an iota, that would be all right.

This attitude worked very well for him, and he had no reason to be dissatisfied with it until that girl came up to him one Tuesday night, stood so close he could smell her clothes and her hair and said in an unbelievably soft voice, as though she lived in a song, “Hello, I see you like this painting too. It’s always been one of my favorites. He has such an eye for detail and stress. Those trees are really well done. Every time I look at them I feel like I’m dreaming.”

After that, July felt an emptiness come into his life. There was something missing from everything. He turned to look at her in bewilderment, his eyes blazing. She looked back and smiled a quick smile. Immediately he dropped his gaze, blushed and said quite abruptly, “Well, I guess if you like it, that’s fine.” Then he walked quickly away like a child underfoot.

That night his room was a chamber of horrors. He knew his voice had sounded abrupt: it would have been just as well to slap her across the face. At least, it would be the same degree of insult.

All week these thoughts tormented him without respite. What could she think of him but that he was crass, rude and ugly?

“There!” he exclaimed to himself. “See there what trouble comes from. The slightest engagement!” He redoubled his vow to have no other people in his life.

Perhaps if she just understood that it wasn’t in him to be nice.

Ridiculous! What would a girl like that ever want with a stupid mail boy? A mail boy who insulted her?

But if she knew it wasn’t meant to be an insult.

She wouldn’t care. The fantasy itself made him a little sick . . . and what he decided to do was forget about her completely and the very next Tuesday night just explain to her how what he’d said wasn’t meant as an insult—just as a way of saying he thought he was worthless. This, he thought, would clear him of any looseends, and he could get back to his old way of life. It was the lingering sense of guilt he wanted to get rid of, and this would do it.

The first Tuesday he didn’t see her. Though he came early and stayed until closing.

The next week, after making one careful sweep of the building, he stood hour after hour just behind the glass door, waiting to see her coming. Closing time came and the night watchman turned off all the inside lights and stood silently beside him for several minutes looking out with him before opening the door and telling him it was time to go, letting him out into the still, wet night.

The next week he returned to the museum, but this time he sat on a bench in one of the little rooms in which the china was kept in glass cases. He was looking at the designs in a cup when the front door gave a little metallic snap as it closed, announcing her presence.

That sound went through July like a red bullet, and despite all his plans and intentions of having no involvement, his heart began to throb with almost audible ferocity. The design in front of him dissolved into a blue blur and his face was hot. His hands were cold. This is terrible, he thought. I should never have come here. I’ll go home and everything will be all right then. He pictured his room, and Butch, and sitting on the bed and looking out the window and turning on the radio and reading the book for that week and felt his heart subside.

She stepped inside and took off her gloves and rubbed the bottoms of her shoes on the mat, threw her long brown hair back with a quick, shaking toss of her head and opened her coat, revealing a swath of yellow and white. She stepped off the mat and stopped, as though adjusting to the inside, put her gloves in her pockets and went into the first partitioned area where the current exhibits began. He watched her disappear, stood up and walked quickly to the front doors. But when he reached them he didn’t go out. The touch of the door bar seemed to keep him in. He went silently up to the partition behind which she had disappeared. By the time he reached ithe was trembling, and he put out his hand to support himself against the wall. He looked in and saw her standing on the far side, her back to him, looking at a huge painting