precipitately through the gorge. Even though sheâs on none of the roads that she used to come up, sheâs still glancing in her rearview so often she keeps crunching onto the shoulder. Rule number one is donât drive, and if you must, please donât drive like youâre sleeping or drunk. She tries not to drive all the time, but now sheâs a regular face on the train. Known and liked by the different conductors: another rule broken. Hey, Iris. Going down to Poughkeepsie today? Knowing itâs bad that she smiles and says Hey. Bad that sheâs friends with the ticket seller at the station because he sits all day reading the paper. Bad that sheâs a familiar face in Rhinebeck, also, in spite of sometimes shopping down the river in Poughkeepsie, and getting her mail two towns over in Red Hook, and saving serious emotional collapses for the spot sheâs just left, because the view is worth the risk of the bridge. Bad that sheâs rooted in the transient train, the anonymous post office box, precisely the places that Frazer has managed to find her.
And because sheâs taken the very long way she hasnât managed to get back before tea. Sheâs usually ensconced deep in the house by now, after having boiled the water and spilled the box of cookies onto the dish and decanted the milk into the creamer and dropped the cubes of sugar in the sugar bowl with tongsâMiss Dolly is scrupulous about the use of tongs, to prevent spread of germsâand carried the rattling tray onto the porch with the old woman bringing up the rear in her fragile, methodical way. And then politely ducking off to some project-in-progress, before any visitor comes up the path. By that time sheâll be lying well out of reach and very nearly out of sight beneath the library ceiling, on her jerry-rigged scaffold with a bowl of soapy bleach-water, gently wiping away at one hundred years of brown pipe-smoke residue. And listening. Hiding from the ritual of teatime but anxiously listening. Howâs that lovely Oriental girl working out? So-and-so saw her at Buellâs Hardware shopping for tools. Where is it she hails from, originally ? Coming around the last bend in the Wildmoor road she can see that someone has already arrived, and unhooked the chain, and turned around the little sign from the side saying HOUSE TOURS to the side saying JOIN US FOR TEA . 4â6 P.M. DAILY. Itâs just ten past four. Miss Dollyâs visitors are all extremely punctual and ancient, the men thin and erect and slow-moving, like large wading birds, the women tiny and blurry and loud. They all seem to have lived on the river for eons, and never had jobs. Whoever has unhooked the chain has left it lying in the dirt across the drive, and after she bumps over it she gets out of the car and pulls it properly off to one side, noticing as she does that thereâs a small white streak of bird shit on the sign. She scratches it off with her thumbnail. The sign looks old and faded already. Itâs one of the first things she made when she came here.
She drives the rest of the way through the trees and tries to slip in the back door, but then someone calls out âIris!â from the porch. âYes!â she calls back. Her voice snags and she falls over coughing. Too many smokes. âCome visit with us for a minute!â The speaker, unsubtly sing-songing, is clearly relishing some innuendo. Not Dolly, but Mrs. Fowler, the lady from the historical society who leads the house tours. Jennyâs heart picks up speed; the bodyâs quick fear, always five beats ahead of the brainâs. Still, she keeps moving and hacking toward the front of the house until she comes into the dining room and catches sight of herself in the huge sideboard mirror. Gray-skinned and red-eyed and with hair like Medusaâs, matted up from the wind, sticking straight off her head. She looks cringing and hunted and ugly but she also looks
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley