My Summer With George by Marilyn French Page B

below the Mason-Dixon line. When he hit New York, he dwindled into a moderate, even a conservative on some issues. But it was also because he and his wife came from a small community that was warm and close-knit, despite its many vendettas, and they could not adjust to the rootless separateness of life in New York.
    I decided to take an impersonal line. “Well, you have to think about whether you can stand it up here. In the North, I mean. I’ve known some southerners who couldn’t, who missed the friendliness and close ties they enjoyed in the South. It’s very different here. People are nasty—you know, bus drivers, supermarket checkout clerks, subway token salespeople. We don’t meet each other’s eyes on the streets; it’s too dangerous. You have to consider what you would miss.”
    He shrugged. “Liddy’s in Africa, anyway. I’d probably see Edgar more than I do now. But I want to know what you think. How do you feel about it?”
    Was he serious? Was this a statement? Could I reveal myself now? I could feel my face softening, turning into an intimate face. He was staring at me as if my answer mattered to him, as if he was hanging on it.
    “Well, I’d love it,” I said softly, and smiled into his eyes.
    He smiled in satisfaction and seemed to relax. He handed me a sandwich and unwrapped his own. We were both having ham and cheese. He bit into his sandwich.
    My mind was riding on a plane above the earth, like a blue line in the sky, above the lowest clouds but not quite soaring. It couldn’t soar until he said something more concrete, but it was high, elated, ready to soar. He was considering staying in New York for a while, and he had intimated that my attitude might determine whether he did it or not. That was as close to a declaration of affection as a person could come without making one, wasn’t it?
    So what now? It seemed to me that having extracted an admission of—well, of something: interest at least, sympathy, affection—he owed it to me to offer an equivalent profession. Of interest or sympathy at least, if not affection. I hung on his words…
    He turned and looked off toward the footpath. “Yeah, it might be interesting. Newsday’s an interesting newspaper, if you know its history…” He launched into it.
    I listened. He finished talking when he finished eating. He wiped his fingers together, dropping crumbs; he dabbed his mouth with his napkin and swallowed the last of his soda. I recognized the signs. I glanced at my watch. It was one o’clock. He had picked me up at noon. An hour. Exactly. Again. “Well, gotta get going,” he announced. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”
    “A plane!”
    “Sure. Gotta go back to Louisville this afternoon.” He stood and reached his hand out to help me up.
    “What about the Newsday job?”
    “Well, I’ve gotta work that out with the Herald. If I take it, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I’ll call you.”
    I felt as if every cell in my body were bouncing, not in the heat of rage, not seething, but shuddering with nervousness. I felt like someone who’d been kissed, slapped, hugged, then hurled against a wall. Curled up on the floor against the wall, bruised and bloody, I gazed, dazed, up at a man who was smiling at me with love. When I reached my apartment, I sat down on the cushioned bench in my foyer. I laid the wicker basket on the floor beside me and just sat there, my hands hanging down beside me. Lou and Ko Chao don’t come in on Saturday, so the apartment was, thank heavens, empty. I could not have borne to speak to anyone.
    After a time, I got up and went into the kitchen and poured a tall glass of water. I drank it like someone parched, someone who’d been lost in the desert for days. I stood there, looking at the kitchen cabinets, seeing nothing. I poured more water and carried it back to my study. I sat at my desk. My head was shaking back and forth, back and forth, as if I was saying no, no, no.
    After a long time, my