“Let’s sing,” said Lavinia.
They sang sweetly and quietly, arm in arm, not looking back. They felt the hot sidewalk cooling underfoot, moving, moving.
“Listen,” said Lavinia.
They listened to the summer night, to the crickets and the far-off tone of the courthouse clock making it fifteen minutes to 12.
“Listen.”
A porch swing creaked in the dark. And there was Mr. Terle, silent, alone on his porch as they passed, having a last cigar. They could see the pink cigar fire idling to and fro.
Now the lights were going, going, gone. The little house lights and big house lights, the yellow lights and green hurricane lights, the candles and oil lamps and porch lights, and everything felt locked up in brass and iron and steel. Everything, thought Lavinia, is boxed and wrapped and shaded. She imagined the people in their moonlit beds, and their breathing in the summer night, safe and together. And here we are, she thought, listening to our solitary footsteps on the baked summer-evening sidewalk. And above us the lonely street lights shining down, making a million wild shadows.
“Here’s your house, Francine. Good night.”
“Lavinia, Helen, stay here tonight. It’s late, almost midnight now. Mrs. Murdock has an extra room. You can sleep in the parlor. I’ll make hot chocolate. It’d be ever such fun!” Francine was holding them both close to her.
“No, thanks,” said Lavinia.
And Francine began to cry.
“Oh, not again, Francine,” said Lavinia.
“I don’t want you dead,” sobbed Francine, the tears running straight down her cheeks. “You’re so fine and nice, I want you alive. Please, oh, please!”
“Francine, I didn’t realize how much this has affected you. But I promise you I’ll phone when I get home, right away.”
“Oh, will you?”
“And tell you I’m safe, yes. And tomorrow we’ll have a picnic lunch at Electric Park, all right? With ham sandwiches I’ll make myself. How’s that? You’ll see; I’m going to live forever!”
“You’ll phone?”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“Good night, good night!” Francine was gone behind her door, locked tight in an instant.
“Now,” said Lavinia to Helen, “I’ll walk you home.”
The courthouse clock struck the hour.
The sounds went across a town that was empty, emptier than it had ever been before. Over empty streets and empty lots and empty lawns the sound went.
“Ten, eleven, twelve,” counted Lavinia, with Helen on her arm.
“Don’t you feel funny?” asked Helen.
“How do you mean?”
“When you think of us being out here on the sidewalk, under the trees, and all those people safe behind locked doors lying in their beds. We’re practically the only walking people out in the open in a thousand miles, I bet.” The sound of the deep warm dark ravine came near.
In a minute they stood before Helen’s house, looking at each other for a long time. The wind blew the odor of cut grass and wet lilacs between them. The moon was high in a sky that was beginning to cloud over. “I don’t suppose it’s any use asking you to stay, Lavinia?”
“I’ll be going on.”
“Sometimes…”
“Sometimes what?” “Sometimes I think people want to die. You’ve certainly acted odd all evening.”