Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [34]
A tiny island in the vast sea is what Luce thought the town looked like. The map that described her entire range rested on the wall more like art than information. And Luce took it as a clue to why she had never left, that being one of the big questions in her mind during her time as an operator.
LUCE’S RAPIST WAS A YOUNGISH MAN, and married. Mr. Stewart. Luce knew him well. He had been one of her high school teachers. Fresh out of college back then. Luce, like most of the girls, thought he was cute and sort of funny. Mr. Stewart taught chemistry, not at all Luce’s best subject, so she settled for an easy B in his class.
There wasn’t any question in Luce’s mind what had happened. He came in awfully late for paying his bill. And it was clear he had confusing expectations. He smoked, nervous and abrupt. Flirted a little, talking about how much prettier he thought she was now in comparison to high school, and yet how pretty she was when she was seventeen. If Mr. Stewart had not been married, Luce might have gone out with him. He was no more than six years older. No big deal. Go to a movie. A football game on Friday night. But Mr. Stewart was not single, and that was that.
He took a final long drag on his cigarette and dropped it to the floor. Suddenly he was reaching and grabbing and pulling at her. Then pushing her across the room to the narrow cot, where it was all yanking at her clothes and groping. Then grabbing her wrists, and his weight on her. She distinctly remembered shouting, Quit. Shouting, No. Over and over. Maybe she even screamed it, but who would have heard? And she tried to shove him off her, but he was so urgent. She turned her face aside to keep him from kissing her. She refused to cry for the moment it took him to be done.
It started so quickly and ended so quickly. He had not removed any of his clothing, so all he did was stand up and zip and apologize and leave. His check for the month’s telephone service lay faceup on the table. Three dollars and sixteen cents. Also a gold Saint Christopher’s medallion on a gold chain.
Funny thing. Soon after Mr. Stewart left, the clapper on the bell started striking, announcing a call coming in. Luce stood up from the cot and pulled her skirt down. She couldn’t think. Her mind felt distant from her body, and her body felt distant from everything in the world. The cigarette butt still smoked on the wood floor, and she crushed it out with the toe of her shoe on the way to the switchboard. She put the headset on and jacked in the plug and said, Number, please?
It wasn’t until after midnight that it came to her. She was sitting there in the chair on a damp place doing her job just because a bell rang. Luce stood up and took off her headset and walked out, leaving the door standing open. Didn’t call her backup girl. Luce wasn’t really premeditating much at the moment. Mainly, she figured, phones dead for one night, so what?
And normally, she would have been right. Except this night the high school burned down, and there was suddenly all kinds of need for people to make phone calls. Switchboard all lit up. And true, most of it was still useless chatter at three in the morning because sirens screamed and the sky was yellow with flames. But one call in particular was an actual urgent emergency message to the closest larger town, requesting a ladder truck and a crew of firemen to help out. The school became a heap of scorched brick fallen in on itself, and the oiled oak floorboards and wall laths and beams and joists converted to ash and charcoal. The pile smoked for weeks.
Naturally, Luce’s name became mud, regardless of whether the truck and crew would have arrived in time to make a difference or not. Small towns will go a long mile to take care of their own, but there’s a bright line you dare not cross, and Luce found herself on the far side of it. She might as well have left all the black plugs and silver sockets as they were and gone straight to the