To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie. Ellen Conford

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СКАЧАТЬ I didn’t want to get too friendly with anyone because I figured the less people noticed me, the better. The bus was only half full and I hadn’t spoken to anyone else besides Ruby Durban. I don’t even know why she took that seat, since there were some empty ones, so she could have had a window seat, but maybe she got bored without being able to read and wanted to be near somebody to talk to.

      I opened my movie magazine and began to read the article about Kim Novak and how almost everything in her house is lavender. It’s her trademark, but I knew that already.

      She said she wasn’t ready to think about marriage yet, she was just starting on her career, and everybody had big hopes for her after Picnic.

      “When I get married, it’ll be for keeps,” she said.

      I shut the magazine. That’s what I would say when they interviewed me for Photoplay. I feel exactly the way Kim Novak does about marriage.

      When I get married, it’ll be for keeps.

      We stopped for supper at Sal’s Roadside Rest in Medford, Pennsylvania. The driver told us we wouldn’t stop after that until we were in Ohio, which would be in the middle of the night. The driver seemed to know the lady behind the counter, but he called her Winnie, not Sal, so I didn’t know if she was the owner or just a waitress.

      Everybody wanted to use the rest rooms, including me, so Winnie took all the orders and people waited in line to get to the bathroom.

      The diner had counter seats and booths. I ordered a chopped-steak platter with French fries and lettuce and tomato, plus a Coke and a piece of apple pie and ice cream. Winnie said I ought to try their special, which was sweet-and-sour pot roast with noodles and cabbage, but that was $1.25 and the chopped steak was only 85¢. Since I didn’t know how long it would take me to get a job in California, I figured I ought to be as thrifty as possible.

      While I waited to get into the rest room, I noticed that there was a jukebox over in the comer, and even though I was “pinching pennies,” I couldn’t resist putting a nickel in to hear Elvis sing “Heartbreak Hotel.” After all, I told myself, I had just saved all that money on food, so I could spend just a nickel to hear Elvis sing my favorite song. Who knew how long it would be until I got a radio?

      The music blared out and I stood next to the jukebox and sort of swayed in time to the rhythm. I love the beat of that song, and it’s hard to keep still with the thump, thump, thump of the guitar practically punching you in the stomach.

      Winnie was putting plates of food on the counter and scowling. She looked over at me and shook her head. “I don’t know how you can listen to that screecher,” she said, talking over the music. “You know what Sal calls him?”

      I wanted to listen to Elvis, not Winnie, since I had just spent one of my hard-earned nickels on him, so I just shook my head.

      “Elvis the Pelvis.” Her mouth twisted in a sort of sarcastic smile. “Isn’t that something?”

      I wonder if she thought Sal made up that nickname. I’d only heard it about three hundred times before. Probably two hundred of the times I heard it were when Uncle Ted was teasing me about liking Elvis.

      I smiled, as if I really thought it was something, and kept tapping my hand against the side of the jukebox until the record was over.

      I wished I could hear it again, but Winnie waved me over to the counter, holding my plate of food up for me to see.

      I was so hungry I must have broken all the records at Sal’s Roadside Rest for speedy eating. The chopped steak was like hamburger without a roll, but the apple pie was really delicious.

      Mrs. Durban sat on one side of me at the counter. She was having the special sweet-and-sour pot roast and telling Winnie how good it was.

      On the other side there was a woman with a baby in her arms, who had been sitting at the back of the bus. Winnie heated up the baby’s bottle in a pot of water.

      Everybody put tips down on the counter for Winnie, so I realized I had to too. Mrs. Durban put down two dimes. I hadn’t figured on tips, and I realized then there might be a lot of extra little hidden expenses I hadn’t figured on before this trip was over.

      I went to use the rest room, and put on fresh lipstick and touched some pressed powder to my nose and chin. I really would have liked to put on all new makeup, but there was just this tiny mirror over the sink, and no counter to put stuff on, and the light wasn’t even any good for makeup.

      I reached for the envelope with the money in it, and decided I’d better keep it in my wallet. It would look pretty strange to take money out of an envelope every time I had to pay for something. I was just switching the money from the envelope into my wallet when the woman with the baby came into the bathroom. Only she didn’t have the baby with her.

      I quickly stuffed the wallet into my pocketbook.

      “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t know there was anyone in here.”

      “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m finished.”

      I wasn’t sure, but I thought she was looking at me kind of suspiciously. I crumpled the empty envelope and tossed it into the metal trash bin under the roller towel. I tried to look casual about it, and I guessed it was okay, since she was already in the john and closing the door behind her.

      Mrs. Durban was sitting at a booth, giving the baby its bottle. I paid Winnie for the food and put 20¢ down next to my plate when she was at the cash register.

      “Five minutes, Venida,” Mrs. Durban said. “We’ll be leaving in five minutes.”

      “Okay. Thanks.”

      Five minutes was just long enough to play “I Was the One,” which is the flip side of “Heartbreak Hotel” on the jukebox, but I decided that what with the extra expenses I hadn’t counted on, I’d better not. I told Mrs. Durban I’d see her on the bus, and went outside.

      I showed the bus driver my ticket and he nodded and I went back to our seat. I’d left my movie magazine on it, and my hatbox was in the rack right over it. I sat on the aisle seat until Mrs. Durban came onto the bus. She insisted that it was my turn to take the window.

      “It’s pretty country around here,” she said. “You’ll see some nice farmland. It’s going to be dark pretty soon anyway, so we might as well not change seats anymore.”

      It was pretty. We passed a lot of farms, all flat and stretching out for miles, but with mountains way beyond in the distance. I even saw some horses and a couple of windmills, which didn’t look anything at all like the pictures of windmills in Holland you always see.

      It all looked so peaceful and quiet, and private, so different from Robin Lane, where rows of houses were practically rubbing up against each other so that when you looked out your bedroom window you looked right into your neighbor’s bedroom window.

      I wondered what it would be like to live on a farm, to live someplace where when you looked out your window you saw cows and horses and mountains and fields like checkerboards, brown dirt, then green, then gold, then brown dirt again. And all that space, all that privacy, to do whatever you wanted without anyone around to watch you, without anyone you had to talk to just because they happened to be in their backyard at the same time you were in your backyard.

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