The Speed of Dark

“So — that’s what she looks like,” says someone behind me. I turn around. It is Emmy. As usual, she looks angry. “She’s not that pretty.”

“I think she is pretty,” I say.

“I can tell,” Emmy says. “You’re blushing.”

My face is hot. I may be blushing, but Emmy didn’t have to say so. It is not polite to comment on someone else’s expression in public. I say nothing.

“I suppose you think she’s in love with you,” Emmy says. Her voice is hostile. I can tell she thinks this is what I think and that she thinks I am wrong, that Marjory is not in love with me. I am unhappy that Emmy thinks these things but happy that I can understand all that in what she says and how she says it. Years ago I would not have understood.

“I do not know,” I say, keeping my voice calm and low. Down the aisle, a woman has paused with her hand on a package of plastic storage containers to look at us. “You do not know what I think,” I say to Emmy. “And you do not know what she thinks. You are trying to mind-read; that is an error.”

“You think you’re so smart,” Emmy says. “Just because you work with computers and math. You don’t know anything about people.”

I know the woman down the aisle is drifting closer and listening to us. I feel seared. We should not be talking like this in public. We should not be noticed. We should blend in; we should look and sound and act normal. If I try to tell Emmy that, she will be even angrier. She might say something loud. “I have to go,” I say to Emmy. “I’m late.”

“For what, for a date?” she asks. She says the word date louder than the other words and with an upward-moving tone that means she is being sarcastic.

“No,” I say in a calm voice. If I am calm maybe she will let me alone. “I am going to watch TV. I always watch TV on—” Suddenly I ca

In my line there are five people ahead of me. Three women and two men. One with light hair, four with dark hair. One man has a light-blue pullover shirt almost the same shade as a box in his basket. I try to think only about color, but it is noisy and the lights in the store make the colors different than they really are. As they are in daylight, I mean. The store is also reality. The things I don’t like are as much reality as the things I do like.

Even so, it is easier if I think about the things I do like and not about the ones I don’t. Thinking about Marjory and Haydn’s Te Deum makes me very happy; if I let myself think of Emmy, even for a moment, the music goes sour and dark and I want to run away. I fix my mind on Marjory, as if she were an assignment at work, and the music dances, happier and happier.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

I stiffen and half turn. It is the woman who was watching Emmy and me; she has come up behind me In the checkout line. Her eyes glisten in the store’s bright light; her lipstick has dried in the corners of her mouth to a garish orange. She smiles at me, but it is not a soft smile. It is a hard smile, of the mouth only. I say nothing, and she speaks again.

“I couldn’t help noticing,” she says. “Your friend was so upset. She’s a little… different, isn’t she?” She bares more teeth.

I do not know what to say. I have to say something; other people in the line are now watching.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” the woman says. The muscles around her eyes are tense. “It’s just… I noticed her way of speaking.”

Emmy’s life is Emmy’s life. It is not this woman’s life; she has no right to know what is wrong with Emmy. If anything is wrong.

“It must be hard for people like you,” the woman says. She turns her head, glancing at the people in the line who are watching us, and gives a little giggle. I do not know what she thinks is fu

The man behind her has an odd expression on his face; I can’t tell if he agrees with her or not. I wish someone would tell her to be quiet. If I tell her to be quiet, that is rude.

“I hope I haven’t upset you,” she says, in a higher voice, and her eyebrows lift. She is waiting for me to give the right answer.

I think there is no right answer. “I don’t know you,” I say, keeping my voice very low and calm. I mean “I don’t know you and I do not want to talk about Emmy or Marjory or anything personal with someone I do not know.”

Her face bunches up; I turn away quickly. From behind me I hear a huffed, “Well!” and behind that a man’s voice softly muttering, “Serves you right.” I think it is the man behind the woman, but I will not turn around and look. Ahead of me the line is down to two people; I look straight ahead without focusing on anything in particular, trying to hear the music again, but I can’t. All I can hear is noises.

When I carry my groceries out, the sticky heat seems even worse than when I went in. I can smell everything: candy on discarded candy wrappers, fruit peels, gum, people’s deodorant and shampoo, the asphalt of the parking lot, exhaust from the buses. I set my groceries on the back of the car while I unlock it.

“Hey,” someone says. I jump and turn. It is Don. I did not expect to see Don here. I did not expect to see Marjory here, either. I wonder if other people in the fencing group shop here. “Hi, fella,” he says. He is wearing a striped knit shirt and dark slacks. I have not seen him wear anything like this before; when he comes to fencing he wears either a T-shirt and jeans or a costume.

“Hi, Don,” I say. I do not want to talk to Don even though he is a friend. It is too hot, and I need to get my groceries home and put them away. I pick up the first sack and put it in the backseat.

“This where you shop?” he asks. It is a silly question when I am standing here with grocery sacks on my car. Does he think I stole them?

“I come here on Tuesdays,” I say.

He looks disapproving. Maybe he thinks Tuesdays are the wrong day for grocery shopping — but then why is he here? “Coming to fencing tomorrow?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. I put the other sack in the car, and close the back door.

“Going to that tournament?” He is staring at me in a way that makes me want to look down or away.

“Yes,” I say. “But I have to go home now.” Milk should be kept at a temperature of thirty-eight degrees F. or below. It is at least ninety degrees F. here in the parking lot, and the milk I bought will be warming up.

“Have a real routine, don’t you?” he says.

I do not know what a false routine would be. I wonder if this is like real heel.

“Do the same thing every day?” he asks.

“Not the same thing every day,” I say. “The same things on the same days.”

“Oh, right,” he says. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, you regular guy, you.” He laughs. It is a strange laugh, not as if he were really enjoying it. I open the front door and get into my car; he does not say anything or walk off. When I start the engine, he shrugs, an abrupt twitch of the shoulders as if something had stung him.

“Good-bye,” I say, being polite.

“Yeah,” he says. “Bye.” He is still standing there as I drive off. In the rearview mirror I can see him standing in the same place until I am almost to the street. I turn right onto the street; when I glance back, he is gone.

It is quieter in my apartment than outside, but it is not really quiet. Beneath me, the policeman Da