The blow was a powerful one, for Marya struck from the shoulder. Imogene’s head snapped back—blood appeared on her mouth—she staggered backward and swayed, almost lost her balance. “Oh Marya,” she said.

Marya snatched up her things and turned away. Her long fast stride and the set of her shoulders, the set of her head, must have indicated confidence; angry assurance; but in fact she was badly shaken . . . it was some time before she could catch her breath. When she turned to look back Imogene was sitting on the ground and a small crowd had gathered around her. You’ll be all right, Marya thought, someone will always take care of you.

AFTER THAT, VERY little happened.

Marya kept the earrings, though her ears were infected and she had to give up wearing them; Imogene Skillman never approached her again, never pressed charges; nor did anyone dare bring the subject up to either of the girls.

Marya’s record remained perfect but Imogene did poorly at the end of the semester, failing two subjects; and in place of transferring to another university she quit college altogether.

That fall, Marya learned that Imogene was living in New York City. She had broken off her engagement over the summer; she had joined a troupe of semiprofessional actors and lived in an apartment off St. Mark’s Square. It was said that she had a small role in an off-Broadway play scheduled to open sometime that winter but Marya never learned the title of the play, or when, precisely, it opened; or how successful it was.

Seven

SEVEN

Marya’s career prospered, Marya was doing very well for herself, all sorts of things were cautiously promised for her. She rarely returned to Innisfail, though in weak moods she thought a great deal about it. She thought a great deal about the past—the profitless past—in her weak moods.

When she telephoned home—she still called Everard and Wilma’s place “home” though it hadn’t been her address in years—she heard her voice shift into another register, become bright and shadowless, hearty. She sounded like the university instructor and graduate scholar she was. Marya Knauer with all her fellowships and prizes, Marya Knauer with her somewhat precocious (as one of her professors called them) publications. . . . But if her voice wasn’t strengthened at such times she knew it would go faint and reedy; she knew it would fail her.

Telephoning home, she was certain to ask about everyone, including neighbors, in detail. And Wilma, echoing Marya’s bright manner, answered her in detail; though interrupting herself now and then, to say with a nervous little laugh that this conversation was long distance, wasn’t it, and must be costing a small fortune, and did Marya really want to know all these things . . . ? “Oh, hardly a small fortune,” Marya protested, though in truth she didn’t always exactly follow all that Wilma reported. Joey had a part-time job working for . . . and Davy was on the first-string football team . . . and Lee’s wife Brenda had another little girl, the sweetest thing . . . or had Wilma told her that last time? Everard’s blood pressure was high and the fool was supposed to be off salt but Marya knew how he was: stubborn as an ox: still twenty pounds too heavy. But business was all right, Wilma said almost reluctantly. She supposed they couldn’t complain.