“Not really, I guess. I mean, I’m not happy or anything, but ...”
“You have hope? That things will get better for you?”
A flicker of faces passed through her mind. Ghosts from the distant and recent past. Boys from high school. Eddie. She heard Eddie’s voice.
She just wanted a normal life. She wanted to find something to enjoy in it. She wanted to find somebody she could have a good relationship with, she wanted to enjoy making love with him without worrying about people thinking she was a tramp. She wanted him to be there the next morning. She wanted there to be more to what they had than just a roll in the hay.
Right now, none of that seemed very possible.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I want it to. I’m not going to give up, but ...”
Again, faces paraded before her—this time they belonged to those lost souls of the city. The despairing.
“I know there are people a lot worse off than I am,” she said. “I’m not sick, I’ve got the use of my body and my mind. But I’m missing something, too. I don’t know how it is for other people—maybe they feel the same and just handle it better—but I feel like there’s a hole inside me that I just can’t fill. I get so lonely ...”
“You see,” Jack said then. “She’s mine.”
Moira turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
It was Diane who answered. “He’s laying claim to your unhappiness,” she said.
Moira looked from one to the other. There was something going on here, some undercurrent, that she wasn’t picking up on. “What are you
“This city is ours,” Diane said. “My brother’s and mine. We are two sides to the same coin. In most people, that coin lies with my face up, for you are an optimistic race. But optimism only carries some so far. When my brother’s face lies looking skyward, all hope is gone.”
Moira centered on the words, “you are an optimistic race,” realizing from the way Diane spoke it was as though she and her brother weren’t human. She looked away, across the cityscape of bridges and tilting buildings. It was a dreamscape—not exactly a nightmare, but not at all pleasant either. And she was trapped in it; trapped in a dream.
“Who are you people?” she asked. “I don’t buy this ‘Jack and Diane’ bit—that’s like out of that John Mellencamp song. Who are you
“I’ve already told you,” Jack said.
“But you only gave her half the answer,” Diane added. She turned to Moira. “We are Hope and Despair,” she said. She touched a hand to her breast. “Because of your need for us, we are no longer mere allegory, but have shape and form. This is our city.”
Moira shook her head. “Despair I can understand—this place reeks of it. But not Hope.”
“Hope is what allows the strong to rise above their despair,” Diane said. “It’s what makes them strong. Not blind faith, not the certain knowledge that someone will step in and help them, but the understanding that through their own force of will they cannot merely survive, but succeed. Hope is what tempers that will and gives it the strength to carry on, no matter what the odds are ranked against them.”
“Don’t forget to tell her how too much hope will turn her into a lazy cow,” her brother said.
Diane sighed, but didn’t ignore him. “It’s true,” she said. “Too much hope can also be harmful.
Remember this: Neither hope nor despair have power of their own; they can only provide the fuel that you will use to prevail or be defeated.”
“Pop psychology,” Moira muttered.
Diane smiled. “Yet, like old wives’ tales, it has within it a kernel of truth, or why would it linger?”
“So what am I doing here?” Moira asked. “I never gave up. I’m still trying.”
Diane looked at her brother. He shrugged his shoulders. “I admit defeat,” he said. “She is yours.”
Diane shook her head. “No. She is her own. Let her go.” Jack turned to Moira, the look of a petulant child marring his strong features before they started to become hazy.
“You’ll be back,” he said. That dry voice was like a desert wind, its fine sand filling her heart with an aching forlornness. “Hope is sweet, I’ll admit that readily, but once Despair has touched you, you can never be wholly free of its influence.”
A hot flush ran through Moira. She reeled, dizzy, vision blurring, only half hearing what was being said. Her head was thick with a heavy buzz of pain.
Moira wasn’t sure if she’d actually heard that, the sweet scent of blossoms clearing her heart of Despair’s dust, or if it came from within herself—something she wanted—had to believe. But it overrode Despair’s dry voice. She no longer fought the vertigo, but just let it take her away.
Moira was suddenly aware that she was on her hands and knees, with dirty wood under her. Where
... ?
Then she remembered: Walking across the covered bridge. The city. Hope and Despair.
She sat back on her haunches and looked around herself. She was back in her own world. Back—if she’d ever even gone anywhere in the first place.
A sudden roaring filled her head. Lights blinded her as a car came rushing up on the far side of the bridge. She remembered Eddie, her fear of some redneck hillbillies, but there was nowhere to run to. The car screeched to a halt on the wood, a door opened. A man stepped out onto the roadway of the bridge and came towards her.
Backlit by the car’s headbeams, he seemed huge—a monstrous shape. She wanted to bolt. She wanted to scream. She couldn’t seem to move, not even enough to reach into her purse for her switchblade.
“Jesus!” the stranger said. “Are you okay?”
He was bent down beside her now, features pulled tight with concern.
She nodded slowly. “I just ... felt dizzy, I guess.”
“Here. Let me help you up.”
She allowed him to do that. She let him walk her to his car. He opened up the passenger’s door and she sank gratefully onto the seat. The man looked down to the end of the bridge by which she’d entered it what seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Did you have some car trouble?” the man asked.
“You could say that,” she said. “The guy I was with dumped me from his car a few miles back.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Just my feelings.”
“Jesus. What a crappy thing to do.”
“Yeah. Thanks for stopping.”
“No problem. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”
Moira shook her head. “I’m going back to Newford. I think that’s a little far out of your way.”
“Well, I’m not just going to leave you here by yourself.” Before she could protest, he closed the door and went back around to the driver’s side.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he got behind the wheel. “After what you’ve been through, a guy’d have to be a real heel to—well, you know.”
Moira had to smile. He actually seemed embarrassed.
“We’ll just drive to the other side of the bridge and turn around and then—”
Moira touched his arm. She remembered what had happened the last time she’d tried to go through this bridge.
“Do me a favor, would you?” she asked. “Could you just back out instead?”
Her benefactor gave her a funny look, then shrugged. Putting the car into reverse, he started backing up. Moira held her breath until they were back out on the road again. There were pines and cedars pushing up against the verge, stars overhead. No weird city. No bridges.
She let out her breath.
“What’s your name?” she asked as he maneuvered the car back and forth on the narrow road until he had its nose pointed towards Newford.
“John—John Fraser.”
“My name’s Moira.”
