Free Beggar of Love by Lee Lynch

woman.
    “I’ll call collect.”
    “I’ll go see a man about a dog.”
    When the bathroom door closed, she dialed. She had never called home collect before, and Angela accepted the call with a panicked voice.
    “I’m fine,” Jefferson said immediately.
    “I was afraid your classes were canceled and you were on the early train! Do you know about the derailment? Where are you?”
    “One of my teachers lives near the school. She let me use her phone. The radio says the railroad schedule is a mess.”
    “You make her let you stay there, baby. There hasn’t been a train into Dutchess since the 3:06, and it was two and a half hours late. Even if you can get on a train in that mob scene you won’t get to me until morning. Stay where it’s safe and warm. I’ll call the shop for you. I don’t think anything will be open tomorrow anyway. The beauty school cancelled classes.”
    “You’re okay?” She rubbed her jaw, as if that would muffle her lies.
    “Snug. Except I miss you. Dutchess lost power for a while, but it came back on. Will she let you stay?”
    “I don’t see why not. She has a comfortable-looking couch.”
    “I’m so glad you’re safe. We’d better get off. This must be costing a fortune. I love you.”
    “Me too, Angie.” The needle on her moral compass flickered every which way.
    She hadn’t felt so cold since that last long summer in her grandparents’ house. The birds. She hadn’t thought of them in a long time. Did they ever stray from their own nests? Maybe, once in a great while another tree looked so appealing—what a silly thought. Angie was fine. Whatever happened here was completely separate from what they had together.
    Margo reentered the candlelit room. She had changed into a light green peignoir and richly blue robe. At home, both Angela and Jefferson wore pajamas.
    “Angie said no trains are coming into the station at home.”
    “I’d be glad if you would stay the night, Ms. Jefferson.”
    Seeing Margo like this, heavy-breasted, at least ten years older than her, the apartment flickering like some den of seduction, fresh makeup giving Margo the florid face of a temptress in an opera, Jefferson said, “But I don’t want to lose my job. I’d better try to get back.”
    She could see the all-too-familiar cost of rejection, quickly hidden, cross Margo’s face. “What do you do?”
    “I work in a small print shop.”
    “Ah,” Margo said, with her charming smile. “Always around books, this one.”
    “Oh, no. Nothing like that. Pamphlets, business cards, once in a while a small gardening book or a guide to the river. Like that.” Still, it was gratifying to be thought of as a book person. She did not want to lose Margo’s friendship. “You have a big library.”
    “Literature,” Margo said, a hand sweeping across the room, “is my life.”
    Was she saying how lonely she was?
    “I teach it, read it, write it. Dream it.”
    “You write?”
    “Of course. Don’t you?”
    “No. I mean, I used to, a little, in high school. But things changed. There’s no time for that.”
    “Stories? Poetry?”
    She nodded, eyes down. “Poetry. Not very good.”
    “Love poetry.”
    She nodded again.
    “To Angie.”
    Was she crazy to admit this? She gave a half-nod, watching Margo.
    “Let me show you something.” Margo found a file on her desk, looked at a few sheets of paper and extracted one, a poem, which she gave Jefferson to read. She was embarrassed to get this glimpse into a teacher’s private life.
    “Margo, it’s real poetry, you wrote this?”
    “We were going to America at last. Our husbands had sent for us. Beirut was a nightmare. Marthe and I learned to take comfort with each other while our husbands were making homes for us in California. I wanted to keep flying, with Marthe, right over their heads and around the world back to Europe, nightmare or not. But war makes one practical. And impractical. I left him as soon as I could. Marthe felt too bound and stayed