Tied to the Tracks by Rosina Lippi Read Free Book Online Page A

we would appreciate as much detail as can be provided on the visitor’s family and any special needs to be taken into consideration.
     
    The things John knew about Angie Mangiamele could hardly be written on a form for a clerk in the housing office to read. Especially as that clerk might well turn out to be Harriet Darling, Caroline’s oldest sister.
     
    She snores, he could write that, and no doubt she could share a few colorful facts about him, too. But if this was going to work—and it had to work—he would have to find a way to put all those little things out of his head and start fresh.
     
    From the television came the soft deep lilt of Virginia and in counterpoint a more familiar voice, slightly husky, carefully modulated and still New Jersey. She disliked her accent, or had, back then. Maybe she had learned to appreciate it; maybe they couldn’t afford to hire a professional voice-over actor. In fact, she sounded as if she had a little bit of a cold when she recorded the narration.
     
    Prone to upper respiratory infections. That was something to write, and: Hates going to the doctor. Hates letting anybody do anything for her. Does her own taxes, paints her own walls. Cuts her own hair.
     
    He pushed away from the desk and went to look out the window, imagined Angie down there walking under the cherry trees. She was coming, and he couldn’t stop it. She would make friends in the town; in a week everybody would know her name. It was her particular gift, making people open up. He had seen her following an irascible old mailman around for days until she had soaked up everything he had to teach her about a neighborhood she was interested in filming. No doubt he still sent her Christmas cards. No doubt she answered them.
     
    The truth was, he didn’t want to stop what was coming, and there was the hardest truth at all, one he could hardly admit to himself or even to his brother, who had given him a particular look when he found out who it was that owned Tied to the Tracks.
     
    At the very least, he had to tell Caroline, and soon.
     
    He thought of Miss Maddie’s small, kind face, the light in her eyes when she talked about the documentary. Thought of his own silence, when he should have spoken up. The things he meant to say were simple: It’s a brilliant piece of work. She’s come so far, she has the eye. If he could give her nothing else, he must give her that much, respect for the work she did, for the work she would be here to do.
     
    From the television set came another voice, strong and sure but with an old woman’s gentle wobble.
     
    “Nobody asked me,” she was saying. “My turn came and I had to climb up into that train. Sometimes I thought about just lying down in front of it, instead.”
     
    John looked out over the empty campus. Then he turned back to the form on his desk. On it he wrote: Please contact these persons directly for answers to these questions.
     
    And while you’re at it, he might have written, could you ask Angie what actually happened five years ago this Labor Day?
     
    Because while John had what seemed like almost perfect recall when it came to that summer before he left Columbia for Princeton, the last few days—the last days he had spent with Angie Mangiamele—were a complete mystery to him.
     
    From the television came the sound of a train whistle, long and plaintive.
     
    A month of very good, two months of excellent, and then it all seemed to fall apart in the course of a disaster of a weekend.
     
    He had come up to her door at a trot, his overnight bag bumping against his leg, calculating traffic and distance in his head and whether or not they would make the train, and what it would mean if they didn’t—his grandfather would hold it against him all weekend if they showed up late—and rapped on the door even as it was swinging open.
     
    It wasn’t the first time the sight of Angie Mangiamele had robbed him of words. Angie asleep in the first light of day