My wristwatch said 5:28 p.m., but Mary Ann was nowhere in sight. Ten minutes earlier, at the corner of 28th Street and Guadalupe, seventeen passengers had exited a city bus and stepped out into a freezing rain. It was the North Lamar bus, and Mary Ann should have been on it. She wasn’t.
I tried to reassure myself that she’d likely just missed the bus. It did seem that the bus had run a couple of minutes early, but I couldn’t imagine that she’d miss it on her wedding day. Still, it seemed the obvious and most likely explanation, but nothing about our experience had ever been likely.
Buses ran past Mary Ann’s office every thirty minutes, and every one of them was headed straight down Guadalupe toward the UT campus and downtown. I kept telling myself that, surely, she’d be on the next one.
I stepped back under the awning of the Pizza Inn restaurant to get out of the rain, lit another cigarette and pulled my jacket collar up around my neck. It was wet, and it was cold. My nerves were starting to be on high alert. I needed Mary Ann to be on the next bus. It was due around 5:50.
• • •
After Mary Ann had left for work at noon I had been busy. I met with two professors, and both meetings went well. They knew not to expect me in class tomorrow, and each was forthcoming with congratulations and well wishes. They had both met Mary Ann, and they knew how lucky I was.
I had a one o’clock class in Garrison Hall, but couldn’t concentrate at all on whatever the professor was saying. My mind was on other things. I slipped out of the classroom fifteen minutes early and headed for a small bake shop on the Drag. It occurred to me while sitting in class that we didn’t have a wedding cake. All of a sudden it seemed important. It seemed, somehow, like we needed one.
We had picked up Mary Ann’s dress the prior evening, as well as a spider chrysanthemum with some green stuff she had chosen instead of a large bouquet. By 2:30 the weather was turning nasty, and I began to worry how we were going to get the flowers or the pretty dress to the church. We were going to have to walk. Still, my mind kept returning to the matter of a wedding cake.
Only a few people would be at the wedding. The preacher’s office wouldn’t hold more than a half dozen guests, so a large cake would be unnecessary. It seemed, though, like we should have something.
I asked the lady in the bake shop if she had a suitable cake that could be decorated for a very small wedding. Something… she would know more about such things than I would. I solicited her help.
The only undecorated cake in the place was chocolate, and she assured me it wouldn’t be appropriate. It was clear within a minute that she hadn’t taken me seriously… she wasn’t taking me seriously. Harriet, her name tag read, didn’t want my four dollars, and she didn’t want to make me a wedding cake. Her best wishes rang false and utterly insincere as I left the shop.
As I was walking the five blocks north to the Rio Grande on the left side of the street, a feeling came over me that said I was being followed. I paused momentarily under the marquee of the Varsity Theater to light a cigarette and take a look behind me.
Classes were changing, and hundreds of students were passing in opposite directions up and down Guadalupe. Twenty yards back, a Hare Krishna was interrupting foot traffic, approaching every pedestrian he could in an effort to interest someone in the literature he was distributing. Most took a pamphlet without speaking and moved on without slowing. In what seemed a very unlikely scene, two stocky guys, late twenties, with crew cuts and heavy parkas stopped to talk with the magazine wielding Hindu proselyte. They continued to stand with him as another Hare Krishna standing only a few feet away began the Vaishnava mantra. It was definitely an unlikely scene.
I weighed my options. I could continue on up Guadalupe, stopping occasionally to see if the pair was following, or I could confront them then and there. What could they do in the middle of the sidewalk among hundreds of students? Not much—and once it was over, at least I would know. I quickly opted for a confrontation.
Were they a part of it or not? Why were they here in Austin, and what did they want from me? As I started toward them I was sure I already knew the answers.
It wasn’t a day for answers. No sooner had a I started in their direction than the pair broke off their conversation and crossed Guadalupe hurriedly, walking south toward the west mall. As soon as they crossed the street they separated, walking twenty feet apart as though they had not been together. Neither turned to look at me, to see if I was gaining on them. I was not.
Confident that I had some answers I started back up Guadalupe toward Rio Grande.
• • •
The 5:50 bus arrived at the 28th Street stop on time, and I left the shelter of the Pizza Inn awning to meet it. A woman with purple skin, a medical condition such as I could not imagine, was first off the bus, followed by a middle aged Mexican lady and seven other passengers. They filed out of the belly of the bus, the door closed and the bus continued on toward downtown.
Mary Ann could not have missed two busses—not on her wedding day. The idea made no sense. Something, I knew, had gone wrong.
I started back toward the rooms on Rio Grande, all but running now through the cold and rain, hoping against hope that I’d find Mary Ann back at the room. Maybe… just maybe, I thought… maybe someone at the office had given her a ride. Maybe she was waiting for me there.
Where was she? It was a minute past six o’clock when I came through the lobby door of the Rio Grande. I asked the desk clerk if Mary Ann had come through the front door in the past hour. He assured me that she hadn’t. He was bored. He would have noticed.
I ran upstairs to check her room. She was not there.
I phoned her office from the front desk phone, but there was no answer. The office was closed.
Darkness had fallen heavy across the city, and the storm made the night all the more foreboding. Our wedding was no longer foremost on my mind. The wedding could wait. Mary Ann was missing!
To be continued…
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is the part, where in modern times, you would have been texting her or calling her to see why she had missed the bus!
This suspense is killing me!! Which is a sign of good writer’s…..but you should know this already….if you still don’t, let your increase in readers be the proof……we all need the complete book to read – NOW!!!!
what Tracey said……