Authors: Nancy Thayer
Leigh turned her gaze to Michael, who had gotten the Brazil nut open and was now digging the meat out. He was a handsome boy. Leigh would have to give Mandy an
A
for taste. If he was nothing else at all, he was certainly handsome, even beautiful, with
vivid coloring and good bones. Thick black hair. But was he at all intelligent? Did he have a sense of humor? Integrity? Common sense?
“Michael, how old are you?” she asked.
Michael raised his eyes to hers, and in that instant, though he did not know it and Leigh would never have admitted it, he won the battle. His gaze was so clear and direct. It signaled: Here is a good person. There is enough animal in us still, Leigh knew, to sniff that much out in each other.
“I’m seventeen,” he said. “I’ll be eighteen in December. I’m still in high school. I’m a senior. I’m not making good grades, because I honestly find high school boring. But I’m not stupid—if you want to check my IQ test—”
Leigh burst out laughing at this, and in turn, they relaxed and smiled. “Look, you two,” Leigh said. “You’re both intelligent, I believe that. And you’re in love, I can see that. But why do you have to get married? Why don’t you just see each other on weekends and, well, write letters during the week. If you’ve really only been—seeing—each other just this summer, such a short time, you can’t know everything about each other that there is to know. You might be surprised at how much you could get to know about each other through letters—” But she could see by the glaze that began to pass over their eyes that she had lost them. She was silent for a moment.
“Mom,” Mandy said, “we want to be together. We don’t want to be separated. We don’t want to see each other just on weekends.”
“I was thinking,” Michael said. “I could come to Northampton. I could get a job there. There are lots of things I could do. I’m a good worker and I’m good with my hands. I could work in a garage, or with a builder, or with a landscape contractor like I did this summer. I could support us. Mandy and I could live in an apartment, and she could continue school. I know you don’t want her to drop out. I don’t, either.”
“But I want to sculpt, Mother!” Mandy burst out, and Leigh turned to see by her daughter’s expression that she was more terrified about this admission than she was about her love for Michael. “And Michael would help me. Carrying the heavy stuff, the materials and things.”
“Just a moment,” Leigh said, and rubbed her forehead with her hand. Was any parent ever prepared for this sort of thing? Did any human being ever feel confident about this kind of decision? So much hung in the balance. “Michael,” Leigh said, “what will your parents think about all this?”
“My father will be furious,” Michael said. “Not because of Mandy. I mean, he’d be furious no matter who I’d want to marry. And my mother—my mother will be worried. I guess she’ll be like you—convinced that we’re too young to make a serious decision like this. But, Mrs. Findly, I believe that there’s no one age when everyone gets smart. I’m sure experience improves everyone’s thinking, but I feel that some people get smart young, and some people never get smart at all, no matter how old they are.”
Leigh smiled. “Yes,” she said, musing. “I sort of believe that myself. But, Michael, don’t you want to go to college? Surely your parents want you to. I don’t see how you could both go to college and support yourself—”
“I don’t want to go to college. At least not now. I’m not interested in any of it. I—I’m tired of words. I don’t trust them. I want to work with things that are real. Of course my parents want me to go to college, but I’ve talked with them about it and told them I don’t want to.”
“Oh, God, your poor parents,” Leigh said. “They have their hands full with you.”
“They do,” Michael agreed. “You see, they think that life should be lived in a line. You’re supposed to touch certain checkpoints along the way. They want me to be on the way to someplace, and it’s always an uphill climb. Well, I can’t do that. I don’t want to go where they want me to. I—it’s like I see a whole different area of life to live in that they can’t even see. It’s hard to explain,” he conceded.
Leigh was quiet for a while, remembering. She thought she knew what Michael meant, and his words drew her sympathies. When she had been their age, she had desperately wanted to go to Paris, to “be an artist,” to live among artists—to sleep with artists. She had dreamed of living in a garret on the Left Bank, posing nude for artists who would fall in love with her and make her famous, immortalizing her in their art. And she would turn the tables, sculpt her lovers, and become famous herself, for her art, immortalizing them. She would sit at the Deux Magots, sipping Pernod and saying witty things, and she would never marry or have children, and she would never grow old. But her parents were merely amused by her dreams, and said that of course she was not going to Paris, she was going to college. And she did go to college. Then she married, and she had a child, following that rigid line that society delineated through ambitious love of parents for their children, until the time came when she could pretend no longer, and she got divorced.
Since then, she had lived more or less as she pleased, potting, having lovers; but it
was a tamer life than she had wanted for herself, and a more limited one, bounded always by the needs of her daughter. Mandy had to come first. Leigh did not regret this—Mandy was reason enough to make any life worthwhile. And Leigh knew that her early dreams had been greedy and unrealistic; it would have been most unlikely if everything she dreamed had happened. More than likely she would have been hungry, cold, and lonely in Paris; she would have gotten a venereal disease from a lover and gone home admitting her talent was a small one.
Still, why should she join with other grown-ups in this ritualistic coercion of young people onto the straight and narrow path?
Mandy was rolling a filbert back and forth on the table. Michael was just sitting, waiting.
“Look,” Leigh said, “this is a lot of news to hit me with all at once. You two have had a while to think about it. I should surely have some time. Whatever your—career choices—are, Michael, it’s something you have to work out between you and your parents. And it certainly wouldn’t be fair for me to give you my blessing and force your parents into the position of being the heavies. Look … look. If you two think you’ll be happier if you’re together, well, why do you have to get married? Marriage is so complicated. There’s so much legal stuff, so much hassle. Why don’t you two try living together for a while?”
“Mother,” Mandy said. “Michael’s father is a minister!”
“I know that. But he might agree with me. Marriage is so
final
.” Then Leigh smiled at herself, and stopped, considering her own divorced state. “Or it should be. At any rate, once you’re into it, it’s hell getting out—and I know, I
know
, you two think you’ll never want to be apart. But, Mandy, I felt the same way about your father once. Look, kids, it’s true that some people never do get smart, but over the centuries human beings have learned a few things. You have to admit that. And one of the things we’ve learned is that marriage is a hard job. The library is full of books about adolescent love—don’t bristle like that, you are still both adolescents! Now listen to me. Everyone falls passionately in love and wants to be absolutely
attached
to the other person, but this fades. I promise you, it fades. Every other person in the world will tell you that, even if they’re happily married—you can’t sustain passion. And it’s foolish to make a crucial decision when you’re in the throes of passion. Don’t badger me, Mandy. If you want me to consider all this seriously, you’ve got to lay off a bit. If you love each other so much, it
will keep.”
“Mother,” Mandy said, “I know this is a lot to hit you with all at once. But I bet if you went back to those books in the library, those reference books you’re talking about, you’d find out that there is no one perfect age when people start doing things right. I don’t want to wait till I’m twenty-five to start working seriously as an artist. I want to start now—I
have
to start now if I’m going to get anywhere. And I can do it. My schoolwork is easy, I can do it with my left hand, and still have time and energy to do the sculpting I want to do. And if Michael were with me—”
“You’d be cooking dinner for Michael and doing his laundry!” Leigh snapped.
“He’d be cooking my dinner and doing my laundry!” Mandy said.
“Really?”
“Really,” Michael said, and smiled.
“Well,” Leigh said. “Well.” She stood up, restless with emotion. “I need a drink,” she said. She took her time, opening a new ice-cube tray, refilling the empty one, finding the jigger to measure the scotch, stirring the drink slowly. “Look,” she said finally, “this is so complicated. Let’s go into the living room. Maybe a change of scene will help.”
Once in the living room, with the lights turned on against the evening’s dark, they settled into sofas and chairs and looked at each other expectantly.
“Well, Mom?” Mandy said, and spontaneously grinned at her mother, as if to say, you can’t fool me, I know you’re on our side.
“All right,” Leigh said. “Let’s start over. Mandy and Michael, you say you want to get married. Mandy, you say you want to go to college and learn to sculpt. Michael, you say you want to drop out of school, do some manual labor, and keep house so Mandy can work. Am I right so far? Okay, now, let’s say that your parents, Michael, and Mandy’s father and I all want the same things: for you two to be happy, but also to—make something of your lives. Not to make any mistakes now that would ruin your lives.”
“I’m better since Mandy,” Michael said suddenly, eagerly. “I really am. I could tell my parents that, they’d have to admit it’s true. I mean they don’t know about Mandy, but—”
“You’re failing high school and you’re
better
since Mandy?”
Michael shrugged, grinned sheepishly. “Last year I did a lot of dumb things. Wrecked some cars. Took some drugs. I was feeling—trapped, I guess. Since Mandy, life
looks different.”
Leigh was silent.
“Mother,” Mandy began.
“Sssh!” Leigh said, waving her hand. “I’m having an idea.” She sipped her drink, then said, “Here’s a thought. Michael, what do your parents want for you right now, this year? What simple thing?”
“They want me to finish high school, I guess,” Michael said. “They want me to get good grades.”
“All right,” Leigh said, “then promise them you’ll do it. Wait a minute, I’m not finished. Promise them you’ll make decent grades and finish high school. But do it in Northampton. You could move to Northampton, take an apartment with Mandy, live together for the rest of the school year and the summer. Then, if you still feel like it, get married. Michael, I think this is an excellent solution. It will give your parents what they want most, and enable you to do what you want most.”
“If Michael goes to school, how will we pay rent?” Mandy asked.
Leigh shrugged. “You’d both have to take part-time jobs, I suppose. If you’re serious about this, you’ll clean houses or wait tables in the evenings, on weekends—”
“That wouldn’t give us much time to be with each other,” Mandy said.
“Yes, well, welcome to real life,” Leigh replied. “Besides,” she added, “you can apply the dorm money to your rent, and—I’ll help out a little. Just a little. I don’t want you two setting up a playhouse and thinking it’s married life.”
“I think it might work,” Michael said, leaning forward. “Look, Mandy,” he said, because now Mandy looked worried, unconvinced. “We’d get to live together, sleep together all night, start our lives together. You were planning to sculpt on weekends anyway, you won’t want me hanging around then, I’ll be able to work while you’re at the studio.” He was silent for a moment, then turned to Leigh. “I don’t especially want to finish high school. I don’t see the value in it. But I know it’s something my parents really want. And I think I could do it easily, if I could be with Mandy. It would be like just another job. I think if I promised my parents I’d finish high school, they’d agree to let me live with Mandy. Not that they’re going to be crazy about the idea. Oh, God, it’s going to be a real war. It’s going to be awful.”
“Okay,” Leigh said, “I think we’ve gone as far as we should go. I think we should get your parents involved in this now—even if it is a war, Michael. Look, let’s call your
parents. Let’s go over to your house and talk to them. It’s not fair otherwise, and, Michael, your parents are nice people. They’re intelligent, they’re kind. They might have some good ideas. Shall I call, or you?” Leigh noticed as she talked how white Michael had gone, and she wondered if it were possible that any person could be frightened of someone as compassionate and intelligent as Peter Taylor. Well, she supposed, parents and children never do see each other as outsiders do, because something—some intimate knowing love—always gets in the way, distorting things.
“It would be better if I called, I guess,” Michael said. He rose, went into the kitchen to use the phone, came back. “Okay,” he said. “Dad’s gone but should be back soon. Mom says to come on over. I guess we should go.”
“Look, you two,” Leigh said as she rose, “don’t be so—so
serious
about all of this. It will all work out somehow. The important thing is that you’ve found each other, and really love each other, which is a rare thing. Don’t get depressed if you can’t have everything you want immediately. You’ve got your whole lives ahead of you.” But again as she spoke, their clear young eyes took on that glazy barricade, and Leigh thought how no one ever believes that he’s got his whole life ahead of him, or if he does believe it, it doesn’t really matter. Today is what always matters, this day, this week, this month. When you’re young, you want it all now. Growing old is perhaps just a matter of learning how to arrange your life so that you can wait for what you want in reasonable comfort. Leigh sighed. She had thought she would have a quiet weekend with the Sunday
Times
, and instead she had a daughter who wanted to get married to a boy who didn’t even want to finish high school. Leigh put on her coat, gathered up her car keys.