Crossing the Bridge (5 page)

“The poor thing,” she said. “Was he humiliated?”

“For all I know, he might have been, but of course he kept his cool. He jumped out of his seat when it happened, but then he just brushed off the ice cubes and went back to watching the movie. When we left, he kept pointing to his pants and telling the people waiting in line for the next show that the movie was
really
exciting.”

Iris laughed again and nodded her head. Neither of us said anything for a minute or two, but the silence wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as the small
talk had been a short time before.

“I had my first interview with the director of that dance troupe in Lexington after getting caught in a downpour,” Iris said. It was hard for me to imagine that what I’d just said had caused her to think about times when she had been very wet, but I let it go. Chase’s name didn’t come up again for the rest of the night, but unlike the first hour, it no longer seemed to be because both of us were avoiding it. We’d both nodded toward his memory and silently acknowledged that, if we were going to get to that subject, it would be at some later point. Even the small talk seemed easier to handle after that, and when I walked Iris to her car a couple of hours later, we made plans to see each other again the next night.

“This has definitely been the highlight of ‘Old Home Week’ for me,” I said.

“I’d take that as a compliment if I didn’t know what else you’d been doing since you got here.”

“Take it as a compliment anyway.”

She smiled, but her eyes darted downward for an instant. Then she looked back up at me and nodded before kissing me on the cheek and getting in her car.

The bar of choice the next night was a place that Tyler had recommended. It was just over the bridge and had been open for only a few months. Given that Tyler had just turned 22, I’d half expected it to be stripped-down concrete with blaring rap metal and indifferent waiters. Instead, it was an oversized and eclectically decorated living room, filled with large
couches, original art, and muted lighting. I again arrived a few minutes ahead of Iris. Shortly after she got there, a trio of acoustic musicians began playing their own earnest compositions.

“Do you think they’re any good?” Iris said when she saw my attention flit to the stage.

“Not really. It sounds like the guitarist can play, though. They’d probably be better off doing other people’s stuff, but you have to give them credit for trying their own.”

This seemed to make Iris think, though what I’d said was hardly profound. She leaned forward and rested her chin on an up-propped hand.

“My husband was a musician.”

It would have been silly for me to pretend that I wasn’t surprised to hear she had been married. “Husband?”

“Yeah, we met right after I got to Lexington. He was doing a composition for the dancers and we sort of connected.” She laughed. “Yeah, sort of. We were practically living together a week after I met him. One weekend a couple of months later, we just decided to get married. It was very exciting and insane and I was madly in love with him. It was something of a whirlwind.”

“Sounds intense,” I said, still trying to grapple with this information. “How long did it last?”

“All together a little more than a year.” She looked at me knowingly. “Like I said, it was a whirlwind.”

“The road called?”

“Nah, nothing so romantic. The passion just disappeared. It went from tearing each other’s clothes off to picking dirty underwear off the floor, if you
know what I mean. It turned out that I didn’t get much of a charge from the domestic thing.”

“So you were the one who left?”

Iris smiled and her expression became wistful. “I’m always the one who leaves. Seems to be the way it goes. At least it was with Roger and Pete as well.”

“You’ve been married three times?”

Iris’ eyes opened widely. “No, not married. God, could you imagine? Well, I guess you could imagine, since you just asked. No, I only
lived
with Roger and Pete. Sixteen and thirteen months, respectively. Roger when I was still in college, Pete a couple of years ago.”

“Same story?”

“No, not really. With Roger, we were coming up on graduation and doing a lot of thinking about the future and it became obvious to me that we had different futures in mind. With Pete, it just sort of sizzled then fizzled. You know, that story.”

“Yeah, I’ve had a fleeting association with
that story
.”

Iris smiled and seemed pleased at the opportunity to redirect the conversation. “Details, please.”

“Nah, the details aren’t interesting enough. I never actually lived with anyone. You know, stuff at each other’s apartments, that kind of thing, but never any official cohabitation.”

“Yeah, that’s smart of you. It avoids the hassle of sorting through the CDs when it’s over.”

“Exactly. I’ve never even seriously thought about living with someone.”

The conversation moved on. We didn’t talk about Chase this night, either. I was aware that I was
avoiding mentioning him and I felt a little self-conscious about this, but I wasn’t doing it because I thought it would make Iris sad or uncomfortable. I just wanted to have some time when I was talking to her alone, rather than to her and my brother. I have no idea why she was avoiding it.

Fortunately, we also weren’t talking about movie theaters and shopping centers.

“So what was the story with you and this job in Springfield?” she asked. The night before, I had told her what I still hadn’t told my parents: that I’d quit my latest job a couple of weeks earlier.

“Nothing that hasn’t been ‘the story’ with other jobs. It just played itself out. I mean, I never really thought I was going to have a long-term future in the career counseling business. It would have been ironic if I had, wouldn’t it? If the firm wasn’t so laid back, I probably never would have applied for the position at all. But, you know, as it went on, they wanted me to attend seminars and association meetings and that kind of thing. And then when they invited me to a retreat to ‘contribute to the direction of the enterprise,’ I just got the sense that they were expecting a lot more out of me than I was out of them. It seemed like the right time to give them notice.”

“Do you have something lined up for when you get back?”

“Lined up? Gee, that sounds like a plan. I’m rather plan-averse, if you want to know the truth. Something has always come up. It probably won’t be in Springfield, but who knows? I’ve been thinking about a few other places.”

“So many strip malls, so little time.”

“It sounds so exotic when you put it that way.”

She tilted her head. “I actually think there is something exotic about it. I mean it’s not as though you’re exploring the Himalayas or anything like that, but you really are sort of casting yourself out there. It’s anybody’s guess what you’ll discover, but the potential for discovery is always available.”

I smiled at her and took a long drink of my beer. When I finished, I looked at Iris again and our eyes met in a way that they hadn’t in more than a decade.

“I literally couldn’t put it better myself,” I said.

There was something especially fulfilling about being “seen” by Iris. Other women had given me their impressions of what they thought went on inside of my head, and a few had even been moderately accurate. But in all of those cases, their observations had felt like an invasion. With Iris, all attention was welcome and the thought that she would expend the effort to consider my perspective on things was flattering.

I realized that Iris and I had a unique kind of history together. We had not spent very much time as friends. And yet because of the intensity of her relationship with my brother and the fate of that relationship – not to mention the “moment” we had together – our own connection went considerably deeper. Iris was almost certainly the most significant living person from my Amber days, and as such qualified as my most reliable personal historian. More so than someone I might have known since elementary school.

Late in the evening, the acoustic band on the stage began a medley of Joni Mitchell songs. As I
suspected, they played them well and even with a bit of inspiration. I began to think about Iris’ husband. I’m not entirely sure why it was such a surprise to me that she had gotten married. Certainly, a decent percentage of people got married by the time they were in their late twenties. I suppose what surprised me was that Iris would have gotten married on a whim and then split in the same way. I suppose because I was still thinking of her with Chase, I saw her as the kind of person who would make a lifelong commitment to everything she did. I imagined that when she married, it would be to someone she knew she could stay with for the long run. She never struck me as casual about anything, especially her affections.

Through the entire Joni Mitchell set, neither of us spoke. When the band went back to playing an original composition that they announced as their last song, Iris turned toward me again.

“When are you heading back?”

“I’ll probably stick it out through the weekend.”

“I’m going back to Lenox tomorrow afternoon. A lot of stuff seems to happen with the Ensemble on the weekends and I need to be there just in case.”

“Wow. I’ve never had a job that I would build my nonworking hours around.”

Iris finished her beer, turned to look for our waitress, and then seemed to think better of it.

“There are a lot of talented people in the group and they do good work. I’ve gotten caught up in the whole thing.”

“In other words you actually care about the fate of the people you work for.”

“Yeah, of course.”

I shook my head. “That’s like Sanskrit to me.”

She laughed. “Gotta care about something.”

“That much I understand. That this something would be a job is the part that’s hard for me to connect with. Do you want some coffee or something?”

Iris looked at her watch. “I should probably get going pretty soon. My mother gets up at a ridiculously early hour, and even though she ‘tries to let me sleep,’ she’s not exactly light on her feet.”

I took a final swallow of my beer and we left the bar. The early spring warmth had taken its predictable turn toward late evening chill while we were in there and Iris rubbed her arms as we walked to her car. I wished I had worn a jacket so I could put it over her shoulders.

“This was really good,” she said as she got to her car door and then turned to face me.

“Really good,” I said. “I’ve missed you.”

She smiled and cocked her head. “Yeah, I’ve missed you, too. I didn’t even realize it until I saw you last night. But I have.”

I knew she was cold and I knew I should let her get into her car, but I wanted to prolong the moment.

“You’re going back to Lenox tomorrow afternoon?”

“Gotta.”

I nodded. “Let’s not lose touch, okay?”

“Hey, you’re the one who’ll be heading off to Ixtapa or Duluth or something,” she said, laughing.

“I know, but I really don’t want to lose touch. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

And then she moved toward me. At first, I thought she was going to hug me, so I wasn’t prepared when her lips came up to join mine. Just as I wasn’t prepared for how the kiss made me feel – undeniably grounded, riveted in the moment. It was a very different kiss from our first one. Then, there was something illicit to it, something that needed to be said, if only in a whisper. This kiss carried with it no such qualifications. This was a kiss with an undetermined result, a kiss with unknowable consequences.

All of these thoughts passed through my mind in milliseconds and then were replaced by an unyielding need to feel this moment. I pulled Iris toward me and returned the kiss hungrily as she molded herself to me naturally. I stroked her hair gently as we continued and I realized that there was very little in my romantic history to compare to what was happening just now. It was no longer cold outside. It was no longer
Connecticut
outside. I could very easily have stayed in this space, doing precisely this, indefinitely.

But then Iris pulled back slowly. Caught in the ardor of the moment, I moved with her, but relented when it became clear that she wanted to stop. Even in the spotty streetlight, I could tell that her face was flushed. She brushed her hair back from her face and smiled at me with an expression that I interpreted as amazement.

“Gotta get my wits about me,” she said, which wasn’t what I would have scripted for her. Her car keys had been in her hand the entire time and now she quickly snapped the remote behind her to unlock
her door. Before getting in the car, she looked up at me. For a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me again. Then she just said, “It’s late . . . my mother,” and started the car.

“I’ll be in the store the entire day,” I said to her behind her closed window. “Call me before you go.”