Authors: Marjorie Lee
The directness of the thing shot a chill through me. I got up and opened the door. "I think I'd better go," I said.
I went upstairs to get my overnight bag. While I was there I remembered something: the duplicate key to my apartment. I'd given it to her the week we'd fixed the place and had never thought to ask her for it.
Before leaving I went back into the den. "Give me my key," I said.
She got up and took it out of the side drawer of the desk. "Why do you want it?" she asked, looking at it in her hand. "You've got another, haven't you?"
"Just give it to me."
"Do you think I'd
—use it?" Her mouth twisted into a crooked smile. "Really, Jo—there's decency even in perverts, you know."
"I'm sorry," I told her, "but if you ever did come, it would be an
—intrusion."
"Do you know how funny that is?" she asked.
"You
being fussy about
intrusions?"
"I'm sorry," I said again. "That just happens to be the way I feel. I don't want to; but I do."
She handed it to me. "How about your letters?" she asked. "Would you like those too? You might want to use them someday
—for a textbook on Normal Heterosexuality."
I thought a minute. Then: "Yes. I think it would be better if I had them. It can't matter; but I'd rather
—"
She went up to Blair's room and got them from the valise.
“Here."
I took them. There were twenty-one. "Forgive my negligence," she said. "A tasteless rubber band. No blue ribbon..."
I stuffed them into my bag as she watched me.
"You're really going,"
she said. It was not a question. It was a statement of fact, spoken only to force acceptance of its actuality; to clarify its emptiness of choice. When had I last verbalized the obvious to give myself the sense of what was real? Years and years ago, at my father's funeral. I had held together tightly through it all; but the truth was not the truth until the very end, when, seeing him lowered and away, I said,
You've really gone.
She followed me out of the den into the livingroom. I pushed at the screen door and it swung open. Standing in it, I looked around. "What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," she answered. "At the moment I think I may
—die. In any case, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. What was it you said once—about Pam Coulton in Connecticut? You
casually inspect the universe?
It's all right with you what other people are? You haven't anything against it, but it has
nothing to do with you...?"
When I got home there was a letter in my box from Gordon. It was short. California was beautiful, and he was selling Potter Pens a million a minute. He was staying on, as he'd told me he might. He missed me. When he came back he would give me a call..."I bought you a present," the P. S. read. "Silver earrings. I had them sent, and they should get to you soon. They're very modern
—hammered out by the queerest queer in Hollywood—and three guesses what they look like! They're a little crazy. But so are you."
I had hoped for something longer, less flip. But somehow it didn't seem to matter. It had occurred to me when he left that I might never see him again. He had almost seemed to want to get away.
And the earrings? They would come, of course. But would I wear them...?
Why,
I wondered;
why, why, why had I never been able to read
Walden?
* * *
Up in my room I lay down on the bed and fell asleep. It was dark when I awakened. The first thing I thought of was Frannie: for a minute I had the icy premonition (or was it a dream?) that she was dead.
I called her number. Marc answered.
"Is Frannie there?" I asked.
"Yes
—but I don't think—"
"It's all right," I told him. "I don't want to talk to her. I just wanted to know if she was
—
okay."
There was a pause. Then: "If you mean did she kill herself, the answer is No
—she did not."
"Oh, Marc! Did she
—tell you?"
Another pause; and finally: "She didn't need to, Jo."
"You mean
—you knew?"
"Yes. I knew."
"But how?"
"How
didn't you?”
"How could I have?" I asked.
"Well," he said, his voice dead-soft with anger, "I should think you'd have gotten a pretty clear view of things from way up there,
on top...”
I smashed the phone down
—too late: I had already heard the smash of his. I sat there with my hand on the cradled receiver and cried myself blind.
Well, there isn't very much more to all of this. Gordon did come back, and he called me. I saw him a couple of times and we tried hard: but as Millay says: no
such summer as the one before.
Something had gone out of it, though neither of us knew what. He wanted to talk about things: all things
—even those that didn't need talking about. And pretty soon, in a kind of living-out of Frannie's prophecy, he became, for me, an eternal echo.
I kept on at Clarke for a few months more; and one evening I had dinner with one of the instructors. After that there were other evenings. He was tall and thin and when he played the piano it seemed a language of love. But he was married to a girl with a chronic lung condition and he felt that he could never leave her. Poor tortured guy
—I wouldn't have adored him half as much if he had.
One day I was walking up Lexington and saw Bill Brecker. I waved to him and we stopped and talked. The weather was getting really cold, wasn't it? The new play at the Coronet was good and I ought to see it; he had just received a twenty-thousand-dollar grant to continue a research project on children; more and more he found himself gravitating towards psychological factors: did I know, for instance, that when baby rats were removed from their mothers at birth, they were then, later, incapable of caring for their own young? Yes, yes: we must try to get together sometime. But I knew we wouldn't. This was Bill; and when Bill made decisions he stuck by them. Bill had been given the brush; and Bill had made up his mind.
Another day I saw Pam Coulton. She was coming out of Bonwit's with a package under her arm. I wondered what was in it:
a robe,
I fantasied;
a pair of slacks; a cashmere sweater; something beautiful
—for Foster.
"Hi, Pam!" I called. "Oh, Pam!" But she didn't hear me, and hurried on.
I thought of a line from Eliot:
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
And then
—the inevitable. Lunch hour, and rain. I scuttled around the corner of Fifty-fifth and Fifth and, like something out of an ancient slap-stick, ran head-on into Brad.
Stepping back, we looked at each other. He spoke first. "You're wet," he said.
"It's raining."
He peered up, the drops glistening on his face and hair, and carefully examined the sky. "I guess it is."
I wanted to walk on, but I couldn't. "How strange
—to meet like this," I said.
"Not strange," he said. "I've felt for months that you were just around each corner. I turn a lot of them every day. The odds were in my favor." He touched my elbow. "Talk to me?"
"About what?" I asked; but I hadn't said no.
We went into the Gotham
—the dark bar at the back, and sat down at a little table. I ordered a Scotch and soda.
"A Scotch and soda," Brad told the waiter, "and a lemonade."
I didn't comment.
"Has it been long enough?" he asked, when the drinks had come. "Have you found out yet?"
"Found out what?"
"That it won't work this way?"
"But it has," I told him, trying to believe it. "It has worked
—for me."
"Cheers," he said, putting the cherry from his lemonade on my plate. "It hasn't for me."
We were quiet.
"I'm going away," I said after a little while. He seemed startled.
"Where?"
"Bermuda, maybe. For a month or so."
"Can you swing it?"
"My mother sent me a check during the summer; and I've got something saved from my salary."
"Why Bermuda?"
"I don't know."
"Then: "Will you come back?"
"To New York? I doubt it. Or at least, not to stay. I've had it with New York, I think."
"Will you come back to me?"
I looked up at the ceiling. "I'd like a sandwich," I said.
He didn't ask me what kind. "A sandwich," he told the waiter. "Bacon, lettuce, and tomato; white toast; mayonnaise on the side. Nothing for me."
The waiter left.
"I've already had lunch," he explained. "Scrambled eggs, rolls, coffee and cake..." It was a footnote to the lemonade. It said:
I'm trying now. I'm eating. I'm not drinking much. Look at me. Notice this. Think about it. I'm trying.
I wanted to put my hand on his. Instead, I asked him about his job.
"Still there," he said. "Hanging on. I don't know why they keep me."
"I guess they like you."
"They do," he said. "That’s the funny thing about it. They do."
I picked up the cherry and ate it; and then the sandwich came, with the mayonnaise on the side, and I began eating that. "Why is it funny?" I asked. "Why is it funny that people like you?"
"Did you ever think anybody ever liked me?"
I glanced up. He was eying me intently, but without anger.
I looked away.
He drank the lemonade slowly and we finished together. When we got outside it wasn't raining anymore. "Can I walk you somewhere?" he asked.
"No."
He put out his hand. I took it. In all the years I had known him, we had never shaken hands. "When you get back," he said, "call me."
"There's no reason to."
"Yes, there is."
I thought of the past. I remembered the other times: the partings and the comings-together; the tears and the promises; the new beginnings, and the same old ends. "Don't tell me," I said. "I've heard it before: you
need
me!”
He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed the inner side of my wrist. Then he smiled. "You've only got half of it, Jo," he said as he turned to go. “
You
need
me."
I didn't see Frannie again. Somehow we managed to keep from meeting at the same parties
—which wasn't strange: I had dropped out of her crowd as quickly as I'd dropped into it. But a week before I left I saw Jeri and Marian, lunching at Schrafft's.
Had I heard? they asked; the firm of Bendheim, Blatz and Mendes-Cohen was now the firm of Bendheim, Blatz Mendes-Cohen, and Browne. It had happened after the case Marc had handled
—when he'd come back from Bermuda. And Frannie? Frannie was a new woman! The other day she'd made a batch of the most delicious French cookies anyone had ever eaten! And guess what—she was letting her hair grow. She was going to let it get real long; and wear it up in a bun.
"Of course," Marian put in, "she'll end up looking ten years older!"
"So what," said Jeri. "It's what she
wants."
I walked away with an ache inside. In spite of all the rot that went on with Frannie and Marian and Jeri, they were still friends; yet, with all the love there had been between Frannie and me
—we were not.
Hate isn't the worst thing in the world, you know
... she had once said.
Hate's even healthy
—when it’s honest.
On my way back to the office I thought of the memo on the Lion House.
I guessed they would tell her they'd seen me; and that same week I got a letter from her. I didn't answer it. But when I packed to come down here I stuck it into a book and brought it along. I have it with me now; and here it is
Dear Jo,
Don't rip it to bits before you've read it just because it comes from me.
I've thought of calling you, but haven't. I've been afraid you'd hang up
—or maybe afraid you
wouldn't.
You'd think we'd have met somewhere, if only on the street. I've asked about you from time to time. That's how I learned (from the Hermans, at a party) that you were planning a vacation in Bermuda, and that after, you were thinking of moving
away for good. If that happens, I won't know where you are. So I'm writing to you now.
There are things to be said, even if they are to be last things. Slob that I've always been in some areas, I go hard for wind-ups and neat finishes.
The day you walked out of here was one of the most crucial of my life. It took hours to crawl back to any kind of endurance. But, managing that, somehow, I also managed to crawl my way into Helen Paige's office the following morning at nine o'clock. She's more booked-up than the Public Library; but I guess the way I put it to her on the phone, she knew it wasn't for laughs.
I've been seeing her five days a week since then. In time we'll knock it down to four, and then three; but, in toto, I'd sentence myself to a good four years. That, Jo, is how much there is to find out!
We began with you, of course. But I sense even now, in the deep part of me, that it was a beginning which might really be considered an end. The true beginning began thirty-one years ago; and each hour on that beat-up old couch of hers takes me further and further back to it.
If only I could tell you, even a little, what it’s like, how it works, what it does! But I can't. You can read the facts in any decent book, and they would bore you. Strong, rejecting mother; weak, deserting father; ergo: double-barreled shotgun, shooting hate, guilt, fear
—in a vicious cycle of altering orders.
Well, it isn't quite that simple; but neither is it impossibly complex. And there are so many other similar case-structures cluttering up the world that I sometimes wonder where in hell I ever got the idea that I was so God damned, gorgeously
original!
The feelings are something else again; and those might bore you too
—because they're mine, not yours.