The Atomic Weight of Love (24 page)

“Not in my house, Meri. Not in my house. You do not use that kind of language in my house.”

“Your house?
Your
house, Alden?”

“Anywhere, come to think of it. No wife of mine talks like that.”

“Well then, I have news for you, Professor Whetstone,” I sneered. “
Your
wife, as you say, will talk any way she wants, wherever she wants.” I picked up a coffee mug, raised it high, and dropped it. It didn’t break but instead bounced and rolled in a wholly unsatisfying way. It disappeared beneath the serving cart where I stored electrical appliances.

I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. I’d never had much of a flair for dramatic gestures.

“It’s not funny,” he said, his voice low, almost a growl.

I put my hand to my mouth, willed myself to stop laughing. I took a deep breath, but by then he’d turned on his heel and was headed for the door.

I stood at the front window and watched him back out of the driveway.

I walked into the bedroom and made the bed. Then I opened the closet doors and stared at Alden’s side of the closet.

He kissed me on the forehead now, never on the lips. Like a pontiff or
paterfamilias
.

I walked into the closet, pulled the door shut behind me, and sat on the floor. Then I crawled deeper, pushed my head into a corner, wedged my body as far into that cave as I could. I cried until my sobs caught, my lungs stuttered.

That evening, Alden brought me a single red rose. I was in the kitchen, boiling noodles to go with a roast chicken. Safeway had a sale on French-cut green beans, so they were simmering on a back burner. The grocery store was all I had managed that day. I felt wrung out from the fight with Alden, and I hadn’t the energy to face the confusion of Clay. I hadn’t even felt up to sitting with my crows. Now, I took judicious sips from a tumbler of scotch. I’d decided to allow myself just one drink, although admittedly there were several inches of liquor in the glass.

Alden laid the rose on the counter and stood beside me. I saw him glance at my scotch and refrain from comment. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice,” he said.

I turned and leaned against the counter. “The pounding on the table was what upset me most, I think,” I said, watching his eyes. “It frightened me a little.”

“I did not pound the table.”

I couldn’t believe he was going to deny it. “Alden, you did pound the table.”

“That’s not something I’d do.”

It was if he’d been in an altered state, oblivious to what he’d done in his rage. I was dumbfounded.

“You may not remember it—you were pretty angry.”

“I’m saying I’m sorry. Can’t we leave it at that?”

I took his hand. “I’m sorry, too,” I said, searching his eyes.

“Just let bygones be bygones.” He pulled his hand from mine. “And don’t let’s talk this to death, Meri.” He flicked his eyes over to my drink. “Not when you’ve been drinking.”

“Please don’t use that as an excuse. I’ve had a few sips, that’s all.”

“I don’t understand why you’d start drinking again.”

“Because I’m worried, distressed. About us.”

And I was. I’d never suspected myself to be the kind of woman who would betray her husband—a
hussy
, my mother would have said. Still, separate and apart from my undeniable attraction to Clay, was the issue of our deflated marriage.

“Alden?”

“What?”

“Aren’t you? Worried about us, I mean.”

“Friction is real, inevitable, Meri. Part of the physical world, and part of relationships.”

“But I want to ease that friction.”

He sighed. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. That you would not let this go. I thought I apologized. I could swear I heard you accept that apology.”

“I did. I do. But I want to understand why you seem so dismissive of me. Why you’re so angry with me.”

“Good
God
, Meri!” He shook his head. “You’re relentless, you know that?”

I felt near tears. But I wasn’t making any progress, and I was afraid that if I didn’t give in, let this go—at least for now—then Alden would begin pounding his fist again.

I poured the noodles into a strainer, took a deep breath, and steadied my voice. “Dinner is ready, if you want to wash your hands,” I said, dumping the noodles into a serving bowl and adding a hunk of butter.

“Are we finished, then?” he asked the back of me, and I could hear relief in his voice.

I thought,
Oh, that is exactly what I’m afraid
of
, that we are finished. Instead, I said, “Apologies accepted, and time to move on.”

He patted my back. “Good. And it all smells wonderful, Meri.”

I took one final sip of my drink and set the tumbler on the countertop. It was as if Alden’s reticence were a prodding hand at the small of my back, propelling me toward an affair with Clay.

I HADN’T BEEN TO
see my crows for nearly a week. I felt my legs shake with nervous anticipation as I looked down from the canyon edge to the boulder, wondering if Clay would be there. He wasn’t, but there was a neatly stacked pile of notes under Glencoe, all folded into the plastic wrap.

I unwrapped them carefully. They were not the personal notes I expected; they did not plead for my return or ask about my absence. They did not ask anything of me. What Clay had done, instead, was to carry on my crow observations. He’d used the same format he’d seen in my journal—date, time, weather conditions, and then he added what he was wearing, the crows’ response to his presence, the crows’ exchanges, their reactions to other animals or canyon events. No one had ever given me such a perfect gift.

Before I left, I wrote to him: “How grateful I am to you for your kind gesture. How overwhelmed by your thoughtfulness.” I was careful not to make him any promises.

THE NEXT DAY, CLAY
was back.

“Meridian.” He waited for me to turn and acknowledge him. I stood, took him in. He was an animal in his prime, built for instant speed, a hunter, fluid. I walked to him, reached for him, and we held each other. He kissed the top of my head, and I heard him inhale.

“The smell of you,” he said.

“What smell?” I asked with my face buried in his chest.

“You have a scent. It’s better than any perfume.”

We sat together on the boulder that had been mine alone for so many years. A downy woodpecker worked its way up the trunk of a tree, digging insects from the bark.

“They’ve built a nest.” I pointed. “White Wing and Beacon.”

“You named her.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a positive step.”

“What?”

“The female gets a name this go ’round.”

“I’m too old for you,” I said, apropos of nothing.

“That again.”

“I think it needs to be said.”

“And I’m old enough to make this decision without parental guidance.” It was the first time I’d heard even a tinge of annoyance in his voice. I felt chastised. “Meridian, look at me, please.”

I rubbed my thumb on the beginnings of two strident vertical lines between his brows.

“Give me some credit. I am not looking for a mother or a caretaker. That is most decidedly not what I want from you.” When I said nothing, he continued, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

I looked at him, at his clear blue eyes, and I realized that I was going to do this—be with Clay—because I wanted to be with Clay. I wanted the life in him, and I wanted to be wanted. Desired. My need for this ran deeper than I had realized. I boldly took his face in my hands and kissed him.

“Not here. Not the first time.” He stood, brushed needles and decaying leaves from his jeans, and helped me stand. “Will you come to my apartment?”

I told myself this was the moment to act. To be. To be alive in a way I’d not been alive for more years than I could count.

“Yes,” I said.

WHEN HE PUT THE
key in the ignition of his pickup truck, he didn’t press the accelerator but instead reached over and, with his palm to the back of my head, kissed me deeply. I felt heat, desire, such as I’d never felt before. A riptide of lust.

Clay lived in the Sundt Apartments north of Bathtub Row, where Oppenheimer and the other top scientists had lived during the war years. He parked in the shade of a maple tree and led me to an end apartment. I could hear scratching on the other side of the door.

“Get ready,” he said.

A furious mound of black fur threw itself at his waist, and a cloud of deep barks surrounded Clay where he stood. “Come in if you can. “Down, Jasper. Down,” he said, nearly wholly ineffectually.

I stepped into his living room and waited until the dog had settled before I began scratching his chest where there was a tiny patch of white hair in the shape of a heart. “Hello, sweetheart,” I said.

“Jasper found me about two weeks ago.” He scratched the dog between the eyes. Jasper’s eyes narrowed in pleasure. “Something to drink?” he asked.

I checked my watch. “I think 10:30’s too early.”

“Not booze, Meridian. Something refreshing. I have sun tea.”

“Sun tea?” I started to look around. “What’s that?”

“You brew it using the sun’s heat—not a stove.”

“Sure.” It must be part of the hippie thing. And I was in my first hippie home. Well, at least I thought Clay was a hippie. Was he a hippie?

Jasper followed him to the kitchen, and I toured myself around the living room: awful green shag carpeting, bookshelves made from cinder blocks and unpainted boards. A scattering of candles, and a black and white poster of a young man of leonine looks wearing terribly tight leather pants and caressing a microphone. The tip of his nose was slightly upturned, and love beads hung from his neck beneath a white silk shirt.

“Jim Morrison,” Clay said, handing me a cold glass. “Do you know The Doors?”

“The Doors?”

“The rock group. Huxley’s
Doors of Perception
. I’ll play some for you,” he said, walking toward a turntable. He squatted and started flipping through the albums that were lined up against the baseboard. “No, not Jim Morrison. Something mellower.” He selected a purple album with a portrait of a woman’s face gazing upward, counted and put the needle on the fifth song. There was static, simple acoustic guitar, and then a voice like a pristine silver bell filled the room. “Judy Collins.” He led me to a pile of pillows, a variation of a couch.

Her voice was unspoiled, one of the purest I’d ever heard. I thought I remembered seeing her perform once, on the
Smothers Brothers Show
. I’d never done this before—sat with someone, just listening to the words of a song. I let myself sink into the pillows and was surprised at the ease of being there with him.

When the song finished, Clay stood and lifted the needle. “That song needs to stand alone,” he said, “although the one before it is really great, too.” And then he came back and knelt beside me.

“My body isn’t what it used to be,” I said. “I wish I had a better body to offer you.”

“Stop.”

“Then show me your bedroom,” I said, feeling myself bold.

He led me to his room and closed the door behind us so that Jasper was confined to the rest of the apartment. There was a mattress on the floor with an Indian-print cotton bedspread in cream, yellow, and red paisley. An alarm clock sat on the floor next to the bed, along with a gooseneck lamp, a pile of books, and a small carved wooden box with swirls of pseudo-ivory inlay. A series of hooks with a pair of jeans and a few shirts ran in a line along one wall. I liked that his room was devoid of clutter, the accumulation of years of the superfluous. He didn’t carry the weight of things.

The first thing he did was to unfasten my barrette, let loose my hair. It hung past my shoulders, straight, soft and fine. He reached beneath it, lifted it from my neck, and held my neck with one hand. He kissed me.

No one had ever used his tongue the way Clay did. I mimicked him, swallowed the sigh that he breathed into my mouth. He unbuttoned my blouse, assigned it a hook. I began to unbutton my jeans, but he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

“Slowly,” he said. “Let me show you what it’s like to take forever.” He laid me on the mattress and kissed the tops of my breasts above my utilitarian Playtex Living Bra. He lifted me, unhooked my bra and slid it down my arms.

“Oh,” he said, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to feel all of this, to deny any visual input that might dilute things. I felt his teeth, a soft nibble that raised my nipples, set them erect. He drew a moan from deep inside me where, somehow, it had survived in the dark.

He stood and removed his clothing, and I noticed he didn’t wear any underwear. Another hippie thing, I guessed.

What was I doing?
I was
thinking
. I had to stop that.

We kissed again, skin to skin. I felt the heat of him, the muscles, saw the contrast between tanned and protected skin. He cupped my breasts one at a time and continued kissing and caressing me, moving down, past my waist. When he put his mouth to the center of me, pushed his tongue inside me, I sat up on my elbows, suddenly.

“No. What? What? What are you doing?” I was mortified.

“Oh, no. Meridian. No.” He traveled back until he was lying with his face next to mine. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“You just caught me off guard.” I knew I was blushing. God, this was horrible.

He shook his head, confused. “Please tell me . . .” He tried again: “This is new to you?”

“What you did?” I asked.

“What I’d not even begun to do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“God. That’s sad.”

“What? What? Am I inferior somehow?” I started to look for my blouse. “I know I’m not like the girls nowadays.”

“Stop it.” He held my shoulders in a tight grip. “Meridian. Stop for a minute and listen to me.”

I took a deep breath.

“It’s pleasurable. It’s not something to be afraid of.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“No, it’s not.
You
are not.” I heard anger in his voice. “Let me show you. Trust me.”

“Never trust a man who says ‘trust me.’ ”

“This isn’t a game. It’s not a war of wits.”