Bad Connections (20 page)

T
HE LAST WORDS
Conrad Schwartzberg ever said to me are not particularly significant.

“Take advantage of the pool.”

He was on his way to a meeting. Something to do with the defense committee, I believe. Or was it the student group. He was going to be back in time for dinner.

I was alone and so I looked in the ledger book still on top of the desk. I wasn't intending to read it—just see the flyleaf where I had written my name.

It had been half torn out very sloppily. You could see the jagged edge along the binding where the top part of the page had been. Only the bottom part, which was blank, remained.

What I remember most clearly about the next few hours is the taxi ride to the airport—the feeling of speed, of having jumped off into space. I rolled down both windows in the back and let the hot dry air blow in upon me. I was walking out, I thought, over three thousand miles.

On the plane I began to feel strange. I kept thinking I'd forgotten something—although I was sure I'd packed everything I'd brought with me. Finally, somewhere over the Rockies, I remembered I hadn't left a note.

Every now and then for a while afterward I had an urge to call him. It was like having committed suicide and knowing, that if you wanted to, you could find out what someone had to say about it.

I never spoke to Conrad again—although one day I phoned Roberta.

I said, “I think it's only right to tell you that I was recently in California and it's all over now between Conrad and me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she said.

I said, “I really think we have a lot to talk about. I'd like to get together with you and have coffee.”

I actually had a vision of some great communication taking place between us, after which everything would be finally understood.

She said in a rather strangled voice, “I'll call you if I think it's a good idea,” and hung up.

I
AM LIVING
what could be termed an orderly life. Sometimes in the mornings if I wake up very early and am by myself, I have disquieting thoughts. They begin to pass when I get up to make breakfast. I drown them in frozen orange juice, in the rush of water into the sink that washes away yesterday's coffee grounds. I wake Matthew and get him ready for school. Since there is no one here to object, I let him turn on the Flintstones as loud as he wishes. I worry sometimes about the effect of so much mass culture upon his consciousness—yet he seems to be surviving the onslaught, to remain very much himself, joyous and critical, imaginative. He spends Sundays with Fred with some regularity, even sleeps over. Fred has been seeing a woman steadily for a while, but Matthew, loyally, never mentions her. I miss him when he is gone, although I am glad to have a night to myself. There is a stillness in the house that does not altogether please me—like the moment every morning when I return to the apartment after I have put him on the bus to school. I know that I am walking into an empty place. I finish putting on my makeup, feed the cats, have a last cup of coffee and go to work. There is something to be said for routine.

I have dieted and lost ten pounds. My friends tell me I have never looked better. In two years I will be forty. I wonder what it would be like to look my age. Or act my age. I would like a life uncomplicated by longings.

I sometimes think that Conrad Schwartzberg was my last great passion. The thought invariably brings tears to my eyes. And yet it is clearly better to live without such disruption. If I have lost the hope of ever being completely happy, I hope I have also lost a certain vulnerability to disappointment. I try to be more cautious now. I always believed in being led by emotion, but perhaps I am beginning to change.

Roberta never called back. For about two weeks I thought that she would and then I knew she wouldn't. She and Conrad are still together, although I understand he spends several months of the year in California, where it is rumored that he has a new girlfriend, a very young one this time. Perhaps geography makes the situation bearable.

Malcolm occasionally sends a postcard from some exotic part of the world. I give the stamps to Matthew.

I find that with my mind less occupied with thoughts of either Malcolm or Conrad, there is a lot of room in it for other kinds of reflection. Felicia has been urging me to go back to school to get my Ph.D. Lately I have become interested in Latin American literature.

In some ways I have never been more productive.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1977, 1978 by Joyce Johnson

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

ISBN 978-1-4804-8125-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

Videos, Archival Documents,
and
New Releases

Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up now at

www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters