Don't You Forget About Me (2 page)

I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

It had only been weeks since Jack Smith died, and she was already going away for the weekend with another
man while singing the songs Jack used to sing to her. Could it be possible that she was over Jack already? She thought back to the first time she met Jeff. She had fled the city that day, feigning illness or family emergency at work (she couldn’t remember which now), getting into her car, and heading toward her sister’s house in Babylon. She went over the speed limit all the way, keeping up with traffic. As soon as she got there, she put on her bathing suit, grabbed a beach chair and a paperback, and went out to sit in the sun. It was a perfect beach day, and the sand was packed with other sunbathers. The area in front of Pam’s was already crowded, so she had to walk south a few yards to find an empty spot. She ended up in front of Jeff’s fabulous house. The oceanfront facade and landscaping appeared in the Sunday home section of the paper just about every summer.

Most all the sunbathers followed the sun’s path, moving their towels and chairs every thirty minutes or so as it traveled toward the west. But Marie liked facing the ocean. She would look up from her book periodically to stare at the water, hopefully spotting dolphins or boats, way, way out there. When Jack was alive, he always remembered to bring binoculars, and they would take turns examining the horizon for interesting finds.

Jack liked looking at people, too. He’d find lovers kissing under their umbrellas or suspicious movements underneath carefully placed towels.
He was really a pervert
, she thought to herself.
Creepy
. She relished being alone for the first time in her memory. She could nap without worrying if she drooled or snored, or mindlessly snack while she read her novel.

Jack could also be a tyrant. She remembered, on one of their beach days together when she was just twenty years old, falling asleep on a beach towel and waking up to find Jack staring at her body with his lips slightly pursed. She sat up self-consciously, hoping she hadn’t farted in her sleep.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, quickly pulling her towel around her.

He was sitting next to her, scrutinizing her face and looking along the length of her.

“You’re thin, but you’re not in shape. You need to work out.” He said, nodding his head yes at her, and turned to look out at the ocean again.

Eager to please him in every way, she agreed, saying she would start going to the fitness center at school as soon she as she got back to the city.

“Yeah right,” he said sarcastically. Then more kindly, “You should ask your sister to give you some advice about a workout. Ask Pam. She’s in great shape,” he said with a devious smile. It was the first time Jack had ever held his wife, her sister Pam, up to Marie as an example. It would be the beginning of years of humiliation and criticism that he would pile on, playing the sisters against each other in a battle that Pam knew nothing about.

Worried that he may be plotting to end their relationship, Marie would have done anything he asked to keep him happy and near her. “Okay, I’ll ask her. Maybe she’ll take me to the gym with her.”

But he ignored her, lying back down on the towel and closing his eyes, his forearm draped over his face, ensuring that he didn’t have to see her. She held her stomach
in and stood up straighter the rest of the day, regretful that she had worn a two-piece suit. That evening she would find one of the provocative underwear catalogues Pam shopped from and buy a suit with a push-up bra and tummy control panel. And that night, Jack would come to her bed, and she welcomed him, the insults at the beach already forgotten.

That day on the beach after Jack died was one of the first times that Marie felt like she was going to be all right, that she had hope for a normal future. As long as Jack was alive, she’d have been in bondage to him, even though he had stopped seeking her out. He had replaced Marie with Sandra.

She wasn’t thinking about Sandra when Jeff Babcock approached her. He was walking the beach with his dog, Fred. Fred took an instant liking to Marie and would not leave her, even though Jeff called for him over and over again. Finally giving up, Jeff reluctantly walked to Marie’s beach chair, collar and leash in hand.

“Sorry about this! Fred, you are bad! Bad dog!” Jeff was clearly embarrassed, but Marie was happy; she didn’t really mind the dog’s intrusion because his owner was so nice looking.

I wonder if he’s single
, she thought. He wasn’t wearing a wedding band, but that didn’t mean anything anymore.

He knelt down in front of Marie and started placing the collar around the Fred’s neck. He held out his hand. “Jeff Babcock,” he said, smiling. He had perfect white teeth. A little too tan, considering it was only June, he must go to the tanning salon. He was wearing crisp white tennis shorts and a white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up
to his elbows. His hair was pure white, but he didn’t look much older than Jack had been, not as fit, either. It was a relief. She let her stomach relax a little bit.

“Marie Fabian!” she said, taking his hand and shaking it. “I love dogs!” She pulled her feet in away from the licking dog.

They talked for a while, until Jeff excused himself; he had to get home to take a call.

Later that week, he asked Marie to accompany him to the retirement party of his former partner, meeting her in the city for a wonderful evening of dancing. She couldn’t remember when she had had so much fun. At the end of the night, he said he had to get back to Babylon but wanted to see her the next time she was at Pam’s. He didn’t offer to see her home, putting her in a cab and paying the driver in advance. When they were together, it was really nothing more than companionship. He did nothing for her chemistry. Pam told her that would come in time. Men had immediate desire for someone they were attracted to; for women, it came with admiration for a man.

“I mean, a man can be attracted to a bimbo who can’t construct a sentence; I’m right, don’t you think? But a woman can think someone is handsome, but if he is an asshole, she won’t be attracted to him no matter how good looking he is.” She thought of Jack; there were exceptions to every rule.

Marie navigated the car through Albany. She was almost there. Having rarely been out of the city except for the weekly trips to Babylon, coming up here was a treat, and she was determined to enjoy herself. She thought of Jeff and his mannerisms and posture, how different he
was from Jack, thankfully. Where Jack was tall and handsome, Jeff was average height and a little soft around the middle. And Jeff was soft-spoken and gentle. Jack was a larger-than-life sarcastic who didn’t waste a minute or word in action or speech. Jeff was willing to sit back and allow time to pass without looking at his watch. Marie almost relaxed when she was with him.
Could it be real?
she thought. And then again, repeated
Oh, I hope he’s not a jerk
.

2

P
am regrouped and began her day. She was home alone because her mother was spending a week in Connecticut with Pam’s sister Susan. Nelda Fabian had moved into the apartment above the garage after Jack died and was settled in nicely at the beach. She and Pam worked out a casual routine where they could spend some time together every day without suffocating each other. They ate breakfast in the morning after Pam got home from the gym, sitting on the veranda and drinking coffee until 9:00 or so. Then Pam would continue on her own. She volunteered at the library every weekday but Wednesday, unless her children were home from college. She spent more and more time on her appearance, working out, going to the hairdresser twice a week, having manicures, pedicures, massages, and facials. She knew she was sublimating. After all, it had been less than two months since Jack had died.

Immediately after his death, crimes Jack had committed were revealed, including infidelity with her sister Marie, an affair which had its conception in her abuse at age fifteen. He was also having an affair with his research assistant, resulting in a pregnancy that was discovered after his death. Against nature, the young woman, Sandra Benson, was becoming indispensable to Pam; in a few short weeks, she was a trusted confidant, a friend. So if
getting her hair done too often was the most incriminating thing that could be said about Pam Smith, so be it. She didn’t know what else to do with herself yet, but in time, she was hopeful that something would materialize.

Pam was seeing another man. He was just a friend, but he was still a man. They spoke on the phone, met for coffee at each other’s houses, walked the beach for exercise, and went out for dinner occasionally. She enjoyed his company for what it was—a diversion from the routine of her life without her husband. There wasn’t the edge, the tension that she had with Jack.

Pam didn’t feel much chemistry with Andy. But she admired him, so possibly it would come later as she had preached to Marie. In her youth, Pam remembered wanting to jump Jack. Before they got married, when they would be out together, he distracted by their friends, she would sit on the edge of the barstool with her stomach pulled in, poised, listening to his every word just in case he addressed her. When he finally turned to her, she would measure her words carefully and keep it simple. Jack laughed at her once in front of their friends when she mispronounced Alfonse D’Amato’s name during a heated political discussion. She made a point of keeping her mouth shut after that. But she never stopped wanting him. The sexual tension was there until the end.

Where Andy was respectful and interested, Jack was wild and raucous. When Pam first met Jack, she remembered feeling he was sizing her up like she was a horse getting ready to be auctioned. He later told her that, when he saw her, he knew immediately that she would make a perfect wife. He needed someone who could hold her own in
his aggressive family, yet who would be passive enough to not mind his domineering mother. His wife would need to be poised, attractive, and soft-spoken, but intelligent and self-confident. Pam had her awkward moments, but for the most part, she fit the bill. After they were married, and with a little help from his mother Bernice, she did just fine. He hadn’t added to the list of requirements, ‘someone who would look the other way and be oblivious to my dual life.’

As Saturday progressed, Pam gained some equilibrium. She poured herself a cup of coffee and remembering her sunken cheeks, got a muffin, too. She sat out on the veranda to watch the water. The dunes rose up slightly before the expanse of the beach, so if she was sitting down, she was unable to see the beach dwellers. The water stretched to the horizon, and unless there was a freighter or the miniscule sails of a boat, she saw only blue water reaching to blue sky.

When she and Jack moved to Long Island from Manhattan, the first improvement to the house was to put in the veranda. Originally, it had a small stone patio, in keeping with the white-clapboard-and-green-shutter exterior of the house. They searched for an architect willing to design a modern room with an outdoor kitchen, open to the beach. It was worth the effort.

Pam had furnished it with overstuffed canvas-covered pieces. Jack had been adamant about it being comfortable and covered in soft fabric, even if it meant having to bring the cushions in at night. “Have you ever tried to sit in one of those torture devices in my mother’s garden?” he asked, referring to the wrought iron chairs that surrounded a glass table.

No matter how careful she was when she walked around the garden, Pam always managed to bash her toes against the iron legs. “I want enough seating for a crowd, too,” he said. “I could never understand why Bernice insisted on that little table and four chairs when she had six people plus kids every Sunday.”

So, for dining, Jack bought a huge round table with twelve chairs and a smaller square table that sat four. The entire veranda was covered with transparent bug netting and had a motorized roof that was handy during summer rains. Entire seasons passed by when the living and dining rooms inside the house would go unused. The veranda had worked its magic.

Now that Jack was gone, she continued to enjoy the beauty of the view. The years that he and Pam lived apart—he in the city during the week while she stayed at the beach alone—couldn’t prepare her for this time. Every Friday night he would come home. The week was spent in preparation for it: perfect house, perfect food prepared, perfect children waiting, perfect wife. As the hour of his arrival grew close, her heart would start beating faster and harder. The sound of his voice over the telephone or a glimpse of him driving up the driveway continued to thrill her in spite of the years they had been together. She would stand in the door that led from the garage to the house, watching as the automatic door slowly opened, and handsome Jack would pull in his car, a big smile for his wife on his face. He was getting better looking with age, his jaw still chiseled and firm. He was slightly gray at the temples, but you didn’t notice it because his head of hair was so thick and wavy, always perfectly cut and combed.
Pam couldn’t remember Jack ever needing a haircut, even in his youth when the boys in their group allowed their hair to grow long. They were the perfect couple, perfectly groomed and perfectly matched. He’d stretch his long legs out of the car and reach in the backseat for his laundry bag. He always brought his dirty clothes home on the train from Manhattan, like a college kid. She insisted on it.

“What will you need me for if you start sending your clothes out?” She’d take his clothes and briefcase from him, he’d bend down to kiss her on the lips, and they would walk into the house together. There was always a drink waiting for him on the kitchen counter and he would pick that up first and walk to the large windows that overlooked the water. In the winter the view, often moonlit, was the first thing he would look at. They would sit on the window seat, looking out at the black water while a fire burned in the fireplace. But in the summer, they went outdoors. Pam took a plate of hors d’oeuvres out of the refrigerator, walking toward the veranda.