Frog (6 page)

He sees a woman on a movie line waiting to go in. He's alone and she seems to be too. She's reading quite quickly a novel he liked a lot and never looks up from it at the people in front and behind her, at least while he's looking at her. Attractive, intelligent looking, he likes the casual way she's dressed, way her hair is, everything. He intentionally finds a seat two rows behind hers, watches her a lot and she never speaks to the person on either side of her. On the way out he does something he hasn't done in about twenty years. He gets alongside her and says “Pardon me, miss, but did you like the movie?” She smiles and says “It was a big disappointment, and you?” “Didn't care for it much either. Listen, this is difficult to do-introducing myself to a woman I've never met—like this, I mean, and something I haven't done in God knows how many years. But would you—my name is Howard Tetch—like to have a cup of coffee someplace or a beer and talk about the movie? That book too—I read it and saw you reading. If you don't, then please, I'm sorry for stopping you—I already think you're going to say no, and why shouldn't you?” “No, let's have coffee, but for me, tea.” “Tea, yes, much healthier for you—that's what I'll have too.”

They have tea, talk—the book, movie, difficulties of introducing yourself to strangers you want to meet, something she's wanted to do with a number of men—“I can admit it,”—but never had the courage for it. He sees her to a taxi, next day calls her at work, they meet for tea, meet again for lunch, another time for a movie, go to bed, soon he's at her place more than his own. She's thirty-three and also wants to get married and have a child, probably two. “With the right person, of course. That'll take, once I meet him, about six months to find out. Then once it's decided, I'd like to get married no more than a month after that, or at least begin trying to conceive.” The more time he spends at her place, the bossier and pettier she gets with him. She doesn't like him hanging the underpants he washes on the shower curtain rod. He says “What about if I hang them on a hanger over the tub?” but she doesn't like that either. “It looks shabby, like something in a squalid boardinghouse. Put them in the dryer with the rest of our clothes.” “The elastic waistband stretches. So does the crotch part to where after a few dryer dryings you can see my balls. That's why I hand-wash them and hang them up like that.” Problem's never resolved. He wrings his underpants out and hangs them on a hanger, with a few newspaper sheets underneath, in the foot of closet space she's set aside for his clothes. A couple of times when he does this she says the drops from the hanging underpants might go through the paper and ruin the closet floor. He puts more newspapers down and that seems to assuage her. She thinks he should shave before he gets into bed, not when he rises. He says “But I've always shaved, maybe since I started shaving my entire face, in the morning. That's what I do.” “Well try changing your habits a little. You're scratchy. It hurts our lovemaking. My skin's fair, much smoother than yours, and your face against it at night is an irritant.” “An irritant?” “It irritates my face, all right?” “Then we'll make love in the morning after I shave.” “We can do that too,” she says, “but like most couples, most of our lovemaking is at night. Also, while I'm on the subject, I wish you wouldn't get back into bed after you exercise in the morning. Your armpits smell. You sweat up the bed. If you don't want to shower after, wash your arms down with a wet washrag. Your back and chest too.” “I only exercise those early times in the morning when I can't sleep anymore, or am having trouble sleeping. So I feel, long as I'm up, I should either read or do something I'm going to do later in the day anyway, like exercising. But from now on I'll do as you say with the washrag whenever I do exercise very early and then, maybe because the exercising's relaxed or tired me, get back into bed.” She also thinks he hogs too much of the covers; he should try keeping his legs straight in front of him in bed rather than lying them diagonally cross her side; he could perhaps shampoo more often—“Your hair gets to the sticky level sometimes.” And is that old thin belt really right for when he dresses up? “If anything, maybe you can redye it.” And does he have to wear jeans with a hole in the knee, even if it is only to go to the corner store? “What about you?” he finally says. “You read the
Times
in bed before we make love at night or just go to sleep, and then don't wash the newsprint off your hands. That gets on me. Probably also gets on the sheets and pillowcases, but of course only on your side of the bed, and your sheets and pillowcases, so why should I be griping, right? And your blouses. I'm not the only one who sweats. And after you have into one of yours—OK, you had a tough day at work and probably on the crowded subway to and from work and your body's reacted to it—that's natural. But you hang these blouses back up in the closet. On your side, that's fine with me, and I'm not saying the smell gets on my clothes. But it isn't exactly a great experience to get hit with it when I go into the closet for something. Anyway, I'm just saying.” They complain like this some more, begin to quarrel, have a couple of fights where they don't speak to each other for an hour, a day, and soon agree they're not right for each other anymore and should break up. When he's packing his things to take back to his apartment, she says “I'm obviously not ready to be with only one man as much as I thought. I'm certainly not ready for marriage yet. As to having a child—to perhaps have
two
? I should really get my head looked over to have thought of that.” “Well, I'm still ready,” he says, “though maybe all this time I've been mistaken there too.”

He meets a woman at an opening at an art gallery. They both were invited by the artist. She says she's heard about him from the artist. “Nothing much. Just that you're not a madman, drunk, drug addict or letch like most of the men he knows.” He says “Gary, for some odd reason I don't know why, never mentioned you. Maybe because he's seeing you. Is he?” “What are you talking about? He's gay.” “Oh. He's only my colleague at school, so I don't know him that well. I know he's divorced and has three kids, but that's about it. May I be stupidly frank or just stupid and say I hope you're not that way too? Wouldn't mean I'd want to stop talking to you.” “I can appreciate why you're asking that now. No, as mates, men are what I like exclusively. I didn't come here to meet one, but I've been in a receptive frame of mind for the last few months if something happens along.” They separate at the drink table, eye each other a lot the next fifteen minutes, she waves for him to come over. “I have to go,” she says. “The friend I came with has had her fill of this, and she's staying with me tonight. If you want to talk some more, I can call you tomorrow. You in the book?” “Hell, here's my number and best times to reach me,” and he writes all this out and gives it to her.

She calls, they meet for a walk, have dinner the next night, she takes his hand as they leave the restaurant, kisses him outside, initiates a much deeper kiss along the street, he says “Look-it, why don't we go to my apartment—it's only a few blocks from here?” She says “Let's give it more time. I've had a lot of rushing from men lately. I'm not boasting, and I started some of it myself. It's simply that I know going too fast, from either of us, is no good, so what do you say?” They see each other about three times a week for two weeks. At the end of that time he says he wants to stay at her place that night or have her to his, “but you know, for bed.” She says “I still think it'd be rushing. Let's give the main number some more time?” Two weeks later he says “Listen, I've got to sleep with you. All this heavy petting is killing me. I've got to see you completely naked, be inside you—the works. We've given it plenty of time. We like each other very much. But I need to sleep with you to really be in love with you. That's how I am.” She says “I don't know what's wrong. I like you in every way. I'm almost as frustrated as you are over it. But something in me says that having sex with you now still wouldn't be sensible. That we're not ready for it yet. That what we have, in the long run, would be much better—could even end up in whatever we want from it. Living together. More, if that's what we ultimately want—if we hold out on this a while longer. It's partly an experiment on my part, coming after all my past involvement failures, but also partly what I most deeply feel will work, and so feel you have to respect that. So let's give it a little more time then, please?” He says “No. Call me if you not only want to see me again but want us to have sex together. From now on it has to be both. Not all the time, of course. But at least the next time if there's nothing—you know—physically, like a bad cold, wrong with one of us. I hate making conditions—it can't help the relationship—but feel I have to. If I saw you in one of our apartments alone again I think I'd tear your clothes off and jump on you no matter how hard and convincingly you said no. It's awful, but there it is.” She says “Let me think about it. Either way, I'll call.”

She calls the next week and says “I think we better stop seeing each other. Even if I don't believe you would, what you said about tearing off my clothes scared me.” “That's not it,” he says. “I don't know what it is, but that's not it. OK. Goodbye.”

He misses her, wants to call her, resume things on her terms, dials her number two nights in a row but both times hangs up after the first ring.

He's invited to give a lecture at a university out of town. His other duty that day is to read the manuscripts of ten students and see them in an office for fifteen minutes each to discuss their work. The man who invited him is a friend from years ago. He says “What'd you think of the papers I sent you? All pretty good, but one exceptional. Flora's, right? She thinks and writes like someone who picked up a couple of postdoctorates in three years and then went on to five years of serious jounalism. Easy style, terrific insights, nothing left unturned, everything right and tight, sees things her teachers don't and registers these ideas better than most of them. She intimidates half the department, I'm telling you. They'd rather not have her in their classes, except to look at her. That's because she's brilliant. I can actually say that about two of my students in fourteen years and the other's now dean of a classy law school. But hear me, Howard. Keep your mitts off her. That doesn't mean mine are on her or want to be. Oh, she's a honey, all right, and I've fantasized about her for sure. But I don't want anyone I'm inviting for good money messing with her and possibly messing up her head and the teaching career I've planned for her. Let some pimpleface do the messing; she'll get over it sooner. I want her to get out of here with top grades and great GREs and without being screwed over and made crestfallen for the rest of the semester by some visiting horn. Any of the other girls you'll be conferencing you can have and all at once if they so desire.” “Listen, they all have to be way too young for me and aren't what I've been interested in for a long time, so stop fretting.”

He sees two students. Flora's next on the list. He opens the office door and says to some students sitting on the floor against the corridor wall “One of you Ms. Selenika?” She raises her hand, stands, was writing in a pad furiously, has glasses, gold ear studs, medium-length blond hair, quite frizzy, little backpack, clear frames, tall, rustically dressed, pens in both breast pockets, what seem like dancer's legs, posture, neck. “Come in.” They shake hands, sit, he says “I guess we should get right to your paper. Of course, what else is there? I mean, I'm always interested in where students come from. Their native areas, countries, previous education, what they plan to do after graduation. You know, backgrounds and stuff; even what their parents do. That can be very interesting. One student's father was police commissioner of New York. Probably the best one we had there in years. Another's mother was Mildred Kraigman. A comedian, now she's a character actress. Won an Academy Award? Well, she was once well known and you still see her name around, often for good causes. But those are my students where I teach. When I've time to digress, which I haven't with every student here. You all probably don't mind the fifteen minutes with me, but that's all we've got. So, your paper. I don't know why I went into all of that, do you?” She shakes her head, holds back a giggle. “Funny, right? But you can see how it's possible for me to run on with my students. As for your paper, I've nothing but admiration for it. I'm not usually that reserved or so totally complimentary, but here, well—no corrections. Not even grammatical or punctuational ones. Even the dashes are typed right and everything's before or after the quote marks where it belongs. Honestly, nothing to nitpick, even. I just wish I had had your astuteness—facility—you know, to create such clear succinct premises and then to get right into it and with such writing and literary know-how and ease; had had your skills, intelligence and instincts when I was your age, I mean. Would have saved a lot of catching up later on. Sure, we could go on for an hour about what you proposed in this and how you supported what you claimed, and so on. Let me just say that when I come across a student like you I just say ‘Hands off; you're doing great without me so continue doing what you are on your own. If I see mistakes or anything I can add or direct you to, to possibly improve your work, I'll let you know.' And with someone like you I also say, which isn't so typical for me, ‘If you see something you want to suggest about my work, or correct: be my guest.' In other words, I can only give you encouragement and treat you as my thinking equal and say ‘More, more.' But your paper's perfect for what it is, which is a lot, and enlightened me on the subject enormously. But a subject which, if I didn't know anything about it before, I'd be very grateful to you after I read it for opening me up to it. You made it interesting and intriguing. What better way, right? Enough, I've said too much, not that I think compliments would turn you.”