Late Stories (22 page)

Just What Is

H
e sees her at a restaurant. He's with his two closest friends and she's sitting down with an older woman and a child three tables away. He says to the couple “Someone I know. My favorite grad student, ever. Haven't seen her since before Abby died. That's how I divide things in my life. B.A. and A.A. Excuse me,” and he gets up and goes over to her. “Oh my goodness,” she says, and stands up and puts her arms out and they hug. “You remember him,” she says to the woman. “My old writing professor. Philip Seidel. You met at the reception after the diploma ceremony. Jesus. Almost fourteen years ago.” She introduces him to her mother and says the child is her sister's son. “I have him for two weeks while she's in China.” He says “How you doing, and how's Claude?” and she says “We're in the midst of getting a divorce.” “I'm sorry,” and she says “Don't be. It's fine. But also don't tell me you thought we were the last couple on earth to ever get divorced.” “Why would I? What do I know what's going on between two people, married or not?” “Hey,” she says. “I heard from Whitney and Evelyn that the launch event for your new book at the Ivy was a smash.” “You mean a debacle.” “No, they said you had a big crowd, more people than chairs, and the pieces you read were perfect and the Q and A went well too. I wanted to go but I was teaching that night. I haven't bought the book yet but I will.” “Don't bother. You know . . . sometimes I think my work's only meant to be written, not read. I'd send you a copy, because the publisher did such a beautiful job on it—the looks. I just know they're going to win design awards for it—but I
only have two left, one with the corrections to all the typos and the other to keep in pristine shape in my bookcase. I can also imagine how busy you must be with everything and also have lots on your mind. How are your kids?” “They're taking it pretty well.” “That's good. Listen,” he says, “we should meet for lunch or just for coffee one day.” “I'd like that. Let me get your phone number.” “First one to pull out his pen gets to call the other,” and he takes a pen out of his pants pocket, piece of folded-up paper out of his pants back pocket and says “So give it.” She does and then says “After the holidays. I am pretty busy till then.” “After. That'd be great. Can't wait. Lunch, so we have enough time to talk.” They hug, he says to her mother “Nice to meet you again. And you too, little guy,” to her nephew. “What are you going to have for lunch?” and the kid says “Chicken salad sandwich.” “Good choice,” and he goes back to the table. “Sorry for holding you up,” he says to the couple. “She was maybe the best student writer I ever had, and it was such a treat seeing her again. I loved having her in my class and fought off my colleagues to be her advisor. She didn't say anything about Abby. Maybe she was being discreet. Or I have seen her since Abby died, but a while ago. That must be the case. And I think I even remember getting a condolence card from her, none of which I ever thanked the senders for. She looks a lot like Abby, wouldn't you say? Though that's not why I always liked her.” The woman says “Abby was gorgeous. This woman's only cute.”

He thinks about calling her every day after that. Writes her phone number in his address book, telephone numbers section of his weekly planner and on the medical appointment card fastened to the refrigerator door by a magnet. Dreams about her several times. In one, they're in a kitchen he doesn't recognize. They're saying goodbye. He forgets which one of them is leaving. He leans over to kiss her cheek, but she kisses him on the mouth. “You're
surprised, I can see,” she says, “but I wanted to know how it felt. Not bad for a first time. Your lips are nice and soft and your breath's sweet and the kiss was quick and satisfying. A good sign. My rule of thumb is if it doesn't feel good the first time, don't try it again. What's yours?” In another—right after the last one, he thinks—Abby and he are in the Roosevelt Memorial Hall in the American Museum of Natural History. He sees Ruth, this woman, walking down the grand staircase in the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She doesn't notice him staring at her till she gets to the bottom of the stairs, looks his way and waves. “Hello,” he mouths silently from about fifty feet away, “how are you? You look terrific. What a pleasure to see you again.” Then he turns back to Abby, whom he realizes he stopped talking to midsentence when he saw Ruth at the top of the staircase, but she isn't there. He looks around this huge room but she seems to have disappeared and the staircase is gone too. He makes his way through a crowd to Ruth. It seems to be a party. Everyone's holding a drink and talking about literature and art. “In 1882 . . .” someone he has to maneuver around is saying. She just stands there, smiling at him, waiting for him, it seems. “I lost Abigail,” he says when he reaches her.

He Googles Ruth. Not much on her. Nothing about her age or even a clue, like what year she graduated college, to help him estimate it. He guesses she's around forty, forty-two. She's had several short stories in some of the best literary magazines and one in a major magazine, which was then republished in a
Best American Stories
three years ago. He wonders how he can get the book without buying it or going to the library. He didn't know about the stories. He doesn't keep up with any magazine. She probably has a book coming out or one almost finished and an agent to sell it. She's a visiting assistant professor in the English department of a local university. She also has an advanced degree from the Sorbonne.

He fantasizes about her. She's maybe thirty-five years younger than him. He calls her and they meet for lunch. The next time they see each other—he finds it hard to call it a date—they go to a movie, and then dinner out the next time they see each other. All right, a date. He can't think of a better word for it now. But 42, 77. It seems so wrong to use it. Anyway, after dinner she invites him back to her apartment or house. He'd picked her up this time and drove her home. “Why use two cars?” he said on the phone or in an email. The first two dates they each drove to the place they were to meet at. Her kids are with their father that night and won't be back till the next afternoon. They had kissed a few times, but just quick ones on the cheek when they first greeted each other and then when they said goodbye. They finished a good bottle of red wine in the restaurant—he insisted on paying for their lunch and dinner and let her buy the movie tickets and a bag of popcorn at the theater—and have a glass of wine or two at her place. He says “May I sit beside you on the couch? And it's not because my chair's uncomfortable.” Or he's on the couch and she's in a chair and he says “Would it be a really dumb thing to say ‘Wouldn't you be more comfortable sitting on the couch?' Although maybe the chair's perfect for you.” If he's on a chair and she's on the couch, she says “Please, do what you want.” He says “What I want, and I hope you don't throw me out of the house and banish me for all time for saying this, is to kiss you. But I can't do it, if you'd let me, while I'm on the chair.” He moves to the couch. Or she does. Anyway, they're there together—they could even start off there, she first, or he first, but probably he first while she's out of the room to get the glasses and wine—and he says “May I kiss you now? I know it seems absurd, my repeatedly asking, but it's been so long. I just don't know how to put it.” She says “Don't ask. Just do. There can't be any harm to it, and if we don't like it we'll stop,” and she holds her arms out the way she did in the
restaurant that time she was with her mother and he was with his friends, and they kiss and they kiss and they kiss. He recalls a dream he had before he had this fantasy, of him kissing his wife for three minutes and then opening his eyes, which had been shut during the entire kiss, and finds he's kissing Ruth. He remembers waking up and thinking “Well, I got the best of both worlds with that one. What's it mean? Several things, all of them too easy.” In his fantasy, he feels her breast under her shirt, strokes her behind through her panties, and she says “Why don't we move this to the bedroom?” which is almost word for word what Abby said to him before the first time they made love, also in her living room and on a couch. “
Oy.
Look at me,” he says. “You can see how nervous I am. A confession. I haven't made love since I last made love to my wife a month or two before she died, and that was nearly five years ago. Confession two. I haven't made love to any other woman—not even a deep kiss like the ones we just had—since I first met my wife. But I should shut up about her. I'm ruining it, I know.” “It's all right,” she says. “I understand. But you don't have to say anything else about her, at least not tonight. Otherwise, it'd be difficult to continue.” He fantasizes more. Their lovemaking goes well, for instance. “Good,” he said, “I found out I don't need a pill to help me out. Big relief. I didn't think I would. But after so long, not that I haven't—confession three—been masturbating, you never know.” “It would be all right with me if you did have to use something,” she says. “But I'm glad it turned out the way you liked.” They start seeing each other a few times a week. Two or three. She's teaching, he's retired. They're both writing and getting things accepted. She wants him to read everything she writes soon after she finishes it and he doesn't let her see anything of his till it's published. “That's the way I was with Abby, except when maybe I was having trouble with a line or two or coming up with the right word or phrase.” The age
difference makes him feel self-conscious sometimes. Like when she takes and holds his hand when they're walking outside, or in a movie theater, even when it's dark. She says, the one time he brings it up, she never thinks about it. He says “You have to,” and she says “Honestly, I don't, so leave it at that. But you don't want me to do things like hold your hand when we're around people or kiss you hello when we meet someplace, I won't.” “No,” he says. “I like both of those, so do them all you want. I'll come around.” More fantasy. He asks her to move in with him. “I'll take care of all the expenses, you won't have to contribute anything, so think of all the money you'll save. The house is small but large enough to accommodate you and your kids and mine when they visit, if I get the basement fixed up as a guest bedroom, and you can have Abby's old study all to yourself.” She says she'll think about it—“I wouldn't mind getting out of the apartment” or “selling the house”—and eventually she and her kids move in. They go to Maine for the summer. Her kids first stay a month in Switzerland with their grandparents—her husband is Swiss and he remembers her telling him when she was his grad student that she and Claude would spend a month every summer with his parents in Lausanne—and the second summer month with them in Maine. By now she's divorced. He says “Why don't we get married? I'm aware that it can't last for twenty-seven years as Abby's and mine did. But I think I'm good for twenty years, or maybe just fifteen. Still, that's not bad. You'll be almost sixty. And I promise never to get feeble and to make a super extra effort to be healthy and to control the health problems I already have.” She says “Let's keep it the way it is. One of us might tire of the other. I don't see it happening. But I didn't see it happening with my husband either. And I don't want, more for the kids' sake than mine, to go through another divorce. Things are perfect now, aren't they, so why fuss with them? Though maybe, for practical reasons,
I'll change my mind.” He stays well. Works out at the Y every day, and she often works out with him. He swims, jogs, cuts back on his drinking, watches what he eats, takes long walks and bike rides with her, loses about ten pounds of belly fat, feels healthier than he has in years. At his next physical his doctor takes him off high-blood-pressure pills—“You no longer need them and you were borderline anyway”—and his prostate seems to have shrunk to normal size. “Your hands no longer shake and your balance and reflexes are better than I've ever seen them, so I'll probably end up reducing those pills and possibly taking you off them too. You're a medical miracle man. I want to show you off to some of my patients who are half your age and nowhere near the physical condition you're in.” “It's all your doing,” he says to Ruth. “What a mess I'd be now without you.” They make love about three times a week. Sometimes once at night and then the following morning before they get out of bed. They laugh a lot with each other, never run out of interesting things to do together and talk about. Never have an argument or really any kind of disagreement or row. Her kids think of him as their second father and his daughters look fondly on her kids as their much younger sisters. He writes several stories about his love for her and his life since he first saw her in that restaurant and also his fears he'll suddenly get very sick and from then on she has to take care of him and another that she leaves him for a much younger man, one of her grad students. He tells her what he's writing, still never shows her them till they're published. She tells him he has nothing to worry about, she loves him and would never hook up with another man. If he got that sick, she'd take care of him the best she could, and if there was anything she couldn't do, and she thinks that would be very little, she'd get an aide. “Sure,” she says, “we've talked of the likelihood of your dying long before me. Though I could also all of a sudden get very sick and die of a disease months
after I was diagnosed. Or my illness could linger on for years, while you remained healthy, and during that period it'd be you who'd take care of me as you did with Abigail. But let's not talk about it or ever again, unless something like one of those did happen. It's too depressing. You're happy, I'm happy, our kids are terrific and happy and we're all healthy, and we're both writing like there's no tomorrow. That's all we need.” “You're right, you're right, you're right,” he says. “It's terrible of me, I know. But a couple of the things I haven't been able to get rid of or control, though I should have, seeing how happy we've been together—and we are, right?” and she says “Yes. Of course.” “Is my predisposition to melancholy and penchant for imagining depressing things and subverting most of the good that's happening,” and he gives her a big kiss and after it they laugh.