Topping From Below (36 page)
“Because they’re dying.”
I look up at the trees, and sure enough, they look unhealthy. It’s the end of August now, and they’re shedding their leaves. I’m fairly certain this is supposed to happen only in autumn. I remember last year when their dense foliage canopied the front yard, offering a lot of shade. Now the leaves are sparse and the branches stingy-looking. When did this begin, I am thinking. Then I realize I don’t really care.
“They’ve got shallow roots,” he says. “They don’t live long.”
“Is that typical?” I ask, feeling indifferent.
“For this kind of tree, yes.” And he tells me about the tree, that they normally only live ten to fifteen years, then he points out the other trees in the neighborhood, which ones are long-lasting, which ones are shade trees.
“See that,” he says, pointing up the street. “That tree gives good shade.”
I think of the Madonna song with the sexual play on words for fellatio—she gives good face. The tree gives good shade. I start to laugh, and then stifle it when Victor gives me another odd glance.
“How are Richard and Abby?” I ask out of politeness. Richard is his son, also in the construction business, and he and his wife live several houses down the street from me. He and Victor built the duplex I’m living in, and Richard lived here himself until he built the house down the street.
“Fine,” he says, still staring at the leafless tree. “Just fine. The baby’s due in January.”
“The baby?” I say, and he tells me that Abby is pregnant.
“I didn’t know that,” I say. “She’s pregnant? That’s unbelievable.” For some reason, Abby’s pregnancy amazes me. It seems as if I spoke to her a few weeks ago—and she certainly wasn’t pregnant then, her stomach as flat as cardboard—but five or six or seven months must have gone by.
“Well,” I say, still amazed. Then I feel that pang again, that little sad nudge in my heart when someone else has a baby. “That’s wonderful. Do they want a boy or girl?”
“Boy. It’ll be a boy. She had the amniocentesis test, and the doctor says she’s going to have a boy.”
A boy, I think. That’s all the world needs, another boy. South Davis is becoming inundated with boys. The man and woman who live in the other half of my duplex just had a boy last month (their second), and two weeks ago the woman across the street in the blue Tudor also had a boy (her fourth). I hadn’t known either of them was even pregnant until after the babies were born, when Ann Marie informed me. She must not know that Richard and Abby are going to have a baby. A boy baby. Where are all the little girls? I’m thinking. And why would anyone want four boys? But I know the answer to that.
I’ve stopped driving into Sacramento unless it’s absolutely necessary. The truth is, I’ve become doddery from my preoccupation with death and my two-week warning. I live in a small world, confined within the city limits of Davis, and as I drive over the Yolo Causeway I feel I am leaving my sanctuary and entering a foreign state. A sanctuary! I laugh. My life in Davis, my life with M., is anything but protective. M. does not offer me safe shelter. Still, Sacramento seems foreign to me. It represents the life I abandoned, and as I cross the Tower Bridge I feel like the native daughter who returns after a long absence and finds she is a stranger in her own land, uncomfortable and a little anxious. This city, and my former way of life, does not belong to me anymore.
Ian has a condominium in the downtown area, and I drive up the Capitol Mall boulevard and turn right at the golden-domed state capitol. Ian lives only a few blocks south on a shaded, elm-lined street. I park my car at the curb and walk over to his condo, a brown stuccoed building with ivy creeping over the walls. The sidewalk is cracked with age, and for some reason this makes me feel less like a stranger.
I ring Ian’s doorbell and wait for him to answer. He gave me a key, but I’ve never used it. It was a symbolic gesture on his part—we rarely met at his house—but I know he was hoping it would evolve into a further intertwining of our lives. It hasn’t turned out the way he planned. Since the day I discovered Ian fucked Franny-and even before then, since the day I first slept with M.—our lives began to separate. We see each other less and less often. There was no big argument, no climactic moment of separation, just a gradual fading away. Three days of absence became four, four days became five, and so on. Something broke apart and now there is an awkwardness between us, a breach that we cannot mend. The key remains a symbol, but of failure now rather than hope. It would seem almost presumptuous of me to use it in this stage of our relationship.
I peer inside the glass panels on the side of the door. I see Ian walking toward me, his gaze to the floor, and he looks distracted. He’s wearing his reading glasses, his blond hair is disheveled, and he’s clutching a sheaf of jumbled papers. He opens the door and sees me. A flash of surprise and annoyance crosses his face. Instantly, he covers it with a smile. But it is too late. I already saw his displeasure at seeing me.
“Nora,” he says, and he nervously rattles the sheaf of papers against the side of his leg.
“Hi. I was just in the neighborhood.”
“In the neighborhood,” he repeats, and he smiles a little because we both know this is a lie.
He still hasn’t invited me in. “I needed to see you,” 1 say.
He steps back from the door and lets me enter. I walk through the hallway and back into the living room. His condo is light and airy, with ceiling fans and chalky white walls that he still hasn’t decorated. He has a single picture hanging on one wall, a Georgia O’Keeffe print of a cow’s skull. As I’m sitting down on the couch, a robust woman in her fifties, silverhaired and stout, walks into the living room carrying a green plastic bucket filled with cleaning supplies—a can of Ajax, sponges, yellow rubber gloves, a toilet brush. I assume this is Pat, the cleaning woman he’s previously mentioned.
“I’m finished, Ian,” she says, her voice loud and cheerful, then when she sees me, adds, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
Ian introduces me as his girlfriend. We exchange a few pleasantries, then she picks up a check off the table, gathers her cleaning supplies, and leaves, telling Ian she’ll be back next week. With her departure comes an awkward silence.
“What are you working on?” I ask him, nodding at the papers in his hand.
“These?” he says, and he holds them up absently. “Oh, nothing, really. I’m working at home today. They’re just …” and his voice trails off. He tosses the papers on the coffee table—already cluttered with knives and three small blocks of wood—and sits down across from me. Pointedly, he says, “Why are you here?”
Ian’s face is so troubled I want to reach over and smooth his brow. But I don’t. The interstices in our frail relationship will not allow the familiarity inherent in such a gesture: it would be too bold.
I concentrate on his question. Why am I here? “I’m not sure,” I say, sighing. “Not exactly.” I pause, collecting my thoughts, then start over. “We don’t see each other very often. Hardly at all anymore. I know most of it’s my fault.” I shrug and give him a wan smile. “I guess all of it’s my fault. I don’t blame you for not wanting to see me. I know I’ve been a real bitch lately.” I take a deep breath and say, “But I still love you.”
When Ian doesn’t respond, I look down at my lap. Quietly, I say, “I’ll work this out somehow. I just need you to be there for me. I need you to wait for me.” Even I can hear the pathetic pleading in my voice; I look over at Ian. “I’ll straighten this mess out. I will.”
He sat mutely while I said this, but now he looks more troubled than before. I lean forward and take his hand and say, “I will, Ian. I promise. I just need more time. I can’t explain what’s going on. But I will fix everything. I’ll find a way.”
He pulls his hand away from mine. Gently, he says, “You can’t fix this, Nora. Whatever we had, it’s gone. And you’re not the only one to blame. I’m just as much at fault.”
I can’t help myself; I reach over again and touch his cheek. It’s so soft and smooth and pure. “Oh, Ian. You’re not responsible for any of this. You’ve always been wonderful with me, I know that. And I never meant to doubt you about Franny’s death. You’re so—”
“Stop it!” He gets up abruptly and paces the room, his face dark and scowling. He looks agitated and compunctious, and I’ve never seen him like this before. He comes back and sits down. “I’m not this wonderful person you make me out to be. I’m just an average man, Nora, and I have weaknesses and flaws like any other man. And right now—right now, Nora—I just can’t handle your problems. I can’t do it.”
He walks over to the living room window and looks outside. With his back to me, he says quietly, “I love you, too.” Then, even quieter, he says, “God, Nora, I still love you. But I need some breathing room. I need time to think.”
I watch Ian’s back. It is stiff, rigid; I can almost see the tension in it, and it makes me incredibly sad to know that I am responsible for his discomfort. I wish I knew what to say, but I don’t. I’m not even sure why I came over here. As I was begging him to give me another chance, part of me realized he had already become a relic of my past. I love him; he loves me—but that doesn’t mean much. It’s not enough to keep us together, and it’s certainly not enough to keep me away from M.
I leave his home while he’s still staring out the window, avoiding me. I get on the freeway and drive back to Davis. He says he needs time to think, but I know what that means. It is the slow dissolution of a relationship, the polite way of saying good-bye. I’ve used that line myself on several men: I need time to think. Translation: I don’t want to see you anymore. Ian is perfectly justified, of course. I’ve given him plenty of reasons to back off, reasons of which he’s not even aware. M. has his wish after all. Ian is out of my life.
With this realization, I feel almost relieved, unburdened. I won’t have to answer any more of Ian’s questions, or try to explain my behavior. But at the same time I feel I’ve missed an opportunity, made a terrible mistake. I’m on the edge of the abyss now, and there’s no one to stop me.
M.’s house is unlocked, so I enter without knocking, hearing music as soon as I turn the knob. He is at the piano in the den, but stops playing when I walk into the room. I go over to the sofa and sit.
“You’ve got your way,” I tell him.
He turns around on the bench so he’s facing me, then crosses his arms. The drapes are drawn, the room dim. The light above the piano shines down on M., highlighting his cheekbones and strong chin. His lips curve sensuously at the corners, and I think he must’ve been quite handsome as a young man. He says, “I always get my way.”
I feel angry and resentful, and I’m not in the mood for any of his games. “Thanks to you, Ian doesn’t want to see me anymore.” I add, “If I never met you, Ian and I would still be together.”
M. says, “Would you like a drink?”
I glare at him.
He comes over and sits next to me. He puts his hand on my knee, a possessive gesture.
I push his hand away, denying him his possession. I want to punish this man for what he’s done. I blame him for making Ian reject me, although, in point of sheer fact, I know I have no one but myself to blame.
M.—teacher, strict disciplinarian, Nestor, algolagnic Pygmalion—he looks at me for a while, a studied, patient look, then says, “You’ve never had good relationships with men, Nora. Ian was no different. Even if you and I had never met, you still wouldn’t have stayed with him for long. You needed him after Franny died. That’s all he was to you—a crutch, someone to lean on.”
“He was someone I loved. Someone I still love.”
“You don’t love him any more than you loved any of the other men in your life. And he could never satisfy you the way I do.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is, and you know it. You may relish the idea of being in love with him, but the reality is that you need someone exactly like me.”
Annoyed with his facile analysis, I shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Ian was special, and I did love him.”
“You loved the idea, Nora. Ian was so safe. With him you’d get married, have two kids, and live happily ever after. Only it wouldn’t have worked out that way. You’d be bored out of your skull. You’d make him miserable and end up hating everything he stood for.”
He drapes his hand across the back of the sofa and crosses his legs. He’s wearing a light short-sleeved shirt and brown gabardine trousers. He continues, his voice even and poised and, I think, condescending.
“Relationships are difficult, Nora. And I scare the hell out of you.” He shifts his body on the sofa. “Your sister was frightened of me, but she never backed away. She was quite fearless, in her own peculiar manner. She hated what I did to her, but she wanted me and she had enough guts to stick it out to the end. You love what I do to you, but you can’t admit it out loud. I have to coddle you along to assuage all your fears. And as for Ian and all the other men you’ve dated—you picked them because they were safe and didn’t challenge you one bit. It’s time for you to grow up, Nora. It’s time for you to start dealing with men.”
“And what about you?” I say hotly. “You’re not any different. You go from woman to woman.”
“There’s a big difference,” he says calmly. “I’m not afraid of women, and I’m not afraid to get involved. If I fuck one woman after another, it’s because I choose to—not because I’m afraid to take a chance. You don’t live in the present, Nora. I have what you need, but you’re too frightened to embrace it. You think if you don’t deal with me, someone better will come along.” He leans forward. “We’re perfectly suited, Nora, but you’re either living for the future, too afraid to live in the present, or living in the past, working out all your old demons, afraid to go on with your life. You like to think you’re worldly, sophisticated, but you’re more timid than Franny. Just a timid, little soul.”
I am incensed with anger. I can feel my cheeks color, and I am about to explode.
But I don’t. M., once more, is right. I have no idea who I am. I feel that he is holding a mirror up to my life, and the reflection I see is one I don’t like.