An Unfinished Season (12 page)

One night I was dancing with a girl I had not met before. She gave her name as Aurora and her conversation instantly set her apart from Debbie, Mimi, Gigi, and Dana. Dana was the girl I had argued with weeks before and this was her party at her parents' house, one of the lakefront mansions in Lake Forest, a perfect evening in July. I was trying to stay out of her way, and when I saw Aurora standing alone I asked her to dance. She had been watching the floor as if she expected a knife fight or other bloodletting, and when I asked her about it she said there was trouble among the bachelors and the benedicts and if I was smart I'd keep my head down because they were drunk and unpredictable, the benedicts particularly. Honor was at stake, she said, and she was trying to discover whose honor it was. A girl was at the bottom of it. So to speak, she added with a smile. And that's all she knew about that, subject closed. We were dancing well and getting to know each other better when I felt a tap on my shoulder and yielded to one of the wolfish benedicts. I re-cut a dance later, and asked her if she wanted a drink, that way we could talk without being interrupted by men who should be dancing with their wives. We fetched drinks—she took a Dubonnet and soda, a drink I had never heard of—and wandered to the shadows of a great oak and stood with our backs to the dance floor and watched the lake ruffle the moon's reflection. When Aurora told pie she lived in Chicago, I asked her if she knew the gaunt man with the aged head. I turned to point him out but he had vanished.

Jason Brule, I said.

Why do you want to know? What's he to you?

Nobody, I said. He looks interesting, is all.

I suppose he is, she said. That's what everyone says.

What do they say?

That he's interesting, she said with a smile.

Bachelor, I said.

That, too, she said.

Head doctor, I said.

Is that so? she said.

See, that's interesting.

Why is that interesting?

How many psychiatrists do you know? And everyone around here is either married or too young to be married—

Not everyone, she said, and named a bachelor of flamboyant manner and ambiguous reputation, odd in that he was seen only in the company of older women.

He's different, I said. That isn't what I mean.

What do you mean, then? That smile again, insinuating something, I didn't know what.

I mean—and then I wasn't certain what I meant, except that there were different sorts of bachelors and that Jason Brule was not the odd sort, and this conversation was moving in a direction I did not want to follow. I said, At any event, someone who isn't married stands out. Also, the doctor's head doesn't go with the doctor's body. It's as if they haven't been introduced. And he doesn't say much, does he? Doesn't dance, doesn't mix, drinks little. He's a psychiatrist and that isn't usual, either, around here. All these things together make someone who isn't run-of-the-mill, and therefore he's worth knowing.

If you say so, Aurora said. She took a step outside the shadows to stand near the lip of the bluff that sloped down to the lake. She wore a pale blue gown that shimmered in the moonlight, and a plain gold necklace that shimmered as well. She wound her finger around the necklace as she sipped her drink and looked at the reflection of the moon on the lake. Behind us the band struck up what sounded like the last dance. I offered her a cigarette but she shook her head.

They call him Jack, she said.

Who?

Jason. Jason Brule. Thought you'd want to know.

I haven't seen you around, I said.

I don't get up here very often. But I'm a friend of Dana's, so here I am, dancing in the moonlight. She smiled thinly and added, But I know you. You're the boy with the stories, Wils Ravan, the boy with all the gossip from downtown. Dana was telling me all about you and how you wouldn't go to bat for her sister at the newspaper. Dana thinks you're a bad friend and a menace. Subversive was the word she used, though she was probably just repeating her father. Dana said that if we met I was supposed to give you a piece of my mind, and I promised but now I don't know. You don't look subversive to me. Are you subversive?

I do my best, I said.

Try harder, she said.

Aurora was silent a moment, rocking on her heels, and suddenly threw her glass high in the air. We watched it rise and fall to the underbrush near the water's edge. We heard a faint explosion when the glass hit a rock. She leaned over the lip, squinting in the darkness. She said, Where do you live?

Quarterday, I said.

Where's Quarterday? I never heard of it.

The other side of Half Day.

I never heard of Half Day, either.

You've been missing something, I said. You've led a sheltered life.

Not as sheltered as yours, she said, and I had an idea this was a reference to the confusion of bachelors. She said, As a matter of fact, I do remember now. Quarterday. Where they ride horses.

We need them for the spring plowing, I said.

She smiled at that and said, Why don't you tell me one of your stories?

It's Saturday, I said. I didn't go to the office.

That's where the stories come from?

Well, it's a newspaper office. A newspaper office is a story factory. You make stories the way a furniture factory makes chairs. The stories are supposed to be well made and comfortable, so that you can sit in them without fear that they'll break down or disappoint you in any way.

Consoling, she said.

Definitely, I said.

Tell me an old story, then.

I never tell old stories, I said. My stories are all fresh stories. Today's news, not yesterday's news. Nothing deader than yesterday's news.

Behind us people were clapping. The orchestra had stopped playing. I lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring into the moonlight. Aurora was staring into the darkness and frowning, as if she had seen something there that annoyed her. But the only visible movement was the running lights of an ore boat bound for Duluth.

I said, Do you want some eggs?

She said, I want to go home.

I'll take you home, I said.

I don't live anywhere near your Quarterday, she said. I live in Chicago. As I told you.

That's all right, I said. I've been there. I know the way.

All right, she said.

If we skip the eggs we can stop at the jazz club on Bryn Mawr. Listen to the last set and I'll drive you home. It's a wonderful band in the old style, you'll love it. I smiled at her, waiting for an answer, explaining that the Eleven-Eleven Club was located under an El station in a rundown neighborhood near the Edgewater Beach Hotel, the crowd always noisy and friendly, and sometimes Georg Brunis played the trombone with his toes. The bartender had become a friend and every time I came in late in my tuxedo, he shouted, Stop the presses! Mr. Hearst is in the house!

I've been there, she said. I was put out, having the idea that this very well-known jazz club was my own private discovery, and my expression must have shown it because Aurora raised her eyebrows and added, But we can go there anyway.

Let's go now, I said.

You mean—no eggs?

I'll get us some champagne instead. For the car.

We walked back to the house and made our goodbyes. The buffet table had a crowd around it and the bar was doing a brisk business. Dana was nowhere in sight but her parents accepted our thanks with curt nods and no handshake from him. It seemed to me that Aurora was included in the general frost but it was hard to tell because they turned almost at once to say an effusive goodbye to a young married couple, both drunk and cute as buttons. They had the Englishman with them and everyone was laughing at something he had said. I fetched two glasses of champagne and waited for Aurora while she spoke to a friend, explaining that she had a ride home, not to worry. The friend looked dubiously at me and leaned forward to say something to Aurora, taking her hand in a kind of warning gesture. As we walked to the car, Aurora shivered slightly so I took off my jacket and put it around her shoulders. The breeze off the lake was cool.

I said, What was that about?

She's been talking to Dana.

Bad news, I said.

I'm a fool to trust anyone as unreliable as you.

Mr. Nobody from Nowhere, I added.

Exactly, she said.

When we were settled in the car, I said, I don't know your name.

Aurora, she said. I told you. And then she added, Aurora Brule.

I didn't say anything but I was thinking, Idiot. Ahead of us the married couple and the Englishman were struggling to fit themselves into a green MG, the Englishman driving and the woman sitting in her husband's lap, her slippered feet riding high above the windshield. I was silent a moment, watching the antics in the MG, the wife hilarious and the Englishman trying to put the key into the ignition, dropping the key, and pushing the wife's foot out of the way while he rooted about on the floor of the car. The husband was drinking from a flask, and when his wife reached for it he held it away, out of her reach.

Your bachelor father, I said.

She nodded. The head doctor, she said.

Oh, Christ, I said.

I'll take that cigarette now, she said.

I passed her the pack of cigarettes and my Zippo. Ahead of us the green MG lurched off in a cloud of exhaust, trailing laughter, the woman's crinoline skirt billowing in the breeze. The policeman at the end of the drive gave them a friendly wave but they ignored him. A cigarette sailed from the car and landed at his feet.

The Palshaws, Aurora said. Oscar and Lizzie. And the rude Englishman at the wheel. I forget his name but I heard he was a lord and he seems to be their permanent houseguest. I dated Oscar once. Once was enough. That MG, you might as well be riding in a coffin. He has trouble locating the gearshift and there's no escape.

You dated Oscar?

Last summer, she said. And the next thing I knew, he was engaged to Lizzie.

Not a success, I said.

Definitely not a success, she agreed. And you won't believe my father's enthusiasm when he said, I told you so.

Their favorite words, I said.

Fathers, yes, she said.

I'm sorry what I said about him.

It was funny, Aurora said. For a minute I thought you were putting me on. When it was clear you weren't, I just went along for the ride. Aurora lit her cigarette and exhaled in a long thin stream. She put her head on the backrest and looked at me, her eyes owlish behind thick-lensed glasses. They had materialized from nowhere and I decided she was more attractive with glasses than without, though I had not paid much attention to her looks beyond a general impression that she was pretty. At these formal dances it was difficult seeing beneath the party skin, the tulip-shaped dress, the corsage, the coiffure, and the forced laughter, except Aurora's dress was more lily than tulip, she wore no corsage, and her laughter was not forced. In the quiet of the car I could smell her perfume and give attention to her voice, which seemed to me to have the timbre of an oboe. Her voice, the music of her personality, carried an odd cadence and inflection—

 

The Pal-shawzzz, Oscar and Lizzzzzie—

 

that on first hearing sounded affected but the longer I listened did not seem affected at all, simply a signature. She was small-boned and small-faced, made smaller by her short haircut. Her sheath dress was cut low and not made for a debutante. In the light of the dance floor her hair looked dark blond but now seemed merely dark. She looked nothing like her father, save for a tightly wound quality softened by her smile. Her mouth curved up at the edges as if she knew a secret and the secret was amusing and hers alone. Looking at her now, I had the sensation of stopping at a portrait I had seen often at a gallery, taking the time now to observe instead of look. Aurora had opened the glove compartment and was peering into it, muttering that she needed a Kleenex. When I handed her my handkerchief she began to slowly polish the lenses of her glasses.

She said, What about the champagne?

I handed her one of the glasses I had on the floor between my feet. I took the other, we clicked, and she said, Luck.

Luck, I said.

So don't feel badly, she went on. It's not worth it.

Sometimes I talk too much, I said. Without thinking.

Forget it, she said.

I've wanted to meet him—

I can arrange that, she said. I'll make an appointment. Not that it'll do you much good. He doesn't talk much. Talking isn't his long suit. I assume it's a conversation you want, not a consultation.

God, no, I said hurriedly, throwing the car into gear and backing off the lawn and into the driveway. The policeman had moved off into the shadows, his uniform making him nearly invisible. Aurora was laughing at my “God, no.”

I said after a moment, Is he good at what he does?

She said, I guess so. They say he is. He has patients all day long and often into the evening and they swear by him. They send him flowers on his birthday.

Well, I said. He must talk to them.

Not necessarily, she said.

He must, I insisted. That's what psychiatrists do, ask leading questions about your dreams and so forth and so on. Your sex life.

He's a Freudian, she said wearily. Freudians listen, the patients speak. It's a technique. The patient is led to her own discoveries, and dreams would be one of the routes. All dreams are sexual, by the way.

All dreams? I asked skeptically.

No exceptions, she said. Sometimes he'll go fifty minutes without saying a word and then he looks at his watch and says, See you next week. Now will you please give it a rest? Aurora was sitting with her feet on the seat, the glass of champagne resting on one knee and her fist with the cigarette on the other. Now and again she jerked her hand out the window to flick the ash from her cigarette.

But I didn't want to give it a rest, preoccupied as I was with the sexuality of dreams, including one I had had about falling from a great height. I said, I suppose it's the quality of the listening, then. Listening well, concentrating hard.