Fine things (2 page)

“I thought they were nice too.” He lied. Actually he had thought them boring in the extreme, and was surprised that her mother had so little style. They talked about the weather and world news, and absolutely nothing else. It was like living in a vacuum, or enduring a perennial live commentary of the news. She seemed so unlike them, but then again she said the same thing about him She had called his mother hysterical after the only time they met, and he hadn't disagreed with her. “Are they coming to graduation?”

“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “My mother already cries talking about it.” He was still thinking of marrying her, but he hadn't said anything to her. He surprised her on Valentine's Day with a beautiful little diamond ring he had bought for her, with money his grandparents had left him when they died. It was a small, neat emerald-cut solitaire, it was only two carats but the stone was impeccable. The day he bought it his chest felt tight he was so excited all the way home. He had swept her off her feet, kissed her hard on the mouth, and thrown the red-wrapped box in her lap with a careless toss.

“Try that on for size, kid.”

She had thought it was a joke, and laughed until she opened it. And then her mouth fell open and she burst into tears. She had thrown the box back at him and left without a word, as he stood with his mouth open, staring after her. Nothing made any sense to him, until she came back to talk about it late that night. They both had rooms, but more often than not, they both stayed in his. It was larger and more comfortable and he had two desks, and she stared at the ring in the open box on his. “How could you do a thing like that?” He didn't understand. Maybe she thought the ring was too big.

“A thing like what? I want to marry you.” His eyes had been gentle as he reached out to her, but she turned away and walked across the room.

“I thought you understood … all this time I thought everything was cool.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I thought we had an equal relationship.”

“Of course we do. What does that have to do with anything?”

“We don't need marriage … we don't need all that traditional garbage.” She looked at him disgustedly and he was shocked. “All we need is what we have right now, for as long as it lasts.” It was the first time he had heard her talk like that and he was wondering what had happened to her.

“And how long is that?”

“Today …next week …” She shrugged. “Who cares? What difference does it make? But you can't nail it down with a diamond ring.”

“Well, pardon me.” But he was suddenly furious. He grabbed the box, snapped it shut, and threw it into one of his desk drawers. “I apologize for doing something so innately bourgeois. I guess my Scarsdale was showing again.”

She looked at him as though with brand-new eyes. “I had no idea you were making so much of this.” She looked puzzled by him, as though she suddenly couldn't remember his name. “I thought you understood everything …” She sat down on the couch and stared at him as he strode to the window, and then turned to look back at her.

“No. You know something? I don't understand anything. We've been sleeping with each other for over a year. We basically live together, we went to Europe together last year. What did you think this was? A casual affair?” Not for him. He wasn't that kind of man, even at twenty-one.

“Don't use such old-fashioned words.” She stood up and stretched, as though she were bored, and he noticed she wasn't wearing a bra, which only made things worse. He could suddenly feel his desire mounting for her.

“Maybe it's just too soon.” He looked at her hopefully, led by what he felt between his legs as much as what he felt in his heart, and hating himself for it. “Maybe we just need more time.”

But she was shaking her head. And she didn't kiss him good night as she walked to the door. “I don't ever want to get married, Bern. It's not my bag. I want to go to California when we graduate and just hang out for a while.” He could suddenly just imagine her there … in a commune.

“What kind of life is 'hanging out'? It's a dead end!”

She shrugged with a smile. “That's all I want right now, Bern.” Their eyes held for a long time. “Thanks anyway for the ring.” She closed the door softly as she left, and he sat alone in the dark for a long, long time, thinking about her. He loved her so much, or at least he thought he did. But he had never seen this side of her, this casual indifference to what someone else felt, and then suddenly he remembered how she had treated her parents when he had visited them. She didn't really seem to care a whole lot about what they felt, and she always thought he was crazy when he called his folks, or bought his mother a gift before he went home. He had sent her flowers on her birthday and Sheila had made fun of him, and now it all came rushing back to him. Maybe she didn't give a damn about anyone, not even him. She was just having a good time, and doing what felt good at the time. And up until then he had been what had felt good to her, but the engagement ring did not. He put it back in the drawer when he went to bed, and his heart felt like a rock as he lay in the dark thinking of her.

And things hadn't improved much after that. She had joined a consciousness-raising group, and one of the subjects they seemed to love to discuss most was her relationship with Bernie. She came home and attacked him almost constantly about his values, his goals, his way of talking to her.

“Don't talk to me like a child. I'm a woman, goddammit, and don't you forget that those balls of yours are only decorative, and not too much so at that. I'm just as smart as you are, I've got just as much guts …my grades are just as good …the only thing I don't have is that piece of skin hanging between your legs and who gives a damn anyway?” He was horrified, and even more so when she gave up ballet. She kept up with the Russian, but she talked a lot about Che Guevara now, and she had taken to wearing combat boots, and accessories she bought at the army surplus store. She was particularly fond of men's undershirts, worn without a bra, with her dark nipples showing through easily. He was beginning to be embarrassed to walk down the street with her.

“You're not serious?” she asked when they talked a lot about the senior prom, and they both agreed that it was corny as hell, but he had admitted to her that he wanted to go anyway. It was a memory to save for another time, and finally she had agreed with him. But she had shown up at his apartment wearing army fatigues open to her waist and a torn red T-shirt underneath. And her boots weren't genuine military but they might as well have been. They were perfect replicas sprayed with gold paint, and she laughingly called them her “new party shoes” as he stared at her. He was wearing the white dinner jacket he had worn to a wedding the year before. His father had gotten it at Brooks Brothers for him and it fit him perfectly, and with his auburn hair and green eyes and the beginnings of a summer tan, he looked very handsome standing there. But she looked ridiculous and he told her so. “That's a rude thing to do to the kids who take it seriously. If we do go, we owe it to them to dress with respect.”

“Oh for chrissake.” She threw herself on his couch with a look of total disdain. “You look like Lord Fauntleroy Christ, wait till I tell my group about this.”

“I don't give a damn about your group!” It was the first time he had lost his temper with her over that and she looked surprised as he advanced on her and stood towering over her as she lay on the couch, swinging her long graceful legs in the fatigues and gold combat boots. “Now get off your ass and go back to your room and change.”

“Screw you.” She smiled up at him.

“I'm serious, Sheila. You're not going in that outfit.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you're not.”

“Then we won't go.”

He hesitated for a fraction of an instant and strode to the door of his room. “You. Not me.
You
won't go. I'm going by myself.”

“Have a good time.” She waved, and he walked outside fuming silently. And he had gone to the dance alone and had a lousy time. He didn't dance with anyone, but he stayed there purposely to prove a point. But she had ruined the evening for him. And she ruined graduation with the same kind of stunt, only worse, because his mother was in the audience. When she came up on the stage, and once she had the diploma in her hand, Sheila turned and made a little speech about how meaningless the token gestures of the establishment were, that there were oppressed women everywhere in the world. And on their behalf, and her own, she was rejecting the chauvinism of the University of Michigan. She then proceeded to tear the diploma in half while the entire audience gasped, and Bernie wanted to cry. There was absolutely nothing he could say to his mother after that. And even less he could say to Sheila that night, before they both began packing up their things. He didn't even tell her how he felt about what she had done. He didn't trust himself to say anything. They said very little, in fact, as she got her things out of his drawers. His parents were having dinner with friends at the hotel, and he was joining them the next day for a luncheon to celebrate his graduation before they all went back to New York. But he looked at Sheila now with an air of despair. The last year and a half seemed about to go down the drain. They had stayed together the last few weeks out of convenience and habit. But he still couldn't accept their separation. Although he had made plans to go to Europe with his parents, he couldn't believe they were through. It was odd how passionate she could be in bed, and how cool everywhere else. It had confused him since the first day they met. But he found himself completely unable to be objective about her. She broke the silence first. “I'm leaving tomorrow night for California.”

He looked stunned. “I thought your parents wanted you to come home.”

She smiled and tossed a handful of socks into her duffel bag. “I guess they do.” She shrugged again and he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to slap her. He had been genuinely in love with her …had wanted to marry her …and all she cared about was what she wanted. She was the most egocentric human being he had ever met. “I'm flying standby to Los Angeles. And I guess I'll hitch a ride to San Francisco from there.”

“And then?”

“Who knows?” She held out her hands, looking at him as though they had just met, not like the friends and lovers they had been. She had been the most important part of his life during his last two years at the University of Michigan, and now he felt like a damn fool. Two years wasted with her.

“Why don't you come to San Francisco after you get back from Europe? I wouldn't mind seeing you there.” Wouldn't
mind?
After two years?

“I don't think so.” He smiled for the first time in hours, but his eyes were still sad. “I have to look for a job.” He knew she wasn't burdened with that. Her parents had given her twenty thousand dollars when she graduated, and he noticed that she hadn't torn that up. She had enough money to live in California for several years. And he hadn't done enough about finding work because he wasn't sure what she would do. He felt like an even bigger fool. And what he wanted most was to find a job in a small New England school, teaching Russian literature. He had applied and was waiting for answers.

“Isn't it kind of stupid to get suckered in by the establishment, Bern, to work at a job you hate, for money you don't need?”

“Speak for yourself. My parents aren't planning to support me for the rest of my life.”

“Neither are mine.” She spat the words at him.

“Planning to look for a job on the West Coast?”

“Eventually.”

“Doing what? Modeling those?” He pointed at her cutoffs and boots and she looked annoyed.

“You'll be just like your parents one day.” It was the worst thing she could say as she zipped up her duffel bag and then stuck a hand out at him. “So long, Bernie.”

It was ridiculous, he thought to himself as he stared at her. “That's it? After almost two years, 'so long'?” There were tears in his eyes and he didn't care what she thought now. “That's hard to believe … we were going to get married …have kids.”

She didn't look amused. “That wasn't what we set out to do.”

“What did we set out to do, Sheila? Just screw each other for two years? I was in love with you, difficult to believe as that may seem now.” He suddenly couldn't imagine what he saw in her, and hated to admit that his mother was right. But she had been. This time.

“I guess I loved you too …” Her lip trembled in spite of her efforts at control, and suddenly she went to him and he clung to her in the barren little room that had once been home to them. “I'm sorry, Bernie … I guess everything changed …” They were both crying and he nodded his head.

“I know …it's not your fault…” His voice was hoarse as he wondered whose fault it was then. He kissed her, and she looked up at him.

“Come to San Francisco if you can.”

“I'll try.” But he never did.

Sheila spent the next three years in a commune near Stinson Beach, and he completely lost track of her, until he got a Christmas card finally with a picture of her. He would never have recognized her. She lived in an old school bus, parked near the coast, with nine other people and six little kids. She had two of her own, both girls apparently, and by the time he heard from her, he didn't care anymore, although he had for a long time, and he had been grateful that his parents hadn't made too much of it. He was just relieved when his mother didn't mention her for a while, and she was relieved that Sheila had disappeared.

She was the first girl he had loved, and the dreams had died hard. But Europe had been good for him. There had been dozens of girls he had met in Paris, London, the south of France, Switzerland, Italy, and he was surprised that traveling with his parents could be so much fun, and eventually they went on to meet friends, and so did he.

He met three guys from school in Berlin and they had a ball, before they all went back to real life again. Two of them were going to law school, and one was getting married in the fall and having a last fling, but he was in great part doing it to avoid the draft, which was something Bernie didn't have to worry about, much to his embarrassment. He had had asthma as a child, and his father had documented it carefully. He had been classified 4-F when he registered for the draft at eighteen, although he hadn't admitted it to any of his friends for two years. But in some ways it was convenient now. He didn't have that to worry about. Unfortunately he was turned down at the schools he applied to, because he didn't have a master's yet. So he applied to Columbia and planned to start taking courses there. All the prep schools had told him to come back again in a year, when he had his degree. But it still seemed a lifetime away, and the general courses he'd signed up for at Columbia didn't fascinate him.