Love Love (15 page)

“Take care of yourself,” Alice said.

“You too.”

Alice rolled away with her cart, but she stopped and rolled back. “I'll be moving away again. In a month.”

“Where to?”

“Boston.”

So Alice was about to embark on a new life in a new town, perhaps with a new man, though Judy didn't get that vibe from her. As someone who knew loneliness more intimately than she'd like, Judy could see the same invisible cloak draped over Alice. Judy wanted to ask her why she was moving to Boston, but then she caught the flitter of discomfort in Alice's eyes.

Judy wanted to say something else, a few generic words of good luck, but the moment passed in silence and Alice leaned against the cart and pushed away. Judy watched her as she merged into the crowd of shoppers, disappearing from view.

12

T
he two suitcases on the bed had been a gift from Alice's parents. They were strong and light with smooth zippers and reinforced corners, but the black suitcases were also open cavities waiting to be filled up with a week's worth of clothes and toiletries and whatever else he'd need. After stacking four shirts and two pairs of pants, Kevin took a break.

He'd never been fond of packing, because the truth was, he never wanted to leave home. Out there, life was mysterious and uncertain. Hotels were basically the same no matter where he went, so they were all unfamiliar in their familiar ways, but that didn't allay his anxiety. He wouldn't consider himself agoraphobic, but perhaps that was in his future. If so, fine by him. He liked his house, his dog, and life would proceed even if he never again stepped a foot outside his front door.

There had been a few times, though, when he hadn't minded leaving, when in fact he'd been thrilled to toss in socks and T-shirts and little bottles of toiletries into a duffel bag. He'd been with Alice for barely two weeks when he suggested they go away for the weekend.

They were sitting at the breakfast nook of his old apartment in Montclair. She was wearing a Penn State shirt of his, nursing her morning coffee.

“Where to?”

He'd known he was pushing, that she had every right to say that they were rushing. In fact, that's what he'd been expecting, so when she saw how she'd stumped him, she laughed.

“You thought I'd say no.”

“Yes.”

“Then let's figure out where we can go.”

After leafing through Kevin's collection of brochures and local magazines, they had it: Stokes Forest. It was an hour north, Route 15 up to Sussex County, where there were fifteen cabins in the state park. Only one was available on short notice, so Kevin made the reservation, and they were off.

It was Mother's Day weekend, almost twenty years ago. Alice tapped her feet to the Beatles on the car radio, “Here Comes the Sun.” They got lost twice, but even that was pleasant, Alice thumbing through his ratty collection of maps, pointing out he had one for every New Jersey county except Sussex. This was the magic of a burgeoning relationship: Nothing could derail it. If they'd gotten into an accident, Kevin was certain they would've walked away from the wreck and laughed it off.

Their cabin was number 15, the most secluded of the lot, located underneath a giant silver maple whose thousands of leaves swayed like small hands conducting the wind. Consisting of a single large room, there were two sets of bunk beds inside the log cabin, the mattresses utilitarian slabs of vinyl-covered foam. They piled two of them together, which made it slightly less uncomfortable to sleep on, though they weren't doing much of that anyway. After making love that night, they walked out naked into their backyard hand in hand, letting the night's easy breeze dry their sweaty bodies. Alice stood like a living work of art, her breasts luminous moons, her hair strands of gold. Kevin supposed he didn't look half bad himself. After all, they were both in their twenties, their muscles and bones working in youthful concert, and it seemed logical to kiss and fall gently onto the ground and do what came naturally to them.

His knees sank into the soft, cool earth. The light from the cabin's window illuminated Alice's hair tangling in the blades of grass, and as they moved in rhythm, they fell deeper into their natural surroundings. They held each other and rolled over until she was on top, and now it was his turn to disappear into the greenery, to feel the night's dampness spread on his back, to smell the freshness of the forest intermingle with the human scent of this woman.

Next morning, they hiked down a nearby canyon. The stream was fast and clean with tiny waterfalls foaming up the water as they followed the path.

“We had sex,” Alice said, “outside.”

“I can't believe it, either,” Kevin said. “I've never done it outside of a bed, to tell you the truth.”

“Not even a car?”

“No.”

“We'll have to fix that.”

Alice jumped over a wet patch of earth and landed on the ball of her left foot, a set of movements that was as efficient as it was elegant. Her balance was impeccable, innate, and the same could be said of her temperament. There was an inner calm about her, a place he couldn't touch, at least not yet. It made him hungry for her, to know her, to be with her.

“Is this something we should expect, that we'll keep doing crazy things when we're together?” she asked.

Hearing her say that word,
together
, made him want to jump, so he did. He leaped where she'd leaped, over the wetness and onto the exact same spot, except he weighed another fifty pounds and the ground reacted differently. Something woody cracked underneath, and Kevin lost his footing and his right ankle turned a funny way. Luckily, he was able to avoid wiping out altogether by shifting his weight to his other foot and grabbing onto Alice's outstretched arms.

“You're hurt.”

“I might be.”

“Lean on me,” Alice said. “We'll just backtrack and get back to the car.”

They'd been walking for a good half an hour, probably a mile away from the parking lot. Alice was not a small woman, but Kevin was afraid she was overestimating her endurance. He tried to put weight on his ankle, but the pain made his head woozy.

“Don't be one of those men,” she said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “We'll get through this, but only if you let me.”

They passed the time by taking in the beauty around them. There were large clusters of hydrangeas along the path, a sudden burst of white, a subdued flare of lavender, a benevolent bouquet of yellow. It took twice as long, and they stopped several times for Kevin to rest his good leg and Alice to catch her breath. On the way, they met a father and his teenage son, and the man asked if they could help in any way. Before Kevin had a chance, Alice spoke up.

“Thank you, but no, we're okay. Have a great day.”

She hadn't sounded confrontational, but almost. After they'd gone, she told him, “I can take care of you. Of us.”

“I know.”

“If I needed the man's help,” she added, “I would've asked for it.”

It was a lie, but back then, Kevin hadn't known that. He hadn't known how Alice would always be ready to extend herself but never receive in return. He argued with her that couples operated best on a balance, that give-and-take was an implicit contract to marriage, but she never budged. Eventually he relented and learned to live in her debt, which was what she wanted, what must've made her feel safe.

That Sunday morning at Stokes Forest, as he sat in bed and watched while she packed them back up for their return, he couldn't stop himself from making yet another ask.

“It's Mother's Day today,” he said. “I think the best gift I can give my mom is for you to meet her.”

Alice, done with her suitcase, moved onto Kevin's duffel. “And why do you think that?”

“You'd get along,” he said. “She would like you.”

“If she didn't?”

“Tough.”

Her back was to him, but he could tell she'd liked that answer. He didn't exactly know how, but he felt it, like a puzzle piece snapping into place. He'd dated plenty of girls before, many he'd been fairly crazy about, but this was not the same. Being with a woman he liked had been like the quenching of a thirst, but with Alice, there was no release. His desire for her was a constant, pervasive hum, chugging along in the background of his mind.

Holy shit,
he thought to himself.
This is love.

He rode in the passenger seat of his sedan, a seldom-experienced perspective that let him feel like an outside observer to his own life. Riding down Route 206, past the canary-yellow clusters of forsythia in bloom along the road, they drove through the towns of his youth. He told her about Old Man Rafferty's in Hillsborough, where Kevin and his friends always ordered dessert first as the menu instructed (“Life is short!”). On the night of their senior prom, they walked around Harlingen Cemetery and toasted their beers to the dearly departed. And at Montgomery Cinemas, he'd
seen his first foreign-language film,
Il Postino
, a movie he'd found so moving that his date asked him if he was all right when she saw him sobbing like a little girl.

“That was our first and only date,” Kevin said.

“That last part, where the guy is playing the sounds he'd recorded for Neruda . . .”

“Stop, you're gonna get me all
verklempt
!”

As they neared Princeton, Alice pulled over at an Exxon station and grabbed her purse.

“Not Mother's Day without flowers,” she said. Kevin reached for his wallet, but Alice put a hand on his arm. “My treat.”

With a bundle of red carnations in his lap, he gave Alice turn-by-turn directions to his parents' house.

“Is there anything I should know?” Alice asked.

“Not really. My father doesn't speak much. He doesn't exactly have command of the English language, though even if he did, he wouldn't say much. My mother does translation work for the university, both oral and written, so she talks like a native.”

“You have a sister.”

“Still in college. Supposed to have graduated a couple years ago, but it didn't happen.”

They made the final turn, but instead of parking in front of the white mailbox of his parents, they stopped behind a police cruiser.

Kevin sighed.

“You're not concerned,” Alice said.

“Not yet, no,” he said.

The commotion was where it always was, between his mother and her nemesis, Mrs. Fugate, by the Tolkien-esque sycamore tree that sat between the two backyards.

“So I take it this is not an anomaly,” Alice said as they made their way over. Kevin's ankle was better, but he still leaned on her for support.

“No. The cop and I are on a first-name basis. If it wasn't my mother arguing with her neighbor, it was my sister, Judy, getting into some sort of fight, disorderliness, whatever.”

“I like your family already.”

“You can have them,” Kevin said. “This has been an ongoing feud, by the way—the old neighbors moved, and the tree sits on the property line.”

The cop on duty was indeed the one he almost considered a friend, Mitch. Kevin's mother was holding a tall tree trimmer, the kind with the blade at the tip and a rope on a pulley to snap the cut. She was in her gardening outfit of green gloves and Mets baseball cap, and she held the pole with both hands, looking as if she had no intention of letting it go.

“Kevin,” Mitch said, grateful for his arrival. “Can you please talk some sense into your mother here? Your dad has given up—he went back in the house to make me deal with this mess.”

“Mom,” Kevin said with an open hand, motioning for the trimmer. “Please.”

“It's my tree.”

Mrs. Fugate, arms crossed, snorted her displeasure. “The hell it is.”

“If she doesn't stop,” Mitch told Kevin, “I'm gonna have to bring her in. I'm serious. I know it's Mother's Day, but Dr. Fugate plays golf with the chief, you know? I have to do something”—and now he was talking to Kevin's mother—“unless Mrs. Lee promises once and for all to modify this tree only if she and the Fugates come to a written agreement beforehand.”

“They don't take care of it,” Mrs. Lee said. “I've been doing this for a long time. It's my right.”

“Kevin,” Mitch said. “Please don't make me do this.”

“Hi,” Alice said to Mrs. Lee. “I'm Alice, a friend of Kevin's. I see the pile of branches you have here already. Do you have much more to cut?”

“Just one more.”

Everyone looked up when she pointed her trimmer to the branch that clearly needed cutting, a dry brown bone of a thing, looking like a desiccated claw grabbing at the sky.

“Which is clearly on my side,” Mrs. Fugate said. “I've had enough of this. I'm going to have my husband call Chief Maddox right now.”

While Mitch attempted to placate Mrs. Fugate, Kevin watched his mother and Alice talk without talking. Alice smiled, then his mother smiled, and then she passed the trimmer to Alice and stood as a human shield against Mitch the cop while Alice excised the dead wood. It bounced from branch to branch, end over end, heading for Mrs. Fugate, who ran away screaming.