Man, Woman and Child (5 page)

"You forgot something," she said. And in her left hand she held out the football tie.

"Thank you. I guess I looked pretty stupid wear-ingit"

"No," she said gently. "I think it was the sweaters that made you look a little weird/'

<^1

44 Erkh Segal

"Oh/' he said. And then, 'Tm just getting over a cold/'

"Oh," she answered, perhaps beheving him. 'Why d you leave?"

"I don't function well in mobs."

'Me either/' she said.

'You were doing okay."

'Really? I felt like a piece of meat in a butcher's window."

"Well, mixers are always like that/'

"I know," she said.

"Then why'd you come?" A stupid question. Bob instantly regretted asking it.

"I was going stir crazy up in Poughkeepsie," she answered. "Besides, can you imagine how depressing it is trying to study on a Saturday night in an all-girls' school?"

Say something, Beckwith! She asked you a question.

"Uh—would you like to take a walk?" God, I hope she doesn't think I want to lure her to the room. "Uh—I mean in the courtyard."

"Good idea/' she said. "It's incredibly stuffy in there."

As they descended the stone stairway and strolled out into the chilly autumn evening, they introduced themselves.

"I'm Bob Beckwith. And as you probably can tell, I'm a math major."

"Are you always so self-deprecating?"

"Only with girls. I didn't catch your name."

"Sheila—Sheila Goodhart. And I haven't picked a major yet. Is that okay?"

"It's terrific, Sheila. It shows intellectual independence." She smiled.

lliey walked slowly around tlie courtyard. The band was barely audible.

"This college is so beautiful/' she said. ''It's like another century."

"Which reminds me," Bob replied, ignoring his non sequitur, "are you busy next weekend?"

"Yes," she said.

He was crushed.

"Oh."

"I mean with midterms. Fve got to cram. How about the week after?"

"How about if I came up to Vassar next week and we studied together? I really mean study. Sheila, 'cause I'm a grind and I've got midterms too."

"Okay, Bob. I'd like that."

"Great." His heart was pirouetting.

Half an hour later, he walked her to Chapel Street, where the buses were waiting. Bob was in turmoil. To kiss or not to kiss, that was the question. At length he concluded that it would be best to play it safe. Why risk grossing her out?

"Well," he said as she was about to board the bus, "I look forward to next weekend. Uh—but I'll call you around the middle of the week. Like—er— maybe Wednesday at eight-fifteen. Okay?"

"Okay," she said and then, "So long." She turned and darted up the steps.

He watched her walk toward the back of the bus. She found a seat on his side, sat down and looked out at him. She was gorgeous even through a dirty windowpane.

He stood transfixed as the bus moved away from the curb, then down the street and into the New Haven night.

"Beckwith, where the hell'veyou been?" "Out, Bernie."

"I was looking everywhere for you. Did you duck the mixer?"

*'No/'

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What happened, goddammit, what happened?"

Bob waited. Finally he smiled and said, "Let's just put it this way, Bernie: The tie worked."

NA'HEN HE KISSED HER THE NEXT WEEKEND, IT WAS

all over. He knew for certain she would be the love of his life. Don t ask precisely how. He just was absolutely sure.

In the few minutes preceding that fateful embrace, as they were walking from the Vassar canteen to her dorm, he made a final frantic attempt to dry his palms. Again and again he rubbed them against his sweater—to no avail. He could not, therefore, reach for her hand. Instead he very casually put his right arm around her shoulder. This accomplishment, mentally rehearsed all that previous week, was followed by a startling and unexpected development: she put her left arm around his waist.

What does this mean? thought Bob.

To any casual observer, it had been an ordinary college date. They sat opposite one another in the library reading all afternoon, went off campus for pasta at Francesco's, and returned to the library, where they both, true to their words, really studied. Not just their books, but each other.

There were the inevitable biographical details. Sheila was the youngest of three daughters of a Fairfield County physician. Her mother (''the only

47

Democrat in town"), was second-string art critic for the Stamford Gazette. Not only had her parents never divorced, they didn't even want to. Which is probably why both her sisters had married so young.

Bob's father had taught math at Penn for nearly forty years, during which time he published two textbooks and assembled a vast collection of jokes. C'Oh, that's where you get your sense of humor.") Bob's mother had died when he was barely seven, and Dan Beckwith thought it best to send his son to boarding school. Fortunately, Lawrenceviile was less than an hour from Philly, so they could spend all their weekends together. Weekdays were pretty dismal, though, until the first form, when Bernie Ackerman arrived upon the scene. Even then he was a total madman, walking sports encyclopedia and fanatically loyal friend.

''Thanks to Bern, I met my future wife/' Bob said to Sheila at dinner.

''Oh?" Her face was quizzical.

"You," he said.

She laughed.

"I'm not joking," he insisted.

"We've just met," she answered, looking away.

"Sheila, by their third date, Romeo and Jiiliet were already dead."

"You're crazy."

"Yes. About you.*'

This was over coffee and dessert. No further mention of matrimony was made that evening. Bob felt he had said it all. And Sheila felt he'd just been teasing her.

But she really liked him. Which is why she put her arm around him.

At the doorstep of Josselyn Hall there was the usual mob of couples, urgently getting in their final smooches.

"I wish you didn't have the long trip back to Yale," said Sheila.

'*Ask me to stay/' retorted Bob.

"You're never serious."

''That is where you're v^ong, Miss Goodhart. I've never been more serious."

What happened next became the subject of debate for years to come. Who initiated that first kiss?

''I did/' Sheila steadfastly maintained.

''Come on, Sheila, you were petrified/'

"And you...?"

"I was cool. But when I realized that you wouldn't sleep a wink that night, I put you out of your misery."

"Robert, don't make such a hero of yourself. I remember you just standing there, humming and hawing and blathering about exams, checking your watch every second—"

"Lies, Sheila."

"—and my heart melted."

"Ah."

"And I said to myself, If I don't kiss him now he may go catatonic."

"You make it sound like first aid."

"Well, I'm a doctor's daughter and I knew a basket case when I saw one. Besides, I was already in love with you."

"Then why the hell didn't you say so?"

"Because I was afraid you'd ask me to marry you again."

"So what?"

"I might have accepted/'

"All right, Sheila, tell me everything." "About what?"

"About the boy you were kissing." "His name is Bob."

"'Bob who, what, how and since when?"

The interrogator was Margo Fulton, self-styled mistress of letters, femme fatale, wit, purveyor of news and dispenser of worldly advice. The Aspasia of Josselyn Hall. Also the owner of a private telephone, which she allowed certain campus divinities to make use of. Sheila had been among those so honored in the days when she was going with Ken, her high school beau. (He had subsequently received a Fulbright to England and in Margo's words, ''dumped you like the rat-head I always knew he was.")

''Well, Sheil, Fm panting for the details. Tell me all. Did he try anything?"

"I don't know what you mean, Margo," Sheila insisted.

"Oh, come on, don't be coy with your dearest friend." Margo's designation was, as usual, self-styled. "By the way," she added, "I had a fantastic weekend."

"Oh?" said Sheila.

Margo reluctantly gave in to this demand for full disclosure.

"I think it's love," she added. "I mean, it's passion for sure. His name is Peter, he plays polo, and he thinks Fm an absolute sex-bomb."

"Margo—you haven't..."

"No comment, Sheil."

It was rumored around the dorm that Margo was not a virgin. It was also rumored that she herself had started the rumor.

"How did you meet him?" Margo asked, suddenly changing the topic again.

"Last weekend at Yale. At a mixer, if you can believe it."

"A mixerl Good Lord, I haven't been to one of

those in years. Though actually I did meet Rex at one freshman year. You remember Rex?"

"I think so."

''He was an absolute volcano. I mean, Sheila, you have no idea. By the way, how tall is he?"

"Who, Rex?"

''No, your Yalie. I couldn't see how tall he was. He was bending over to, you know, kiss you."

Unwilling to provide Margo's rumor mill with the grist of Bob's vital statistics, Sheila answered with a question. "He's cute, isn't he?"

But Margo kept interrogating. "Is he sincere or jnst another rat-head sex maniac?"

"He's nice," Sheila answered. And thought to herself. He's really redly nice.

"He looks like a basketball player. Is he?''

*'I didn't ask him, Margo."

"'Well, what on earth did you talk about?"

'"Things," Sheila said, not wanting to betray a syllable of what they said to one another.

"Oh," said Margo, "that sounds tres piquant. Anyway, you're a lucky woman if he's a basketball player. They make the best lovers. Or so they tell me. Actually, Douglas was a bit of a disappointment."

Sheila did not bother to ask who Douglas was, for she well knew that she was about to hear.

"Just because he was Princeton's high scorer, he thought he could score with me on the first date. A filthy-minded tiger-rat. Do you remember Douglas?"

"Yes, the Princeton star," Sheila offered.

"Well, he thought he was a star anyway. He had jnore arms than an octopus. I was so insulted I told him never to call me again. And do you remember what he did after that?"

"What?"

"He never called. Not even to apologize. Fink tiger-rat. Anyway, your Yalie's quite attractive. Do you think you'll.. /'

None of your dirty-minded business, Sheila thought. But since she'd always felt that Margo meant well underneath it all, she answered simply, "Time will tell."

"When are you seeing him again?"

"Next weekend. Fll be going there."

"Oh," said Margo. "By the way, does he have a friend?"

"I could ask. But I thought you were through with undergraduates."

"Yes, but Fm doing this for you. Sheila. You need the benefit of my experience."

"What you're saying, Margo, is that you haven't got a date next weekend. Right?"

"Well, as it happens, yes. Peter was too juvenile to ask me straight out. You can use my phone tomorrow if you like."

"Thanks, Margo," Sheila said, and yawned to give her friend a hint.

"Sweet dreams," said Margo. "We'll chat tomor-

row."

At long last she left, to visit someone else for yet another soul-to-soul encounter.

Sheila lay back in her bed and smiled. I wonder if he's serious, she thought.

"Thanks for the car, Bern."

"Did you use it?"

"Obviously. I drove to Vassar—"

"I know you drove, schmuck. I mean the back seat."

Bob had to satisfy his roommate's intellectual curiosity.

'Teah. I banged her twelve times."

"You^re lying."

**Would you believe six?"

''Stop lying, Beckwith."

''Okay, Bern. The honest truth is that I kissed her. Once."

"Now I know you're lying."

It was after three and this was midterm week, but nonetheless Bob sat and fed his friend a few well-chosen vague details.

"Fm getting the impression that you like her, Beckwith."

"Well, I think I do." (To say the least!)

"Is she that great-looking?"

Of course she is, you asshole. You'd faint if she just looked at you with those green eyes. But Fm not giving you specifics. So Bob hid behind a little erudition.

"Remember Spenser's 'Epithalamion'? Well, she has that 'inward beauty which no eyes can see.' "

"In other words she's fugly, right?"

Bob smiled.

"Don't you think I could pick a winner, Bern?"

"Frankly, no. I mean, what would she see in you?"

"I don't know," Bob answered, poker-faced. He rose and started toward his bedroom.

"Where ya goin'?"

"To sack out. Good night." He closed the door.

Inside his tiny cubicle, Bob took out a leaf of Branford College stationery and wrote:

16 November 1958 (3:45 AM.) Sheila—

I meant every word I said. Bob

1 HE FXJNNY THING IS THAT THEY DID GET MARRIED.

Not as soon as either of them wanted, but in June of 1960, one week after Sheila's graduation. Everyone was happy, though at times during their long engagement Sheila's mother, who "thought the world" of Bob, tried to convince her daughter not to hurry into matrimony.

"You're both so young. Why not live a little first?"

"I want to. Mother. But I want to live with himr

Dan Beckwith had no such hesitations. "She's a super girl," he told his son, "just super."

They honeymooned in the Bahamas, where Bob, unaccustomed to the tropics, got a serious case of sunstroke. His bride became his nurse.

"Maybe this is God's way of punishing us for not waiting till the wedding," Sheila said, almost half believing it.

Bob merely groaned and said, "Gimme some more Noxzema, huh?"

As she gently rubbed his blazing back, she once again posed the question of divine retribution for their premarital pleasures.

54

"Sheila," said the boihng lobster Bob, ''even if the sunburn is a punishment, it's worth it for a year of making love to you/'