Memorizing You (18 page)

“Everything is killing me.”

He sat on the floor, his thumb still stroking my cheek. He just stared.

I knew what he was doing. Taking more mental snapshots. Things to remember.

“Why do you do that?” I asked. He knew what I meant.

He turned away for a moment, thinking. Glanced at the window. “I think it’s because when I was a kid, maybe seven or eight years old, I used to wake every morning to this sparrow who sat on the ledge singing. Same sparrow, every morning. I know because he had this thing on his wings that looked like a question mark. Singing away like life was grand. I named him Frank after Frank Gorshin in
Batman
. He played The Riddler. The question mark.”

Ryan stood, walked to the window, and looked down at the ledge. He continued, “Then one day, he wasn’t there. No singing. I began leaving sunflowers seeds on the ledge hoping it would bring him back. But it didn’t. He never returned. I found out why a few days later when I was mowing the lawn. I found his bo anyone who thought theyS stepped dy just below my window. I knew it was him because of the question mark. Someone had shot him with a b-b gun.”

“That’s terrible,” I found myself saying with genuine sadness.

“I buried him in a spot that eventually became my garden. There’s a rock there with a question mark I drew in green crayon on it as a headstone.”

I remembered seeing the rock. It had been next to the bowl of raspberries.

“Every morning for a few years afterwards, just before I woke up, I swore I still heard him singing. I’d look to the ledge. No Frank. But it was like I could still hear the last note of his song in the air.” He turned to me, his face intense. “That’s when I knew how important it was to memorize the wonderful things we get in life. Because…well…when they ain’t no longer there, you’ll still see them in that corner of your dream just before you wake up. Our memory is our way of making sure that things are never really gone.”

By the time we got to the kitchen, it was bustling with breakfast activities. It was well after ten o’clock, but apparently everyone had slept in. The only two people not present were Judy and her make-up man. For reasons we could all assume.

Chevy was preparing the vegetarian side of the breakfast with some corn chowder and pitas stuffed with bulgur and vegetables in a yogurt sauce. Marybeth had the regular breakfast fixings with link sausages, scrambled eggs, and French toast.

As we walked into the room, the amiable woman eyed us and grinned. “Ah the smell of innocence abandoned.”

We sat, both blushing hard. It was difficult not giggle as we looked at each other’s red faces.

Donna brought two tall glasses of something that looked like tomato

juice with celery stalks in it. “Bloody Marys,” she explained.

They tasted wonderful. Spicy and salty. It wasn’t long before we could tell they were also potent. anyone who thought theyS stepped

Our night of some rather rigorous energy expenditure made us ravenous. We ate everything put in front of us.

Apparently, Matthew was in charge of keeping everyone high. Donna was in charge of passing out drinks. Marybeth was in charge of making an endless supply of guacamole, salsa, and fresh corn chips. Chevy made more hummus and a dip concocted of black beans and tofu. The rock music was endless with Philippe taking charge of this. I stayed in the pool most of the day with Ryan, which was surreal in itself. Me, in water. Who would have believed it? Our hands seemed naturally interlocked most of the time.

Judy made her appearance at noon. In large sunglasses. Looking beautiful, but shaky. She drank two Bloody Marys in ten minutes. She made no bones about being hungover. She looked more comfortable after the drinks. Matthew rolled her a joint. She was even better after this.

We passed out together on a lawn chair sometime after lunch, and woke up as the smell of dinner sifted through the air. Someone had dragged a table with a pool umbrella over to shade us. Funny how neither one of us heard a thing. I woke with Ryan’s arms around me. When he roused, it was clear one of those arms had fallen asleep. He shook it back and forth to get the circulation back. Strangely, we were both more sore than when we first rose in the morning. It was like a massive muscle cramp all over our bodies. We had done things with them never done before. It was worth the pain.

Dinner was subdued. Everyone was feeling the effects of the indulgences. Burgers and potato salad, and some great, but unpronounceable Indian cuisine from Chevy. By this time, Ryan and I reverted back to drinking only soda. The party had also moved indoors to the more comfortable furniture of Judy’s large and chic den. It looked like an advertisement for a modern furniture catalog. All chrome and glass. Abstract paintings as large as walls. A mirrored bar that ran the length of the room. Chairs that looked like something out Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey
. Steel and leather scoops.

Ryan and I ladled ourselves in a reclining lounge chair. We were feeling lazily at ease. And it was in these seconds and minutes that I became aware of the reality of what burned inside me. That I was feeling something that wasn’t fiction, or make-believe, or just mere words that poets and songwriters use. I was truly in love. I felt it in every square inch of my body. Inside and out. And it was more than desire, because our desire had been satisfied the night before…and I still felt it.

Stronger. Deeper.

His breathing entranced me as he lay with his head on my chest. I realized what I had in me was so intense and disarming that tears had welled in my eyes. I cared about him on such a level there was no sacrifice I could deny him. That the things that composed his nature increased his value in my heart. That his being with me made me feel more whole than I’d been by myself. That I cared for him more than myself. Without him, I’d be incomplete. And it all just instantly made sense.

All of this occurred to me as I watched Brad, the makeup artist, tackle the face of a woman who had never worn makeup a day in her life. Marybeth.

It was a fascinating study in transformation. Amazing. Most of the time we’re used to seeing women with makeup and get used to that look as being their ‘real’ face. When they take the make-up off, they appear to be a colorless canvas. Like they’re disappearing. Erased. But we’d already grown accustomed to seeing the real face of Marybeth, and the addition of makeup created another person. The opposite. It became a mask. There was irony in there somewhere.

She admired his handiwork in the bar mirror.

“What do you think?” Brad awaited her verdict, looking proud.

It took her a minute. Like she couldn’t make up her mind. “I don’t know. It’s beautiful, of course. You always do extraordinary work.”

Brad looked concerned. “What don’t you like?”

She patted his shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t like it, Brad. It’s that it isn’t me. I could never do this. It takes too much time. Besides I don’t have the bone structure.”

Brad poo-poohed this. “Bone structure is nature’s way of telling us that the rest of us need makeup. I can take any face and create a work of art. I’ll show you.”

The lanky man swiveled around, taking in the rest of the room. His eyes

landed on Matthew. The model held up his handZaImys and quickly moved away. “No way, man. Ain’t gonna happen.”

How the two of us, Ryan and me got selected for the honor of the makeovers was due to the pressure of a roomful of very high, very insisting folks. Our friends. It became the show of the evening.

I think it gave both of us an appreciation of what women go through every day. Sitting in a chair for over half an hour while Brad did his work was nerve-racking. Not being able to see what he was doing was equally intriguing. Matthew provided us with periodic shotguns to make the ordeal go easier.

The end product was astonishing. The image that stared back at me from the mirror was like a gorgeous painting blinking back at me. My features had been recreated into a beautiful feminine piece of art.

Working on Ryan’s face was, altogether, another ordeal.

“Now, here we have an example of bone structure,” Brad commented. “All Dudley Do-Right bone structure. Block features and angles.”

Ryan looked at him like he was being insulted.

Brad smiled. “Oh honey, I’m not saying what you think. I’m saying it’s

all Mr. Macho features.”

Philippe joined in. “It doesn’t help with that severe military crew cut. He needs to grow his hair out some to soften the angles.”

The hairdresser looked directly at Ryan. “You need to grow your hair out. Otherwise, you’re going to look like an army recruiting ad.”

“I think he’s gorgeous just the way he is,” Hawaiian shirt man said. “Very butch.”

Philippe shouted out. “Hands for hair?” and stuck his hand up in the air. Everyone elseZaImy held up their hand except for Hawaiian man and Ryan and myself.

I found my hand slowly rising to join the crowd. I’d love to see him with longer hair. I thought it would be very sexy.

“Judy, do you still have that Betty Page wig around here?” Philippe looked to our hostess.

She turned to Matthew. “Top shelf of my closet. Would you be a dear and bring it down?”

Matthew made his way to the bar, refilled his glass, and headed off to his errand. A few moments later, he returned with a black wig on a Styrofoam head.

When everyone who thought they had something to contribute to our makeovers had done their jobs, we were a sight to be seen. Marybeth had pulled out a Polaroid Land Camera to snap some pictures. The kind where you snap the picture, then pull a tab on the side with the negative that develops in a few minutes time.

With my new face, ruby-red lipsticked lips, mascaraed lashes, and the white silk women’s pajamas, I felt more rock star than Jagger. Ryan was even more extreme with his make-up, black Cleopatra wig, and floor-length, red-satin robe with pink boa sash. We were both so high that it gave us a fit of giggles as we appraised each other in the mirror.

“Kiss each other,” Marybeth said, holding the camera up in front of us

to focus. “This is better than lesbian porn.”

Matthew’s body language changed from a couch slump to attention. “There’s lesbian porn?”

When we could contain our laughter, we closed our eyes and kissed. We could feel the flash of the camera. I could smell the scent of Ryan’s light pink Nancy Sinatra lipstick. It was faintly floral.

“You know what really bites my butt?” Marybeth was waving the picture back and forth,$icImy waiting for it to develop. “These two guys make prettier women than me being made up as a woman. And I’m a woman.”

“You’re pretty just the way you are,” Donna said, taking the camera from her partner, and snapping another picture of us as we posed in each other’s arms by the bar. She handed the developing picture to me. As it came together in front of my eyes, I thought it revealing that, in spite of all of our window dressing, I could still see us.

The real us. In our eyes. In our smiles. In the way we held each other. There was no disguising that.

There was a bonding between all of us that weekend. One that came from pure acceptance of each other. As different as all of us were, we saw the beauty of each one of us. There wasn’t one derogatory remark said in belief or in humor.

We drank, ate, smoked, and danced. I got time with Ryan that was defining…for the both of us.

That last night, we showered together, the makeup skimming in watercolors down our bodies to the floor, and saw each other with different eyes.

As we lay on our small sofa in the sewing room, pressed against each other like we’d been Siamese-joined, blue eyes met blue eyes and he said, “You’ll always be my ‘Wow’!”

Those are words that have rang a lifetime in my ears.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I want you to know how wonderful things seemed to me when we had to return to our respective homes, and our regular lives. Me working with Dad, anticipating the workouts with Ryan. I felt a kindred spirit with Ryan’s sparrow, Frank. My heart sang for him.

My business with Dad expanded faster than we could even dream. It became evident that we’d have to find more people to work for us, and buy more equipment to keep up. Plenty of first year college students at Wash U. began applying when we placed the ad in the Post Dispatch. A few recent retire$e mtty es applied as well. Dad favored these to replace me when school began.

The only unpleasantness you’d ever find in my dad was when he was watching Walter Cronkite report national news. Dad hated Richard Nixon. And hate is a very mild word.

“One of these days they’ll discover this idiot is the biggest crook we ever let worm his way into the White House!” he’d shout at the screen. “The only thing that paranoid is missing is the Hitler mustache!”

It went on like that for every broadcast when the president’s name was mentioned.

That month, when the moon landing happened, our household was very much different than the majority of the country. Dad cursed and spat at the television, and then flipped it off during the momentous event. We looked at him like he was a madman.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked.

“Because it didn’t happen. It can’t happen. We can’t even keep a simple plane from dropping out of the sky, and they’re trying to tell us we packed up men in a tin can, flew them hundreds of thousands of miles away with enough fuel and air to land them, and bring them back?” He was seething.

“Nothing but a hoax to make the other countries think we’re all-powerful. It’s all been staged like a movie. The biggest con of all time. And why is it happening now? Because no other president had the guts to make up a lie and perpetrate it on the American people. Whataya wanna bet that we only have moon landings under Nixon, and when the crook is out of office there wouldn’t be anymore?”

In our house, the two topics of conversation that were best to be avoided were Nixon and Vietnam. Both brought out a side of my dad that was not pleasant. The war was a concern to any parent who had a child in high school. By graduation, we’d be age-ready for the draft.