Night Swimming (21 page)

“But someone you loved had died. My situation is completely different from yours.”

“The situation isn’t exactly the same, but the process is similar. Love is love, Blossom. It’s a universal truth. You say you love someone who doesn’t love you, and this is making you sad. Accept the sadness. Give yourself time to be sad. I did, and you know what happened? One day I was sad for a little less time than I had been the day before. And the next day I was sad for a little less time than that. And slowly the emptiness began to shift. Hell, it practically took an earthquake to shake me up, but I finally felt it. I was never good with subtlety.”

Blossom smiled a little. Something of what that old bartender had said back in New Orleans reverberated in her.
Sadness is okay. You have to have sadness to truly know happiness. Then, when you get it, it’s all that much sweeter, like honey from a rock. Yeah, that’s what he said. Like honey from a rock.

Dolly continued: “But let me tell you something, darling, sadness no longer tore me apart or made me so afraid. I knew I could get through it because I had accepted something. Something that helped me. And it wasn’t the phone calls from friends who felt obliged, or the sleeping pills, or the endless glasses of brandy, or the noise of the TV, which distracted me from the pain. I had myself. I accepted myself. That’s when it began to be okay. And this is where it is the same, Blossom. Are you catching my drift, or am I gonna have to bring in the June Taylor dancers?”

“I’m catching your drift.”

“Good, ’cause most of those dancers are dead.” Blossom smiled again. “My husband’s death took so much, but it didn’t take what was essential for me to live. For a while I thought I died with him, but after a few months I was still here. Yet I was still feeling terrible. I couldn’t go through life feeling this bad anymore. I had to come to my own rescue.” Blossom realized at that moment that talking was as much a catharsis for Dolly as it was for her.

“Life hands us lessons, and my lesson was to face this awful situation and grow from it, Blossom. I thought love had been taken away from me, but it hadn’t been. I was still the same person who had loved Mr. Feingold and my old aunts and my cousins and my friends. I still had love inside of me, and I still had it to give. Some people spend their whole life searching for love, Blossom. And the thing of it is, it’s right there, inside of themselves. If you can find that inside yourself, then you will find the source of your happiness. Believe me, I went through a lot of tsuris, not to mention therapy with Dr. Yagozoski, to come to this realization. I hope I can spare you that.”

“Doctor who?”

“My shrink. I know his name reads like an eye chart. But he came highly recommended. He helped that famous actress who was found in the bushes.”

“Oh, yeah, I know the one. But, Dolly, what happens if I never find that special love, that one true love that every person has a right to know in their lifetime? The love that loves you back?”

“Find the love inside of yourself, Blossom, and the rest will follow. I promise you this with every inch of my being. I know this much is true, and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

Blossom walked over to the window and peered out through a separation in the fabric. She saw Skip carrying a large potted plant across the lawn.

“I don’t even know if I have that kind of love inside myself.”

“You do, my dear. Everyone does.”

Blossom sighed under her breath. If only Dolly knew the whole story.

“You must think I’m foolish. It’s not even like I have a relationship with this man, and yet I can feel so devastated.”

“You do in your heart. And sometimes unrequited love can be more painful than actually having the relationship. I bet his wife is not in the same kind of pain as you are, and yet she’s had the relationship. Love stinks sometimes.”

Blossom got that. She understood it with excruciating precision. “Thanks, Dolly.” She looked at Dolly with utter reverence. Here was a woman who had been through so much and was still here to tell the story. Dolly was like a well so deep that if one were to drop a coin into it, it would be a long time before they heard the splash. Yes, Blossom thought, her soul is as old as Stonehenge. She wished she could have the opportunity to grow into a woman like that.

Dolly interrupted her thoughts: “Oh, Blossom, dear, I almost forgot why I came over. Here are the tickets to that Tony Bennett concert I mentioned. They should be good seats.”

“Tony Bennett?” Blossom exclaimed. She couldn’t believe her ears. “You never said it was a Tony Bennett concert.”

“I didn’t? Do you like him?”

“Like him? Like him? I love him. I have every CD he’s ever made.”

“The only drawback is that you may have plans. It falls on Thanksgiving,” Dolly said, “and that’s the reason I can’t go. I promised my niece I would spend it with her family this year. She’s not really my niece. She’s more of an honorary niece, someone who I’ve known since birth.”

Blossom had forgotten all about the holidays. Here in L.A. the weather didn’t get cold, the leaves didn’t change color, and it just didn’t feel like Thanksgiving to Blossom at all. In fact, she was grateful to have plans that day.

“Thanksgiving is perfect, Dolly. There is no one I’d more like to spend it with than Tony Bennett.”

“So you see, my dear, things are already looking up. A few minutes ago I was ready to force you to watch those motivational tapes, all one hundred and thirty-six hours of them.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yes, I’m kidding. There are actually two hundred and thirty-six hours of them.”

Charlotte found her laugh. “Tony Bennett. I’ve waited all my life to see Tony Bennett.”

“And now it’s happening. You see?” she said as she turned to leave. “And so will love.”

CHAPTER 34

T
HAT EVENING
B
LOSSOM
slipped back into the pool, becoming lost again in her own lush liquid world. She lay on her back, looking up into the ineffable darkness, listening for answers. But there were only stars. Watery spears of light shooting across the night sky.

She wished she could pitch a tent among the stars and wait for God. That way she’d be even closer to hearing the answers when He finally whispered them in her ear.

Each star was beautiful tonight, blinking down at her from nowhere at all. A fistful of fire opals, white gold, a whole sky salted with silver, randomly shaken onto a vast black silk swath.

Back and forth, back and forth, she began her nightly routine, her breath breaking like white noise around her ears.

At first all she could think about was Tony Bennett. But the rhythm of her strokes brought her around to other thoughts. How many months did she have left? she wondered. It took eight months before her mother showed any symptoms of cancer. She was fine, and then one day she was not. Blossom presumed the same fate awaited her. She’d be fine until she woke up one morning, and it would be obvious. It would be over.

But for now she was still alive. She was still waking up every morning as a member of the living world. Was this how she wanted it to be when she left Gorham? Was this how she envisioned the last year of her life? Mooning after someone who could not reciprocate in the same way? No, this was not what she had wanted. What she wanted was simple. To love and to be loved. To come to Hollywood, a place she had heard so much about, a place she believed that dreams could come true, and to find her destiny. Was that too much to ask? Clearly, it was.

Why do I want love so much? Is it because I don’t want to be alone in the end?
She struggled to stay honest with herself. She believed it was more than that, but she also believed it was okay that love serve as a buffer against loneliness.
Isn’t this true for people who are not dying? Isn’t this an unsaid truth for most of the men and women we pass on the street every day? The women who are buying Cheerios at the grocery store, the men who are fixing their ties at a stoplight, looking at their watches, late for a meeting? People don’t want to live alone, and they certainly don’t want to die alone.
Yes, it was true.

Perhaps, she thought, she could look for love elsewhere. After all, the world was filled with people. Skip was not the only man on earth. But then again, there were her feelings. How could she just turn off her feelings?

This question was so familiar. Why? She swam, back and forth, back and forth and then it finally came to her. Of course, it was difficult to remember. She had tried so hard to forget. She’d experienced those very feelings with T. J. Just thinking about him brought the horror of that evening. It was a moment that would remain fixed in time. As if the hands of the church clock had frozen because of some chance cold snap, hands that stayed locked in the final stroke of their last bitter seconds. All one could hear, now and forever, were the hollow groans of loss blowing through the bell towers above the town.

And Charlotte remembered, “Go find her, T. J.” The words still echoed in Blossom’s ears like a judge’s gavel bringing down the final sentence. If she could only take them back. The guilt was overwhelming. How could she have let her own feelings dominate everything? How could she have told him to go and find MaryAnn? After he’d hurt MaryAnn so, she’d never agree to come back to Charlotte’s with him. Better to join him over there. She had rushed over to MaryAnn’s house, but no one had been there. Where could they be? She decided to leave a note:
Out looking for you. Will go home after. Please, please, call me there as soon as you get this.

She drove past the school, the 7-Eleven, the Mobil station; she drove past T. J.’s house, the police station, the post office, then finally decided this was futile and went home. They could at least reach her there. Barely an hour had passed when the phone rang.

“MaryAnn, I’m so glad to hear from you, I—”

But MaryAnn cut her off. “Charlotte, I’m at the hospital.”

Oh, my God. What happened? Did she hurt herself?

“Are you okay? I’m coming over right now.”

“No, don’t.”

MaryAnn was sobbing. “But, MaryAnn, I—”

“Charlotte, it’s T. J....T. J....He’s dead. He was drunk. He drove straight into a tree on Lowell Street.” There was silence, and then MaryAnn continued.

“Did he go to your house, Charlotte?”

Oh, God, he was at my house. How could I have told him to leave when he was drunk?

“Was he at your house?” MaryAnn asked again.

“Yes, he was.”

“Was he drunk?”

“Yes, it seemed as if he’d been drinking a lot.”
And I let him go. I let him drive that way.
Charlotte bit her lip till it bled. “I’m coming over to the hospital. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“No, don’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to.”

“MaryAnn, please...”

“No, don’t. I have to go with his parents to ID the body now. I don’t want you here.”

“Oh, please, MaryAnn, please don’t be alone right now.”

“I’m not alone. I’m with the person I’m supposed to be with.”

Everything changed after that. MaryAnn withdrew from the friendship. Charlotte felt terrible. If she hadn’t told T. J. how she felt, maybe he’d still be alive. Maybe she and MaryAnn would still be friends. Maybe God was punishing her. She would never tell MaryAnn the truth—it would only hurt her, and there was nothing to be gained by her having such knowledge now. No, Charlotte would have to carry her grief over losing T. J. privately. Everyone felt so bad for MaryAnn; no one guessed the anguish Charlotte suffered. But guilt began to outweigh anguish, especially because it was clear that MaryAnn blamed her for T. J.’s feelings and his death. Charlotte blamed herself even more.
If only,
she’d think.
If only, if only, if only...

Seducing Tom away from her had been MaryAnn’s way of getting even, and Charlotte had no choice but to painfully accept the situation. Perhaps there was a part of Charlotte that felt undeserving, guilty.
Yes, this is right; why should I have Tom? MaryAnn deserves his love more than I do.

But this was years ago, and the guilt was still there, nipping at her heels, like tiny fish that swim in the shadow of the shark, nibbling incessantly at its skin no matter where it goes. Guilt had become a symbiotic relationship for her.

But wasn’t it her turn now? Hadn’t she paid her dues, learned enough lessons? Why was it that there were so many hard lessons to learn in life, in love? Why, she wondered, couldn’t it all be as easy as floating on your back and looking at the stars?

CHAPTER 35

E
IGHT-THIRTY IN THE MORNING
would have found Blossom at her desk a year ago, but now it was early for her, so early she was roused from a deep sleep. What had woken her? A knock at the door, followed by “Blossom, you in there?”

Jesus.
She flew through the closet, looking for anything to throw on. A wrinkled caftan fell to the floor, and she grabbed it up and shimmied into it. It was bigger than she’d remembered. And it simply wouldn’t adjust to fit quite right. But she had no time to think about that now. She had to answer the door.

She took a quick glance through the peephole as if visually bracing herself, and there he was, looking handsome as ever even through this unflattering lens.

“Skip!”

“Blossom. Hi. You’re finally home. I tried to find you yesterday. You were nowhere in sight. Listen, I’m so sorry about the other night. Can I come in?”

“Yes, by all means, come in. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, no thanks. I can’t stay, but I just wanted to apologize and tell you what happened.”

Blossom didn’t say a word. An apology was appropriate, and she took it. And she was curious about what happened, so she didn’t stop him.

“Jeannie came over...to give me the present.”

Right, right. Must have been some present.

“We got to talking. I thought she was just going to stay until I opened it. But she ended up staying longer.”

The night?

“She said she was glad we had this time together, because she had wanted to get together for a while now, but with her schedule and mine...”