Portion of the Sea (36 page)

“Day mostly. There’s laws that don’t let women work that late, you know.”

“Then you’re done for today?”

“Unless someone important dies before I catch the bus, yes I am.”

“How would you like to attend the convention with me?”

Thoughts of my lonely little apartment rummaged through my mind and GOP delegates nominating Nixon sounded better than me collapsing onto my sofa bed as I did every night. “I’d love to,” I answered. “Although I’m not used to all the excitement of a convention. The department where I work is a bit quieter, you know.”

He laughed and handed me a pile of the papers. “You mind holding this half?”

“Not at all.”

The convention turned out to be a lively and patriotic experience for me and, without any reference to political parties, it as a whole reminded me that freedom and self-government are for everyone, not just for some, and they are worth fighting for, if need be. The message was simple, I thought.

That night, after the interviews were over and the energy died down, Ethan and I parted outside the front doors of the convention hall. He insisted on driving me home, but I knew he had deadlines to make, and, besides, I didn’t want him knowing where I was living. It was my problem, and I’d work my way out of it soon enough.

The next morning, Ethan was like a burst of living energy when he showed up in the obituary department.

“I was wondering what time you break for lunch,” he said. “Maybe we might try someplace quiet being that last night we were surrounded by thirteen hundred GOP delegates.”

“Yes, quiet does sound nice,” I answered. “I just have to finish this last
obituary. Did you get everything in last night?”

“Of course. That speech by Barry Goldwater removing himself from the race, where he called on the conservatives to take back the party, was the highlight of the convention. I got a great interview with him outside after we said good-bye.”

Over lunch, Ethan and I discussed the other side of things, of Senator Kennedy’s theme of getting the country moving again, and how he assailed the missile gap with the Russians and denounced the Eisenhower administration for allowing a Communist regime to come to power in Cuba. And we talked about how Nixon criticized Kennedy for his lack of experience.

We went for lunch again the next day and the next and the next after that, and soon we started going for dinner after work, long and quiet at a nice restaurant or quick as a midnight snack, depending on the hours we worked and the deadlines we had to meet. And once, we went to see Marlena as supporting actress in an independent film that made it to the States! It was playing at a little art theater on the south side of the city, and I could hardly contain myself, for when she showed up on the big screen, playing the part of a nasty school teacher at a private girl’s boarding house, I jumped up from my seat, whistled, and screamed, and Ethan had to pull me back down again. I went back and saw that movie five more times by myself. I was so proud of her!

Ethan and I could analyze the news for hours, turning headlines into major discussions. We differed on what constitutes newsworthiness, or which story should have made the front page and why, or which story appeared slanted, or why one story was given abundant coverage while another got a blurb. Events I hadn’t paid attention to were escalating in Vietnam, and Ethan insisted it was newsworthy and would only become more so.

But I was mostly interested in things happening locally, in the windy city, until one September evening another wind from far away caught my attention.

“Hurricane Donna is headed for the Caribbean,” I said to Ethan over dinner. “I hope it doesn’t hit Florida.”

“Too soon to tell,” he said. “There’s uncertainty at this point.”

“Donna is moving into the Gulf to the west of Sanibel,” I said the next day over lunch. “With winds over a hundred miles per hour.”

“I didn’t hear any mention of Sand-ball,” he said. “What exactly is Sandball?”

“Sanibel. It’s a barrier island in Southwest Florida. Maybe they didn’t actually mention Sanibel. Maybe I just thought I heard it. I know it’s still too soon to tell where the thing is headed.”

I didn’t want to say more about Sanibel, for the weather forecasts were already stirring up thoughts of Josh in my mind, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Ethan and I had become romantically involved just a few weeks prior; so, the thoughts and concerns I was having for Josh were only confusing me. I didn’t feel like going back there in my mind, to some guy I hadn’t seen or spoken to or written in ages. But still, my feelings for Josh felt stronger than those I had for my current man, the one who was a realistic part of my everyday life. I scared myself but couldn’t help it.

“Many lives were lost as Donna skirted to the north of Puerto Rico with one hundred-and-thirty-five mile-per-hour winds,” I read from the paper to Ethan over dinner.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said.

“Its course suddenly changed to almost a true west heading,” I told him over coffee Wednesday morning, September 7.

“You still don’t know for sure that it’s going to hit your little Sanibel Island.”

I wandered in and out of the weather department all morning, and, later in the day, Donna had begun to move more to the northwest, and the Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for southwest Florida.

Shortly after, the watch had been upgraded to a hurricane warning, and I pictured both Marlena and poor Josh boarding up their windows and securing anything that might blow away. I knew from a letter that Marlena had returned to Sanibel after finishing work on her first film, and I worried about her.

It was mid-afternoon on Thursday, September 8, when my phone at work rang.

“Hi Lydia,” said a female voice.

“Marlena! I saw your movie! You’re going to win an Oscar for that. I just know it. You were amazing!”

“Thank you, but did you know there’s a hurricane headed for us?”

“Yes, I’ve been tracking it. Are you okay? What’s happening there?”

“I’m using the pay phone at the ferry landing, and there’s a line behind me like you wouldn’t believe. And there’s also a line to get off this island. I’m the thirteenth car.”

“Good. You’re leaving. That’s wise. You’d be crazy not to. Where are you going?”

“I’ve got an actress friend, aspiring, who lives in Chicago. She’s trying to break into television. I haven’t seen her for some time. I could visit with her, and maybe you and I could meet up for dinner if you’re not too busy? I don’t want to interfere with your job.”

“I’d love to. When are you flying out?”

“I’m not. I’m driving, but I drive fast and straight through. It might take me awhile to get out of town with all the evacuees, but once I’m out, I plan to cruise. Long car rides relax me.”

“You’ve got both of my numbers?”

“Yes, you gave them to me in your last letter.”

“I’ll give you one more number, just in case. I might be at that number over the weekend.”

“Got it,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.” And then, just as we were about to hang up, she added, “Guess whom I bumped into here at the ferry landing a few minutes ago?”

“Who?”

“That guy you used to like. I didn’t know it was him until we got to talking, and I mentioned I was leaving for Chicago, and he said he knew someone who lived there, someone pursuing a journalism career and what a small island. We put two and two together.”

“Josh! Did he tell you we wrote letters for three years and they just stopped?”

“No. He was with his father and …”

“Did you say he was in line for the ferry?”

My stomach swirled, and rudimentary questions thrashed about my
mind like debris flying around in a hurricane.
Who
did she say he was with? I know I interrupted.
What
was he doing with his life?
Why
was he on the dock?
When
was he evacuating?
Where
was he going? And
how
was he getting there? I’m sure they only spoke small talk, but still, I had other questions, like
what
did he look like and it’s not one of the “w” journalistic questions, but
did
he ask about me?

“No, he wasn’t in line for the ferry. They’re hunkering down, weathering out the hurricane. He said weather doesn’t upset him at all. Hey, I’ve got to go, Lydia. There’s a line of people behind me waiting to use this phone.”

“Wait,” I cried into the phone.

“Can’t. I just watched nine cars in front of me board. I’m not losing my spot in line. I’ll call you once I’m in Chicago. Bye.”

She hung up.

The next morning, Friday morning, the Miami Hurricane Center had positioned Donna’s center at 175 miles south of Miami, heading northwest, and it was reported that the storm was releasing energy equivalent to a hydrogen bomb exploding in the atmosphere every eight minutes—and it had been strengthening.

“Its forward movement is becoming erratic so its true direction is difficult to predict,” I said as I stopped by Ethan’s desk.

And that night I too was becoming erratic, for I no longer knew whether I wanted to move forward with Ethan. How could I when my thoughts were with Josh? It wasn’t right. It was criminal to lead one guy on when I still loved another. I hoped it was love. It had to be. Obsession or infatuation is over a movie star, I convinced myself, someone you’ve never known or truly loved. I knew Josh, and what I was feeling now was simply a love that wouldn’t go away.

“Let’s stay in and have dinner at my place tonight,” he said after lunch. Did you pack your things for the night?”

“Of course,” I said, preferring to spend the next two days in his cozy arms as opposed to my lonely rundown shoebox of an apartment.

But when I slipped into his arms that night, I could only imagine Josh and his father in the darkened midst of the deafening, howling winds,
with objects striking their house, fearing for their lives.

As dawn approached, Donna’s eye passed through the central Florida Keys. I tuned Ethan’s radio to the weather and insisted we stay in bed, listening to any changes in its course. It was both of our days off, and neither of us could remember the last time we stayed in bed without rushing off. For me, I think it had been way back when I faked having polio, and for him it was mononucleosis in college.

At eight-thirty, the Weather Bureau’s Miami radar had shown the eye approaching Everglades City, and the hurricane’s forward speed at 20 miles per hour.

I got out of bed and showered, and at around noon, about the time they had predicted Donna’s eye to arrive near Sanibel, Ethan’s phone rang. It was Marlena. She had arrived to Chicago early and wanted to meet for lunch instead of dinner.

XXXIII

ETHAN KNEW AND MET
every politician in Chicago, but he had never met a movie star before; so, I invited him to walk over with me to the John Hancock Building on Michigan Avenue, where I was to meet up with Marlena. On the way over, he tried telling me she wasn’t technically a movie star until she starred in a leading role or won some awards. He was probably right, but still, she was the only person I ever knew to play any role in any movie, and I was proud.

“There she is!” I exclaimed when I saw her, looking more glamorous at age forty-nine than she had ever looked before. “Isn’t she amazing? She’s more beautiful in person, don’t you think?”

Ethan nodded. “I guess.”

I dropped his hand and threw my arms around her.

“Lydia, my darling, you cut your hair,” she announced.

“You like it?”

“Professional. There’s no hint of little girl left in you.”

We held hands long after our hug ended, and I wiped a tear from my eye as she consoled me about my father. For a blink of a moment I felt like pouring it all out about his will and where I was living and how I had barely been staying afloat financially, eating like a pig whenever someone brought donuts or bagels in to work and lying awake at night amidst the noise of my apartment, but I refrained from all of that and accepted her
words of sympathy regarding my father instead. I didn’t in any way want her to assume I was hinting for money now that she was rising to fame. And, besides, Ethan was standing close, and I wouldn’t want him hearing. I wouldn’t ever want any man feeling sorry for me. I was a strong woman and could manage fine on my own.

“There’s someone who is dying to meet you,” I whispered to Marlena, then turned to signal Ethan closer. “Ethan,” I said when he stepped up to us. “I’d like to introduce you to Marlena DiPluma.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said shaking her hand. “You were wonderful in your movie. Congratulations.”

“Oh please,” she said. “I swore that if I ever made it big, I’d never become one of those types that have to be the center of attention. Maybe that’s why I don’t like talking about my performances. But thank you.”

Ethan glanced at me, and I nodded back, and we both knew it was best that he didn’t ask for her autograph. That had been my plan. I thought it might boost her ego, but I don’t think she wanted that.

“I heard you two spent your first night together at the Republican Convention. Are you Republican?” she asked Ethan.