Starting from Square Two (17 page)

The third album was her wedding album. It was white, with gold around the sides.

Gert started with the purple album, the family one. She held it on her lap, and Todd looked on. The sides of their legs were again touching.

Todd looked slightly ambivalent, as if part of him really didn't want to be confronted with his predecessor. But they'd get through this.

“These are my parents, when they were young,” Gert said, turning the pages of the purple album.

“He looks like that guy from
Welcome Back, Kotter,
” Todd said.

“Epstein? You're not the first to say that. But he doesn't look like him anymore.”

“That look doesn't do it for lawyers,” Todd said. “Is he sensitive about that? Should I call him Mr. Epstein?”

“Don't,” she said. “This is me as a baby.”

“You look like Telly Savalas.”

“It's gotta be the hair.”

“Okay, Miss Savalas.”

“This is my brother Henry.”

“Now,
he's
got hair.”

They moved on to the college album. There was a picture of Marc painting his off-campus apartment. There was one of Marc and his best friend Craig hamming it up with their short-lived college band, Crusty Oatmeal Spoon.

Craig was coming to New York soon, Gert remembered. They were going to do lunch. It would be good to see him.

“You don't have to go so fast,” Todd said.

Gert slowed down. “I just don't know how much you want to see,” she said.

“I want to see everything.”

She felt a lump in her throat.

“This was Marc's house off-campus,” Gert said. “Sophomore year. When I met him.”

“I like the color.”

“I know! It's a strange green and most people didn't like it, but I thought it was great. So I guess you and I have something in common.”

“Hopefully more than one thing,” Todd said, putting his hand on her knee.

“These are Marc's brothers,” she said. “Michael's the one who…” She had to stop herself. She hadn't told Todd about Michael's wedding. She knew she couldn't bring him.

But could she?

She'd have to think about that.

She finished her sentence: “Michael's the one I got along with best out of the brothers.”

“Why?”

“Oh, he was the youngest, and he's shy,” Gert said. “Marc's other brothers are very outgoing. It took Michael a while to know how to talk to girls. When he went to college and started bringing girlfriends to family gatherings, I always paid a lot of attention to them, to make them feel less nervous.”

“That's nice of you.”

“Well, he's a nice guy. Sensitive. Knows more than two poems.”

Todd laughed.

“This was our senior formal,” Gert said. “Marc and I felt weird, because we were doing adult things but we didn't feel like adults yet. We felt like we were playing dress-up in our parents' closet. We got hotel rooms downtown after the formal and had a party in one of them. It was probably the biggest thing we'd ever paid for with our own money and not our parents'.”

“I don't feel like an adult,” Todd said.

“Me, neither,” Gert said. “I don't know when I will.”

“I think you will when you buy a house,” Todd said. “I think that must be where it starts.”

“Oh,” Gert said. “We did. This condo's ours. Well, I'm still paying off the mortgage.”

“Oh,” Todd said. He sounded uncomfortable. But she had to be honest now. What was one more thing?

“I did feel a little older when we finally bought it,” she admitted. “I said to myself, ‘We're buying a condo. I guess this is it. We must be grown up now.'”

Todd said, “What about when you got engaged?”

Gert said, “That wasn't so hard. Getting engaged was just like making a promise to always be with my best friend.”

Todd looked at her for a second, then back at the album. “Hey, this photo's funny.”

“That's Marc's best friend, Craig. They did all kinds of pranks together.”

They turned pages together now, slowly.

“You really do have a lot of memories with him,” Todd said.

“Well,” Gert said, “we
were
together for eight years.” She looked at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I'm a little…jealous. I know it's stupid.”

“Nothing's stupid.”

“If all your experiences added up to the way you are now, then it's good.”

“Thank you.” She looked at him.

“Are
you
okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” she said. She sucked her lower lip.

“What did you like best about him?”

“You really want to know?”

He looked her in the eye. “Yes.”

She took a deep breath. “He always took care of me and everyone else,” she said. “He constantly did things for his friends, helped them move and lent them books and saw their plays and improv sets. He was the person who, when something was wrong and you were afraid to be a burden but you vaguely mentioned it, he sprang into action no matter what.” She took a breath. “He prided himself on his loyalty to friends. And he was so close to his family. He had simple tastes, but he knew how to splurge when he wanted to make people happy. He had these idiosyncrasies, I'm not going to get into them, but they were just the kind of things that attract you to someone and you can't forget.” She closed her eyes and thought of the way his nose crinkled when he laughed. “He was always making these goals, lists of things he wanted to accomplish by the end of each month, and he always did. And every year before Christmas, he put together this long newsletter for all his friends. It went on about everything that was happening in our lives: Our job changes, what members of his family were doing, which projects he was pursuing at work, but he'd always throw in a few funny comments, too. One year he included a bar graph of how much my musical tastes had improved since meeting him. And he always made sure to put a line at the end of the letter about how much everyone meant to him and how he was glad Christmas came around once a year because it was a good excuse to remind everyone how much he cared about them. He sent this to like fifty people each Christmas. And then he'd be busy for the entire next week because each and every person on that list would write us back practically a book on what was going on in
their
lives. Marc would respond to everything they wrote.” She slowed down. She'd been talking quickly. “To be the other half of someone like that, to be the person supporting him…he was just someone I would have been thrilled to
know.
And I got to
marry
him.”

Todd looked at her for a second, then leaned toward her and hugged her.

“I promised myself I wouldn't cry tonight,” she said, closing her eyes.

“I wouldn't expect you to act any other way.”

 

That night, lying in bed, Gert decided that one of the hardest things about losing someone was trying to explain just how much that person meant. How could you possibly summarize everything in a person's life? Who could possibly understand the little things, or have the patience to hear them?

But Todd had listened.

She had been wondering before whether you could have room for more than one person in your heart. She still wasn't sure.

And Todd still seemed a little uneasy, regardless of what he said. Whether he'd hang in there for the long run, she didn't know. They hadn't set a date for when he'd see her next. Everything was still in flux.

But she thought that someone who really cared about her would want to know as much as possible about the other person. If she could share her love, then that might open up some room.

T
uesday would be Marc's birthday.

Gert planned to do what she'd done the previous year. Early in the morning, she'd take Greyhound up to Boston and catch a cab to where he was buried. It was a five-hour bus ride, and she'd get in around eleven.

She hoped she could meet up with Marc's parents there. She would call them beforehand to arrange it.

As she looked up Greyhound schedules on Marc's computer, she thought about Todd, about the dinner they'd had at her house. Todd was so different from Marc. He was earnest rather than driven. He was sweet rather than cocky. He was
easy
to have feelings for. But was that bad?

But Todd could be intense, too. His love for his job, and the way he talked about the beauty of the scenery he passed, killed her.

Maybe there was nothing wrong with having a quieter kind of love, she thought. It was different than the intense kind. Not worse. Just different.

 

Craig Evans was behind the worst things Marc had done in college.

Craig was the reason that he and Marc had decorated the door of their dormroom with street signs from outside. When they'd gotten a letter from the housing dean telling them to knock it off, they'd hung it on the wall inside their room, along with the rest of the street signs.

Craig was the reason that Marc had helped form a college cover band called Crusty Oatmeal Spoon.

Craig was the reason that Marc mailed faux admissions office letters to everyone on their freshman floor saying that their records had been lost and they would have to retake the SATs.

These things didn't end when Marc met Gert—they only calmed down a little.

Craig liked Gert a lot. Marc had dated one girl before Gert, and Craig had said that Gert was a big improvement.

When Gert approached the crepe place in the East Village, which was cleverly named The Crepe Place, Craig was sitting in the window and broke into a wide smile when he spotted her. He was in town for an economics conference. Gert saw that he still looked about eighteen years old—no facial hair, just ruddy cheeks. His mop of blond hair always reminded her of a teenage Ricky Schroeder more than the all-grown-up
Rick
Schroeder. Marc had actually gotten people to call Craig “The Ricker” in college.

When Gert entered the restaurant, Craig had already made his way to the door. “Hey,” he said, hugging her tightly. She felt a sharp stab of sadness, thinking Marc should be there, too.

“How are you?” Gert asked as they made their way past a few square tables, each painted a different color. “Congratulations again!”

Craig had met his fiancée while teaching. The girl had been a senior in his class, but they hadn't started dating until after the semester ended—a fact that Craig was always quick to point out.

“There's so much I want to ask you,” Gert said, draping her coat over the back of her chair.

“Me first,” Craig said. But before he could start, a waitress appeared and took their beverage orders. Craig said, “So how's Henry, and how are your friends….”

“My brother's fine, friends are fine….”

“And your parents?” Craig asked.

Gert smiled. “They're fine. They've given up on convincing me to move back to L.A.”

Craig moved his straw around his water glass. “Not going to give up on New York just yet?”

“Well, everyone says not to make major changes the first year after a death,” Gert said. “It's a year and a half now, but it's still too soon, and I'm trying to stick it out. I don't want to move home and sit in my parents' house dwelling on my misery.”

“Yeah,” Craig said. “You can stay in New York…”

“…and sit
here
and dwell on my misery,” Gert finished, and they both laughed. “I'm just not ready to leave just yet.”

“You're brave,” Craig said.

Gert shook her head. “People always say that,” she said. “And it feels like they must be talking about some other person, because I don't
feel
brave. I just go on.”

Craig looked surprised. The waitress brought them their orange juice. It looked pulpy. Gert watched the bits of orange settle to the bottom.

“Have you talked to Marc's parents?” Craig asked.

Gert took a sip and shook her head. “They don't talk to me.”

“What?” Craig seemed surprised. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “I haven't seen them since last year. It's almost as if I'm barely related to them now.”

“But they're your relatives.”

“They might not be. With Marc gone, they have no official connection to me.”

“Wow,” Craig said. “I never even thought of that.” He didn't seem to know what to say.

“No one does,” Gert said. “It's not something that should ever happen. They didn't even call me on Christmas. I sent them a card.” She stared into her juice. “I think sooner or later we're just going to be like people who were never related in the first place.”

Craig looked surprised. The waitress returned for their orders. Gert asked for a “Nutella delight,” which was described on the menu as a “Thick crepe filled with fruit and chopped peanuts, drizzled with chocolate/hazelnut topping.” It sounded like something that should be in a museum.

“I'm going to try to see them next week, though,” Gert said. “I'm going to visit Marc's grave.”

“For his birthday,” Craig said, remembering.

“Yes.”

Craig smiled. “Do you remember the time that he turned twenty-one and we all took him skydiving?”

“
You
guys went,” Gert said. “I didn't want him to go.”

Craig shrugged. “You have to feel your oats, or get them out of your system, or whatever.”

Gert watched the shadow of the ceiling fan spinning on the table. “So,” she said, “the Ricker's finally getting married.”

“Oh, don't call me that,” Craig said.

“Ricker,” Gert said.
“Riiickyyyy Schrooooeder.”

“You're doing Marc's dirty work.”

“He'd want it that way,” Gert needled.

Craig said, “You know, at the beginning of this past semester, I was telling one of my classes about how Marc had gotten everyone at school to call me Ricky Schroeder, and one girl said, ‘Who's Ricky Schroeder?'”

“Oh, no,” Gert said. “How could she not know? He was on
NYPD Blue.
”

“I guess she didn't watch,” Craig said. “And she's too young for the other stuff.”

Gert shook her head. “We're getting old.”

“I know. That's been dawning on me lately.”

“Me, too,” she said. “When Marc was alive, I never thought
about it. But now, I think about it all the time. I think when you go through change at the same rate as someone else, you don't notice it as much. Now I'm getting older, but socially, I'm back at the same level as twenty-one-year-olds who just got out of college and are starting to date in the real world. And I'm twenty-nine.”

“I can't even imagine how hard that must be,” Craig said. “You didn't just lose Marc. You lost all your plans for the future.”

Gert nodded. “My whole way of thinking,” she said. “I just assumed our future would proceed logically. I never thought about anything stopping it.”

“Who does?”

“My support group was talking about that the other day.”

“Do you still go every week?”

“Yes,” Gert said. “It helps.”

The waitress delivered their crepes. They looked like droopy beached whales. Gert began carving.

“Have you made friends in the group?” Craig asked.

“Yes and no,” Gert said. “I like them all, but I haven't made enough of an effort to get to know them outside of the group. There was this girl my age, Chase, who I got along great with. But all of a sudden she stopped coming.”

“Why?”

“I'm not sure. Some people just aren't ready to mourn in a group.”

Gert pushed the pieces of crepe around her plate to soak up the chocolate. It seemed foolhardy to squander such a rich river.

“So,” Gert asked, “do you like Lana's family?”

“I do,” Craig said. “She's an only child, so there's a lot of pressure on me to be good to her. Luckily her parents don't know about my sordid past.”

“Grand Theft Street Sign, the fake letters from the dean…”

“Exactly,” Craig said. “I think you're the only girl who knows about that. But I've told Lana about some of the stuff Marc and
I used to get into. And I think Adam told her the rest. Oh, did I tell you, Adam's engaged?”

“Little Adam?” Gert said. “Little,
little
Adam? He was so shy during college.”

“He had such a crush on you,” Craig said, looking at her.

“No, he didn't.”

“Come on,” Craig said. “You must have known. He was the worst of all of us. A lot of us were jealous of Marc, but Adam had such a thing for you. He tried to hide it, but he always acted funny when you were in the room. You didn't notice?”

Gert said, “You're exaggerating.” She looked at her plate.

“Maybe you really didn't notice.”

Gert shrugged.

“You must realize when guys like you,” Craig said. “It's hard for us not to.”

She felt funny. She kept her eyes on the plate.

“I'll bet a lot of guys ask you out now.”

“I don't know that many guys,” Gert said.

“But you go out sometimes, right?”

“Well,” Gert said, “Hallie and Erika dragged me to a few bars….” She didn't feel ready to tell Craig the whole truth. “There was one guy I started talking to.” She moved around a piece of crepe. “I couldn't care about anyone the way I loved Marc, and I think about Marc all the time, but I did have dinner with this guy. And I actually told him about Marc the other night.”

“Wow,” Craig said. “You're dating someone.”

“Not dating,” Gert said. “Just getting to know someone.”

“I knew you would find someone…” Craig said.

Gert didn't say anything.

“Did Hallie and Erika meet anyone when they dragged you out?” Craig asked.

“No,” Gert said. “Hallie and Erika look for specific things, and they beat themselves up when they can't find them. They get really frustrated.”

“It takes a long time to get where you want to be,” Craig said. “You probably didn't know this, either, but guys like Adam and me spent most of college complaining that all the girls on campus were stuck up. Of course, that's what we thought of anyone who didn't respond to our inept, lame pickup attempts.”

Gert laughed.

“It only takes one person to change your perspective,” Craig said. “I'm so happy now. I wish Marc could have met Lana. He'd have really liked her.”

“I'm sure he would have.”

“She's pretty, kind and down-to-earth. Like you.”

Gert felt embarrassed again.

“He would have been my best man,” Craig said.

“I know,” Gert said.

Craig was quiet, looking out the window. “The other day,” he said, “I thought about this bet Marc and I made in college.”

“Which one?”

“This was the one about celebrities,” Craig said. “Junior year, we were looking at this Web site about which celebrities were dead and alive. Each of us picked ten celebrities we thought were going to die soon. We decided that any time one of his celebrities died, I would give him ten dollars, and if someone from my list died, he'd give
me
ten bucks. After college, when someone from either of our lists died, we sent each other the money through the mail. But a few weeks ago, someone on Marc's list died, and I thought for a second how I owe Marc the money, but he's not there to get it. And more of the celebrities are going to go in the future, five years from now, ten, fifteen…and every time, I'll think of how they're outliving Marc. I never thought he'd be the one…”

He didn't finish. He was staring into space. Gert heard traffic passing.

Finally Craig said, “So, what's this guy's name?”

“Which guy?”

“The one you're
not
dating.”

Gert smiled. “Todd.”

“Oh.”

“Do you think it's wrong that I've been seeing him?” Gert asked.

“So you admit you're seeing him.”

“Just getting to know him.”

Craig shook his head. “There's nothing wrong with it,” he said. “Marc would want you to be happy.”

“Don't people say that to make themselves feel better, though?” Gert asked. “We were talking about this in my group. If guys didn't want their wives to date someone else while they were alive, why would they want them to do it after they died?”

“Because,” Craig said, “they love you. Marc knows who you are. Let me ask you a question: have you put his things away?”

“No.”

“Do you think about him all the time? Do you remember every date you went on?”

Gert said. “God, yes.”

“Do you remember all the crazy stuff that happened in college?”

Gert laughed. “How could I forget?”

“Do you
want
to forget?”

“No. Never.”

“So he's there,” Craig said. “You're holding on to his memories.”

Gert looked at a fleet of cabs passing out the window. “It was so nice out when I went outside this morning,” she said, “and I was thinking that this was one of those Saturdays that Marc would have woken up and wanted to drive to the steakhouse. And he's not here to enjoy it.”

Craig grinned. “He would drive three hours to get to that stupid steakhouse!”

“I know.”

Craig looked out the window. “I miss him, too.”

 

On the subway back to Queens, Gert leaned against the seat. She felt tired but she also felt unburdened. She had talked to
Craig for another hour after the meal. She had felt so light after that. Like she had expressed feelings she couldn't to anyone else.