What Is All This? (13 page)

“Dad, please. Now I already asked you not to repeat everything I say. Just please.”

“Please,” he said, shutting his eyes. “Please, Andy…please, just please.” Then he seemed to be asleep. Andy, still holding his father's fingers through the bed rail, opened a newspaper in his lap with his free hand. When he raised his wrist to look at his watch, Mrs. Dodd, sitting beside her sleeping husband with her arm around his shoulders, called out from across the beds “We got more than half an hour yet. I checked. I check every five minutes, in fact. It's some ordeal, isn't it?”

I said I only have one thing on my mind to tell her. She didn't ask what. Sat there, reading, looking over her shoulder out the window. Then at her hand. Way she was holding it, in what I'd call a relaxed fist, probably her nails. Shut her eyes, seemed to be drifting into thought. Then, when her face tightened, into deep thought. Opened her eyes—popped them open, is more like it, and still without looking at me. She was looking to the side at the coat rack filled and covered with our sweaters, hats, coats and scarves. Seemed about to say something, to me without looking at me or to herself aloud. But she closed her mouth, shook her head, began blinking rapidly as if she had a tic, which she never had before that I was aware of, so I didn't know what to make of it. Blinking stopped, and her irises rose till they were partly hidden by her eyelids. I'd seen her do that before. Put her finger to the inner corner of her right eye as if she was trying to take something out of it. That speck, if that was it, could have been what caused the blinking before, or the blinking might have been her way to get rid of it. Wiped the finger on the back of her other hand. Looked at where she'd wiped. From where I was sitting opposite her—about ten feet away—I couldn't see anything there. Then the book slid off her lap and the bookmark fell out. Could be she forgot she was holding it. Could even be that for the last half minute or so she'd intentionally let it rest on her lap without holding it. Book made a noise when it hit the floor and the sound startled her. Leaned over, picked the book and bookmark up, slipped the bookmark into the book and seemed to look for the page she'd left off at. Seemed to find it, because she held the book in front of her and resumed reading. After that: little motions of her face, eyes and hands, though none to me. And her foot tapping intermittently, not because of a tic but out of impatience it seemed. All while she was reading or pretending to read, because in more than five minutes—and she was a fast reader—she still hadn't turned the page. I wanted to say “As I was saying before, I only have one thing, or you could even say ‘one point' on my mind to tell you,” but didn't think she'd respond in any way no matter what I said or how urgently or emphatically I said it. By taking her eyes off the book, for instance. By looking at me. By saying she heard me the first time. By saying something like “I know what you're going to say, knew what you were going to say the first time, didn't think much of it then and don't think much of it now, so don't bother saying it.”

She seemed completely removed from me, and not because she was too absorbed in the book to look up or say anything. She knew as well as I that it was a dull and almost unreadable book. Unreadable meaning a chore to read because it was so dully and unimaginatively written and had so little to say. That there was nothing new or intriguing about it. Nothing about it in subject, style, structure or whatever else there is that makes a book interesting and rewarding and grabs your attention from the start and holds it, or the kind of attention she was pretending to give it. When she suddenly looked up. Not at me but at everything else in the room: coat rack, window, wall art we'd collected individually, before we knew each other, and together; her book again, which was back in her lap, or maybe, she was just looking at her lap. Who knows with her, but that's it, I thought, and I stood up and went to the kitchen. Thought I'd make myself coffee or tea. Even a hot chocolate, which I hadn't had in years and didn't even know if we had any hot chocolate mix, or mug of vegetable broth made from a cube. Then got so angry right after I grabbed the kettle to put water in that I slammed it down. At her for ignoring me. For using the book as an excuse not to look at or listen or talk to me. And everything else in the room and on her person like that as a device against me. Ran back to the living room. Didn't actually run but sort of walked quickly, still angry and pumped up to say what I thought of her treatment of me. All the improvisations and stratagems or just tricks, I'll call them. Her nails, which didn't seem in need of any further trimming or cleaning. Coat rack—maybe something to do with it being so filled it might topple over, but it had to be looked at three to four times? And what could be out the window that wasn't there when she looked a minute before? Same tree with the same bloom. Same back fence in no need of repair. Same redwood picnic table and four plastic chairs. Patch of grass I mowed a few days ago and bushes I recently clipped. Maybe a bird standing on one of those or fluttering in place in the air before flying off. That would be something worth looking at if it was that, for a short time at least. But she still, if just for a few seconds, could have given some sign she was prepared to listen to me. All to most of which I was about to tell her, when she started smiling. Not to me but the book on her lap. Something in it was making her smile, it seemed. Or maybe she was just looking at the book but smiling at what she sensed I was about to say because of the way I'd stormed in here and possibly over that one-thing-on-my-mind I'd never got to say. If it was the book, then something in it that reminded her of something else that was funny. Or a passage or line in the book that was so bad she had to smile. Or she recalled something that made her smile that had nothing to do with the book or me. Or maybe something to do with me but not part of my storming in or that one-thing-on-my-mind-to-say. Something we once did together that was pleasant or funny or both. Something either of us had said to the other or our child had said or done to one of us or both. Or anything. But she'd smiled and was still smiling, so how could I go up to her angrily and berate her about something when she was like that? It'd seem awful or just not the right moment or totally out of sync or whack. Anyway, it'd be a lot more difficult to do than when she wasn't smiling disparagingly or cynically or any other way like that at me. And her smile was real. I know her too long not to know that a smile like that can't be faked. So I turned around, thought of going back to the kitchen to make coffee or one of those other drinks. Thought also of turning back to her and saying there was still one thing on my mind I wanted to tell her, since what was on my mind then and was still on it now had nothing to do with any criticism or dissatisfaction with her. Thought to ask if she had any idea what that one thing on my mind was that I'd wanted to tell her, for I now forget what it specifically was. Thought also of asking what she was still smiling at. But she looked so content smiling that I didn't want to distract her from whatever was causing it. I just wanted to sit down opposite her and look at her face made even lovelier by her smile. And then perhaps, when she was finished smiling, ask if she had any idea what I'd started out to say before about that one thing. It was something concerning the two of us, I remember, and as a result, our child. That's right: that it was silly to continue fighting when we know we always eventually work it out. And work it out to such a degree that we always feel good about each other after, and as a result, our child feels better. So why don't we take a shortcut this time and forget what's eating us about the other and sit together and talk about things the way we do when we're feeling good with each other? She stopped smiling and looked up from her book at me. I smiled, was about to sit in the chair opposite her. She looked down at the book in her lap without smiling. I thought “Give it time,” and went into the kitchen to get away from her and not—at least it wasn't in my mind at the moment—for anything to drink.

Lately she's been giving me signs. We were to meet at an art gallery opening and before she got there a woman said of the two paintings I was standing in front of “Look at that. ‘January 75. January 75.' How can the painter do even one complicated work like that in a month with so many perfect squiggly lines on top of lines when today's the 23
^rd
and they had to have been here by the 22
^nd
and then before that taken a few days to dry?” I said “I'm not a painter. But you can get that effect by painting one layer of acrylic over a lighter colored layer after the first one's dried, which only takes an hour or two.” She said “Acrylic, what's that?” and I told her and she thanked me and walked away and a few minutes later Dawn came. We kissed hello and drank some champagne and talked to a few people she knew and looked at the paintings and got our coats and were about to leave when she said “Let me go to the ladies' room first.” While she was gone that woman of before came over and said “Oh, you're leaving? Tell me, what do you do if you're not an artist?” and I said “I write.” She said “And I play the piano. What do you write, journalism?” and I said “Fiction.” “And I'm a concert pianist. You've been published?” and I said “A couple of books,” and she said “Well, good for you. You like Mozart?” “Yes.” “Scriabin?” “Sure. Scriabin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky why not?” “You should feel very at home here—this is a Russian gallery. Tell you what. I love to read. So send me your books and in return I'll send you tickets to my next recital.” “All right.” “Better yet, drop them off at my apartment and we'll have coffee and talk some more and then when I get the tickets I'll send them to you. I live in the Osborne—one block west on 57
^th
here. I'm always practicing between ten and three every day of the week, though I don't mind being interrupted for a short while. My name's Sue Heissmatt—with an e, I and double-s. Yours is what?” “Vic White.” “Okay, Vic. I haven't read you but I'm looking forward to it. You have my name and where I live and hours I'm sure to be in, without writing it down?” “It's in my head.” “Good. Then hope to see you soon,” and we shook hands and she went to the drink table. Dawn returned, and on the street I said “I met a woman there and we got to talking about the paintings we both knew little about and then she started with what we each do. ‘Oh, I'm a writer,' and ‘I'm a pianist,' and after a minute's total conversation she said why don't I come to her apartment at the Osborne over there one day soon and bring some of my published work along, and in exchange she'll give me tickets to her next recital.” “You should do that,” and I said “But I'm not interested in her and I don't want to just screw around.” “Why not? Every now and then you ought to give things a chance rather than only imagining in your head or on paper how they'll turn out. She might be fun, but do what you want.”

A few days later Dawn drove into the city for dinner with me. She yawned at the restaurant a lot and didn't talk much or seem interested in anything I said or our food. And whatever touching was done on or under the table she did reluctantly, it seemed, and as briefly as she could without trying to make me wonder about it or upset me. When we were walking back to her car, she said “If you had a phone I would have called to say I was too tired to come tonight, and I can't stay either. Now I hate even thinking how I'm going to make it home.” “I'll drive you,” and she said “You don't have to, I'll make it some way.” “But if you're so sleepy, what could be better than not driving off the road, and later being carried from car to soft bed? Just let me stop off for my typewriter and writing work,” and she said “Really, I appreciate your offer, and any other time you know I'd accept. But I'm going to be extremely busy grading exam papers the next three nights, and I can always get it done much faster when you're not around, all right?” “Of course,” and she said “Great, because I'm too bushed to even think about it anymore, and didn't want it turning into another big thing.” I said “Another? When was the last other? I'm sorry, excuse me, forget it,” and she said Thanks, lovie.” We kissed goodnight and she got into her car. I blew her a kiss and started back to my building, and a few seconds later she passed me without tapping the horn and waving or even looking at me as she usually did.

I called two nights later and said “How you feeling?” and she said “Tired, bored, overworked, hassled, crotchety, queasy and very unrested, but once I get these exams done and grades in, I'll perk up,” and I said “I miss sleeping with you, and I'm speaking about just sleeping,” and she said “Sleeping alone was never nearly as good as with a warm partner, but waking up alone can usually be.” I said “Did I tell you about the ad in
Coda
I answered a couple of months ago?” and she said “What's
Coda
, an international spy trade journal?” The poet's newsletter that's sent to me every three months or so courtesy of CCLM or CAPS,” and she said “I don't have the time to ask what those letters or acronyms stand for, and you're not a poet.” They now let fiction writers in, and I didn't tell you about the ad?” “You might have, and I forgot.” “It was for a creative writing position, and I answered it—” and she said “If this is going to be one of your long short stories, I still have hours of work to do.” “Five minutes more shouldn't matter that much—consider it your work break.” “I took my break five minutes ago.” “Okay, I'll be quick. I got an answer back today from the English Department chairperson, a Ms. Liz Silverstone, was how she letterheaded it, and chairperson with a capital C. She said, and I quote, ‘While you do not have the MFA we advertised for, still, your list of publications leads us to pursue your application further. I'll add to that: with very strong interest indeed.' That's Ms. Chairperson's adscript in pen, as if the typewritten part wasn't hers.” “Hurray, you finally might be paid for your fiction,” and I said “Well, I did sell those two books—small press, no advance, and no royalties yet, but they still might come. Anyway, it's only for a year. And I know no long-range plans between us. But if I do get it, and prospects look good, you and Paula might think about coming to live with me there, all living expenses on me.” “Where is it?” and I said “Southwest Indiana.” “Maybe you better just fly home every now and then,” and I said “I of course wouldn't expect you to come. Though you did say you wanted to take a leave from high school for a year to have the time to make a film,” and she said “If I make one it'll only be through a Film Institute grant I applied for, which could mean that same time you're in Indiana, I'll be taking courses and shooting and cutting my film in L.A.” “You mean you'd go there without me?” and she said “Without Paula too. She'd stay with her father. But listen, yours is the best offer I got all day. Though don't write that woman to say you're no longer interested in the position, just because we wouldn't be tagging along. Get the job first; then decide.”

I called at the end of the week and said “I know I'm seeing you tomorrow, but I have to tell someone about the ultimate book rejection I got. It came from a Seattle publisher of up till now only Urgo-Slavonic and Altaic translations but who I'd heard four months ago was looking for an original story collection in English. So I sent off a load then, and today, after a couple of queries from me asking about the status of my collection, I got a jiffy bag with half my stories missing and my novella just sort of tossed in there and paginated like so: 5, 14, 78, 24, 2, though six of its pages also missing and the ones that were there either mangled, minced or decapitated. Thinking this peculiar, though also relieved they didn't accept my work but having anxieties they may have kept the rest to publish as a chapbook, I searched for a note and found at the bottom of the bag not only a standard rejection slip with, you know, ‘Thank you for the opportunity to read this,' but also burnt matches, cigarette butts, wilted lettuce leaves and pieces of a Vienna roll.” “Maybe they were trying to tell you that you send too much of your work at one time,” and I said “But they did everything but vomit into the bag before stapling it up.” Then I don't know. But maybe they were also saying ‘We're a small house new in this particular line. So next time give us a while longer to consider your manuscript without besieging us with queries a month after it's arrived.'”

I took a bus up to see her the next day. We went to dinner at some friends of mine she'd never met and when we were driving back I said “So what do you think of them?”

They certainly are a couple, with that always working things out to perfection and complete integration and staying two feet away from each other so they don't step on the other's toes. It all reminds me too much of my own marriage and which I never want to go through again.” Later, when she was undressing in her bedroom, she said “I feel uncomfortable now because I don't feel anything like having sex tonight, and with all your hints hidden in suggestions before, I think it might tick you off.” I said “No, it's fine. We'll just go to bed. Or I'll read downstairs and for now just you go to bed.” “My uncomfortableness comes only because the last time you got angry when I didn't feel like making love,” and I said That last time was after a couple of weeks when I was sort of expecting it or wanting it very much but didn't think, or only thought of myself, and reverted again to being the same old schmuck.” We went to bed, read awhile and shut the lights. She started crying about fifteen minutes later. I was holding her from behind, thought she was already asleep. I asked what was wrong. She said “I'm feeling a bit skittish, hopeless, edgy, skew jawed, doldrums. Maybe it's my mother, or my period about to pop. But she was so strange on the phone today that it scared me, and I'm also beginning to dread more and more facing a hundred-thirty kids every school day.” This will seem hackneyed,” I said, “but I promise you'll feel better after a good night's sleep. If you want I'll massage your neck and back till you feel more relaxed.” “No, thanks.” “Come on, I'll do it just the way you like. Turn over.” “I'm too sleepy, so don't waste it. And I'll be okay. You're a love. What's the time? But why should I care? Tomorrow's Sunday.”

Next morning she went to the bathroom, shut the door, came back with her hair brushed, face scrubbed, got back into bed, chin up close to nine, smiled, teeth had been cleaned too, sucked my thumbs, twiddled my nipples till they got hard, moved in her front, positioned me. Later we took a long walk and talked and laughed a lot and, preparing and eating lunch, had fun impersonating various musical instruments in solos and duets to Paula's frenzied conductor's hands. All right. Now we're tight. Nothing seemed wrong. In and out, that's how we sometimes go. Does she notice how Paula adores me? Does it make a difference that I feel like Paula's father too? What do her friends say? Do they like me? Does she notice when I anonymously clean her toilet bowls and sweep all her rooms? “Make you tea?” I said “No, thank you. I mean, you bet. For you often bemoan I never need or take anything from you but some of your better spontaneous lines, but from now on I'm going to say yes, yes'm, yes.” “Good,” and later: “Let's visit the Whipples without calling them,” and I said “You two go; I'd just like to read.” “Reading, reading. It won't be as much fun if you don't come along, and remember what you resolved?” We drove across Tappan Zee Bridge and she said “Look!” “What?” “Balloon moon over Tarrytown and it's not even dark yet,” and I said “Okay, but never surprise me like that while I'm driving.” We burst in on the Whipples and their two kids and four hounds, who never stopped licking and sniffing us, and I said “Someone, throw them a couple ducks, will ya?” We all went to their Pizza and Brew. Rip Whipple winking back and forth at me and the miniskirted legs of our waitress, and I said “Uh-huh,” but thought “Who cares? I got Dawn,” and held her around the waist while we ate. Driving home, I got lost, just as I got lost driving out there. Paula said “Darn, he got us lost again, Mom,” and Dawn said “Vic's a good loser, you have to admit that. And now we can see what these Scarsdale dudes and dudettes do in their rooms late at night besides watch their tubes.” When we got home Paula went right to her room to make pompoms for her class, and Dawn said to me “I have to be up early tomorrow. Deep dreams,” and kissed me and went upstairs. The phone rang. I was reading downstairs and started for the kitchen, but Paula ran to Dawn's study upstairs and said “Mom, it's a man who said in a kind of deep rough voice ‘Dawn Bodein in?' but refused to give his name. Dawn got out of bed. I moved to the bottom of the stairs to listen. It was Peter, though she didn't say his name, but it had to be him because he'd been calling once a month for months, and last month I answered the phone and he said in a kind of deep rough voice “Hi, Dawn Bodein in?” and I said “Who is it?” and he said “Just tell her a friend,” and I said “Well, I hate to tell you, but she left for Toulouse for two years,” and he said “Could you let me speak to Dawn, please?” and I said “Dawn Please or Dawn Bodein? We're rather unique in having two Dawns here,” and he said “Either, and I don't mean Dawn Either,” and I yelled “Dawn—Friend's on the phone,” and she got on and I left the kitchen, and later she said “What did you say to Peter? He thought you were insane.” “Who's Peter?” I asked, and she said “Just what you described him: a friend.” She was speaking on the phone in a normal tone and with the door open, so she probably didn't think I'd be listening downstairs. It also had to be Peter because one of the first things she said was “But it isn't for Friday—sure you can make it?” and laughed, and I'd seen Peter's name on her wall calendar every three weeks for several months under Friday. Also, because she said “Works out perfectly. Sunday I'd have to be in Brooklyn Heights anyway to fetch Paula at her cousin's where her father's dropping her off,” and I knew Peter lived in Brooklyn because of a number of things I'd picked up: a letter envelope from a Brooklyn Peter, and so forth. I went away from the stairs while she was still on the phone. I didn't like hearing her joking and teasing and laughing with a guy I knew she was sleeping with. At a restaurant dinner in my neighborhood a few weeks ago she said, after we'd talked about lovers and serious relationships we'd had before we met each other, “I think it's only fair to tell you something, even if you won't like it. I guess I'm having what one could call a relationship with another man. But it's really nothing much and isn't going to go anywhere, and is the only one I've had since I've known you.” I said, mainly because saying what I really felt—that I hated she was screwing someone else, even if only once every three weeks—would damage our own fragile relationship even further and where she'd probably drive home after dinner rather than spending the night with me, “It's not important. You see who you want and I'll do the same. And also, when we want, we'll see each other, like tonight, but slow, we have to go slow as you've said,” and she said “Boy, is that a relief that we can both finally say that.” So I went back to the rocking chair in her living room. Drank another glass of wine while I read. Then Dawn got back in bed—her bed squeaks—and I turned down the heat and shut the lights downstairs and opened the front door and said “Here, Snuggy Snuggy; here, Snuggy Snuggy,” and got the cat back in the house and locked up and went upstairs. Dawn was reading in bed. “I thought I wanted to sleep, but got the urge to read. Let me read you a poem by Anne Sexton. It's about a witch.” I listened to it lying on my back in bed while she was sitting up. I kissed her waist while she rubbed my hair and read, and then her navel and legs and then her vagina, and she said “No, I can't do it while I'm reading a poem. I mean, you can't do it. I mean, I just can't read a poem while you're doing that.” “So stop reading,” and she said “But I want to read, and if you want me to do it silently, I will. She committed suicide, did you know?” and I said yes and she finished reading the poem. “What do you think of it?” and I said “I liked it,” and she started reading another about snow. I rested my head on her chest and hand on her thigh, and listened. While she read she took my hand off her thigh and pressed two of my fingers into her clitoris and read a few more lines while she continued to press my fingers down and rub them around. She said “She's too much. I can hardly ever get through more than two of hers at a time,” and dropped the magazine to the floor and kissed me. Later, she said “How come we never encourage each other verbally when we make love? People have told me it really gets them off.” “I prefer being quiet except for the normal sounds.” Later, she said That was great. I don't know why I felt so much like it tonight, but I obviously did,” and I said “Me the same on both,” but thought “You felt like it because Peter probably oozed on about it over the phone and how you both hadn't done it together for more than two months. So you thought of him and your upcoming weekend, and maybe he's very good in bed, and also of me, no doubt, and it was enough to get you hot, dear Dawn, eh not? and also the poems.” “Goodnight,” I said. “Goodnight, love,” she said. She cuddled up to me. We went to sleep.