“Can’t you drive any faster?” Matt asked, tapping his fingers on the dashboard. “I walk faster than this.”
I am by my own admission a slow and careful driver. Matt had found my first flaw.
“Hey, I got the safety-first award in my driver’s ed class in Cornwall on Hudson. I hung the diploma under my medical degree.”
Matt laughed and rolled his brown eyes. He got all of my dumb little jokes.
We were driving to his mother’s house. Matt thought it would be interesting for me to meet her.
Interesting? What did that mean?
“Oops, there’s my mom!” Matt said just then. “Oh, man. There she is.”
She was up on the roof of the house when we got there. She was fixing an ancient TV antenna.We got out of my old blue Jeep, and Matt called up to her.
“Mom, this is Suzanne. And Gus the Wonder Dog. Suzanne . . . my mother, Jean. She taught me how to fix things around the house.”
His mother was tall, lanky, silver-haired. She called down to us, “Very nice to meet you, Suzanne. You, too, Gus. You three go have a seat on the porch. I’ll only be a minute up here.”
“If you don’t fall off the roof and break both your legs,” Matt said. “Fortunately, we have a good doctor in the house.”
“I won’t fall off the roof.” Jean laughed, and went back to her work. “I only fall off extension ladders.”
Matt and I took our seats at a wrought-iron table on the porch. Gus preferred the front yard. The house was an old saltbox with a northern view of the harbor. To the south lay cornfields, and then deep woods that gave you the impression you were in Maine.
“It’s gorgeous here. Is this where you grew up?” I asked.
“No, I was born in Edgartown. This house was bought a few years after my father died.”
“I’m sorry, Matt.”
He shrugged. “It’s another thing we have in common, I guess.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him.
He smiled. “You know, I guess I just don’t like to talk a lot about sad things. Now you know my flaw. What good does it do to talk about sad things in the past?”
Jean suddenly appeared with iced tea and a plate heaped with chocolate-chip cookies.
“Well, I promise I won’t give you the once-over, Suzanne. We’re too mature for that sort of thing,” she said with a quick wink. “I would love to hear about your practice, though. Matthew’s father was a doctor, you know.”
I looked over at him. Matt hadn’t told me that, either. “My dad died when I was eight years old. I don’t remember too much.”
“He’s private about some things, Suzanne. Matthew was hurt badly when his dad died. Don’t listen to him on that. I think he believes it might make other people uncomfortable to hear about how much he hurts.”
She winked at Matt; he winked back at her. I could tell they were close. It was nice to see. Sweet.
“So, tell me about yourself, Jean. Unless you’re a private person, too.”
“Hell, no!” she said with a laugh. “I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”
It turned out that Jean was a local artist— a painter. She walked me through the cottage and showed me some of her work. She was good, too. I knew enough to be fairly sure that her paintings could have sold at a lot of galleries in Back Bay, or even New York. Jean had framed a quote from the primitive artist Grandma Moses. It said, “I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the cattle, and then the people.”
Jean laughed at my praise of her work and said, “I once saw a cartoon with a couple standing before a Jackson Pollock painting. The painting had a price tag of a million dollars under it, and the man turned to the woman and said, ‘Well, he comes through clear enough on the price.’ ” She had a good sense of humor about her work, about anything really. I saw a lot of her in Matt.
The afternoon turned into evening, and Matt and I ended up staying for dinner. There was even time to see a priceless old album of some of Matt’s baby pictures.
He was a cutie, Nick. He had your blond hair as a boy, and that spunky look you have sometimes.
“No naked bottoms on bear rugs?” I asked Jean as I went through the pictures.
She laughed. “Look hard enough, and I’m sure you’ll find one. He has a nice butt. If you haven’t seen it, you should ask for a look.”
I laughed. Jean was a hoot.
“All right,” Matt said, “show’s over. Time to hit the highway.”
“We were just getting into the good stuff,” Jean said, and made a pouty face. “You are a party pooper.”
It was about eleven when we finally got up to leave. Jean grabbed me in a hug.
She whispered against my cheek, “He never ever brings anybody home. So whatever you think of him, he must like you a lot. Please don’t hurt him. He is sensitive, Suzanne. And he’s a pretty good guy.”
“Hey!” Matt finally called from the car. “Knock it off, you two.”
“Too late,” his mother said. “The damage is already done. I had to spill the beans. Suzanne knows enough to drop you like a bad habit.”
The damage was probably already done—to me. I was falling for Matthew Harrison. I couldn’t quite believe it myself, but it was happening, if it hadn’t already happened.
The Hot Tin Roof is a fun nightclub at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport in Edgartown. Matt and I went there to eat oysters and listen to the blues on Friday night. At that point, I would have gone anywhere with him.
A host of local celebrities floated in and out of the bar: funky, laid-back Carly Simon, Tom Paxton, William Styron and his wife, Rose. Matt thought it would be fun to sit at the raw bar and just people watch. It was, too.
“Want to slow dance?” Matt asked me after we’d had our fill of oysters and cold beer.
“Dance? No one is dancing, Matt. I don’t think this is a dancing-type place.”
“This is my favorite song, and I’d love to dance with you. Will you dance with me, Suzanne?”
I did something I do infrequently. I blushed.
“Come on,” Matt whispered against my cheek. “No one will tell the other doctors at the hospital.”
“All right. One dance.”
“Done well, one dance will always lead to another,” he said.
We began to slow dance in our little corner of the bar. Eyes started to turn our way. What was I doing? What had happened to me? Whatever it was, it felt so good to be doing it.
“Is this okay?” Matt checked.
“You know, actually, it’s great. What is this song, anyway? You said it was your favorite.”
“Oh, I have no idea, Suzanne. I just wanted an excuse to hold you close.”
With that, Matt held me a little tighter. I loved being in his arms. I loved, loved, loved it. Corny maybe, but absolutely true. What can I say? I felt a little dizzy as we spun around in rhythm with the music.
“I have a question to ask you,” he whispered against the side of my ear.
“Okay,” I whispered back.
“How do you feel about us? So far?”
I kissed him. “Like that.”
He smiled. “That’s how I feel, too.”
“Good.”
“I lived with somebody for three years,” Matt said. “We met while we were at Brown. The Vineyard wasn’t right for her, but it was for me.”
“Four years. Another doctor,” I confessed.
Matt leaned in and lightly kissed me on the lips again. “Would you come home with me tonight, Suzanne?” he asked. “I want to do some more dancing.”
I told him I would love to.
I have this wink that Matt calls “Suzanne’s famous wink.” I did it for the first time to Matt that night. He loved it.
Matt’s house was a small Victorian covered in gingerbread lace that draped itself over the eaves and softened all the corners. The trellises, railings, and overhangs looked as if they’d been lifted off some elaborately t
rimmed wedding cake and carefully placed around the rim of the roof.
It was the first time I had been invited, and I was suddenly nervous. My mouth was cottony and dry. I hadn’t been with anyone like this since Michael, and that was still a bad memory for me.
We went inside and I immediately noticed a library. The room had been remodeled to be made up of nothing but shelves. There were thousands of books in there. My eyes traveled up and down the bookshelves: Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Virginia Woolf, Anaïs Nin, Thomas Merton, Doris Lessing. An entire wall was devoted to collections of poetry. W. H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Sylvia Plath, James Wright, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, and many, many more. There was an antique globe; an old English pond boat, its sails stained and listing; some nautical brass fittings; a big pine table covered in writing pads and miscellaneous papers.
“I love this room. Can I look around?” I asked. “I love it, too. Of course you can look.”
I was totally surprised by the cover page on top of a stack of pages. It read, Songs of a House-painter, Poems by Matthew Harrison.
Matt was a poet? He hadn’t told me about it. He really didn’t like to talk about himself, did he? What other secrets did he have?
“Okay, yes,” he admitted quietly. “I do some scribbling. That’s all it is. I’ve had the bug since I was sixteen, and I’ve been trying to work it out since I left Brown. I majored in English and Housepainting. Just kidding. You ever write, Suzanne?”
“No, not really,” I said. “But I’ve been thinking about starting a diary.”
In the south of France there is supposedly a special time known as the Night of the Falling Stars. On this night, everything is just so. Perfect and magical. According to the French, the stars seem to pour out of the sky, like cream from a pitcher.
It was like that for us; there were so many stars, I could imagine I was up in heaven.
Matt said, “Let’s take a walk down to the beach. Okay? I have an idea.”
“I’ve noticed that you have a lot of ideas.” “Maybe it’s the poet in me.”
He grabbed an old blanket, his CD player, and a bottle of champagne. We walked on a winding path through high sea grass, finally finding a patch of sand to spread the blanket.
Matt popped open the champagne, and it sparkled and blinked in the midnight air. Then he pushed PLAY and the strains of Debussy whirled up into the starry night sky.
Matt and I danced again, and we were in another time and place. Around and around we went, in sync with the rhythm of the sea, turning up fountains of sand, leaving improbable footprint patterns in our wake. I let my fingers play on his back, his neck. I let my hands comb through his hair.
“I didn’t know you could waltz,” I said.
He laughed. “I didn’t know, either.”
It as late when we made our way back up from the beach, but I wasn’t tired. If anything, I was more awake than ever. I was still dancing, flying, singing inside. I hadn’t expected any of this to happen. Not now, maybe not ever. It seemed a thousand years from my heart attack in the Public Garden in Boston.
Nicky, I felt so lucky—so blessed.
Matt gently took my hand and led me up the stairs to his room. I wanted to go with him, but still I was afraid. I hadn’t done this in a while.
Neither of us spoke, but suddenly my mouth opened wide. He had converted the top floor to one big, beautiful space, complete with skylights that seemed to absorb the evening sky. I loved what he had done to the room. He turned on the CD player in the bedroom.
Sarah Vaughan. Perfect.
Matt told me that he could count falling stars from his bed. “One night I counted sixteen. A personal record.”
He came to me, slowly and deliberately, drawing me toward him like a magnet. I could feel the buttons in the back of my blouse coming undone. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. His fingers traveled down to the base of my spine, playing so very gently. He slipped off my blouse, and I watched it float to the floor, milk-weed in a breeze.
I stood so close to him, felt so close to Matt, barely breathing, feeling light, dizzy, magical, and very special.
He slipped his hands down onto my hips. Matt then leaned me back, gently laid me on his bed. I watched him in the moon shadows. I found him to be beautiful. How had this happened? Why was I suddenly so lucky?
He stretched over me like a quilt on a cold night. That’s all I will say of it, all I will write.
Dear Nicky,
I hope when you grow up that everything you want comes your way, but especially love. When it’s true, when it’s right, love can give you the kind of joy that you can’t get from any other experience. I have been in love; I am in love, so I speak from experience. I have also lived long periods without love in my life, and there is no way to describe the difference between the two.
We is always so much better than I.
Please don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. And don’t ever become a cynic, Nicky. Anything but that!
I look at your little hands and feet. I count your toes over and over, moving them gently as if they were beads on an abacus. I kiss your belly till you laugh. You are so innocent. Stay that way when it comes to love.
Just look at you. How is it that I got so lucky? I got the perfect one. Your nose and mouth are just right. Your eyes and your smile are your very best features. Already I see your personality blossoming. It’s in your eyes. What are you thinking about right now? The mobile over your head? Your music box? Daddy says you’re probably thinking about girls and tools and flashy cars. He jokes that your favorite things are flashy cars, pretty girls, and birthday cake. “He’s a real boy, Suzanne.”
That’s true, and it’s probably a good thing. But do you know what you like the best? Teddy bears. You’re so gentle and sweet with your little bears.
Daddy and I laugh about all the good things that wait for you. But what we want most for you is love and that it will always surround you. It is a gift. If I can, I will try to teach you how to receive such a gift. Because to be without love is to be without grace, what matters most in life.
We is so much better than I.
If you need proof, just look at us.
“It’s Matt. Hi. Hello? Anybody home? Suzanne? You here?”
The banging at my kitchen door was persistent and annoying, like an unexpected visit from an out-of-town relative. I went to the door, opened it, and then stopped, my mouth open in a little circle of surprise.
It was Matt, all right, but not Matt Harrison.
My visitor was Matt Wolfe.
Behind him in my driveway, I could see his glistening green Jag convertible.
Where had he been? He still hadn’t returned any of my calls.
“Hi,” he said. “God, you look good, Suzanne. You look great, actually.” He leaned in and I let him give me a kiss on the cheek.
I had no reason to feel guilty—but I did, anyway. “Matt. How are you? I just made some sun tea. Come on in.”
And he did, finding a comfy, sunny place in the kitchen, leaning into what looked like a catch-up mode. We definitely had some catching up to do, didn’t we?
“I’ve been out of town for most of the month, Suzanne. I kept meaning to call, but I was in the middle of a legal fiasco. Unfortunately, it was in Thailand.”
Suddenly, he smiled. “And you know—blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yah. So how have you been? Obviously, you got some sun. You look fantastic.”
“Well, thanks . . . so do you.”
I had to tell him. I even decided to give Matt Wolfe the long version of what had been happening in my life.
He listened, smiling at some parts, fidgeting nervously at others. I could tell his acceptance was somewhat bittersweet. But he kept listening intently, and when I was done, he got off the kitchen stool, put his arms around me, and gave me a hug.
“Suzanne,” he said, “I’m happy for you.”
He smiled bravely. “I knew in my gut I should
n’t have gone away. Now the best thing that could have happened to me has slipped through my fingers again.”
I found myself laughing. I was starting to notice that Matt Wolfe was a little bit of a con man. “Oh, Matt, your flattery is so sweet. Thanks for being a friend. Thanks for being you.”
“Hey, if I’m gonna lose the big prize, I’m going down with a little dignity. But I’m telling you, Suzie, if this guy flinches, or if I sense a crack in the dam, I’m coming back.”
We both laughed, and I walked him out to the Jag. Somehow, I just knew that Matt would be all right. I doubted he’d been all by his lonesome in Thailand. And let’s face it, he hadn’t called in nearly a month.
I watched Matt get into his car, his pride and joy.
“I actually think you two will get along. In fact, I think the two Matts will like each other a lot,” I called from the porch.
“Oh, great! Now I have to like the guy, too?” he called back.
The last thing I heard him say before he fired the convertible’s powerful engine was “He does know how to duel, doesn’t he?”
“Okay. What’s going on? Spill the beans, Suzanne. I want the scoop. I know there’s something going on with you,” said my neighbor and friend Melanie Bone. “I feel it in my bones.”
She was right. I hadn’t told her how Matt and I were progressing, but she could read my face and maybe even tell by the spring in my step.
We were walking along the beach near our houses, the kids and Gus romping in front of us.
“You’re smart,” I told her. “And nosy.”
“I know that already. So tell me what I don’t know. Spill.”
I couldn’t resist any longer. It had to come out sooner or later. “I’m in love, Mel. This has never happened before. I’m head over heels in love with Matt Harrison. I have no idea what’s to become of us!”
She screeched. Then Melanie jumped up and down a few times in the sand. She was so cute, and such a good friend. She screeched again.
“That is so perfect, Suzanne. I knew he was a good painter, but I had no idea about his other talents.”