“He might be. I’ll be tired. I’m tired now. I think maybe we should wait until morning. Let’s just stop for the night and go in the morning. I want to take a shower and look … you know.”
“Well, you should call and tell him, then,” Lise says. “In fact, I don’t know why you didn’t call him a long time ago and let him know we’d be late.”
“My phone is dead,” I say, which is true. Then, before anyone can volunteer the use of their phone, I say, “And anyway, I think it would be fun to surprise him. God knows he did plenty of that with me.” What I don’t add is that I, too, am phone-averse. Penny used to say I wasn’t a real woman, the way I didn’t go in for long conversations while holding a receiver to my ear. Even when I was a teenager, someone would start a good story, and I’d say, “Can you just come over?” I’d always thought that if Dennis and I ever did become a long-term couple, that would be one of the things that made us odd to others but deeply comfortable with each other.
“But what if he’s not even there when we get there?” Lise asks.
“All right; I’ll call him in the morning,” I say, a little more emphatically than I need to.
“Okay, so … motel?” Renie asks.
“How about bowling, first?” Joni says. “It’s too early to go to a motel.” There’s a place coming up on the right, Super Bowl, featuring a big neon sign of flying pins.
“I don’t want to go bowling,” Lise says, and Renie says, “I do.” They wait for my vote; we have been honoring the democratic process.
“I’m in,” I say. “I could use a beer and some humiliation.” I am a terrible bowler, unless you change the rules and count a gutter ball as a strike. Which I am going to suggest.
“I thought you were tired!” Lise says.
“Not for bowling.”
“You are nervous.”
“Maybe,” I say.
I am, of course, but it’s more than that. What’s the worst that could happen? I’ve asked myself, many times over. But as we get closer, what worries me is what could not happen, how we could both be standing with popped balloons in our hands, planning our exit strategy fifteen minutes after we’ve said hello. Or the other possibility: that one will be disappointed, the other starry-eyed.
The idea of all of this has been so thrilling. But what can happen that will live up to the anticipation? How can we keep from being dismayed by the ways in which we’ve changed? He has told me how he looks, and I know he knows I’m no longer the black-haired girl he once knew. Still, I suspect that in each of our brains, in each of our minds’ eyes, is firmly fixed an image from so long ago that it will be hard to reconcile the differences. Even someone who drives past a house she used to live in and finds it changed feels it in the gut.
A couple of years ago, I came across a set of photos a girlfriend had taken of me to give to the guy du jour. This was a very handsome guy aptly named Ken, if you consider the plastic perfection of Barbie’s boyfriend of the same name. My Ken was going to law school and in possession of some impressive musical talent. He could play guitar like Leo Kottke, he could play piano and the ukulele, and he wrote songs. Unfortunately, that was about it. He was not good in conversation; he had no sense of irony or playfulness; he favored minute planning over spontaneity; he was, as my friend Donna put it, how gray got born. When I defended him to her, she said, “Oh, you just can’t admit you fell for a piece of ass.”
It was true, as it happened, but until I was willing to admit that to myself, I was trying to win him. To that end, Donna took some flattering pictures of me. I thought it was really generous of her, given her opinion of the intended recipient. I gave him the photos, about which he said, “Nice,” and then he tossed them into a drawer with his condoms, which were red, which always used to make me kind of upset.
Last year, I found the negatives for those photos and had prints made, and when I picked them up, the images shocked me. I had been along for the ride, getting older, the changes had come gradually, but when I saw those pictures of me then versus me now, it was devastating. I thought of all I had lost and all that I had yet to lose, I thought of how youth is wasted on the young, and then I came to my senses and sent a donation to Doctors Without Borders and took a walk. But. Dennis will have a photo experience, so to speak, and so will I. And although how we look doesn’t matter nearly so much as what we are, what we are is old enough that there are probably not all that many good years left. So what’s the point?
“Nurse or purse, that’s all a guy would want us for now,” I overheard a woman about my age telling another. I suppose she might be right. And yet some stubborn part of me thinks otherwise. Don’t we all want company in some form, are we not attracted to the idea of a body beside us in a thunderstorm, or another voice to help decide on dinner, to share astonishment at the latest political buffoonery or appreciation for the lush sets on Downton Abbey? Are we not, at our most basic, social animals, people who need other people, whether we want to or not?
But I have that now, in the company of these women I live with. It’s true that we don’t give each other the intimacy of a romantic love, and I guess if I’m honest I have to admit I’m not past wanting that. I guess I want to be like the old couples I sometimes see whose love still burns so bright it makes me stop and stare.
I watch the bowling balls rolling down the alley and the pins flying up in the air and think about how one of the hardest things in life is fessing up to what you want most, because if you do that, and you don’t get it, it’s so hard to be without it. I wonder if most people fully invest in what they care about most. There is a Kazantzakis quote I once taped to my computer that said, I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. But I took it off because the truth is that although I might have admired the words and anyone who might be able to honestly say them, they were very far away from the person I am. I live in fear of a lot of things. I recognize that I am not free. And all my life, I have hoped for everything.
A face comes up into my line of vision like a rising moon. Renie. “Hellllooooo,” she says, and I laugh, and she says, “Your turn,” and then, “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar,” she says.
“Liar,” I agree. I grab a ball, squint at my adversaries all lined up at the end of my lane, and think about how I might actually knock some of them down. Then I let go of the ball, which bounces (as much as a bowling ball can) before it rolls leisurely toward the end of the lane. Regrettably, it is not my lane. I knock three pins down in the next lane over, and the guy who’s bowling there is pissed.
“What the fuck!” he says, slamming down his ball. He comes over to me, his hands on his hips. I see a lot of coarse black hair curling out of the V at the top of his shirt and I just don’t know what to do.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say. He is wearing a black bowling shirt and lots of gold jewelry that is lacking only a Playboy logo or some other demeaning image of women like that so often displayed on the mud flaps of eighteen-wheelers.
“You think this is funny?” the man asks. Oh God, he’s at least six three.
“No, I think this is scary. And I’m sorry. I’m just a really bad bowler.”
He nods in a kind of calculating way, the way a lot of men look when they’re tonguing a toothpick, but then seems unable to think of anything else to say. He goes back over to his lane and picks up his ball. On the bench, a thin, curly-headed blonde sits staring at the floor. “Get me a beer, goddamnit,” he yells at her, and the woman jumps up.
“Get it yourself, you pig!” Renie yells at him.
He starts toward her, and I say, “Relax, we’re going, see? We’re leaving.” I pull on Renie’s hand. Joni and Lise have already fled.
I walk out quickly, my heart racing, holding back laughter. I’m wide awake, thrilled. There’s nothing like getting in trouble to make you feel young.
IN THE MORNING, I AM MUCH MORE AT EASE ABOUT SEEING DENNIS. I am, in fact, full of optimism. In a
worst-case scenario, it will be interesting to see him again, and I know I’ll at least like him. I call his cellphone to tell him we’re going to get breakfast and then we’ll be on our way, but he doesn’t answer. I get one of those recorded voices that asks you to leave a message, which always makes me wonder if I’m really talking to the person I intend to. Nonetheless, I make my voice cheerful and confident and say, “Hi! I’m sorry we never made it over last night; we got in really late and I didn’t want to wake you. But we’re close now, we should be there by ten! So I guess we’ll go and get some breakfast and then I’ll call you back. You must be … Well, I don’t know where you must be, but I’ll call you back. Or call me, I think you have the number, or it will show up on your phone, of course. I’ll see you soon.”
Renie stretches and says, “I want some pancakes, does anyone else want pancakes?”
“I want something lighter,” Joni says. “Enough already with all this ballast.”
“All right, we’ll ask at the desk for a hippie café,” Renie says. “Maybe there’s one on the way to Dennis’s house.” She looks over at me and I look away.
WE FIND A PLACE called Aunt Bea’s with hive-shaped jars of honey on wooden tables and lots of local artwork on the walls. There is a corner of the restaurant with big fat old-fashioned upholstered chairs given over to the computer users so they don’t hog the tables. I point to that area and say, “See? Good idea. Last time I went to Panera, I couldn’t find a table. I was walking around and around with my tray, and all these people were sitting at the tables with their computers. One woman hadn’t even bought anything; she just had one of those plastic cups with water. I kept walking past her but she wouldn’t move any of her papers spread all over the table.”
“You know what you do in a situation like that?” Renie says.
I sigh. “Of course. Go over to the person and say, ‘Would you mind moving your papers so I can sit down?’ ”
“Exactement.”
“Oh, that’s so tiresome,” Lise says. “It’s like bad behavior in movie theaters. People act like they’re in their living rooms. That’s why I bought such a big TV screen, so I could act like my living room was a movie theater.”
Joni squirts honey in her herbal tea. “Plus who wants to sit with a table hogger who obviously doesn’t want to share? They’d be giving you dirty looks even if they weren’t looking at you.”
Lise’s phone rings and she looks at the number and doesn’t answer.
“Sandy?” I ask, and she shakes her head no.
“Was it him?” Joni asks.
“Who?”
Joni frowns at her.
“Yes,” Lise says. “And I’ll call him back later.”
“Uh-oh,” Renie says
“Never mind, you don’t know,” Lise says.
“Yes, I do,” Renie says. “I knew you wouldn’t let this happen. You’re too scared. You want to be in control all the time.”
I expect an argument, but Lise says nothing, sits staring at her plate. Finally, she says, “Maybe you’re right. I’m used to being in control. I always was the fix-it person. Birds with broken wings, abandoned baby rabbits. I used to try to rebuild anthills that got knocked over. The thing I wanted most for Christmas every year was a real first aid kit. My parents kept giving me kid ones, but I wanted suture sets, IV equipment, I wanted a cut-down tray in case I had to do an emergency tracheotomy. My Uncle Will was a doctor and he used to let me come to work with him sometimes when he moonlighted in this little hospital’s ER; I knew a stack of Band-Aids, pink candy pills, and a plastic stethoscope weren’t good for anything.” She looks up at Renie. “But to your point. Honestly? I am scared. I don’t know if I can take the chance that in trying to work together again, we’ll crash on the rocks again. Even if I keep Sandy out of it, at least at first, I don’t know if it’s good for me. I feel like I’ve been acting so foolishly.”
“Maybe it’s good for you to act a little foolish,” Joni says. “You’ve been … I don’t know, more fun on this road trip than I’ve ever seen you be.”
“Why don’t you just relax and take it one step at a time?” Renie says.
“We’re on Cece now,” Lise says, flinging her napkin onto her plate. She looks over at me. “Call Dennis and tell him we’re on the way.”
I dial the number and get the same message. “Huh. Still no answer.”
“Do you think he’s sleeping?” Joni asks.
“I don’t know.” It’s eight o’clock, one of those could-go-either-way hours.
“He might have gotten up a lot last night,” Lise says.
Almost reflexively, it occurs to me to say, “No he didn’t,” but how do I know?
“Let’s just go over there,” Renie says. “Cece can call him from the car when we’re sitting outside his house. That’ll be a surprise! Give me the keys, Lise; I’ll drive. I want to go through a McDonald’s drive-through on the way over and get a real breakfast.”
“You just had a real breakfast,” Lise says, and Renie says, “Granola with all that self-righteous fruit and nuts is not a breakfast. It is a punishment. It is a prescription. It is mortar for building—”
“All right,” Lise says. “Let’s go.”
“Be right there,” I say. “I have to pee.”
I don’t have to pee, but I pee anyway. Then I brush my teeth and my gums and my tongue and the roof of my mouth and under my tongue. I put on a shade of lipstick that is very subtle, that just makes you appear to have circulating blood. I rat up my hair a little on top and on the sides; it’s so much thinner than before. I adjust my brassiere; last time I saw him, I never wore one. Oh, those wonderful days of free breasts, but I’m glad I came back to Brylcreem, so to speak.
Not long ago, I saw an interview with a fiery feminist of yore, someone not quite Gloria Steinem but close, a woman who in her prime stood before thousands of cheering young women who were coming into a kind of power they’d never known before. And all respect, truly, but apparently this woman had never come back to bras, and the look was … Well, you would have to be a less superficial person than I not to fixate on all that lowness.
I stand back from the mirror, look at my worried face, then hike up my purse on my shoulder, smile, and go forth to complete my mission. It comes to me that there is no place on earth I would rather be. If someone came up to me and said, “Surprise, you’ve just won tickets to go anywhere you want right now, all expenses paid,” I’d say, “That’s okay. I’m going to see Dennis Halsinger.”
I get into the front seat beside Renie, who has put the address into the GPS. According to it, we are 107.3 miles away. Then, after we leave the parking lot, 107.2.
It takes us a bit under two hours to get to the city limits. When we finally get to Dennis’s quiet street, it’s hard to see the numbers on the houses. The GPS has told us we have arrived at our destination, but we can’t quite make out exactly where that destination is. Finally Lise points to a small green house set back from the curb and says, “There it is!”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, here goes.” I dial Dennis’s number again, and get the same recording. I snap my phone shut. “Let’s go; I think he changed his mind.”
“He didn’t change his mind,” Joni says. “Go and ring the doorbell. We’ll wait here.”
I get out of the car and sneak a look at the upstairs, then downstairs windows to see if he is peeking out, but I don’t see anything. When I get to the door, I see that there’s an envelope tucked in the screen door with my name on it. There’s something hard inside, a key, I think. I open the envelope and yes, that’s exactly what it is, along with a note to me:
Cece,
Don’t know what happened; you never did call last night. I tried calling you a bunch of times yesterday and got no answer, hope you’re okay. Depending on when you get this, I’m either on a plane to or in Paris. A good friend of mine is the editor of the travel section of the paper here, and he called yesterday to ask if I’d fill in for a shoot they’
re doing in Montmartre—the guy they were going to send all of a sudden got sick, and I need the work.
I’m only going to be there for a few days or so, and I’ll call you when I’m back. Doubt there’ll be much time for fun there; if this shoot is like the others I’ve been on, I’ll work eighteen hours, get back to the hotel, and fall flat on my face.
Anyway, here’s the key if you need a place to stay; they’re not coming to empty it out for ten days. Check out my mom’s decor; it’ll break your heart. Help yourself to any food.
Don’t know why
you never called.
Dennis
I read the note once more, then turn around to wave the others in.
WHAT DOES A HOUSE’S CONTENTS SAY ABOUT A PERSON? A lot, I think. I hardly have to cross the threshold before I get an idea of what Dennis’s mother was like. I think she, like many of the women of her generation, was inordinately neat and clean. I think she bought some good furniture when she married, and stuck with it: the wood is maple, and the style is colonial. In the kitchen there’s a cream pitcher hanging by a hook above the table, as well as a framed sampler saying NO MATTER WHERE I SERVE MY GUESTS/IT SEEMS THEY LIKE MY KITCHEN BEST. There’s a row of chimera African violets along the windowsill over the sink; apparently Dennis has been keeping them alive.
In the living room, there are crisscross sheers across the front window; a tall grandfather clock, gone silent now; a bowl of butterscotch candy on an end table, next to the La-Z-Boy chair that offers the best view of the television. In the dining room, there’s a braided rug, a framed print of Norman Rockwell’s family at Thanksgiving, and a cup rack featuring matching cups and saucers as well as a spoon rack with tiny spoons from everywhere. There’s a crocheted tablecloth and a hutch that holds the good china, some pieces on display.
“My Aunt Tootie had a house like this,” Joni says, when I rejoin her in the kitchen. Her voice is low, as though we’re in a funeral parlor, and in some respects I suppose we are. “She had a cleaning cart and I think it was her favorite thing in the world. It was where she kept everything she needed, including newspaper and vinegar for the windows, and ammonia for the oven. She loved cleaning.” She moves over to the pantry. “I’ll bet there are cans with expiration dates from years ago in here.” She picks up a can of tomatoes, turns it upside down. “Yup.”