Love May Fail

Put my religious views aside, and you will see that I also am fighting on the side of rationality here.

  My condolences on the loss of your mother.

  She was a woman of God, and she was my dear friend, however difficult she might have been—and believe me when I say Sister Maeve could be tiresome.

  The truth is this: I will miss her deeply.

  We hope you will be able to attend the funeral mass. You would be our honored guest.

  “He’s real!” the sisters who have been praying so hard and long for you will proclaim when they see you, because your mother’s big talk about her only son has bestowed upon you a mythical quality.

  Regardless of all that has transpired, you are welcome here at St. Therese.

  All of the necessary information, along with directions from the north, has been listed on the enclosed card for your convenience.

  Also, she’s left her Bible to you, along with her beloved photo album, mostly containing pictures of you when you were a little boy. If you will not be attending the funeral, please provide me with an address so I can send you these items.

  Love and light,

  Mother Catherine Ebling (aka the Crab)

  Mother Superior, Sisters of St. Therese

  PS. Docendo discimus. (Latin. By teaching, we learn.)

  PART FOUR

  CHUCK BASS

  CHAPTER 22

  I’m no writer. I’m just a regular guy, so please forgive me if I mess this up. I’m doing my best here. Just going to tell the truth. With that being said, I guess my part begins when I leave Mr. Vernon’s party at the Manor and pull Portia off him under the trestle—I’ve never seen a woman attack a man like that before and I hope I never see it again. She’s pounding on him with both fists, calling him vulgar words. And she’s sobbing and yelling things about Mr. Vernon being the father she never had and his mother dying alone because of his selfishness and his needing to help kids—not completing sentences, hardly even making sense, losing her mind—and so I grab her, because she’s out of control, and when she struggles to get free I see that Mr. Vernon is shaking and crying himself.

  “You fake!” Portia yells, in my arms now, and starts to bang the back of her head against my collarbone, trying to free herself.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Kane, that I wasn’t the man you hoped I’d be,” Mr. Vernon says in this sad awful voice. It’s depressing, and so unlike the teacher I remember. He’s a shadow. Even I can see it plainly. He’s done. Tapped out. And as much as I love teaching kids now, I honestly don’t know that I could recover from being attacked by one of my students.

  I get it.

  Teachers have to believe. You have to care, and that takes a lot of work and effort. Teachers need people to give back once in a while too, if only a little. If you’ve never taught, maybe you won’t understand, but I’ve done my student teaching and am subbing regularly now, so I’m starting to maybe get it for the first time.

  Mr. Vernon turns his back on us and starts to make his way up the street, on the other side of the trestle now.

  “Where are you going?” Portia yells. “Are you going to limp your way back to Vermont?”

  “Stop belittling him!” I yell at Portia, and shake her hard enough to scare myself. I spin her around, grip her biceps, and look into her eyes.

  She looks back the way Tommy sometimes does when he’s overwhelmed, after a meltdown.

  “I need to do something,” I say to Portia. “Stay here.”

  I let her go and start jogging after Mr. Vernon.

  “Mr. Vernon!” I yell. “Mr. Vernon!”

  When I stand in his way, he stops walking.

  He’s still sobbing.

  “Mr. Vernon, I’m sorry to do this when you’re so upset, but I’ll hate myself forever if I don’t take the time to tell you something. Chuck Bass? Class of ’eighty-eight?”

  He’s shaking as he leans on his cane and tries to wipe the snot from his nose with the back of his hand.

  He doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. He’s only stopped because he’s unable to physically best me; he’s cowering like a beaten dog, tail between his legs, and it kills me.

  I have no idea if he remembers me or not, but it doesn’t matter.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to you,” I say. “It’s unimaginable and wrong. And there’s nothing Portia or me or anyone else can do to erase that tragedy. But.”

  I pull out my Official Member of the Human Race Card and hold it up.

  He’s looking through me, weeping quietly, waiting to leave.

  “I’ve carried this with me for more than twenty years because it’s the nicest present anyone has ever given me. I didn’t even thank you for it in person because I was just a teenager who didn’t know any better, but it meant a lot to me. Long story short, I became a junkie in my twenties. The addiction made me do unforgivable things I don’t want to list now, because I’m deeply ashamed of that period of my life. But when I hit rock bottom, as they say, and ended up in rehab, I had this counselor who said we were all in rowboats trapped in a fierce storm out at sea, and we needed to focus on a single light in the distance—like a lighthouse—and work our way back to it, rowing slowly but steadily through the storm, focusing only on the source of the light whenever it swept across the water and never on all of the tossing and turning and scary huge waves that threatened to suck us under at any time down below, where the real monsters were.

  “Some people at rehab used their kids as lighthouses, other people used their careers, or making their parents proud. I didn’t have a career or kids or parents, but I remembered how good I felt being in your class senior year—good enough to carry around this card for so many years and read it over and over whenever I was feeling shitty about myself, like I wasn’t even a person anymore. You made me believe I was a person.

  “And so I read this card every day in rehab and made you my lighthouse. I wanted to be like you. I told myself that if I could get clean and become a teacher like Mr. Vernon, make a difference—well, then the pain and the work and the excruciating detox and . . .

  “I’m saying too much, I’m saying it all wrong, because I’m not as smart as you, but I wanted you to know that you made a huge difference in my life. You saved me. And I wanted to say thank you. That’s it. Thank you.”

  Mr. Vernon is breathing heavily, and the fist gripping his cane is bone white.

  He glares at me for a long time before he says, “Please. Just. Leave. Me. Alone!”

  He pushes past me and canes his way up the street as fast as he can.

  I stand there feeling like a huge asshole.

  Talk about an anticlimax. I’ve fantasized about telling Mr. Vernon all that for years.

  I used to mentally play out the scene over and over again, in and after rehab too.

  When I turn away, blinking back tears myself, Portia’s looking up at me.

  “Get your truck,” she says, “because we’re going after him. Let’s go.”

  I’ve been in love with Portia Kane since the late 1980s, when I was a shy awkward fatherless virgin gawking at her whenever she passed me in the hallways of Haddon Township High School, wearing that same white jean jacket with her hair all teased out and a strength in her eyes that both attracted and scared the shit out of me simultaneously, and so I don’t need to be told twice.

  We get into my truck and drive toward the White Horse Pike, and we spot Mr. Vernon in front of the police station.

  “Let’s talk about this,” Portia yells out the window. “Can we simply talk?”

  Mr. Vernon surprises us by going inside the police station.

  Portia jumps out and follows him, so I park the truck. By the time I arrive inside, they have Mr. Vernon hidden away, and Portia is arguing with my cop friend, a guy I often serve at the Manor. Jon Rivers. I even helped him crack a drug case once by sharin
g some insider info I acquired back when I was a junkie. Jon and I are pretty tight. He owes me a few favors, so I’m more than a little glad that he’s the cop we run into tonight.

  “Do you know this woman, Chuck?” Jon says. When I nod, he says, “Calm her down,” and then disappears through a door to the space behind the thick glass separating the waiting room from the rest of the police department.

  “Why did Mr. Vernon go to the police?” Portia asks.

  “I have no idea,” I say.

  Twenty minutes later Jon comes out. “Mr. Vernon doesn’t want to speak with either of you. He’s willing to press no charges if you both just go home now.”

  “Press charges?” Portia yells. “What charges?”

  “Kidnapping. Harassment. And you did just hit him under the trestle, right? So that’s assault,” Jon says. “Listen. Just go home and leave this poor man alone. He’s back there sobbing and hyperventilating, okay? He’s having a breakdown of some kind. Sounds like you two were trying to do a very nice thing that ended up being not so nice for your guest of honor. Let’s not make this any more complicated than it has to be. Okay?”

  “No! This is bullshit,” Portia says.

  Jon gives me a look that says, Trust me on this.

  “Thanks, Jon,” I say. “We’re going now. Come on, Portia.”

  He nods once and then leaves us.

  “I don’t understand.” Portia’s shaking her head as I lead her out of the police station. “This wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be beautiful. What the fuck?”

  In my truck, I say, “Should we go back to the Manor? People are probably still waiting. They’re most likely very confused.”

  “Can you just drive me the hell away from here?” Portia says.

  Her face is blank.

  Her posture is defeated.

  She doesn’t look good.

  I don’t know what else to do, so after I call Lisa at the Manor and explain that the party is over, I drive Portia away from all of the unanswerable questions and confused former classmates and Official Member of the Human Race cards. An hour or so later, we somehow end up on the Ocean City boardwalk, walking aimlessly, listening to the ocean crashing, both of us shivering the whole time.

  Portia says, “This all has to be for a reason. Right? What do you think?”

  “What do you mean?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Maybe tonight isn’t the end of Mr. Vernon’s story,” she says, and I can see the light returning to her eyes. “And maybe it’s the beginning of ours.”

  “Ours?”

  “Our story.”

  “We have a story?” I say, maybe a tad too eagerly.

  She turns and faces me.

  I’m looking down into her eyes, and I can’t believe how quickly her mood has changed.

  “Can I try something?” she says.

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, here we go.”

  Then her hand’s on the back of my neck and she’s pulling my face down toward hers and we’re kissing.

  Tongues and all—passionately—and I’m not sure this is appropriate or even a good idea, but Portia doesn’t give me any time to consider, because now her hands are running up and down my back, and it’s like she’s trying to devour me, suck me inside her.

  When she comes up for air, I say, “What’s going on?”

  “This is the beginning of us, Chuck Bass.”

  “The beginning of us?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. It must be,” she says, and then we’re walking hand in hand, and I’m absolutely drunk on Portia Kane and the freezing cold salt air.

  We end up in a cheap motel four or so blocks from the beach, the Sand Piper. Before I know what’s happening, clothes fly to every corner of the room, and then Portia and I are making love for the first time.

  There’s part of me that knows we shouldn’t be doing this, that it’s probably rebound sex. She has been so wounded and rejected by her hero, Mr. Vernon—and come to think of it, I was too—this person who had represented goodness in our minds for more than twenty years, but turned out to be beaten by the world at best and a complete fraud at worst. It’s like there’s this big gaping hole in both of us now, and maybe we’re just trying to fill each other up, but the sex stuff happens quickly and it’s mind-blowing and beautiful and sad and scary too, because I know that it’s not just sex stuff for me, but much more, and yet I don’t know for sure what it is for Portia, who is still technically married, if I have my facts straight.

  And when I come, emptying myself inside her, in that seriously high moment—ejaculation is the closest thing I now have to a heroin hit—I can’t keep myself from saying, “I love you, Portia Kane. I have always loved you,” and then immediately wish I hadn’t and feel like an ass, even when she whispers back, “I’m hoping you’re my good man, Chuck Bass.”

  She rests her head on my chest and we just sort of lie there—her breathing, me stroking her long brown hair—until we both surrender to sleep.

  In the morning, we shower, dress, and walk the boardwalk, holding hands again, listening to the waves crashing, and talking about the fact that we both need change in our lives without really going into specifics, neither of us bringing up Mr. Vernon, even though I keep wondering where he ended up last night—and also if he might actually eventually kill himself like Portia said he wanted to when she called me from New York City. I hadn’t told the classmates we rallied about Mr. Vernon being possibly suicidal, and I’m now trying not to think about what they’d say if they found out he had actually gone through with suicide after our failed party.

  “You don’t think Mr. Vernon might have tried to hurt himself last night after he left the police station, do you?” I ask Portia when I can’t take it any longer.

  “It’s out of our hands,” she says, and then adds, “at least for now. We left him with cops. I’d say that clears us from any responsibility. What else could we have done?”

  I think about how we could still get him professional help—maybe contact a therapist or call a suicide hotline or something like that—but I understand what Portia means. She’s just driven all the way to Vermont, shown him a big fancy time in New York City. She will go on to tell me how she’s saved his life twice already. How many times are you expected to raise your former teacher from the dead, after all? And yet I still can’t shake the feeling that we could do more.

  “Hey,” Portia says, looking up into my eyes, her forefinger lifting my chin as seagulls cry and swoop overhead. “We tried. And maybe we haven’t heard the last word from Mr. Vernon.”

  I don’t understand what she means about “the last word,” but we did try.

  After late-morning pizza slices at Manco & Manco, I drive Portia home to her mother’s row home across the street from the Acme in Westmont, and just before she gets out of the truck, looking sun-kissed and wondrous, I say, “This isn’t going to sound very cool, I’m aware, but please tell me that I’m going to see you again soon.”

  She smiles. “How’s tonight sound? You around?”

  “I have Tommy tonight, but he’d love to see you too.”

  “Cool,” she says. “Maybe you’ll let me sit in on a Shot with a Fart session?”

  I smile.

  She gives me a kiss on the lips, and then she’s climbing her mother’s front steps.

  “Portia Kane,” I whisper to the dashboard, tasting each delicious syllable, “Portia Kane. Portia Kane.”

  I pull away from the curb, and as I pass the Crystal Lake Diner, I feel like something really good has begun. Like I’m basking in the warmth of the best sunrise I will ever experience. Maybe this really is the story of Portia and Chuck, and I’m just at the beginning. Could I be that lucky?

  And then I think of Mr. Vernon hobbling away from me as quickly as possible, and how my little sp
eech seemed to make no impact on him whatsoever.

  What do you do when the person you admire most literally turns his back on you?

  I’m not sure.

  How the hell did we end up at the police station last night? I think when I pass it.

  Where did Mr. Vernon go?

  When I pull into the parking lot across from the Manor, I see Portia’s rental car, and my heart leaps, because it gives me a chance to call her right away, to hear her voice without coming off as needy.

  So I dial her cell phone.

  “What took you so long to call me?” Portia says. “I’ve missed you, Mr. Bass.”

  It takes me a second to answer, I’m so giddy—I feel like a teenager again—but then I say, “Forget something at the Manor last night?”

  “Shit. The rental car.”

  “Should I come get you?”

  “Please.”

  “I’ll be there in five.” I hang up, and when I check myself out in the rearview mirror, I see a happy man—more elated than he’s ever been in his entire life.

  CHAPTER 23

  Tommy gets attached to Portia really fast, which scares me a little, even though Portia is great with him. For months, almost all of our dates are sexless because the little man is along for the ride, usually right between us, actually, holding both our hands.

  We take him to the movies, where we see all of the animated films; to the Franklin Institute, so he can climb around in that huge beating human heart they have there; to the Academy of Natural Sciences, so he can marvel at the reconstructed dinosaur bones looming above; even to Longwood Gardens to smell the spring flowers, which I never dreamed Tommy would be into, but he is in a big way. Especially the tulips, of all things, like just how many there are, endless amounts—he even tries to count them, but quits around one hundred or so. We go to a few Phillies games at Citizens Bank Park when my Manor customers float me tickets as tips, and even though none of us really like baseball we have a good time watching the Phillie Phanatic dance, goof on people, and throw his big green belly around; we run the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and victoriously hold our hands up in the air like Rocky before we eat cheese steaks at Pat’s in South Philly, where Tommy—with electric-yellow Cheez Whiz all over his face—innocently asks, “Who’s Rocky?” so we immediately rent the movie that weekend, and Tommy says, “Yo, Adrian!” for weeks. We go to the beach a lot when the weather warms up, and Portia looks drop-dead gorgeous in a bikini; at the zoo we take a ride up in their hot air balloon, which freaks me out a bit, to the point where Tommy reaches up and holds my hand because he sees how nervous I am; and when the temperature breaks into the nineties, we go fountain hopping, even though it is technically illegal now. “How can you make a Philly tradition illegal?” Portia says as she strides into the first fountain like a seasoned lawbreaker. We do all the stuff that most normal families do every weekend in and around Philadelphia.