by Diane Wald
Not until I was out on the main road to town did I remember that I could barely see the road at night. I continued singing, not to alarm poor Eliza. I was terrified: I had spoken nobly about not taking chances with her and here I was, possibly driving her to an early death. I steered and prayed.
The night road, fortunately all but deserted because of the lateness of the hour, looked for all the world like a room full of jukeboxes seen through an oily lens. A few stars dotted the cold black sky—or were they stars? I relied on my memory of the area and drove as slowly as I could without alerting Eliza that something was amiss. She was so distracted by the immensity and plushness of the car’s interior (she drove an ancient Volkswagen bug) that I hoped my driving would escape her notice. She exclaimed over everything: the deeply cushioned leather seats, the roominess, the hood ornament, the bevy of mechanical doodads on the dashboard, and when I lifted the little panel between our seats to show her the telephone, she was beside herself with wonder (in those days, don’t forget, a car phone was truly a remarkable appliance).
“Jack, are you rich?” she asked, in wonder.
I laughed. “I was for a while,” I said, “But no more. This car dates from fancier days.”
“Well it’s really something,” she said, and then, frantically, “Watch out!”
I pounded the brakes, and we slid a little, then skidded to a halt. Eliza had leaped across the seat and thrown her arms around me. “My God, Jack,” she said, “Didn’t you see the red light? You went right through it! That car almost slammed into us!”
“Where are we now?” I asked her. I wanted to die. “Where have we stopped?”
She reached up to my face and found tears there, wiping them away with her soft hand. “I didn’t realize,” she said. “You should have told me.” And then, “It’s okay. We’re fine. There’s no one around. Do you want me to drive?”
“I’m sorry, Lizzie,” I said, “I should have asked you to drive from the start. I’m a prideful old fool. I can’t see worth beans after dark.” I got out, felt my way around to the passenger side, and got back in. Eliza had already slid over into the driver’s seat.
“Bet you never had a chauffeur quite like me,” she said cheerily (I knew it must have cost her dearly to overcome her fright). “Even in your wealthier days.” She was going to make a game of it; I loved her for her sweetness. I pictured Frances under the same circumstances: she would have still been screaming at me.
As we pulled out again into traffic, Eliza reminded me she didn’t know where we were going. I asked her to describe the landmarks, then directed her to the parking lot of an all-night pharmacy in a shopping mall. She walked with me up to the door of the place, but I told her I wanted to go in alone. She did not laugh at me, but I laughed at myself. “Let’s hope,” I told her, “that there’s some discreet and understanding old chap behind the counter.”
“Silly,” she said. “Would you rather I buy them?” That shocked me a little, I must admit, but I think I didn’t let it show.
“Of course not. Can I get you anything inside?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “See you soon.”
On our way back to the apartment I asked Eliza if she’d like to stop for a drink. I wasn’t planning on imbibing any alcohol myself (I thought Dr. P. might still be in my system), but I wanted a little pause in the night’s activities. So much had happened in so few hours that I felt a bit unsteady. Happily, Eliza agreed, and I directed her to my favorite nightspot, a quiet, dignified little bar called simply “Tom’s.”
They knew me there; I guess I wanted to show Eliza off a little. Perhaps I’d be thought of as a silly old fool, but at least I wouldn’t be pegged as pathetic and lonely. Our waitress, a wise middle-aged woman named Emma who had shared some of my lonelier evenings by sitting and having a drink with me just before they closed, was obviously pleased to see me with a female friend. If she was shocked by Eliza’s age, she didn’t let on. I think we must have looked the odd couple indeed: Eliza in her jeans, long hair, and wide-cheeked innocence, and I in my fedora and dark overcoat, with what was no doubt a mixed expression of wonder and fear on my own less innocent features. Emma chatted with us for a minute or two, then left us to our sherries. I don’t know why I ordered sherry for both of us, but it somehow seemed the thing to do. Dry Sack. Warming. We didn’t talk much, but sat very close together, our hands intertwined under the table, resting on Eliza’s leg. She did not seem nervous at all, and the wine made the temperature of her hand rise just perceptibly—or maybe it was my imagination. I couldn’t wait to get her home again.
My funny little chauffeur (I promised her an official chauffeur’s cap) brought us safely back to the apartment, and we wasted no time getting back into bed. After some warmup activity, it was clearly time to don my new purchase. I expected some clumsiness with this; after all, it had been so many years since I’d used one, and I’d really only done so a couple of times in my youth. But I did not remember having any special problems in those days, so I approached the task with a certain dogged optimism. The first try was a disaster, and we had to warm up some more before I could try again. Eliza was patient and reassuring, but I was becoming irritated.
After the third try I lay down on my back and said, “Damn.”
Eliza began to laugh. I had to join her. It was wonderful to see just how little all this bothered her. “Listen,” she said, “I’m not laughing at you—you know that! Want me to make a cup of tea or something?”
But the laughter had loosened me up again, and I didn’t want to waste a moment. I got the damned thing in place and was inside my darling in about ten seconds, occasioning from her a deep sigh of pleasure and surprise. And for at least sixty seconds more we were in heaven together; I had forgotten my dreadful rotting body and was alive anew in her young and healthy one. There was a pulse between us, a current so strong and beautiful, that I could have shouted for joy. I could not remember ever having felt so wholly good, so wholly impassioned. Then I lost my erection. Just like that—it collapsed like a sad old concertina. I rolled off Eliza and covered my face with my hands.
She tried to remove them. “Tea?” she suggested again, desperately. I needed to tell her it wasn’t her fault, that she was wonderful and exciting to me beyond belief, and I started to do so. She stopped me.
“I think maybe you’re more ill than you’ve told me,” she said quietly. “Is that right?”
“Sweetheart,” I said, holding her very close, “I’m afraid it is.”
“Are you in pain? Do you have drugs for that?” she asked.
“I’m not in pain at the moment; I’m in depression. Eliza, this was all so beautiful, and suddenly I can’t do a thing. It’s the drugs and the wine and the excitement I guess; and maybe it’s just the disease working in my head. I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just first-night jitters. Please forgive me, Lizzie. Let me give you some pleasure anyway—at least I can do that.”
But she wouldn’t let me. She insisted on making the tea. And she brought it back to me in bed on a tray with some cookies she must have had in her bag, and we played at our tea party until I became excited again. “Try it without,” said Eliza when I reached for the condom, but I simply could not think of it. I succeeded in putting the thing on, entering her, and then, once again, becoming instantly soft. Eliza crept down to my thighs and took my limp member in her mouth, astounding me. I felt so happy I thought I could easily die right then, and she drew from my idiot body an instant and enthusiastic response, but it subsided as soon as she stopped to draw a breath. I pulled her up to my chest again.
“No more,” I begged her. “Have mercy on this ridiculous old wreck.”
“There’ll be lots of other nights,” Eliza said, as I traced her smile with my fingers. “I don’t want you to worry about any of this, okay? It’s no big deal. I don’t care. I feel wonderful just being with you. And I think you’re right about first-night jitters—I mean, my God, I’m glad I’m not a man�
��there’s always so much pressure on you.”
“I too, goose, am glad you’re not a man,” I told her, “And besides being sweet, understanding, and brilliant, which I already knew, you are the sexiest thing on the face of the earth—did you know that?”
“Ridiculous,” she said.
“No, no it’s not,” I responded, pinching her lightly. “But don’t let it go to your head.”
She laughed at me, got out of bed, pulled on her clothes and tossed me my robe. “I think I’d better go,” she said. “I’ll call you in the morning. “
I walked her to the door. “Don’t you want to comb your hair or anything?” I asked her, remembering how women usually spent lengthy periods of time in the bathroom after any amorous encounter.
“Nah,” she said. “What for? I’ll be home in half an hour. Nobody’s going to see me.” Then she added, “And besides, this way I can go to sleep with your fingers in my hair.” She kissed me and left. I went back to bed. I did not sleep at all until nearly seven that morning.
5. Frances, in Love and Disillusion
But what of my darling wife, you ask? I have already spoken so poorly of her I’m afraid you might have the wrong impression. Frances had many good qualities; still has, I’m sure. She was not always a witch; perhaps she is not witch now. Perhaps, when she was a witch, it was I who caused her to become one. That’s highly possible, in fact; I was not an easy man in many ways. But Frances Buehr, when I met her in 1952, was a walking dream. In fact, I used to hum that old song “Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?” whenever I spotted her on campus. Frances was a freshman at the university I attended for grad school, going after one of my famous degrees. We were the same age, but she was beautiful, mature, socially successful, and sophisticated, while I was gawky, pimply, a dedicated bookworm, something of a recluse, and a virgin. I had no idea whether or not Frances Buehr was a virgin; I didn’t consider it my business in any way, present or future. I only knew I adored her and that I hadn’t a chipmunk’s chance in a shopping mall of meeting her, much less getting close to such a perfect specimen of young womanhood.
One autumn afternoon I was in line in the cafeteria, anxious lest they serve pigs’ knuckles again and wipe out my appetite for another two days, when I simultaneously bumped into my dorm-mate Fritz Nilsson and sighted Frances. She was lingering over the trays of lime and cherry Jell-O. Fritz cut in line in front of me and tried to be friendly.
“How’re you, MacLeod?”
“Hungry,” I said. “Let’s hope there’re no pigs’ knuckles today.” I spoke to Fritz, but I’d never taken my eyes off Frances, which of course he noticed.
“Hey, Mac, what’re you looking at?”
“Oh, nothing. Just looking forward to dessert,” I lied. I still couldn’t stop staring at her. I rarely got up so close to her, and I could see individual strands of her gorgeous red-blonde hair flowing down the back of her fuzzy sweater. I was sweating profusely. Fritz put his head next to mine and followed my gaze.
“Holy mackerel, Mac,” he said very loudly, slapping me between the shoulders with all his might. “That’s Flabby Frances you’re staring at, right?”
I was aghast, certain I’d misheard him. I turned on him so quickly he backed away.
“Flabby Frances?”
Fritz was laughing and slapping himself now.
“Good lord, Mac, you’re a creep of sorts, but you sure don’t have to sink that low. Flabby Frances …” and he continued to laugh.
“I think she’s gorgeous,” I told him, and pulled the last coveted piece of lemon meringue pie from the display in front of him. “So shut up, okay?” He sniffed and went on his way.
Now Fritz was no Einstein, but it was for that very reason I tended to trust his social instincts. I looked again at my dream girl: well, she was a little overweight. Okay, she probably needed to lose a few pounds. I simply hadn’t noticed. Nor did I approve in any way of Fritz’s slurs. All Frances’s other sterling qualities had eclipsed this one minor physical failing from my view. I considered this all through dinner, which I ate alone, Fritz having lost interest in me when I refused to discuss the distribution of Frances’s avoirdupois overload with him any further.
Shortly after that fateful dinner, I ran into Frances Buehr in my dentist’s waiting room. The place always reminded me of a cocktail lounge gone wrong; even the potted plants looked slightly tipsy. Frances and I had never actually met, but I caught her eye as soon as I walked in, and I could tell she’d recognized me as a fellow student. We were the only two there. I swallowed a lump of fear the size of Gibraltar and walked up to her, hand extended.
“Jack MacLeod,” I said. “I’ve seen you on campus.”
She looked a little surprised but took my hand politely.
“Frances Buehr,” she said. “Alpha Delta Chi.”
“I know,” I stammered, “I mean, I know your name; I didn’t know your sorority. I’m not in a frat; I’m not a normal student—I mean, I’m a grad student, that’s all.”
“I’m pre-law,” she said, “And how did you know my name?”
I decided to risk all. “Well,” I said, “Let’s say I’ve been admiring you from afar. I asked about you. I hope you’re not offended.”
Her face softened, then suddenly hardened into a sharp mask of pain. “Ooh,” she said, grabbing one lovely cheek. “Toothache.”
“I’m sorry. I hope it’s not serious.” I sat down beside her on the orange leatherette couch.
“Oh, it’s serious all right,” said Frances. “It’s always serious with me. They tell me that, unless I change my eating habits, I’ll be toothless and gumless by the age of thirty-five.”
“Good grief,” I said, with galactic stupidity.
“Good grief,” she agreed. “I’ve really got to change. I’m a sugar addict. I’m ruining my mouth and my social life. I eat more garbage than a Dispose-All. I’m getting fatter by the week.” Then she looked at me as if I were an alien from Mars. “What the hell am I telling you all this for?” she said, laughing.
I fell in love with her that day. I asked her if I could take her to lunch in the city when our dental tortures were over, and she agreed to come “if the Novocaine’s not too bad.” It wasn’t. We had a marvelous time. I promised to help her diet, and she promised to help me “normalize” myself—she thought the word was hilarious. I thought it was grossly off the mark, but I didn’t care.
Soon we lost our virginity together. Frances, for all her apparent sophistication, was a virgin too, and we continued loving each other for quite a few years; I know we helped each other a great deal too. Frances lost weight and gained confidence in herself. She became a successful lawyer and a loving mother. I lost some of my inborn pessimism and gained the joys of family life. But somewhere along the line, as the saying goes, something happened. Somewhere along the line our paths diverged, and Frances began to be disappointed in me. I think she’d always believed that my famous brain would become really famous—that I would do something or say something or write something that would catapult me and my entire family into the public eye, bringing fortune along with the fame.
But I was tied to my books, my teaching, and my patients, and I guess I wasn’t really that exciting in general. Frances returned, after Mark was born, to her law practice, and began to compare me unfavorably to her snazzier colleagues and clients. In turn, I became disappointed in what seemed to me to be her changing values. Life turned hollow, except for our two boys, on whom we both doted. I know now that we probably should have separated long before we did, but who can really determine the perfect timing for such things? There were times in those last years, even as Frances was making me rue the day I’d met her, that I’d get a flash and an ache inside. I’d see her reddish hair glinting in a beam of light or hear a trace of some long-lost sweet inflection in her voice, and it would give me pause. If our life together had become a barren field, it’s also true that once that field had flowered bountifully, and that even toward the en
d a few maverick blooms could be found amidst the dust. Perhaps we always love the ones we first love, even when love goes sour.
6. Lunch with Dr. Sarah
Wally Mussel had had it in for me since our first meeting. I don’t know why. I mean I can guess the reasons he came to dislike me more and more as time went by, and I know why he ended up hating me, but I could never fathom his incredible and instant dislike of me the first moment we laid eyes on one another.
Not that he made such a good first impression on me either (and in truth I already had a bias against him—you’ll see why soon), but I did not want to kill him on sight. Wally Mussel, head of the psychology department at NSU, was an obese man, short, with a pouty little mouth, and yellowish, pouch-endowed eyes that exhibited no intellectual luster whatsoever. He had a set of false teeth that must have previously belonged to George Washington, or possibly Martha. His voice was high and whiney, and everything he said sounded like the complaint of a dying monarch. He appeared to be about twenty years my senior, but I knew he only had five or six years on me at best.
I did not meet this neurotic little dictator until I had already been offered the job, a job I’d had my heart set on because Frances and I longed for something closer to civilization than Vermont, and it paid much better than my private practice. Northern New Jersey was so close to New York City. My one interview had been held with the provost, two psychology professors, and, wonder of wonder, two senior students. I say “wonder of wonders” because, in those days, students were generally considered a little higher than ground-hogs in the academic hierarchy. They all liked me, and I liked them. I felt comfortable with them, and I was looking forward to some satisfying years of teaching and befriending my colleagues. One of the professors, a stunning thirty-ish blonde named Sarah Bowe (Dr. Bowe, that is), had been elected to take me to lunch after the interview. I remember she wore a pale blue tweed suit with a lacy little lavender blouse underneath that looked more like lingerie than outerwear. She was intelligent as well as sexy, and I was delighted to go off with her to a nearby inn, called the Sherwood, for what I hoped would be a pleasant little meal.