The Condition

by Jennifer Haigh

  “I’m impressed,” Gwen said.

  Eric ordered a second pitcher, and Gwen found herself telling him things she’d never confided to anyone. She talked about her parents’ divorce: her mother’s neediness; her own paralysis. How disorienting, how lonely, the defection of her two brothers: one superachieving, one delinquent, but both so checked out that Gwen felt like an only child, swatted between her feuding parents like a red-haired tennis ball.

  “A red-haired tennis ball,” Eric repeated, grinning broadly.

  A moment later they both dissolved into laughter, the kind of sickening, belly-aching laughter Gwen had shared, in childhood, with Billy or her cousin Charlotte. When the laughter subsided, one of them had only to repeat the phrase “red-haired tennis ball,” and they were off again.

  “They’re going to throw us out of here,” Eric said finally, wiping a tear from his eye. He glanced at the check and took a bill from his wallet.

  Because he had not done this before—in grad-student fashion they’d always split the check—Gwen felt momentary alarm. Was this dating? Were she and Eric on a date?

  She stood, slightly wobbly. She was drunker than she’d imagined. Except for a man sitting alone in a corner, they were the only ones left on the patio.

  “You okay?” said Eric.

  He seemed tall to her, but not distressingly so. She was twenty-three and last kissed in childhood, by some reluctant Drew cousin in a game of spin the bottle. She leaned in and kissed him on the mouth.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Eric said.

  His car was an ancient Pontiac Ventura riddled with rust. Cruising down Schenley Avenue Gwen felt a heady vertigo, not unpleasant, that reminded her of sailing—her uncle’s boat, the Mamie Broussard, riding a salty wind.

  Eric parked on the street in front of her house. Dark windows in the first-floor apartment; it was after midnight, and Mrs. Uncapher was long asleep. They stumbled up the stairs.

  She had rehearsed in her mind the way to undress for a man. It was less difficult than she’d imagined. Darkness helped. Drunkenness helped. The heat of his body startled her, the wetness of his beery mouth.

  It hurt a great deal. Her doctor, scolding her again to take her medication, had explained that this was likely. But Gwen hated the pills, which gave her stomach-curdling headaches. She’d stopped taking them long ago.

  Is this okay? Eric whispered, stabbing at her.

  She had learned early in life that certain pains were necessary. Vaccinations hurt, and bone setting and cavity filling; but these were all to the good. That night on her lumpy futon, panties looped around one ankle, Gwen McKotch surrendered herself to the ancient procedure—salutary, she firmly believed, possibly lifesaving. She allowed Eric Farmer to save her.

  Yes, she said. Good.

  She woke in the dark a few hours later, parched and sweating. Eric was putting on his clothes.

  “I have to go,” he whispered. “I’ll call you, okay?”

  She watched from the window as the Pontiac Ventura disappeared around the corner. In the morning she drove to the pharmacy and refilled her prescription.

  A day passed, then two. Was this normal? Gwen had no idea. She considered asking her brother Billy for advice, but quickly came to her senses. Such a conversation would be mortifying to them both.

  The week dragged on, the days endless. Finally, on Friday morning—a full week later!—Eric appeared at Swingard’s office.

  “We should talk,” he said, hovering near her desk. “Friday night, that was great. But I just don’t, I can’t really—” He stopped, blushed, tried again. “I’m up to my neck in this thesis, and I don’t have room in my life for a girlfriend. What I’m trying to say is that I really like you. And I think we’re better off as friends.”

  Fall came. Gwen was offered a teaching assistantship, but the thought of standing in front of a classroom horrified her; instead she continued as Swingard’s assistant. She saw Eric occasionally around the quadrangle. A few times he stopped by Swingard’s office to chat. But never again did he appear on a Friday afternoon to invite her out for beer.

  Then, one morning just before Christmas, she saw Eric cross the campus with a girl.

  A pretty girl, petite and dark haired. She appeared to be no more than five feet tall. At most a few inches taller than Gwen.

  At most!

  Later, when she ran into Eric at the anthropology office, he seemed in a hurry. “I’ve got to run,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m heading out to the airport.”

  “Do you have visitors coming?” Gwen asked, avoiding his eyes.

  “Going, actually.” He hesitated. “My fiancée came out for a visit.”

  Gwen stared at him, speechless. Four months ago he’d been too busy for a girlfriend. Now he had a fiancée.

  Jill had been his high school sweetheart, he explained, but in college they’d gone their separate ways. A few months ago she’d gotten back in touch.

  A few months, Gwen thought. Before August, or after? “Wow,” she said stupidly. “I mean, congratulations. I had no idea.”

  “Me neither. It just, you know, happened.”

  They stood a long moment looking at each other. Gwen felt her heart working inside her. For once she couldn’t keep silent.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she blurted out. “You never even mentioned her.”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to hear.”

  Gwen flushed miserably. He knew, then: how incessantly she thought of him, what that one night had meant to her.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said quickly. “Of course I’m thrilled for you. When’s the big day?”

  “Next month. Over winter break.” Then, seeing her shock: “We’ve been apart so long already. And Jill—both of us, actually—wants to start a family.”

  Family. The word hit Gwen like a slap. She’d given little thought to children, her inability to have them. What did that matter when she couldn’t even find a date? That the two things might be related had never occurred to her. Had Eric Farmer guessed she couldn’t have children? Was this something men—young men, her own age—even thought about?

  To her relief he didn’t invite her to the wedding. He took a tenure-track job at a college in Minnesota and kept in touch through annual Christmas cards. In later years the cards would be replaced by photos, printed with a generic holiday greeting:

  Blessed Christmas to our friends and family.

  Love, Eric, Jill, Joshua, Hannah, and Michael.

  That she never saw him again was a fact that still astonished her. She had allowed few people to enter her life, and none before had left it. It was a lesson most people learned much earlier: that even deep friendships could have an undisclosed shelf life. That loyalty and affection, so consuming and powerful, could dissipate like fog.

  She left Pittsburgh in the aftermath of a snowstorm. As the jet rose from the tarmac she could see the flashing yellow lights of the snowplows, scraping the empty expanse of I-90. Where am I going? she thought. And then: Away, away.

  The trip had come about completely by accident. Heidi Kozak had booked it the summer before, but now her father, debilitated by Parkinson’s, was moving into a nursing home; it was a bad time to leave town. The deposit was nonrefundable, she explained, only transferable. “You can buy me out,” she said. “And PS, I really need the cash.”

  They were eating lunch in the museum cafeteria. “Saint Raphael is a little slice of heaven,” she promised. “You’ll have a blast.”

  “It sounds great,” Gwen said, “but I can’t.”

  Heidi understood that this no was automatic, a formality to be gotten through. She was not discouraged. She simply waited.

  Gwen groped for an excuse, but none came to mind. Nothing, not the smallest thing, was keeping her in town. The Pittsburgh winter had arrived early and ferociously: a lake-effect storm had dumped a foot of snow on the city the day after Halloween. Work was slow; no one but Heidi would even notice her absence. The Toddl
ers continued to drive her crazy. Her unused vacation days beckoned.

  Heidi knew all of this.

  The silence opened between them. Normally it was Gwen’s secret weapon, a tool she wielded with surgical precision. Other people feared it; faced with a lapse in the conversation they blinked, stammered, babbled incoherently. Her parents hated it. The Toddlers were particularly vulnerable. Faced with Gwen’s silence they blushed and fidgeted, then scrambled to fill it, like lemmings leaping to their death. Only Heidi seemed to understand that Gwen didn’t enjoy silence either. That sooner or later it would unnerve her, and she would be the one to speak.

  “What are those dates again?” Gwen asked.

  Heidi clapped delightedly. “You’ll love it, I promise. You might never come back.”

  GWEN WRESTLED her bags through customs in Miami, boarded the small propeller plane, and landed on the island at noon. The blazing sun shocked her body, as though she’d been defibrillated. Her blue jeans clung unpleasantly to her sweaty legs. She peeled off her Steelers sweatshirt and tied the sleeves around her waist.

  The Pleasures courtesy van was waiting outside the baggage claim, crammed already with guests and their luggage. Gwen climbed aboard and took a seat at the rear. The passengers were mostly women, chattering in pairs or threes.

  “My sister came two years ago,” said the woman to Gwen’s left. “She met her husband here.”

  The driver, an elderly black man in a parrot green uniform, took a quick head count. “Welcome to beautiful St. Raphael,” he said, his English thick and heavily accented.

  He started the engine. They drove into Pointe Mathilde, the island’s capital city. The narrow streets were clogged with traffic; on either side were jewelry stores and tiki bars, T-shirt shops and barbecue joints. Brightly painted signs advertised SAILBOARD RENTAL, DUTY-FREE CIGARETTES, LIVE TOPLESS GIRLS.

  The van climbed a steep hill, its engine roaring. Gwen stared into the distance at the rocky cliffs, the turquoise-colored water down below, bordered by a thin strip of white sand. She counted the many long winters she’d spent in Pittsburgh, in the dim basement of the Stott, and thought: This has been here all along.

  “We getting close,” said the driver. “Pleasures is just ahead.”

  Now the road was lined with a tall hedge, dense and bursting with orange flowers. They passed through an ornamental iron gate. The long driveway—lined with palm trees and elaborate flower plantings—led to a white stucco building, its entrance shaded by a green awning. The van paused in the circular driveway. Gwen climbed out of the van and hefted her pack to one shoulder, her bag of diving gear to the other.

  “Hey, little woman,” the driver called. “You need help with dose tings?”

  Gwen grinned. Was it his accent that made little woman sound charming, not insulting? Or just the fact that he’d said it, joyfully and unapologetically, out loud?

  The driver took her dive gear and handed it off to a porter. She walked into a sun-filled lobby, redolent of lilies. Huge potted palms marked the perimeter; at the center, under a high skylight, a tree bloomed with yellow flowers. She took her place in line at the front desk and dropped her bags to the floor.

  She felt drunk on warmth and color, the blossomy fragrance. The gray Pittsburgh winter seemed far, far away.

  “Gwen?”

  She turned to see a woman her own age, deeply tanned, a square, solid woman with straight black hair hanging down her back. “I’m Miracle Zamora,” she said, kissing Gwen’s cheek. “Heidi described you perfectly. I’d know you anywhere.”

  Gwen smiled hesitantly. The unexpected touch—and the idea of being described perfectly—made her cheeks flush.

  “I’ll wait while you check in,” said Miracle. “You’re lucky I got here first. It took me all morning to find our room.”

  “Next,” called the ebullient girl behind the desk. Gwen stepped up to the counter. “Welcome to Pleasures!” the girl said brightly, in a voice strikingly similar to that of the Allegheny Savings ATM back home. She looked down at Gwen, and confusion briefly clouded her face. She recovered admirably. “Welcome to our island paradise! Welcome reception, three o’clock in the Breezes lounge. Come alone, leave with a new friend!”

  “Great,” said Gwen, collecting her room keys and minibar card, her schedule of activities and map of the resort. “But I’m really here to scuba dive.”

  “Activities coordinator, extension 300. You can book dive excursions by phone.”

  Gwen followed Miracle across the courtyard, down a path lined with flower beds. She could feel her nose and cheeks already burning; her sunscreen was buried somewhere in her backpack.

  They climbed an outdoor stairway. Their room was brightly decorated in pink and yellow, with a mirrored ceiling and two queen-size beds. Miracle had already unpacked. Colorful sundresses hung in the closet. A dozen pairs of shoes were lined against one wall.

  “That’s all you brought?” Miracle marveled, eyeing Gwen’s backpack.

  “The porter is bringing my dive gear,” said Gwen. “I try not to pack more than I carry.”

  “God, that’s so smart. I almost killed myself going through customs. That thing weighs a ton.” Miracle pointed to a half-empty suitcase lying open on the floor. It was the size of a coffee table.

  “You brought all that for a week?”

  “Shoes,” Miracle explained. “Hurry up and change. There’s that welcome thing at three.”

  Gwen hesitated. “I’m kind of wiped out from the flight. Maybe I’ll stay here and unpack.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Miracle. “This is where you meet everybody. If you miss it, you’re screwed for the rest of the week. Besides, there’s free champagne.”

  “HELLO EVERYBODY, and welcome to Pleasures! I’m Trina, your cruise director”—the girl gave a little curtsy—“and this is Fall in Love Week!” Trina’s enthusiasm was palpable; she seemed ready to faint from excitement. With her muscled calves and brief outfit—a white circle skirt that barely covered her bottom, like a summer figure-skating costume—she reminded Gwen of the hyperactive tennis instructors she’d suffered, years ago, at camp.

  “This just might be the most important moment of the week,” said Trina. “Our speed meet and greet! We know you’ve had it with the dating merry-go-round, so the love experts here at Pleasures have devised this superquick, superfun way to connect with the guy or girl of your dreams.”

  There was a polite smattering of applause, which Trina seemed to take as encouragement.

  “Okay, here’s how it works. We’ve got the girls against this wall.” She gestured toward the banquette, where Gwen and Miracle and a couple dozen other women sat at small round tables, drinking complimentary champagne from plastic flutes. “And over at the bar, getting a head start on the festivities, we have the boys.”

  The girls were fortyish, a few younger. Most of the boys were bald. Gwen glanced around the room to see if anyone else found the terms ridiculous. No one looked amused.

  “When you came in just now, our cupid-in-residence, Jamie”—Trina pointed to a plump young man in the parrot green Pleasures uniform—“gave you a scorecard.” She held up a sheet of paper. “Here you’ll find all the girls listed by letter, and all the guys listed by number.

  “Now when I give the signal, the guys are going to come into the atrium and pick a girl to sit with. You’ll have exactly three minutes to get acquainted. Then Jamie will blow the whistle and you’ll move on to the next lady in line.”

  God, no, Gwen thought.

  “Now, some of you guys might feel like staying a little longer with a certain lady,” Trina continued, winking, “but remember, you’ve got to keep it moving, because the next guy in line is going to want his chance. Besides, there might be someone you like even better just around the corner.

  “So after each introduction we’ll give you a second to mark your scorecard: ‘hot’ or ‘cold.’ And when you come to dinner tonight, you’ll find one of these”—Trina held up a parrot
green envelope—“tucked under your plate. Whoops!” The envelope dropped from her fingers to the floor. She bent to pick it up. “Phone numbers, room numbers, everything you need to make a love connection with one of your hot prospects. How cool is that?”

  Applause and wolf whistles from the bar. These may have had less to do with the green envelope than with the view as Trina bent to retrieve it in her tiny skirt.

  “And here’s the best part,” she continued. “You’ll already know that every single guy or girl on your list is already hot for you. Jamie and I will spend the afternoon going over every single scorecard, matching your hot list and their hot list. This way there’s no rejection! No guesswork! You can cut right to the fun part.”

  Gwen scanned the room for an easy exit. Despite its name, the Breezes Lounge was shut tight as a crucible. The only way out seemed to be the French doors directly behind Trina, in full view of the crowd. Wasn’t that some kind of fire-code violation? They do this on purpose, she thought.

  Trina removed her watch and held it up to show the crowd. “Here we go! Gentlemen, start your engines.”

  A general commotion as the men charged across the room, holding short glasses or frosty mugs of beer. A few grinned sheepishly. Others clapped loudly, flushed and enthusiastic. It was a scene much like junior high gym class, the dreaded ballroom-dancing lesson: boys and girls compelled, for the first time, to touch.

  Gwen drained her champagne as a man sat down opposite her.

  “I’m Gwen,” she said. “Can you believe we’re doing this?”

  “Bobby.” He looked to be in his early fifties, bald on top, his remaining hair gathered into a dark ponytail. His sweatpants were loose and patterned, the sort pro wrestlers wore.