Vera’s weighing a dozen possible answers when—as if on cue—Rosie walks in. She’s rubbing her eyes with her fists the way she used to when she was tiny. If that was all Lowell saw, he’d think no time had passed since he left. And maybe none has. Rosie doesn’t ask why he’s here. She jumps up in his arms, just as Vera did. The first few times they split up, Vera used to half-hope that Rosie wouldn’t—or would pretend not to—recognize him when he returned. In fact she never blamed him, never held back; and now Vera’s glad. Trouble between Rosie and Lowell would only make it all seem sadder.
“Sweet potato!” says Lowell. “I hear my Rose of San Antone’s been dancin’ up a storm!” He’s flirting now, playing the shy country charmer; that’s how he won Vera’s heart. She remembers the first day she knew she was in love with him. They were taking a walk up Mount Sutro. Near the top, Lowell pulled ahead of her and climbed a steep boulder. “Watch this!” he cried and leaped across a deep, precipitous crevice to the rocks beyond. “Did you see that?” he asked, still panting when she caught up with him. “Crazy Arky risks certain brain damage just to impress his girl.” His girl? Vera had been working so hard at pretending they were friends. It was the next morning that Lowell showed up so early at Louise’s.
What’s wrong with a little flirting? Rosie looks pretty and flattered, radiant. It’s no worse than that let’s-toss-around-the-football buddy-buddiness that eighties dads are so careful to adopt with their daughters. The only thing wrong with Lowell flirting with Rosie is that it makes Vera miserable, makes her envy her own daughter, makes her conscious of how much lies ahead of Rosie, how much behind her and Lowell.
“I’m hungry,” says Rosie. “Walk me into the kitchen,” and Lowell does. Vera waits, listening to them chatter away like teens on a date. She can’t hear what they’re saying, only the cadence. With each sentence, Rosie picks up more of her father’s lilt, his traces of Arkansas accent. When Vera walks in, Rosie’s saying, “Dad, when you were ten did you ever do disgusting things? I mean really disgusting?”
“Well, now,” says Lowell. “One man’s pig’s feet and gravy is another man’s disgusting. Let’s define our terms.”
“More disgusting than pig’s feet,” says Rosie. “What I mean is: did you ever pee in a girl’s water pistol.”
“Honey,” says Lowell. “Your daddy was a gentleman, even then. And gentlemen don’t pee in young ladies’ water guns.”
No arguing with that, thinks Vera, who’s just realized that what Norma said—Carl’s doing that proves he likes Rosie—is only part of it. That’s why Rosie needs Lowell around, why they all do—to remind them of the rest: there’s more you have to ask about boys than whether they like you or not.
“Rosie,” says Vera, more harshly than she means to. “It’s two in the morning. Let’s get back to bed. Your dad will still be here in the morning. Unless he’s got other plans.”
“Is that an invitation?” says Lowell. “If it is, I’m accepting.”
“You better,” says Rosie, kissing him, then leaves without looking at Vera.
As soon as Rosie’s out of earshot, Lowell says, “You wouldn’t happen to have a little something smokeable? It’s just not humanly possible to get high in airplane bathrooms any more, I don’t care how many joints you blow. Maybe it’s the altitude or the pressure, or maybe they spray it with something. I don’t know. You think it’s middle age?”
Here’s the most pathetic thing: As Vera watches Lowell roll joint after joint, she feels happy, taken care of, that warm bath of pleasure other women must slip into when their husbands unplug drains and pay bills. He hands Vera a joint, lights it, then lights one of his own. “I just had to come,” he says, tight back in his throat so as not to lose smoke, the strangulated voice of the sixties. “I couldn’t wait one more day to see you and Rosie. Besides, I had to check out this story. I got the paper you sent me and jammed.”
“Record time,” says Vera. How could that package have got there so fast? Fountain of youth, Megan and Joshua: Lowell’s read every word. “I want to be around for red-hot developments,” he’s saying. “I feel like this whole story’s got my name on it.”
“Oh, Lowell,” says Vera. “I wish to God it was yours instead of mine.” It seems absurd that anyone would fly cross-country for this: anyone but Lowell. Given the opportunity, he’d spend his life chasing the inexplicable like some hillbilly Charles Fort. What seems even more unlikely is that there was a time when Vera would, too, though certainly she would have played down the marvelous in favor of what she imagined as the profound and fantastic heart of daily life. Meaning what? Just asking produces the emotional opposite of that continuity she felt hearing the oldsters in her dream sing “Tenting Tonight.”
“Red-hot developments?” she says. “I’ve got a sizzler for you.” The marijuana and Lowell’s obvious delight in the story of her visit to the Greens so revives her own interest, she wishes this could go on all night. But finally she’s finished, and Lowell says:
“Here’s our plan. We go back there and sneak around till the Greens step out. Then we break in. One more B and E, what’s the difference? We know how often the cops drive by—that gives us half an hour. Meanwhile we’re filling fifty-gallon trash cans with water. Truck it out of there. Jesus Christ, darlin’, it’s free. Then we take it on the road. Doctor Lowell’s Magic H-two-O. It’s the product for the eighties. We’ll keep jacking the price up as the supply runs low; and by the time it’s gone we’ll be sleek and fat and happy. Jeeves, bring Miss Vera seconds on the caviar. I’ll tell my Mafioso what to do with his typewriter; you’ll tell the paper likewise; we’ll grab Rosie and move to Tahiti, someplace warm and cheap we can live on jumbo shrimp and coconuts off the trees…”
Vera sighs. It’s the second time she’s heard this snake-oil scheme today: first Solomon, now Lowell. The difference, as always, is how much further Lowell takes it. The glint in his eyes remind her of their life in San Francisco, of lying in bed and hearing him talk lost Mayan treasure. His physical presence makes such memories so vivid they stir her in a way that feels unmistakably like desire. And yet she can’t stop herself from saying, “Tahiti’s not cheap.”
“Fuck Tahiti,” he says. “Mexico. Wait a minute. We did Mexico. You know, what got me nervous was when the locals started following us around with empty taco shells. Smacking their lips. Enchiladas de gringo asado con frijoles. Yum.”
Vera looks at him. As she recalls, the only Spanish word he ever admitted to knowing was bueno.
“And the shits. God. Pancho Villa’s revenge.”
Is that all he remembers? Despite herself, Vera’s stung. Her own memories are a little more romantic. And yet she can’t invoke them for fear of where they’ll lead: that fatal bag of cashews.
“Scratch Mexico,” says Lowell. “Honduras. Costa Rica.”
“Revolution,” says Vera. “Mosquitoes.”
“No problem,” says Lowell. “We’ll hire spies to warn us in plenty of time to get our butts out of there. And as for mosquitoes—we’ll pay ten-year-old girls to fan us with palm fronds, keep the little bastards away. Good for the economy.”
“Rosie’s ten,” says Vera.
“I know that,” says Lowell.
“I’m sorry. It’s been quite a day.”
“I know that, too,” he says, reaching behind her to knead the base of her neck. “That’s why I’m here. To help you.”
Is he kidding? After “The check’s in the mail” and “Gee, you’re looking thinner,” that must be the third biggest lie in the world. Vera knows he’d never be here except for the chance to witness the unfolding of a story more bizarre than the ones that run through his head every minute. For the moment, though, his arm on her shoulder has more weight than anything she knows.
“Let’s take it from the top,” says Lowell. “How you wrote the goddamn article in the first place.” In other words, Where did this story come from? That he’s speaking his version of her own private language moves Vera so, s
he’ll forgive him unlimited white lies.
“The photographer at the paper—” She’s rushing so her voice won’t betray the fact that Solomon’s something more. Not much more, she thinks now. After she and Lowell first split up, she’d always work casual lovers into the conversation. This guy I was talking to, she’d say, daring him to catch her. But the impulse to walk that particular tightrope has faded along with her desire that Rosalie not recognize him. Now the last thing she wants is another reminder of all the secrets she’ll never be able to tell him.
“He gave me the photo. I wrote the story. That’s it. The picture reminded me of myself as a kid—maybe that’s what got me started wishful thinking about the fountain of youth. I figured out the kids’ ages from the photo, picked what I thought were typical upwardly mobile Brooklyn kids’ names, made Dad a doctor—who else lives in those houses?”
Vera can’t believe how logical this sounds. Perhaps it’s the marijuana, but suddenly the whole thing seems to make perfect sense. Lowell thinks so, too. “Couldn’t be simpler,” he says. “If that’s it, my professional opinion is we’ve got ourselves a real loser in the synchronicity sweepstakes.”
“Come on, now,” says Vera. “It’s a little more than that. I mean, I was batting a thousand. And how was I supposed to know the stuff worked?”
“You got a point there,” says Lowell. “To quote your friend Betty Anne, who knows what we know. I was just thinking that on the plane, sifting it through the holes in my brain how it’s nearly impossible to know anything for sure.”
“Is that retro hippie?” asks Vera. Or just plain hillbilly epistemology?”
“No, listen,” says Lowell. “Seriously. I was thinking about that day we climbed Mount Sutro and I did my Tarzan-with-a-lobotomy act across the yawning abyss. Remember?”
“I remember.” Vera’s tense, afraid he’ll somehow diminish it the way he reduced their Mexican trip to a long bout with Pancho Villa’s revenge. “What about it?”
“What about it is: You probably thought I was just this loony, spontaneous Arky doing something dangerous to impress you. When the truth was: I’d been sneaking up that mountain and practicing that jump ever since I met you. The first time I was so scared I nearly puked just looking down. But I kept on till I was pretty sure my brains wouldn’t splatter with a jellied plop right in front of your horrified eyes. Because all that time the master plan was to steer you up there and make that jump and impress you so much you’d let me fuck you.”
“Is this true?” Vera hopes it is.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” says Lowell.
“It worked,” says Vera; and when she looks at Lowell he says, “I think it’s working again.”
In the instant before he kisses her, Vera remembers that kid she saw Friday on the train, the good-looking one with the work boots and the thumbed-over copy of Motorcycle World, and realizes that the reason his mouth and hands attracted her so is that they reminded her of Lowell’s. After a while she backs off and mumbles something about the time difference and how she can never remember which way it works, but anyway Lowell must be ready for bed…
“If you’re in it,” says Lowell, “I’m always ready for bed.”
They walk quietly down the hall, pausing at the door of Rosalie’s room to peer into the darkness as if they could see. What other man would stop, look in, would care at a time like this or even recall that Rosie was there?
“Remember when she was a tiny,” Lowell says, “waking up every two minutes. We couldn’t get together except when she’d nap, and we’d sneak around like we were cheating on her, having some kind of white-hot, adulterous love affair. Remember?”
“Yes,” says Vera. But does she? It’s yet another reason she needs Lowell: for verification, proof that she’s led her own life. Otherwise she might have dreamed it. They should have taken more pictures, she thinks. Bought a movie camera, a projector.
In the bedroom, Lowell takes her face in his hands and kisses her. They slip off their clothes, lie next to each other, and Vera’s last thought before she stops thinking is that this is why men and women were created: to fit so well.
It’s also her first thought on returning to something like consciousness. She’s thinking now—regretfully and a little superiorly—of all the times this hasn’t seemed so, when the design of male and female seemed to her as makeshift and purposeless as apples and oranges placed accidentally in the same bowl. She’s wondering how to tell Lowell this without reference to other lovers. It’s impossible, of course, and also apparently beside the point. Lowell’s lying with his back to her at the opposite edge of the bed.
Vera can’t believe this—the TV-sitcom honeymoon, cliché bride wanting cozy conversation, cliché husband wanting sleep; by the end of the pilot, they’ll have compromised, wifey prattling on while hubby lies there rolling his eyes at the ceiling. But Lowell was never like that. The best talks they had were in bed.
“Lowell,” she says. “Are you okay?”
“Completely nuts,” he says. “My head’s about to split like an overripe papaya.”
“Nuts about what?” she says.
“Same old shit,” he says. “The usual S.O.S.”
Vera braces herself for whatever’s coming next. Meanwhile this timely reminder: It wasn’t all kisses, one harmonious moment after another. Soon after they got together, Lowell told her how a former girlfriend once accused him of making love as if he were in a Tijuana whorehouse with a taxi running its meter outside. God knows why he confessed this—perhaps to reassure her that sex with his old girlfriend was nothing special, perhaps for the reassurance that she so freely gave. How could anyone say such a thing! Nothing could be further from the truth! And then one night, just before Lowell left, right in the midst of some Tijuana-style lovemaking, Vera laughed out loud and understood what folly it is to expose the sharp and accurate barbs old lovers leave lodged in one’s brain.
“I can’t tell what you want,” he says. “You don’t know what you want. What it looks to me like you want is for me to fall madly in love with you again so you can say, ‘I don’t know, Lowell, I want to be with you but it never seems to work out.’”
That’s not what Vera wants. He isn’t being fair. But what of it? Fairness was never Lowell’s strong point.
“Five years of that has made pudding of my brain,” he’s saying. “Shuffling around the country along various interstates, standing in the rain with my thumb out, trying to do what’s convenient for you. And for what? You don’t even think about me. Like tonight. We’ve been yakking about you for hours—your job, fountain of youth, this and that…You never asked about me.”
“That’s not true!” Vera says. “I asked if you sold your screenplay.” But that’s all she ever asks. If only they could start this night over—isn’t that what she wanted with Solomon? Every time someone comes to her house, she winds up wishing they could put more film in the camera and try one more take. “Tell me now,” she says. “How are you?”
“Broke,” he says. “Flat-out broke. No money, no job, no love, no literary miracle. Living hand-to-butt as usual. The J. Paul Getty of food stamps. In hock to a mystic who’s out of his fucking tree and a crazy Mafioso who ain’t going to get published on the bathroom wall. They don’t call him Frankie the Canary for nothing. All he wants to do is sing sing sing. Frankie, I say, I’m not your father confessor, I’m a Holy Roller Baptist. Just hearing that crap should qualify me for the Federal Witness Protection Act—new name, new town, brand-new, plastic-surgery face. That might be my lucky break. I’ll get them to change my name to Howard Hughes, grow a beard and toenails three feet long, spend my golden years shuffling down hotel corridors with empty Kleenex boxes for shoes…”
“Howard Hughes is dead,” says Vera.
“Who else is rich? I don’t care. Mick Jagger? I can’t get me no—” Lowell wags his finger in the air. He’s light-years away from talking about whatever’s gone wrong between them; who knows if he’ll ever orbit
back. At least he’s not still sulking on his edge of the bed. Vera always liked it that Lowell wasn’t one of those therapy heads who’d analyze all night long. Now she sees that this, too, has its disadvantages.
“Maybe we could break into that house. If that stuff works, it’ll sure beat writing Frankie the Canary Corsaro’s life story.”
“Forget it,” says Vera.
“All right,” Lowell says. “Just tell me the address and how to get there.” Slowly it dawns on Vera: He means it. She’s thinking of Mayan treasure, giant squid, realizing now what she knew at the time but was too much in love to admit—what was a game to her was to Lowell a statement of faith and of all his future hopes. She’d have to be completely nuts to link her destiny with his. Besides, there’s Rosie to consider. Admitting this makes her feel miles away from Lowell. All this time she’s mocked Lynda and El Creepo and their baroque and rancorous arrangements. Why did she think hers was better?
“Is that why you came?” she asks. “To go into the snake-oil biz?”
“No, sweet pea,” he says. “I told you. I came here to help you. And to see Rosie.”
“Then if you want to help me, stay away from there. All we need is for you to get busted breaking into the Greens. They’d trace you back to me in two seconds flat.”
“Never,” says Lowell. “They’d never get it out of me. Name, rank, and serial number. That’s it. Peter Pan Starkweather, oooo. Private Starkweather reporting for duty, Sir.”
“Big Youth,” says Vera.
“That’s me,” Lowell says, and sighs deeply. “Big Youth’s had a hard day. Maybe we should rack up some z’s.” He rolls over once, and by the time Vera’s found a comfortable way to nestle into his back, he’s breathing evenly. Revising history for what she promises herself will be the last time tonight, Vera decides that this is what ruined things between them: his talent for dropping off any time, anywhere. This, too, she used to love. She remembers curling beside him on the floor of a Mexican train so crowded they couldn’t find a seat, Lowell snoring peacefully while a chicken stepped back and forth over his face. Eventually it began to irk her, especially when he’d nod off in the midst of an argument with nothing settled. Lying beside him, listening to his regular breathing, she thinks: SLEEPLESS SPOUSE SHOOTS SLUMBERING SIDEKICK. Sidekick? Maybe that’s what Vera needs. She’s never felt so alone.
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