Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

  When he first hung up, he felt on the brink of panic. Just when everything was starting to go well, Jessica was going to parachute into his life and wreak emotional havoc. But after he had a drink and lit a cigarette, he felt better about it. She wasn’t going to ruin things with him and Marilyn, that was his own affair and she couldn’t upset it if he didn’t want her to, if he didn’t allow her to interfere. In a way, he was thankful she hadn’t called until now, when he really did have a new relationship going, one that he wanted to preserve. If he’d been alone and at loose ends he’d have been far more vulnerable to sinking back into the old emotions, the old maelstrom, in which they had whirled so long and dizzily, so passionately and destructively. But now, with the knowledge of Marilyn, he felt strong, and much less susceptible to his former wife and lover.

  When he first saw her, standing at the door of his apartment, he felt as if someone had struck a sudden blow to his stomach; it was as if a loved one had come back to life, and the memory of all they had shared hit him with the force of a cannonball, so that for a moment he was slightly dizzy, and had to consciously blink back an unexpected rush of tears. He managed to smile, usher her into the room, and get his insides together.

  Jessica herself seemed very composed. She had brought a fifth of Tanqueray gin, and a carton of Winstons. Preparation for conversation. As it turned out, she hadn’t been able to get things together till later than she anticipated, and had just made the four o’clock shuttle. It was almost dark when they got settled in Potter’s living room. He put an old piano rag record on the stereo. Neutral. Nothing sentimental.

  “You look very well,” he said.

  “Oh? Thank you. I’ve been fine.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine too. You know. Getting along.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  Potter shrugged. He sipped at his Scotch, concentrating on moderation. He was glad she was wearing a pants suit, and that she had worn her hair tied in the back, with a demure velvet ribbon. Sedate. They would talk. They would be Friends. He was perfectly prepared to graciously put her back on the midnight shuttle to New York. A kiss on the cheek; a pat on the shoulder; a handshake or a hug.

  After her third drink, Jessica began telling about this terribly nice man she was seeing. He was on Wall Street, but very sensitive. Widely-read. The most amazing thing—he didn’t drink. He worked out every day at his Club.

  “What is he,” Potter asked, “some kind of health nut?”

  Jessica laughed. “You’d probably think so.”

  Potter poured himself a new Scotch. “Really,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be a smart ass. As a matter of fact, he sounds like just the kind of guy I always said you should have.”

  She smiled. “Like you should have the hearty, healthy milkmaid with apple cheeks.”

  “Maybe in my next life,” Potter said. “No kidding; though, this guy sounds fine for you.”

  He felt a warm glow, really genuine, as he would for a troubled sister who had finally found Mister Right. He was glad for her, and proud he could feel glad. Maybe it only meant he was “over her,” and yet he hoped it meant, if that, something more, too; that perhaps it indicated, on his part, a new sort of … maturity?

  Jessica coughed, and lit a new cigarette.

  “Tell me more,” Potter asked, with warm good feeling.

  “Well. He wants to marry me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Can you imagine that? Marry me, a worn-out divorcée?”

  “Come on. Don’t badmouth yourself.”

  “Well—”

  “Really. You’re a lovely person. A beautiful woman.”

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I know I don’t have to say that. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  “I’m not kind, goddamn it!”

  “I seem to be upsetting you.”

  Potter took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Listen, this is terrific, really. Tell me more about the guy. No kidding. He sounds like what you deserve, after me.”

  “You don’t have to badmouth yourself, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. Come on. What are the plans?”

  Jessica stood up, slightly swaying, and said, “I plan to get another drink.”

  “Fine,” Potter said. He looked at his watch, while she went to the kitchen. It was after seven. As soon as she finished this drink, he should get them to dinner. Civilization showed signs of crumbling. How goddamn shaky it always was. Always turned out to be. Apparently composed again, Jessica took a swallow of her new drink, and smiled. “Well,” she said, “what do you think?”

  “About this guy? Wanting to marry you?”

  Jessica lowered her eyes.

  “Listen,” Potter said, leaning forward, intent, wanting to say it just right, no hooks or slices, all heart and maturity, “I want you to know I think it’s terrific. I think from what you say about this guy he’s really right for you, he could make you happy. If he doesn’t drink, you probably won’t drink. As much. It sounds like he’s stable, but not just a dummy. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for you to have a real life, a contented kind of life. I am honestly happy for you.”

  She mashed out her cigarette, and took out a new one. “You approve then?”

  “Yes. For godsake, yes. You have my blessings. A hundred percent.”

  Jessica finished off her drink. Tears blossomed at the corners of her eyes.

  “Jessie?”

  She bit at her lip.

  “Jessie— What is it? Are you happy?”

  She sniffed, and pulled a wad of Kleenex from her purse. “I’m sorry,” she said, trembling.

  “What? Why?”

  “I knew it,” she said, sobbing and choking.

  “Knew what?” Potter asked in a hoarse whisper. “Knew what?”

  Her mouth twitched in a caricature of a smile and she sobbed, “You don’t love me. You never did. You never loved me at all.”

  Most of Potter’s feelings of “maturity” escaped from him in a long sigh; silently, mechanically, he put a pan of water on the stove to boil for instant coffee.

  He phoned for a delivery from The Leaning Tower of Pizza, and made Jessica eat some. He had no more to drink until he got her in a cab and out to Logan in time for the last shuttle, trying vainly to assure her that he had loved her more than anyone in his life, that he wanted her to be happy, and that this new guy sounded just wonderful and that was why he approved.

  When he described the whole thing the next night to Marilyn she sighed, and said, “Now she probably won’t ever marry the guy.”

  “But what the hell could I have done?”

  “Cried a lot and said that you still loved her and would shoot yourself if she married this man.”

  “What good would that have done?”

  “She’d have probably married him.”

  Potter turned that over in his mind, then let out a long sigh. “Jesus,” he said. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  Marilyn stroked his head, comfortingly, and said how glad she was that their relationship was rational, that they didn’t have to play those games with each other.

  “It’s great,” he agreed. “It really is great.”

  5

  As a special treat, Potter invited Marilyn to come to his place for Sunday Brunch. On Saturday night they were going to have dinner with a married couple who were friends of Marilyn and go see Truffaut’s The Wild Child, and afterward to the Jazz Workshop on Boylston Street, where Stan Getz was appearing—a ghost, Potter felt, from his own collegiate past of Fifties cool. A real Night On The Town. After all that socializing Potter thought it would be nice if they could be alone together the next day, and so proposed to cook up a wonderful brunch of omelettes for just him and Marilyn. They would laze around and read the Sunday papers in cozy comfort.

  Omelettes were the only thing Potter coul
d cook, the only thing anyway that required “ingredients.” He could boil knockwurst and fry eggs and hamburgers, but the only thing he could really cook was an omelette. He learned during his marriage. In one of those periods when they both were Trying, Potter decided he would make a ritual of being the cook on Sunday. He studied Jessie’s Gourmet Cookbook, examining the diagrams of omelettes as well as the recipes, and practiced intently. The real moment of fulfillment came when he carefully flipped the heating face of the potion over on top of itself, with the goodies lying sequestered in between. He learned to make every kind of omelette, and delighted in inventing some of his own. He made up names for them. The one he made with leftover Chinese water-chestnuts and almonds in the center and lots of soy sauce on top was the Mao Tse-tung omelette. That sort of thing.

  Jessica claimed to love them. She even ate all of her “Sweet Georgia Brown” omelette, which Potter had stuffed with canned peaches and cooked in brown sugar and brandy.

  They always washed the omelettes down with a lot of chilled white wine, which helped a lot.

  The omelette tradition lasted three or four months.

  It was one of their better efforts.

  “Can’t I help?” Marilyn asked when Potter was about to prepare the omelettes.

  “No,” he said indignantly. “You have to go out in the living room and read the paper.”

  “Well, I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “I know,” Potter said, trying to control his temper. He kissed her on the nose. “The thing is, you’re supposed to just relax.”

  She shrugged, and went to the living room.

  Potter went busily about his preparations, but couldn’t help being a little annoyed that Marilyn wasn’t sitting back and reading the Sunday paper. She just smoked a cigarette and looked out the window, and occasionally paced around the room, like she was nervous.

  Potter tried to concentrate on the omelettes. He was just doing cheese this time, nothing too fancy or outrageous. Just plain cheese omelettes, and a very nice chablis.

  They ate in the living room, on the coffee table. Potter played a Vivaldi record. The sound of order, tradition. Sunlight streamed in the room, as if Potter had ordered it. He felt expansive.

  “How’s that for an omelette?” Potter asked.

  “Oh—it’s fine. Just fine. Really it is,” she said in an unconvincing abstract voice.

  Potter wondered if he’d put too much Tabasco into the mix.

  He swigged from his glass of chablis, and tried to concentrate again on his own omelette. It seemed quite fine to him, but you never knew about other people’s taste; some people simply liked things bland. A little too much Tabasco could put them off entirely.

  Marilyn picked her way through about a third of her omelette, then put down her fork. There were tears in her eyes. Jesus. Potter knew he hadn’t put that much Tabasco into the thing.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Potter took a deep breath, and exhaled very slowly. Trying for calm. He lit a cigarette. Marilyn wadded her paper napkin and dabbed at her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “But why?” he asked gently. “Why are you sorry? Why are you sad? Isn’t everything OK?”

  “Yes,” she sniffed. “It’s fine.”

  “So?”

  “So—I don’t know. I guess that’s it.”

  “That everything’s fine?”

  “Yes—I mean—no. It’s that it has to end, sooner or later. Sooner or later it won’t be fine. It’ll be lousy, and it’ll end.”

  “Well, I guess everything has to end,” Potter said. “But Marilyn. For godsake. Why spoil the beginning by thinking about the end?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t mean to.”

  They sat for a long time, while the music played on, and then finally it stopped and the needle slipped onto the black interior circle of the record, scratching.

  Potter had to make himself lift off the arm of the player.

  Marilyn blew her nose, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s OK, really it is.”

  “No, it’s my fault for thinking that way.”

  “Goddamn it, will you just forget about it!”

  “You don’t have to yell at me!”

  Potter closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s OK. I’m sorry too.”

  “OK,” he said.

  “OK,” she said.

  Potter decided that instead of meeting Marilyn after her Existentialism class Wednesday night, it might do both of them good if he just went out on his own, and he arranged to have a beer with Gafferty. The beer became many beers.

  “Why is it,” Potter asked, “that a man and a woman can’t just get along?”

  “Trouble in paradise, eh?”

  In the first flush of his affair with Marilyn, Potter had told Gafferty he had found just the woman he was looking for.

  “Nothing big, yet. Just the old warning signs.”

  “Ah, well. Maybe it’ll all blow over. I’ve ridden out many a storm myself.”

  “Jesus, I guess so. That must really be rough. I mean, with nine kids, you can’t just walk out.”

  “Oh, you can take a walk all right, but you damn well better hike back pretty quick.”

  “Jesus. I don’t see how—well, with me anyway, I don’t think I could take it.”

  “Ah, well. We take what we get. And get what we ask for.”

  “But why is it always so goddamn fucked up and complicated?”

  “But man, why did we ever think it would be otherwise? Didn’t the Old Testament tell us? Didn’t the Greeks tell us? Haven’t all the wise folks down through history told us? Isn’t that what all art and philosophy and literature is about? The why is, why are we surprised?”

  “Maybe it was going to movies and reading magazines,” Potter said. “At an impressionable age. Remember, when you and I were growing up the stories all had happy endings.”

  “I was fortunate enough to be reading the Irish poets, even then.” He raised a finger for attention and recited:

  All men live in suffering

  I know as few can know,

  Whether they take the high road,

  Or stay content on the low.…

  “Yeats,” he said.

  “That’s your favorite, isn’t it?” Potter said. “Yeats.”

  “Ah, he’s my man.”

  “Is that who you did your thesis on?”

  Gafferty’s head jerked back, as if Potter had taken a swing at him. “My thesis,” he said.

  “You know—your Ph.D.”

  Gafferty let out a long breath. “Ah, you don’t know then.”

  Gafferty belched, and called for another round.

  The fifth round.

  He explained to Potter how he had first tried to do his thesis on Yeats, then O’Casey, then Synge, failing each time, crossing the adviser each time because he couldn’t bring himself to treat his subjects with the required academic attitudes of distance and dissection. He kept writing lyric appreciations of the men and their work, which were judged to be “fine as far as they went” but they never went far enough into the sort of sterilized, surgical, symbol-seeking operations that were wanted.

  “I couldn’t do it to them,” he said. “So I figured maybe I could do the deed on a writer I didn’t love. For the last three years, I’ve been trying to write a proper thesis on Pope.”

  “Why Pope?”

  “Because I find the bastard dull. Always have. You see, if I’m to grind out a dull exercise I feel I might have a better chance with a subject I think is matching.”

  “How’s it coming?”

  “Lousy. It’s so dull, I can’t hardly make myself work on it. But I work on it anyway every weekend. Made a little study in the basement, and I go down there regular, like spending time in jail.”

  “Jesus. What happens if you
don’t finish?”

  “Ah, my friend. Then I don’t teach much longer. Not in a college, anyway, not likely.”

  Potter damned the injustice of it all, and they had more rounds. On the eighth round, as Potter began to reel, Gafferty glanced at his watch and jumped out of the booth.

  “Jesus, man, speakin’ of trouble, I’m an hour late for dinner already. And got me a forty-minute drive yet.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry. Listen, blame it on me.”

  Gafferty smiled, and said, “Thanks, but it doesn’t work that way. That easy.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  Potter felt too bloated from the beer to want to eat anything, so he went home and drank Scotch and sodas. Around ten, he opened a can of cashews, for sustenance. He didn’t put on the TV or the phonograph, but sat in a kind of trance, thinking of Gafferty’s plight with academia, and realizing he hadn’t faced up to his own. The present year of teaching was like a joyride, but soon, if he wanted to continue, if he wanted to make it a permanent thing, he would have to face up to working for his own academic union card, his own advanced degree. That would mean going back to school and taking courses, writing papers, eventually grinding out a thesis.

  He couldn’t imagine doing it. Nor could he imagine doing anything else. He took the bottle of Scotch to bed with him, sipping on it, like medicine, till he finally blotted out.

  The electric buzz of the alarm clock, a steady, insistent, one-note harangue, woke Potter to a clammy grey morning. Thursday. He had no classes, but had to go in for office hours. Student visitation. When the term began he had scheduled his office hours on the days of his classes, M—W—F, because he had to go into Gilpen anyway, and it left the other days completely free. But when he discovered this “freedom” led to late, troubled sleep and a yawning vacuum, he changed his office hours to the “Free” days, which meant that he had to get up and dress and go out into the world. Even if no one came he had to be there, sitting in his office.

  It was on the fifth and top floor of the walk-up building, a floor that had once been used for storage but had been remodeled into makeshift offices. They were furnished with anonymous grey metal desks and khaki metal bookcases that you put together with screws. Potter had Scotch-taped a poster of Humphrey Bogart on the wall. It was the best he could figure out, for decoration. The lower left-hand corner of it had come unstuck, and curled upward. Potter meant to tape it down again.