Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

  He took up a styrofoam cup full of hot black coffee from the cafeteria, and set it on his desk. From the bottom right-hand drawer, he drew out a pint of Cutty Sark, and splashed some into the coffee. He took a few sips and then went to the bookcase. Only two shelves had books, and they were mostly texts—ones that were used in his courses, or ones that publishers sent in hopes of having some teacher put them into their curriculum. Book salesmen “called,” like guys who sold aluminum siding for houses door-to-door.

  Potter pulled out one of the freebie texts that a salesman had left. It was called A Drama Casebook. He opened it, and the smell of fresh paper struck his nose like a perfume. He flipped through the book, seeing fairly soon it was composed only of the shreds of plays, with long, accompanying “exercises,” tests and questions and “study proposals.” Most of the textbooks were like that. Collections of snippets of real things, and made-up crap strung after them like tin cans tied to a dog’s tail.

  Potter closed the book, and slipped a little more Scotch into his coffee.

  Traffic quarrelled below on Beacon Street, slowed by rain and fog. Potter went to the window and swiped a clearing of moisture he could see through. To other town-house buildings across the street. He sat back down, wishing to hell a student would come. Any student. No, perferably a girl. Not for any sexual fantasy, just for comfort. There was some kind of comfort that Potter could feel in the presence of a woman, a girl, that not even his best male friends could give him. No doubt it was some other goddamn aspect of Male Chauvinism. He’d never admit it to the militant Lib girl in his PR seminar. He would swear to her it was all the goddamn same to him; otherwise she’d have his balls.

  There was a rap on his half-open door, and Potter said brusquely, “Yes, come in.”

  He couldn’t help smiling, with pleasure and relief. It was Rosemary Korsky.

  “You busy?” she asked.

  “Absolutely sunk in work, tied up with phone calls from New York and Washington, students bugging me and a couple of big producers pleading to get my opinion on their new shows. However. Miss Korsky, for you, I will gladly put it all aside.”

  “Yeah?”

  She grinned and sat down.

  Potter started to take a sip of his doctored coffee, but instead pushed the cup aside. Miss Korsky gave him enough of a glow.

  He wasn’t even quite sure why.

  She was attractive, but certainly no great beauty. Dyed light-blonde hair with the darker roots showing where it parted in the middle. Not even long, it just came down to her neck and then curled back upward, like Doris Day. She wore too much makeup, partly no doubt because of what seemed a semi-bad skin. A nicely proportioned body, but nothing to send to Atlantic City. She dressed nicely, wearing mostly sweaters and long skirts and boots, nothing flashy or ostentatious for this flair-conscious time. Nor was it her brilliance or even any interesting, offbeat turn of mind that caught Potter’s imagination. She was a solid B student who answered test questions with methodical, information-filled persistence, done in a clear, well-trained hand that was easily readable.

  And yet, she was one of the students to whom Potter realized he was talking when he lectured. When, one Wednesday during the third week of classes she was absent for the first time, Potter was rattled and grouchy, and let the students free twenty minutes early.

  “Crummy day,” Miss Korsky said.

  She plunked her lapful of books on the cold cement floor and wriggled out of her coat, letting it fall on the back of her chair. She was wearing a plain maroon sweater with short sleeves, and she rubbed her hands vigorously up and down her forearms.

  “Ah,” Potter sighed. “Miss Korsky.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He smiled. “What can I do for you?”

  Miss Korsky activated a wad of chewing gum that had evidently been put to rest temporarily behind a molar, and slowly, contemplatively, began to mash it around in her mouth.

  “Oh, I was wondering, sort of. About this paper you want us to write.”

  “The thing on Symbolism?”

  “Well, that—” She turned to the rain-streaked window.

  “Yes?”

  “And—”

  “Yes?”

  Her brown eyes looked straight into him and her mouth made a partial smile that expressed a kind of sorrow, and an unfeigned weariness that is not usually associated with young people, not because it isn’t common among them but because their elders would rather not see it there.

  “I guess I just didn’t want to go out into that yet. Outside.”

  “It’s pretty mucky,” Potter said.

  “Oh, I don’t just mean the weather. You know. The world, I guess. The whole thing that’s out there.”

  “Yes,” Potter said.

  He found himself, much to his surprise and embarrassment, fighting back tears. He cleared his throat, and managed to look straight at her. “I know just what you mean,” he said.

  “I know you do.”

  They sat for some time in a comfortable, communicative silence, listening to the radiator gurgle, and then a class bell rang, and Miss Korsky put her coat on. Potter stood up. “I’ll walk you to the subway,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  They walked, heads down against the rain, to the Arlington Street station, and Miss Korsky stopped at the entrance, smiled, and said, “Thanks again.”

  Potter put his hand on the top of her head, very lightly. “Be Okay,” he said.

  “You, too,” Miss Korsky said, and then descended quickly into the dank entry of the trains.

  Potter walked swiftly away, as if going somewhere, and then slowed down, allowing the tears to come because they were hardly discernible from the rain, and no one could tell he was quietly crying, nor could he have explained that he felt quite warm, and good, because he had somehow experienced a blessing. That visit. That hour. That day.

  6

  “We need to get away,” said Marilyn. “Take a trip somewhere.”

  Potter thought how often he had heard that advice, or given it himself, when things were going wrong. It was supposed to be a cure-all for failing relationships, like taking Vitamin C for a cold. He didn’t mention that, however, not wanting to take a defeatist attitude. He simply asked, “Where?”

  “Well, I was thinking—how about someplace New Englandy. Vermont, maybe.”

  “Vermont?”

  “Why not? It’s supposed to be beautiful. We could see the leaves turn.”

  Potter glanced out the window, and back at Marilyn. “Honey, they’ve already turned. In fact, they’ve fallen off.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “It’s almost the first of November, for Christsake.”

  “Well, then we ought to go right away, before it snows.”

  Potter tried to examine the logic of this for a moment, but saw a maze that would lead nowhere but a fight, and so agreed to drive up to Vermont for the weekend. He tried, genuinely, to sound enthusiastic about it. He even convinced himself that it might really help. Perhaps the change of scene, the novelty of sleeping in a new and different place, strange and remote, might help revive his steadily waning desire for Marilyn. An old familiar syndrome was setting in. The excitement of novelty was gone, and Potter had begun to notice little flaws in Marilyn he hadn’t originally seen: the slight but sure sag of her breasts, the lack of a real curve to her calves, the corns on her toes, like reddish sores. One of her lower back teeth was slightly discolored.

  He drank more before taking her to bed. In an effort to recharge desire with variety, they had stopped going to the comfort and familiarity of the bed itself, but fucked on the couch, on the living room rug, on the cold linoleum of the kitchen floor, and once, standing up, in the closet. He had gone down on her, and she had gone down on him, and they had gone down on one another together. They had done it at her place and at his place, and once they did it in the Bertelsens’ upstairs bathroom during a cocktail party.

  They w
ere running out of places.

  They would try Vermont.

  Vermont looked just like Vermont should look. What leaves remained were deep red and gold, and Potter agreed they were beautiful. He agreed that in fact the whole state, leaves or no, was a beautiful area, with its rolling hills and picture-postcard red barns and white clapboard farmhouses, its drowsy little towns and sweeping valleys. It seemed to Potter that in the course of the drive from Boston to the Middlebury Inn he had agreed to Marilyn’s endorsements of the beauties of Vermont at least five hundred times.

  They arrived a little after four in the afternoon. Marilyn thought the place was charming and that their room, though rather spare, was appropriately quaint. Potter agreed, pulling a quart of Cutty Sark out of his suitcase and bringing the two water glasses from the bathroom.

  “Are you starting already?” Marilyn asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘already’?”

  “Well, it’s not even five. Is it?”

  Potter looked at his watch. “No, it’s not five. It’s eleven minutes and some seconds after four. And I’ve been driving for five hours.”

  “You had a martini at lunch.”

  “I know I had a martini at lunch. What does that have to do with wanting a drink after driving for five hours?”

  Marilyn got out a cigarette. “Never mind,” she said. “Go ahead.”

  Potter set the glasses down on the bureau. “Oh, no. Jesus. I don’t want to offend you.”

  He took out a cigarette for himself, and jabbed it into his mouth.

  “Phil, I’m sorry. I just want us to have a good time. I want it to be nice. Let’s not spoil it.”

  “You mean if I have one drink before five that’s going to spoil everything?”

  Marilyn sighed. “Please? Phil?”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Listen. Let’s take a walk. OK?”

  They walked around the town square and found an old-fashioned drugstore with the curling metal-backed chairs. There was a sign behind the soda fountain that advertised phosphates. Marilyn and Phil both had cherry phosphates, marvelling over the fact that you could still get this wonderful concoction that neither of them had had since childhood. The phosphates confirmed the fact that they had escaped the jangling city, the Pepsi Generation present; that they had gotten away from it all.

  They returned to the room a few minutes after five, and Potter pretended to have forgotten all about the booze. He said he’d like to change for dinner, and Marilyn said that was a good idea, she wanted to do that herself. Before Marilyn had unpacked her clothes and selected what to wear, Potter had washed his face, doused some Old Spice cologne under his armpits, and put on a new shirt and tie.

  “I think I’ll head on down to the lounge,” he said casually, “and meet you there. OK?”

  “Oh—sure,” she said, a little surprised to see him ready so soon. “I think I’ll take a bath.”

  “Swell. Take your time.”

  He was able to bolt down a double dry martini on the rocks and then order a regular-sized one that he was sipping in a casual way by the time Marilyn came down. She was wearing an outfit he hadn’t seen before. It was a blue taffeta dress that came down just a few inches above her ankles and had a big bow at the neck. It struck Potter as just the right thing for a formal tea at the Ladies Aid Society in 1955.

  “What’s the matter?” Marilyn asked.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. I just hadn’t seen that before—your, uh, frock.”

  “Oh, this,” she said, looking down at the dress as if surprised it was on her. “I thought it would be Vermontish. You know. Conservative.”

  “Oh.”

  She ordered a dry vermouth, and Potter had another martini.

  There was only one other couple in the dining room when they ate. An elderly pair. In the heavy silence of the room, the clink of silverware sounded like gunfire.

  Potter had a steak and most of a bottle of wine. Marilyn had the New England Boiled Dinner, and Indian Pudding for dessert. She said it was delicious, and chided Potter for having the same old thing he could have had in any restaurant in Boston. Potter mumbled something about freedom of choice being one of the most sacred principles of the New England heritage. While she finished her Indian Pudding he had a cognac.

  He couldn’t get his mind off her dress. It reminded him of Mamie Eisenhower.

  When they went to their room, Marilyn sat in the rocking chair and lit a cigarette. Potter filled up one of the water glasses with Scotch, loosened his tie, and flopped down on the bed.

  “It’s so quiet,” Marilyn said. “So peaceful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No television or anything.”

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  Marilyn got up and poured herself a glass full of Scotch.

  “Why don’t you relax?” Potter suggested. “Take off your dress.”

  Marilyn drew on her cigarette. “You really have a thing about this dress, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean, ‘a thing about this dress’?”

  “You can’t stand it.”

  “I never said any such thing.”

  “You don’t have to paint a picture.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t be so fucking crude.”

  “Kiss off.”

  Marilyn stood up and jerked the dress up over her head, ripping it as she pulled it off. “Now,” she said, “are you satisfied?”

  She started bawling.

  Potter belted down the rest of his glass of Scotch and got up and put his arms around her. “Come on,” he said. “Please. This is a holiday. A vacation.”

  “Not anymore it’s not! You ruined it, you asshole.”

  After another ten minutes of sobbing, Marilyn washed her face, put on a nightgown, took two Valium, and went to sleep.

  Potter took the bottle of Scotch and sat down in the rocking chair. He felt loggy and his head had begun to ache, but he was wide awake. There was nothing to read, or watch; no place to go. He couldn’t even walk down to the old-fashioned drugstore for a phosphate. It would be closed by now. This was a quaint little town in Vermont. As far as Potter was concerned, it might as well have been San Quentin.

  Potter and Marilyn both tried to salvage what they could from their trip to get away from it all.

  He took her to see a Buñuel movie at the Orson Welles Cinema, even though he knew in advance it would bore the shit out of him. Because she liked Buñuel he pretended to find it fascinating. Afterward he took her to dinner at Casa Mexico, even though he thought it was a pain in the ass because they didn’t serve cocktails and you had to bring your own wine.

  She made him Baked Alaska, and went to a Celtics game with him, cheering whenever he did and trying to learn the names of the players.

  He bought her a bottle of Jean Naté bubble bath, and gave her a bath in it.

  She bought a copy of The Sensuous Woman, and gave him a treat the author prescribed called “The Sylvan Swirl,” a sort of glorified blow-job. She even tried the whipped cream recipe for sexual excitement, but it only made him giggle.

  He bought her a new Miles Davis album.

  She bought him a new Carole King album.

  One night when he knew she’d be tired after her night class, he brought over a sumptuous take-out meal from Joyce Chen’s.

  One night she gulped a lot of brandy after dinner, and asked, “Would you like me to tie you up? To a chair or something?” He thought it over and said, “No, I don’t think so, really. But thanks. Really.”

  They watched Johnny Carson instead.

  It was almost Thanksgiving.

  Potter knew it was over with Marilyn, knew that the short course of his infatuation had run itself out. There was nothing he or she could do to revive it, no amount of whipped cream on the cock or gourmet dinners designed to reach his heart by way of his stomach, no amount of booze he could consume to wash away his indifference. But he hadn’t had th
e guts to come right out and tell her. It would be a torturous scene. It always was. He had played it out so many times, before meeting Jessica.

  For a couple of days he didn’t call her.

  One night he just stayed home and watched television. Relentlessly. He settled in the easy chair, put a fifth of Cutty and a glass and a full ice bucket beside him, and just watched, whatever came on, not changing the channels, just letting it come at him, wash over him—the canned laughter, the stupid situations, the news and weather and talk shows. Around eleven he opened a can of vichyssoise, and laced it with Scotch. That was dinner. He fell asleep in his chair watching the late movie, and woke from a nightmare with the test pattern glowing and the static crackling. It was still dark out. He turned off the tube and flopped into bed without taking his clothes off. But he couldn’t sleep. Old mistakes, regrets, embarrassments, crowded his mind.

  Maybe he should have gone to Law School.

  Ginny deFillippo, a secretary at Olney and Sheperdson, whom he tried to make out with after coming back to the office from a drunken lunch at The Ground Floor. She had spit at him.

  The time he went home with Stephanie, a girl in his acting class, and fucked her even after she told him she had the clap.

  Maybe he should have married Barbara Brickett, the Tri Delt he was engaged to at Vanderbilt. She probably would have been a good wife and mother. He might have settled down and had children with her. They would be teen-agers now.

  Maybe he ought to go to Europe. Live in an old stone farmhouse in the south of France.

  On what?

  Berries. Nuts and berries. And the local wine.

  Shit.

  He got up, washed his face with cold water, and made a drink. A cold grey light was oozing into the silent street. He turned on the television, and got Sunrise Semester. A black man with a goatee was lecturing on State and Local Government.

  Potter listened.

  Marilyn pulled her quilted bathrobe around her, holding onto it at the neck, as if protecting herself against a blast of cold wind. “You don’t want to fuck me anymore. Is that it?”