Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

  She paused, and pulled a wad of Kleenex from her purse.

  “It’s like,” she continued, the words tumbling faster now, “where I read once that Dustin Hoffman used to walk around New York and see those theatre marquees and think if only he had his name on them, as the star of a really good movie, everything would be all right and he wouldn’t have to worry anymore and he could relax and enjoy his life. I don’t know if that’s exactly what he said but that was the idea. And then he got his name on the marquee and he walked around New York, and he saw it and saw the crowds waiting to see the movie, and yet it didn’t help, it didn’t change anything.”

  Adele poked the Kleenex at her eyes. Tears were flowing down her cheeks.

  The room was frozen in a kind of silence that was different than just a lapse, or an interlude, or a break in the session. No one moved or coughed or itched or blinked.

  “So now I have what I wanted—my version of the name on the marquee—the love and warmth and the man and the home and all I dreamed of and there’s no real reason to be unhappy anymore, no reason to feel anxiety or fright or sorrow or loss but I am just like I always was it isn’t any different inside me it is still the same misery and now it’s worse because there’s no reason for it, nothing to blame it on.”

  Adele rubbed the Kleenex over her cheeks. Not even the therapist spoke. Potter was grateful that Buford did not attmpt to “externalize” what Adele had poured out, into some “real life” situation that she could “practice on.”

  Everyone in the room had slightly bowed his head, but neither that communal gesture nor the silence that followed it were born of embarrassment or confusion. And yet there was a tangible feeling in the room, a shared emotion, and Potter, wanting to name it for himself, realized it was not a word that appeared in psychology books. Maybe there was no word that covered it at all, but the one that came closest was reverence.

  Potter stayed on Marilyn’s couch that night. He didn’t itch anymore and figured his crabs were gone, but anyway he didn’t take his clothes off and anyway Marilyn didn’t even ask him about his condition. When they got home they didn’t speak at all, they just drank in silence, and then Marilyn hugged him and went in to bed. It rained all night, a torrential kind of rain, and at dawn when it let up, retreating with the light, Potter opened the living room window. A warm, wet wind rushed in, carrying with it the sharp, poignant perfume of grass and fresh earth.

  It would soon be spring.

  PART FIVE

  1

  Potter and Marilyn decided that the two of them were as much of a “group” as either needed, therapywise. Hearing one another’s problems was sufficiently depressing without having to hear about the horrible depressions and horrendous hangups of a half-dozen other poor souls. Marilyn continued to see her own shrink privately, though, mainly because he supplied her with prescriptions for the pills she now used regularly to get to sleep and to wake up, to perk up and to calm down.

  Her sessions with Dr. Shamleigh had turned into shouting matches over what she should do about Herb. Dr. Shamleigh said she should give him up and find a nice, eligible bachelor. Marilyn said there weren’t any. Dr. Shamleigh said she wasn’t looking hard enough. Marilyn accused him of trying to break up her relationship with Herb because Herb was a shrink too, and Dr. Shamleigh was jealous of him having all this good sex outside his marriage. Dr. Shamleigh insisted he was not jealous, that he had no desire to seduce Marilyn but only to help her, though she made that very difficult. Marilyn then suggested that Dr. Shamleigh wanted her to break up with Herb because he was a shrink and his affair with Marilyn made it seem like shrinks were just as fucked up and human as everyone else. Dr. Shamleigh said that was nonsense, he wanted her to leave Herb because there wasn’t any “future” in it. Marilyn angrily sputtered that “there isn’t any future in—the future for god-sake, that’s a dream.” Dr. Shamleigh said Marilyn was losing her grip on reality, partly because of the fantasy nature of the affair, because it took place in the “unreal” situation of secret weekend meetings, and because it was based on the “fantasy” that Herb was going to leave his wife and family and run off with her into the sunset. Marilyn pointed out that even if he wanted to do it Herb couldn’t just go get a divorce and sweep her off to city hall, never mind sunsets, all that took time. Dr. Shamleigh said indeed divorces took time, but if Herb was seriously going to do this he could make his feelings known to his wife and thus begin preparations for what would be the long and difficult proceedings that would lead him eventually to marrying Marilyn, if that indeed was his honest intention.

  Marilyn broke down one night after one of those sessions and called Herb, sobbing, and told him he had to make a choice between her and his wife, that he had to tell his wife he wanted a divorce or Marilyn wouldn’t see him anymore. Herb said that was an ultimatum, not a choice. Marilyn said he could call it whatever he wanted but she couldn’t go on this way. Herb said he had to have a little time, he would have to consult Dr. Gumbacher. Marilyn asked who the hell that was, and Herb said it was one of the most distinguished analysts in the country. Marilyn asked, incredulously, if a shrink had to see another shrink before he could make a decision of his own. Herb said this was different because Dr. Gumbacher had been his analyst for the analysis that all analysts must go through before they can become analysts and analyze other people, and Herb wanted to get his former analyst’s professional opinion on whether the desire to leave his wife and children and marry a younger woman was a healthy life development or whether it had some dark roots in conflicts that perhaps were left unresolved in his analysis. Marilyn told Herb that he and his analyst had better figure it out right away because when she came down this weekend she wanted a straight answer or she wasn’t coming down anymore. Herb said in that case she left him no choice but to try to reach a rational decision about a complex problem involving his whole life in a matter of days, and Marilyn said that was exactly right because between her shrink and Herb and Herb’s shrink she was going to go to pieces if she didn’t get the thing settled next weekend one way or other.

  “Wow,” said Potter.

  He had guzzled two martinis while Marilyn paced the room, poured straight gin in her glass, and filled him in on how things stood and why. He poured himself a third, and said, “I guess this sounds pretty feeble, but is there anything I can do?”

  She stopped her pacing, turned to Potter, and much to his surprise, said, most emphatically, “Yes.”

  Usually, no matter how good your intentions, when you ask a friend if there is anything you can do, things have reached a point at which no one can do anything.

  “What can I possibly do?” he asked, genuinely not knowing what it might be.

  “Come with me this weekend,” Marilyn said.

  “To New York?”

  “To New York.”

  “Look, Marilyn, I’d do anything—”

  “Then come.”

  “But what can I do, if you’ll be seeing Herb?”

  “I’ll only be seeing him part of the time—the time he can sneak away from his happy little home. The rest of the time I’ll be alone in an anonymous room that will probably be pretty high up in the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

  “OK, but if I come, what do you want me to do?”

  “Keep me from jumping.”

  Herb always put Marilyn up at the Fifth Avenue Hotel because it was down in Greenwich Village, where his wife, neighbors, and colleagues were unlikely to be hanging out. Herb, of course, lived in a swank apartment in the Upper Seventies, off Park. Being, as he was, a Freudian.

  The Fifth Avenue Hotel was a good one, by all odds the best the Village had to offer, but Potter decided not to stay there himself, not because of any worry that it might be too expensive, but rather out of some obscure, private-eye-story notion that he shouldn’t be registered in the same hotel as Marilyn since no one was supposed to know he was down there to come to her aid. The only person who could possibly care was old Herb, who knew Potter by name
but probably wouldn’t recognize him from the New Year’s Eve party, but the whole bizarre and clandestine nature of the business led Potter to decide he should get a room at the Earle Hotel, which was handily situated nearby on Waverly Place.

  He had heard people long ago praise the Earle as a nice little Village Hotel, but he hadn’t been in it for years, and it was obviously on the decline. The hallway smelled of urine, and when Potter began unpacking his bag in a paint-peeling room with a soiled print of a vase of flowers hanging tilted above the bed, he wished he had stayed at the Fifth Avenue. It was done, though, and to check out now would only create a greater hassle for himself. He splashed cold water on his face, brushed his teeth, straightened his tie, put on his overcoat, and went over to Marilyn’s hotel.

  Herb was due in an hour, and Marilyn had dressed for the crucial meeting with him.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  Potter walked slowly around the room looking at Marilyn and her outfit, studying the effect. “No,” he said thoughtfully, “I don’t think so.”

  Marilyn looked down, disappointed, at the maroon velvet gown she was wearing. It showed her cleavage, and was split way up the side, revealing lots of leg. “I thought you told me it was sexy,” she complained.

  “I did. It is.”

  “So what’s the matter?”

  “Let me think a minute.”

  Potter loosened his tie, and sat down in an armchair. “Let me have a drink, will you?”

  Marilyn sighed, and poured him a Scotch over ice. Potter stirred it with his finger, reflectively.

  “If you wear that,” he said, “it’s like you’re saying ‘Here—take me. I’m all yours, whatever the conditions.’”

  “But I’m not saying that. I don’t want to say that.”

  “But the gown says it.”

  Marilyn crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself as if she were chilly.

  Potter got up and walked around the room, rattling the ice in his glass. “You want to look sexy, but not obvious. You don’t want to make it so he can just come in and throw you on the bed and then tell you later he’s sorry but he can’t leave his wife.”

  Marilyn nodded. “So what should I wear then?”

  “The effect, I think, you want to create, is of a very beautiful, sexy woman on trial for murder who is dressing for the jury—dressing so they know she’s beautiful but not loose—that she’s cool, and in possession, and wouldn’t do anything crazy.”

  “A pants suit?”

  “No no. You don’t want to hide yourself—but on the other hand you don’t want to flaunt yourself.”

  Potter looked through the considerable wardrobe she had brought and settled on a plain, dark blue dress. Short, but still rather prim and severe. A simple strand of pearls.

  “And no makeup,” Potter said.

  “Not even eye shadow?”

  “That’s OK. Yeah. Eye shadow. But try to look pale.”

  “Pale.”

  “Like you might faint.”

  “Actually, I might.”

  “No, no. You mustn’t really faint. Just have the aura of fainting.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You can do it And remember, above all, don’t give in. If he’s not splitting with his wife, this is it. You won’t see him anymore. He’s got to make the choice. And try not to cry. Let him do the crying.”

  “Oh, Phil.”

  “You can do it.”

  They hugged, and Potter left her to her preparations.

  Potter went back to his room and had a Scotch. It was a little after four, and he had the evening before him. Till midnight, anyway. That was when Herb would have to leave Marilyn to go back home, and she would most be in need of Potter’s company. To help her celebrate or keep her away from the window.

  So he had Saturday night in New York ahead of him, alone. It was the first time he’d returned after moving to Boston, and he hadn’t told anyone he was coming.

  He wondered what Jessica was doing. She was sure to have a date on Saturday night. He wondered whatever happened about the guy who wanted to marry her, whether it was all off or she was still seeing him, still considering the proposal. He wondered where she was living, how things were going for her. But he didn’t want to go through the scene that would be required to find out.

  Maybe he should call up one of his old buddies. One of the guys from the office. But then he would have to explain. His life. His work. His plans. He would have to defend and justify.

  He had another Scotch. It might be fun to see Al Kolonkis, a buddy from the old theatre days. But that would mean hearing about Al’s life—the old frustrations, the fragile new hopes.

  Maybe there was a party somewhere. He thought of Lorna Cassell, a sharp, striking blonde who had her own boutique on the East Side and always knew where the parties were. He called information, and they confirmed that an L. C. Cassell on East Sixty-first Street indeed had a telephone, but that the number was unlisted. Potter smiled. She was moving up.

  He heaved the Manhattan phone directory onto his lap, and began to flip through it, hoping that suddenly a name would pop up from the page of someone he was dying to see. Looking through the H’s, he thought of Agnes Hyer. She lived—or used to live—on Bank Street, with a lot of cats and plants. A fat, philosophical girl. He once got drunk and laid her and the next morning couldn’t look her in the eyes, but they managed to stay friends and he never made that mistake again. During the day she was a commercial artist at one of the big agencies, and at night went home and put on her leotards and her string quartets and drank wine until she resembled the image of who it was she started out to be when she came to New York. Potter found her name—she still lived on Bank Street. He called the number, but after it rang once he hung up:

  He really didn’t want to plug into his old life, in any way. He wanted to remain anonymous, a tourist.

  Around six he went out walking through the Village. He was hungry, but he didn’t want to go into a good restaurant, alone, and sit at a table, alone, and have a good drink and dinner and wine, alone. Nor did he want to go into one of the floodlit greasy spoons and wolf down a hamburger and a Coke, mashed among junkies and winos and speeded-up kids. Finally he chose La Crêpe, where you could eat alone in relative comfort, have a glass of wine, and perhaps be sized up as a busy fellow who was just grabbing a bite on his way to a big party or late date. He had the sausage-and-egg crêpe, number thirty-seven, and two glasses of chilled rosé.

  Back out on the streets, he felt alien and uncomfortable. It seemed to him that New York was even more crowded and desperate than it had been only six months ago, though he figured that was probably because he was accustomed now to the relatively slower, less strangled streets of Boston. Whatever the reason, he felt as if he were drowning in flesh and neon, the stench of stale vomit and the squeal of sirens. He hurried, faster, back to his room, threw off his coat, poured himself a Scotch, and flipped on the television. He was happy to choose what seemed the lesser of a vast array of evils.

  Saturday Night at the Movies.

  Marilyn called a little after midnight, her voice noncommittal, and he yanked on his coat and rushed to her room.

  She was focussing on the lighted tip of her cigarette with a concentration that suggested an attempt at self-hypnosis.

  Potter already knew the answer so didn’t ask. He poured himself a drink, sat down, and waited until she felt like talking.

  “His shrink said no,” Marilyn said.

  “Just plain ‘no’ or No with a theory?”

  “Compulsive patterns. Anal and oral fixations. Hasn’t worked out his real feelings.”

  “He agrees? I mean about the ‘no,’ not about the symptoms.”

  “He has to think it over.”

  “How long?”

  “I told him to let me know tomorrow, I had to go back.”

  Potter looked at the bed, which could have passed for the scene of a six-day orgy. “You know, of course, he’
ll come tomorrow, fuck you some more, and say he still needs time to think it over.”

  “I won’t let him.”

  “Fuck you tomorrow?”

  “Think it over anymore. After tomorrow.”

  “OK.”

  Potter suggested they take in the late-late show. After that they watched the late-late-late, and then, connoisseurs that they were, stayed glued to the late-late-late-late-late, which brought them into the early. One thing you could say in favor of New York, its TV stations knew what the citizens needed.

  Continuous numbing.

  The morning was cold and soot-speckled. Potter went out and got orange juice for them, put Marilyn to bed with a call for ten, and said he would meet her that afternoon at four. He went to his own cubicle across the street, took a shower, and passed out. He slept fitfully, woke around noon, and went out for the Sunday Times and something to eat. The Times, like the New York TV stations, filled its most important mission of providing enough material to blank out the customer’s mind as long as needed. It kept Potter going till four.

  The special sad sunlight of Sunday afternoon spread over Marilyn’s room. Maid service had cleared the traces of whatever had happened with her and Herb, but there was no type of service to clear her face of what anyone who saw it could surmise had occurred.

  Passion. Pleadings. Pledges. Post mortems. Protests. Promises. Parting. Packing.

  She sat quiet and prim, like a political exile who has been ordered to leave the country on the next train.

  Potter looked around the room and found the bottle of Scotch with a tiny bit left. He poured it into a bathroom water glass, sat down, and guzzled it. “You ready?” he asked.

  “No hurry.”

  “No booze, either.”

  She shrugged. “Order some if you like.”

  “You join me?”

  “If you like.”

  Potter dialed room service and ordered a double Scotch on the rocks and an extra dry martini straight up with a twist.

  They finished those off without saying anything, and Potter ordered up two more rounds of the same.