Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

  Amelia thought it would be nice if she and Phil could go away somewhere for the weekend after she obtained her precautions; instead of making love for the first time in Potter’s apartment, she felt it would be so much more romantic to have it happen in a new and lovely setting. The ocean, perhaps, or the mountains. Somewhere in the country, maybe.

  Potter immediately agreed, but was privately apprehensive. He knew how disastrous “romantic weekends” could turn out to be. Like his weekend with Marilyn in Vermont. He felt superstitiously it might be bad luck to go to a Country Inn again, after the fiasco in Middlebury. He was also concerned about Amelia’s sense of protocol and propriety, fearing a motel room might seem shabby or illicit to her, might make her anxious or embarrassed and turn her off. She wasn’t experienced at this sort of thing, and Potter grew even more worried when he realized that in Amelia’s case “this sort of thing” not only included staying with a guy in a rented room somewhere but also the very act of making love. That is, if he believed her story about being “practically a virgin.”

  He had known her for less than a month, knew nothing about her past except what she had chosen to tell him, and for all he knew she perhaps had moved to Boston not out of her proclaimed love of its historical and cultural attributes, but because she had such a wild reputation in Georgia no Southern gentleman would deign to marry her; perhaps those weekends she spoke of so dreamily at the Sigma Chi house at Chapel Hill had been drug-crazed orgies, perhaps she had been a football groupie and had laid every starting quarterback in the Southeastern Conference … Shit. Potter stopped himself, condemned himself, and felt ashamed and ridiculous for doubting Amelia’s account of her practically virginal past, a noble and remarkable record of purity stained but once, and even then only because she thought she was going to marry the guy. Though the fellow had scored with her, it was not, in retrospect, according to the rules, so the score was not really a legitimate score but more like a touchdown that is called back because of a penalty; it didn’t really count. On the other hand, when Potter thought about it, Amelia never said that she had only done it once with that guy but that she had only done it with that one guy, which left open the possibility that he had fucked her hundreds or thousands of times, that his fantastic love-making had turned her into a sensual beast, a creature of passion, and she hadn’t done it with anyone else because she knew it would never be so good again.…

  Goddamnit, there his mind went again, irrationally, tormentingly, foolishly. He shamed himself again, not only for his doubting Amelia, but for falling into such an old-fashioned hangup about a woman’s relative virginity for christsake, when he had never in fact been turned on by the notion of making it with virgins, when he knew things would be a lot easier all around if Amelia had had some experience with her former fiancé. But he couldn’t help hoping that the experience hadn’t been all that great. A woman friend once told Potter that if she were a man she would not ideally look for a virgin, but would prefer to find a girl who had already been fucked a few times, but badly. The logic of that seemed indisputable, and he secretly hoped it was the case with Amelia.

  Finally making his mind focus back on the real problem of where the hell to go for the romantic weekend, Potter hit upon what he considered the brilliant notion of the Bertelsens’ farm in New Hampshire. They had bought the place about a year ago, and it was just a little less than two hours from Boston. It would provide seclusion and privacy, a quiet pastoral atmosphere, and eliminate all the hassles of room registration, motel illicitness, and Country Inn bad luck.

  Marva said she and Max had been up the weekend before and Potter would actually be doing them a favor to go up the coming weekend and use the place, see that the furnace was working all right, make sure everything was in order.

  “Are you taking that marvelous Southern girl?” Marva asked.

  “Yes, Marva.”

  “It sounds like things are getting serious.”

  “Yes, I guess you could say that.”

  “Oh, Phil, this is so exciting. How serious?”

  Potter held his breath for a moment in an effort to hold his temper.

  “Medium serious,” Marva persisted, “or very serious?”

  “More serious,” Potter said, “than I expected.”

  “Oh, Phil, this is marvelous. Will you tell me all about how the weekend was when you get back to town?”

  “Sure,” he said, not meaning he’d really tell everything, but enough to repay Marva for the use of the place. That would be the fee for the weekend, instead of a regular motel bill.

  The day they drove up was wet and blowy, perfumed with spring. A perfect day for sitting inside, by a fire. A perfect day for coziness.

  On the way they stopped at a shopping center grocery store and bought supplies—much more than they needed. Shopping with someone else, with someone you loved, was altogether different from shopping alone. It had a design, a purpose; it brought two people together, as in a conspiracy. Potter kept popping things into the cart, whatever caught his eye, much more than was needed. Amelia was going to make an old-fashioned beef stew for dinner, but besides the ingredients for that, Potter grabbed the biggest porterhouse steak he could find.

  “What’s that for, Phil?”

  “Well, you never know. Maybe we’ll have it for breakfast.”

  “But we got bacon and eggs.”

  “You never know. We might wake up and wish we had steak. Besides, having a steak around gives me a sense of security.”

  “Mah heavens, we have enough to live for a week!”

  “Well, we might get snowed in. Or rained in. If we’re lucky.”

  She smiled, moistly, her eyes wide and adoring. “Oh darlin’, you’re such a fool. Such a sweet fool.”

  The farmhouse was old and small, with floors tilting, foundation sinking. It was furnished with plain, rickety, unmatched chairs and couches and tables, not antique, just aged and tattered and teetering, yet it seemed like a magic place, a palace in disguise. It was on a winding road off the main highways and interstates, and from its windows you could see no other houses or buildings or stores or lights. It came with twenty acres, once cultivated, now dormant, and a leaning, unusable barn that looked as if one good wind could knock it down. The Bertelsens had paid a pretty penny for it, but they knew its value could only go up, land was one sure thing of real worth. Prices for places like this had skyrocketed all over New England, not only because of the obvious investment value, but also because such former farms were now the new vacation and weekend havens of the well-off middle class. Only the relatively wealthy could afford now the luxury of keeping warm by wood fires and planting their own vegetables, of hoeing their own gardens. The price of simplicity and privacy was high. Owning such a place was like having your own time machine, in which you could be transported back on weekends and vacations to the fantasy of living fifty years ago, the pretended peace of the pre-atomic age.

  Potter indeed felt happily farther than two hours away from the world in which a jury had just voted the gas chamber for Charles Manson and a military tribunal had found Lt. Calley guilty, a world of senseless massacres at home and abroad, of a war that kept “winding down” but wouldn’t stop, of brand new Pinto automobiles being recalled by the Ford company because even though they looked colorful and cute they were also defective and unsafe; a world of bright imagery and crummy insides, of plastic and smog and tear gas and lies. All that seemed years instead of hours away.

  They ate in the kitchen, by the warmth of a big potbellied stove. Potter had chopped wood, and built fires in the living room fireplace as well as the kitchen stove, feeding them fondly, tending them with ritual care, while Amelia concocted the fragrant stew.

  The intimacy of the farmhouse fed the intimacy between Potter and Amelia, and helped them feel relaxed. At dinner they talked and laughed a lot, not from nervousness but a sense of rapport and pleasure. After a couple of brandies they went to bed, and Potter’s apprehensions proved pleasantly ungr
ounded. It started out tender and sweet and slow, grew into passion, and finally ended in fulfillment for both of them.

  They lay there for a while, hands touching, and then they got up and went down to sit in front of the fireplace. The living-room lights were off and the flames threw shadows, mysterious but friendly; the oldest light show of all.

  This is what there is, Potter thought.

  Man, woman, house, fire.

  Nothing else seemed necessary, or even important.

  “Amelia,” he said, “let’s not wait a long time.”

  “For what, darlin’?”

  “Getting married.”

  She nestled against him. “Whatever you say, darlin’.”

  “Spring vacation’s coming up. I’ll have a week, and we can take a nice honeymoon.”

  “When does spring vacation start?”

  “A week from Wednesday.”

  “A week from Wednesday! Darlin’, wha—ah hardly—there’s so much to do, so many things, arrangements, plans—”

  “I don’t want a big lavish ceremony, I couldn’t do that anyway.”

  “Ah know, darlin’, but even so—”

  “Even so, I want to marry you a week from Wednesday. All the rest can be worked out. All you have to say is yes.”

  She looked at him for quite a while, her face intent and serious, her eyes looking straight at him and into him, as she balanced all the factors, the pros and cons, the rightness of the moment, the pitch that might not be reached again, and finally, calmly and quietly, she spoke.

  “Yes,” she said.

  They had the porterhouse steak for breakfast.

  5

  “You’re kidding,” said Marilyn.

  “Is that your idea of congratulations?”

  “OK. Congratulations.”

  “Wow. This is really something. I rush over here to tell you so you’ll be the first one to know and you act like—like I’ve told you I lost my job.”

  “Well, it’s awfully—sudden, isn’t it?”

  “What’s sudden about it? I’ve known her over a month.”

  “Over a month.”

  “What do you advise? A two-year engagement?”

  “I don’t advise anything. You’re the one who said you didn’t want to get married again. Unless you were absolutely sure.”

  “But I am.”

  “OK, fine. Congratulations.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Marilyn made a new batch of martinis. They drank for some time in silence.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I just hope it isn’t a mistake. I mean that really.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “But if you’re sure—”

  “Hell, Marilyn, who’s sure about anything ever? If you waited till you were sure you wouldn’t do anything.”

  “OK.”

  “A month isn’t long, but it’s enough to really know how you feel. About someone.”

  “You thought you loved me for almost a month.”

  “Well—uh—that was—”

  “That was different, I suppose.”

  “Yes, it was different.”

  “How?”

  “We never talked about getting married.”

  “That was my fault,” Marilyn said.

  “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just didn’t come up.”

  “I didn’t bring it up. But from now on, brother—the next time I get into it with an available man, I’m going to play it just like little Miss Molasses.”

  “Shit, Marilyn, you didn’t want to marry me. That would have been—awful.”

  “Maybe, but here I am again, goddamned alone, and that sugary little Peach is getting married.”

  “Come on, Marilyn. We’re buddies.”

  “Yeah. Well—do I get to be Best Man at the wedding?”

  “Jesus, you ought to be. You’re sure as hell my best friend.”

  “I’ll buy a tux and a top hat.”

  “God, wouldn’t it be great? If we could pull it off?”

  They got to giggling, and started on a third batch of martinis. Marilyn became a little more mellow about the whole thing.

  “I do hope it works,” she said. “I honestly hope it’s not a mistake.”

  “Well, who knows. It may turn out to be. But at least she’s different than Jessica. I mean, at least if this doesn’t work it’ll be a different kind of mistake.”

  Marilyn nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess that’s progress.”

  The Tuesday evening after the fateful farm weekend Amelia came over to Potter’s and fixed a fantastic meal that featured a cherry pie she had baked the night before. In the living room after dinner she made him close his eyes, and stuck a fine Corona in his mouth. She lit it for him, poured him a brandy, and nestled beside him on the couch. “Darlin’, have you decided yet whether you plan to go on teachin’?”

  “Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong with teaching?”

  “Wha nothing, Phil, it’s one of the noblest professions a man can have.”

  “Well?”

  “Well,” she said, playing her fingers along his lapel, “you’ve said you weren’t sure about it, about goin’ back to get another degree and all—and, well, a girl wants to know what her future husband wants to do, so she can help him.”

  It was, in essence, the old “what are your plans?” routine, but stated so sweetly, and in such conditions of comfort and well-being, that Potter hardly experienced a shudder. A man who has a great meal in his stomach, a fine cigar in his mouth, a glass of brandy in his hand, and an adoring woman on his shoulder is likely to look on the future with a certain cool confidence. Plans? Fine. Why not have plans?

  “Well, if I decide not to go on with teaching, there’s this guy Charlie Bray I told you about, the big PR man here who as much as told me I could write my own ticket if I wanted to come with his firm.”

  “That’s mah-velous.”

  “On the other hand,” Potter said, grandly flicking an ash from his cigar, “I might well go in some other direction.”

  “Of course, darlin’, ah know you could do just anything.”

  “Well, not anything,” Potter said modestly.

  Nor was it just “anything” that Amelia had in mind. Amelia had a plan. A very specific one. All she wanted Potter to do was have lunch with this marvelous man she knew, Dick Dalton, who was high up in one of the best Boston advertising firms, but was restless and wanted to strike out on his own. When she first came to Boston she had worked for six months in the accounting office of Dalton’s firm, became friends with him and his wife and two children, and still kept in touch with them. She had lunched with Dick only yesterday—a happy coincidence!—and told him all about Potter, whose background seemed to interest him a whole lot. Amelia only asked that Potter meet him; she was sure they would hit it off.

  Much to Potter’s surprise, they did.

  Dick Dalton was a sharp, wiry little guy, with quick thoughts and movements, full of restless energy. Potter was relieved that he spoke without jargon, and soon sized him up as a no-bullshit kind of guy. Dalton said he had faith in himself as a copy writer, he had a good friend who was tops in layout and graphic design, and they needed a man with something like Potter’s background to start a nice little operation—a man who could deal with the press, make presentations to clients, stage the right sort of publicity parties. Dalton explained that he was almost forty and he figured if he was going to strike out on his own, it was now or never.

  “You know,” Dalton said with intense sincerity, “I’d like to be on my own now, I’d like to—well, have fun at what I do.”

  He paused. “Fun,” he said reflectively; then he smiled, and waved toward the window, the street, the world beyond: “I know it’s out there. Somewhere. It must be!”

  Potter and Dalton both laughed, together, feeling an immediate trust and kinship. They would work something out, they would work together, and, in the pursuit of mutual profit they would try along the way to fin
d that elusive, alluring promise that some men are said to discover in their work: fun.

  They shook on it.

  As Amelia had seemed to produce Dick Dalton, genie-like, she also quickly and efficiently came up with marriage plans, arrangements, details, schedules, participants, principals. It turned out she had a cousin who owned a lovely home on Cape Cod, in Wellfleet, right on the ocean, and the cousin was delighted to offer the house for the wedding. This took care of Potter’s qualms about a Church wedding for a man who was on his second time around and had never been religiously committed anyway. Through her Methodist minister in Boston she was able to drum up a local Cape Cod Methodist to perform the service, an ocean-side, unorthodox kind of ceremony keyed to God’s natural wonders. Her cousin arranged for a caterer, and her mother handled flight plans for a small delegation of Southern relatives.

  The plans moved swiftly and inexorably forward, like a powerful freight train that has gathered steam and now possesses a force and direction of its own beyond the control of any individual to change its course or slow its momentum. As he watched this Marriage Express hurtle onward, Potter’s mood varied from joyous giddiness to sudden, stark terror. But when the doubts and fears assailed him, like a stone-throwing mob, he would make the chamber music come into his mind, the music he had heard when he took Amelia to the Gardner concert. He told her how much the music meant to him, and she bought him a record of the principal piece that was performed. He played it countless times, at home on his stereo, and away from home, in his head, letting it fill his mind, dispelling all the dark questions and doubts, soothing him into a wordless rhythm, a suspended state of calm.

  “Tootly-tweetly-too-ta-tee-toot …”

  Potter’s first lie to Amelia was about his Bachelor Dinner. It wasn’t exactly a lie, it was more of an omission. He told her that Gafferty and Ed Shell were going to take him to Stella’s for the ritual celebration, and that was true. But he didn’t mention that Marilyn was coming too. Women weren’t supposed to come to a bachelor dinner, a rule that would no doubt apply even more strongly if the woman was a former girlfriend.