Women like Jenna.
I see Erin on the last night we ever spoke, a few weeks after we broke up and she went away to college. I see myself standing in a long corridor on the first floor of her dormitory, exhausted and drawn from a long drive across three states. I am there to get her back, but she stands just beyond my reach, already gone. I tell her I love her and she stares at me. Tell me you don’t love me anymore and I’ll go away, I say. I’ll never come back, you’ll never see or hear from me again. Just tell me you don’t love me anymore. As I await her response, I remember how the last time she’d seen me I’d been unable to deal with her going off to college. I had too much to drink, got stoned out of my mind then showed up at her parents’ house to talk with her. Erin’s father threatened to call the police if I didn’t leave, so I finally did. I remember Erin watching me from her bedroom window, the look on her face not just sad, but disappointed. In her eyes that night, I saw a young woman no longer willing to invest in someone who may not live to see the future she’d once envisioned for them. Tell me, I press. Tell me you don’t love me anymore and I’ll go.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
We both know she’s lying, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
In time, she’ll be telling the truth.
I watch myself turn and walk away. A life I will never know dies right before my eyes and takes a part of me along with it.
Until now, I have never looked back.
When I do, I feel shame, and worse…regret.
“I could’ve saved you,” she tells me, smiling across time as if perhaps all is forgiven. “We could’ve been happy. If only you’d let us.”
I want to reach across the bridge that separates us and take her hands in mine. I want to hold those hands to my face, to kiss them as I once did and tell her how sorry I am. I want to tell her that if I could do it all again I’d do it differently, although even knowing what I know now I can’t be sure that’s true. As always, Erin is the wiser. She slips away, drifting off into the same darkness that once again claims me.
Swept into a dust devil of visions flashing before me in a rapid-fire montage, I feel the sorrow and regret, the terror and the loneliness falling away, peeling off like sheets of singed flesh torn from my body. And in its place is an overwhelming feeling of love and longing.
A young man watches the most beautiful woman he has ever seen from across a college classroom, and she notices him too…Their first date, dinner and a movie—dinner at a local steakhouse that cost him his entire part-time paycheck, and a movie, Barry Levinson’s Diner, at a small theater not far from campus…the first touch, holding hands during the film…the first kiss, later that night as they walked hand-in-hand along the Boston Commons, and then again on the steps to her dorm…All the conversations and laughter that followed…The parties and the partying…the drugs and addictions that nearly overwhelmed them both but that were eventually overcome…The same couple just a few years older, on their wedding day, stronger, better…She moves down the aisle in a gorgeous gown and veil, so beautiful that she leaves him breathless even as he holds her trembling hand at the altar…You may kiss the bride…Their honeymoon in the Florida Keys…Coming home to their first apartment, a small and cramped space they would live in for the first five years of their marriage…All the years since slithering by like a slideshow, the laughter, the joys, the good times and the bad. I watch as Jenna and I make love then lay together in bed, quiet and still tangled together. I see the look in those soulful eyes and wonder how I ever could have lost her.
I understand what I give up to be with her. But I also know that she saves me. With Jenna, the need to numb myself vanishes. I no longer feel neglected or alone, and my love for her is stronger, more mature than the love I’d felt for Erin. This is my wife, my best friend and partner. Jenna. Only Jenna, always Jenna…she is everything to me. I finish college, get my drinking under control and we both stop using drugs altogether. Because of her. I work hard and study even harder. Because of her. I succeed at the company, walking in as just another accountant on staff, and within ten years I am Assistant CFO. Because of her. And she is successful too, an executive at one of the largest financial investment companies in the country. Is it because of me? I want to believe that at least partly it is, but all I know for sure is that this woman helps change me from a tortured and unhappy boy into the man I am. Was…
In return, I give her ever ounce of me, everything I have. Every bit of love and passion, friendship, loyalty and dedication in my being…and as I watch my life crumble before me like some cinematic dream, I realize that I have little left, because once you grant someone the power to give you what you need, to make you who you are, you also grant that person the power to take it all away.
Love is a miracle cure and a deadly weapon. Do with it what you will.
From darkness came light. I could hear my own harried breath like wind in my ears, and the horror I thought I’d left behind had returned, surging through me like electrical current. Night returned as well, the prodigal son within the light, and I realized I was back on the bench. The flurries had stopped and there was no accumulation, as if the snow had never existed at all. Maybe the child in red hadn’t either, I thought. Maybe I’d never chased him to the cemetery. For a moment, to be sure, I sat rigid on the bench, watching shadows slink along the walls of the church across the street. I couldn’t be sure if I was awake or still dreaming.
When I felt the unmistakable sensation of tiny fingers walking over my palm, I wondered if there was much difference anymore.
As the warm and sour breath of a little boy exhaled against my face, I slid my eyes in its direction without turning my head. That same hideously aged face on a child’s body glared at me from beneath the red hood, so close I shouldn’t have been surprised when his cold lips touched my cheek in a pathetic attempt at a kiss. “Daddy,” it whispered.
The son I might’ve had, beckoning me from a life I’d never known.
Spinning up and away from the bench in a frenzied pirouette, I looked back. He was gone.
In the distance, among the usual illuminations, I saw Christmas lights of many colors and remembered Cap Payens at the bar with his tattered copy of A Christmas Carol.
Remember what the book says, he’d told me.
And for some reason, I did.
I broke into a run and dashed toward the here, the now, and the lights on the next block, certain that everything would be all right if only I could get to them.
-4-
Coughing violently and struggling to breathe, I stumbled to an eventual stop then fell against a parking meter and hung on for dear life. Christ, I thought, goddamn cigarettes. Despite the cold I was bathed in sweat, my lungs burned and my heart hammered my chest as if trying to punch its way out.
As I slowly began to catch my breath, I realized I’d made it to a well-lit street, and also a familiar one. Christmas was still a few weeks away but the blitz was already in full swing. Everything was adorned with holiday decorations, and industrial size ropes of silver, green and red garland had been strung from streetlight to streetlight for far as I could see. Though most of the stores on the street had already closed for the night, Christmas music continued to blare through tinny speakers somewhere above me. The few shops that had remained open to take advantage of the season were packed with shoppers, and the street was busy as well, with numerous people hurrying about with bags and bundles.
Few of them seemed to notice me.
As if it had just occurred to me, I realized this would be my first Christmas without Jenna in over twenty years. It still didn’t seem possible.
I checked my watch. Almost eight o’clock.
As a group of female shoppers spilled from a nearby candle store in loud mid-conversation, I pushed away from the parking meter and did my best to appear as if I were casually strolling the boulevard in search of gift ideas like everyone else. But what I was really focused on was the fact that the apartment Jenna and I
had lived in for the first five years of our marriage was less than a block away. That, and how dramatically the neighborhood had changed in the fifteen-plus years since we’d lived there.
Once a low-income area, it had become considerably more upscale. Where an old bodega had been there now stood a trendy general store. The grimy newsstand on the corner was no more, and the liquor store, porn outlet and pawnshop were gone too, replaced with quaint little specialty shops in renovated and renewed retail space. Gone was the graffiti and garbage, and once filthy streets were now clean.
As I turned onto the side street that would lead me to our old building, I began to reminisce. Jenna and I had spent five years there, and in that time became good friends with another young couple that lived in the building, Alan and Gary. Even after we’d moved, Jenna and I returned to the building many times over the years to socialize with them, but Gary had passed away more than three years ago and we’d not been back since. I felt guilty about that, and knew Jenna did too, but we had our own lives to handle, and Alan had made it clear he needed time and space after the death of his partner, and albeit reluctantly, we’d given it to him. Unfortunately one day bled into the next, and weeks became months and eventually years. Regular phone calls and emails dwindled down and eventually stopped altogether. We’d been so close back then, but staying away became habitual, easier somehow once a certain amount of time had passed, and the longer it went on the easier it was.
At the corner, I stopped. The building was right across the street. Unlike the nearby retail district it looked more or less the same as it always had, a relatively unimaginative three-story brick walkup in a less than desirable neighborhood.
It seemed an eternity since Jenna and I had lived here. Just starting out, all we had was each other, and that was more than enough. I’d been so sure of myself then, so sure of us. Even though I had no right to be, I was convinced nothing could ever stop us and that we’d always be as happy and carefree as we were in those early years of our marriage.
I crossed the street and was reminded just how wrong I’d been. Less than twenty years later those same young couples making friends and planning what they’d thought would be the rest of their lives together were no more. There had been such hope, promise and happiness. And now? One dead, two separated, all estranged. And all of it so senseless, I thought, so unnecessary.
I stood beneath a streetlight and watched the building. My lungs had finally settled down, so like any good addict, I smoked a cigarette.
Our old apartment was on the second floor. Alan’s was right across the hall. But for a dreary yellow light filling one of the windows facing the street, the building was dark. If Alan still lived there, he was home.
Two dark, dirty staircases and an equally unpleasant hallway later, I stood knocking at the apartment door. It opened almost immediately, as if the person inside had been expecting me.
The drawn face of a man with thinning hair and a closely cropped beard peeked out at me. Alan was only a few years older than me, which put him somewhere in his early fifties, so it didn’t seem possible he could’ve aged to such a degree in just over three years. But he had. The lines in his face were much deeper, the bags under his eyes much blacker, and he’d lost quite a bit of hair since I’d last seen him. But his devilish smile hadn’t changed a bit.
“Well, look what we have here,” he said in a gentle voice I remembered fondly. “The Ghost of Christmas Past, I presume?”
“Afraid not,” I said. “But I think I may be on the run from him.”
“Aren’t we all?”
I couldn’t help but smile a little too.
“Charlie Cerrone,” he said, as if speaking my name might make me real. The door opened wide, and he reached out, placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me toward him. We hugged. There was less of him now, his body more fragile than before, and he smelled vaguely of pleasant cologne. “My God,” he whispered, “it’s so good to see you.”
“You too.”
We released each other, and Alan ushered me in. The apartment was similar to what I remembered but it no longer looked as lived in. He and Gary had been something of an odd couple, in that Gary tended to be a bit of a slob and Alan was always the neat and organized sort. Though funds were never in abundance Alan always decorated with an understated, classic style that made the small space warm, vibrant and inviting, and he kept a clean, tidy home. But the apartment had become so orderly and maniacally clean that it possessed the lifeless, antiseptic feel of a museum. The only thing wildly out of place was his tiny tabletop Christmas tree. Though pretty, it had seen better days, and looked like something he’d found in a Dumpster.
“I’m sorry to come by after all this time without calling first,” I said.
“Don’t be silly, what a wonderful surprise.” He motioned for my coat.
I pulled my knit hat off, stuffed it into my pocket then slipped out of my pea coat and handed it over. Alan hung it on a freestanding rack just inside the door. “I just put water on for hot chocolate—I know, how Donna Reed of me—would you like some? Or I can make tea or coffee. Unless this is a vodka visit, in which case I can break out a bottle.”
“Anything warm, thanks.”
He stepped closer, crossed his arms over his chest. Alan had always been thin, but the weight he’d lost in the last few years left him looking frail and spindly. His tired eyes searched mine and I could tell he was surprised at the changes in me as well. Rather cautiously, he asked, “How’s Jen?”
I stood there like a moron, unsure of what to say.
He brought a hand to his mouth. “Please tell me she’s all right.”
“Yes, it’s nothing like that, she’s—well—we’ve split up.”
He seemed relieved, upset and shocked all at once. “Oh, not you guys.”
I nodded.
Alan pointed to a nearby couch. “Sit.”
I did and he took up position on the edge of a comfortable chair across from me. Outside, the wind howled, as if to remind me I couldn’t stay and hide here forever. Sooner or later I’d be out there again at the mercy of night and those things that moved within its shadows.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Never mind me. Are you all right?”
I thought a moment before answering. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Fair enough.” He nervously straightened a stack of already straightened magazines on the immaculate smoked glass coffee table between us.
I gave him a condensed version of what had taken place. Surprised and saddened, he remained quiet for some time. Finally, he said, “I’m so sorry. But Jenna was always crazy about you. She’s made a terrible mistake, that’s all. She’ll see that eventually.” He scratched delicately at his beard and sighed. “Why do we hurt each other so?”
“Why not? The whole goddamn world’s burning down.”
“Try not to be so cheery, would you?” Just then the teakettle whistle emanated from the kitchen. Alan rose from his chair and headed toward it. “Back in a jiff.”
Alone in the room, all my old memories of this place came rushing back. Jenna and I had spent countless hours here, and Alan and Gary had hosted some epic parties back then. For years we had movie night, where we’d all get together, have dinner and drinks then settle in with a huge bowl of communal popcorn and watch a classic film. Other nights we’d play cards or board games or head out to one of the local theaters for a movie or a play. But the nights we stayed in were my favorite. Alan and Gary were only a few years older than we were but we were all so young then, just starting to find our way. I noticed a framed reproduction of the cover of Alan’s first published novel hanging on the wall, and remembered when it had been accepted. He’d been so happy and Gary had been so proud of him. We’d all gone out to dinner to celebrate. I assumed Alan was still writing full-time, but fondly recalled the days when he worked a day job and wrote when he could, often pounding away furiously on his old typewriter late into the night. In the years since, Ala
n had sold several novels, and while he’d never achieved best-seller status, he did earn a decent living. Even so, he continued to live in this neighborhood when he clearly no longer needed to. Jenna had once asked him why, and he’d told her this was his home, had been his and Gary’s home, and he saw no reason to abandon it simply because he could. “It helps me remember,” he’d said. “And I need that, I need to remember.” I hadn’t understood then, but now I knew exactly what he’d meant.
It was nice and warm in the apartment. My chill had nearly left me and my hands were no longer quite so red and sore. Feeling a bit better, I stood up and strode across the room to a bookcase on the far wall. On the middle shelf, a framed photograph of Alan and Gary sat center stage amidst several others, including a shot of Jenna and me. I picked up the photograph of our old friends. Taken during a get-together at our apartment across the hall, they were laughing, dancing cheek-to-cheek and mugging for the camera. They were so young, so invincible. We all were. I felt myself smile. I not only remembered the day the photo was snapped, I was the one who had taken it. Looking into Gary’s eyes, I tried to remember his voice, tried to remember him exactly as he was in the photograph—witty and smart and kind—rather than as he’d become once he’d fallen so deathly ill.
“What are you doing?”
I looked back over my shoulder to find Alan standing next to the couch holding two mugs of hot chocolate. “Remembering,” I said.
“That’s my favorite picture of us.”
“I miss those days. I miss you guys.”
“So do I.”
“I’m sorry we lost touch.” I returned the photograph to the shelf. “Truly.”
“Don’t be. It’s no one’s fault.”
“I feel like we abandoned you when you needed us most.”
“I asked to be abandoned. Remember?”
I joined him by the couch. He handed me a mug and this time we sat side-by-side. I took a sip and embraced the warmth as it spread through me. “I’ll ask again. How are you?”
Apartment Seven Page 4