She glanced up, tossed her brown hair and smiled. She couldn’t have been looking at me but that’s what it seemed like. By the time I made it down the stairs and through the pack, the song was over and she was gone. I woke the next morning with her face still in my head.
Asking around, I learned she was a transfer from Williams. The next semester we ended up in American Lit. together. We’d say hi before class or if we saw each other on the path, but it was a month before I screwed up the nerve to make a move on her. One Saturday night I found her next to me in the beer line at Psi U. She smiled.
“Hey, stranger. I’m Lisa Klein. I’m in your lit. class.” She was a little drunk.
“H-hi. Tom Reasons.”
She had the sweetest features. Her eyes, most of all. Wide and brown and searching, like they’d trapped a star.
“I guess I’m not much of a flirt, am I?” she said.
“Excuse me?”
She put her hand on my arm and leaned in close to talk over the music. Her mouth turned up a little—skeptical, but ready to smile. “I said I guess I’m not much of a flirt. I’ve been trying to catch your eye all semester.”
She might as well have run a spear through me. I took her beer cup.
“You go ahead out on the porch,” I said. “It’s quiet out there. I’ll get you a refill and join you.”
“You don’t mind waiting in line?”
“What’s a few more minutes? I’ve waited all year for this.” She met my eyes and her smile as she walked away was slow but sure, like a lover who knows what she’s in for but is ready for it.
Out on the porch we got to talking about music and in five minutes I was gone on her. She looked in my face as I talked as if it were just the two of us on the planet. It’s a quality I always loved in her. She might ask what I ate for lunch, and waiting on my answer you’d think she’d asked the key to the universe. Her eyes were so full and innocent. I always wanted to rise to the look in those eyes. To talk better, to think better, to bring her over to my side, if just for a second, just to see her smile and nod.
In no time the frat boys were packing up the speakers and turning us out. Her room was on the far side of campus, near mine, and I walked her home. At her dorm I asked her to dinner the next night and she said yes. As I started away she said quietly, “Aren’t you going to try and kiss me?” She stood with her hands behind her back, trying to look casual, but her eyes gave her away. Teasing, but a little scared.
I’ve kissed Lisa a thousand times since and other girls besides, but that first one is the only kiss in my life I remember. It started soft and ended hard, and she shuddered when I pulled away, like a car engine when you turn it off.
Two weeks later we were at the door of her room. We’d been out twice and both of us knew it was coming. I had borrowed Jimmy’s car and driven her to the top of Sunset Hill, where we shared a bottle of wine looking down on the valley. We kissed, but when I went for her shirt she stopped me and said, “Not here.” Driving back to campus, it was all I could do to keep the car on the road. I’d been all semester without any one-on-one, and desperate isn’t strong enough. If I saw a dog humping a table leg I’d stop to watch.
Lisa backed into her room, her eyes on me. There is a look that comes over a girl’s face when she’s going to let you in and it is the sweetest look in the world. I popped the buttons on her blouse from the bottom up. She was shaking as she stepped out of her skirt, but her face was game.
I wish I could see a movie of that first fuck. It was something else. Most times in school you’re just fumbling in the dark. Drunk, looking over her shoulder, hell-bent on just getting it done. Not us. We were face-to-face the whole time, and if I close my eyes I can hear the catch in her breathing, see the trust and fear in her face.
Getting it in took a little doing and when I did she gasped and clenched her teeth, but when I started back out she said No and grabbed me to her with her thin arms, pulling with all she had. She didn’t know what to do but she did it, setting herself for the thrusts, saying over and over, “Tell me we can do this again, oh tell me we can do this again.” And in the middle of it, with her cries and her trust and the sweat on that sweet face as I gave it to her, she said good-bye to everything and threw in with me.
Good-bye to the backyard in Boston, to the fresh smell of leaves in the fall and Dad leaning over the rake, tipping his pipe as he finished up before the game. Good-bye to that, and to her little brother too, and the cold New England days running track as a girl. It was all still back there but she could never have it again in the same way.
When we lay finished, we were a couple. She clung so tight to my neck and wouldn’t let me leave, not even to go to the bathroom. I felt the tears on her cheek and lifted her face with my hand.
“What’s wrong?”
She bit her lip. “Nothing. It’s my first time, that’s all.”
I rocked her and stroked her hair.
Those first weeks we wouldn’t let each other out of bed to go to class. Everyone should fall in love and get to fuck over and over. We would do it and she’d say, “Tom, we’ll do it again in an hour.” I’d say okay and lie there thinking of nothing but doing it again and we’d do it and it would be just as good as before and we’d finish and already I’d be thinking about the next one. There weren’t enough hours in the day.
And in the moments just after we finished, what peace. For the first time in my life my mind quit working. I’d look at the ceiling, and at Lisa, and I didn’t have to say a damn thing.
My mistake was thinking it was just the fucking. I’ve been with enough girls since to know it wasn’t the fucking. It was Lisa.
At Fourteenth Street I cut over and head west. Outside the Palladium I watch a rowdy line of kids liquor up before a concert. They get every last drop out of the wait, tossing their cans away at the final second, just before the bouncer pats them down and waves them inside. I move on.
We had us some times, I tell you. She was a DJ at the college radio station. When she worked the night shift I’d sneak into the control room to neck during the songs. Her voice was a killer anyway, but with my hand on her leg and my mouth in her ear, she drove half the campus nuts just reading a station break.
We came together on music. She had the best taste of any girl I’ve gone with. We’d argue the merits of the Doors versus Costello, or Marley versus the Cure. She was always wrong, of course, but she stuck to her guns. She knew rock ’n’ roll was important. A lot of girls today, even girls in their twenties, couldn’t care less. The last one I dated didn’t own a single record. Can you believe that?
We were both big R.E.M. fans and they came to campus junior year. Bobby laid in an ounce of pot. I wasn’t much of a toker, but with the concert and the whole gang lighting up I said what the hell. By the time they took the stage in the old gym I was good and gone. Lisa and I were in the front row, swaying, when they broke into “So. Central Rain.” She said yes with her eyes and I took her hand and led her down the back stairs and out behind the gym. It was November, cold and clear. Behind us was the football field, above us the stars. We were so high. I remember the joy of breathing in the cold air as I lifted her against the wall of the gym. I remember the music from the open window filling my head, and her face, just above me now, filling my sight. The band sang just for us and we took our time and our pleasure and there isn’t a moment in life I was happier. If I ever meet Mr. Stipe, I’ll thank him in person.
Sometimes what I liked best was the easy silence between us. Every other girl I’ve gone with got spooked if I didn’t keep up the talk. I’m quiet for thirty seconds, it’s time to haul out the relationship and discuss it. Some mornings with Lisa we’d wake, go at it, then dress and walk to brunch, picking up a paper on the way. Twenty minutes later I’d point out something on the sports page and she’d laugh and say, “Reasons, that’s the first word you’ve said to me all day.”
I cross Cooper Square, slowing to watch a mime, who stands dead-still ti
ll a crowd gathers round, then bends in smooth movements like a robot and whirs like a mechanical toy. I drop change in his cup and he straightens to salute me as I move on.
In some ways we were night and day. I’m not happy unless there’s a game on and Lisa can’t tell a football from a hockey puck. She comes from a family of Boston democrats, calls her dad every week to talk politics. She could probably name her district treasurer, while I couldn’t pick my congressman out of a lineup. You should have seen us trying to rent a movie. I’d always want Cool Hand Luke again and she’d reach for some weeper. We’d veto each other for an hour and wind up flipping a coin.
None of that stuff mattered worth a damn. A lot of couples, it’s all about control. Force him to give up this, get her to do that. There was none of that with us. We wanted each other happy, and if a case of beer and a Met game did the trick, she’d order the case and lie in my lap during the game. As for me, I must have sat through twenty debates and a dozen poetry readings. Let me sneak in a few beers and sit beside her and I could get through any lecture.
So what happened? Christ if I know. Last semester senior year I started getting jumpy. Jimmy’s wedding was in the works and graduation was just round the corner. I felt the world closing in. I should have turned to Lisa, but I turned away. Spent more time with the fellas and less with her. Wasn’t so quick to call back when she phoned. All the little things guys do when we’re being pricks. Nothing drastic. I sure didn’t want to split, and I never told her anything was wrong. She could sense it, though. One day she put her face to mine and said, “Tom, what’s wrong? Tell me.” I couldn’t take the look in her eyes. I said nothing was wrong and held her.
We made it through to graduation and a little after but then the wheels came off. I was twenty-two, just starting at the firm, and spring was in the air. One look at the secretaries spilling into the Seaport that first lunch hour and I knew something had to give.
Listen, I could give you a lot of cock-and-bull, but the truth is this: I couldn’t see fucking one girl the rest of my life. I didn’t want to break up with Lisa so much as roll things back. Try my luck on the open market awhile. Get while the getting’s good, you know.
How the hell do you tell a girl that, though? You can’t, of course. I stammered something about needing space and exploring myself. It was awful.
She took my face in her hands and said, “You tell me, Tom, that you don’t love me. You tell me you want to go find someone else.”
I tried to look away. “Lisa, it’s not that …”
She held my face tight. “You tell me. I deserve that. Don’t you think I know what you want? You want to comparison shop. And you want me to give the okay. Well, I won’t do it. You’re a bastard, Tom. From the first I loved you all the way, and everyone knew it. I’m no weekend girl. You want to walk out on me, you walk out all the way.”
I couldn’t. But I couldn’t tell her what she needed, either. We limped along for a few more weeks.
It didn’t help that her roommates were determined to sink me. Christ. If you’re on the outs with a girl and her friends get ahold of her, you’re a goner. They get her on her own and fill her ear with all the ways you don’t measure up. He said that? He did what? Don’t you let him get away with that! Once the blood is in the water they come full-bore.
The end came one weekend when her roommates were out of town. I was over at her place. We hadn’t fucked in weeks. It was one of those miserable nights at the end of a relationship, when neither of you has the heart to talk about the breakup but you can’t talk about anything else. We ate in silence, then sat at each end of the couch trying to watch a movie. A love scene came on and Lisa started to cry. On the screen was what we used to have and now we weren’t close. We both knew there was no saving us. This was our last night.
I stood to go, our eyes met, and suddenly our misery broke like a fever. I hit the light switch and we tore into each other. We’d done some fucking in our two years but nothing like that. We were murderous and tender at the same time, driving each other crazy but making it hurt. If she said no I said yes and went in, and when it was her turn she damn near took it off. When we finished she wouldn’t lie against me. She huddled on her side of the bed, sobbing.
The next morning we sat on the steps of the Natural History museum. The wind was up and it was cold. I started to say something three times, but the one thing she needed to hear I didn’t have in me to say. Finally she said, “I don’t want you to call me,” and walked away.
I must have sat by myself an hour, thinking over and over of the night we met. At last I walked down the stairs and into the first Irish joint I could find. Ordered a pint and a shot of whisky. From the jukebox came the first piano strains and then Paul started in with “Once there was a way, to get back homeward.” Christ, a song can break your heart sometimes.
Those first weeks after the split I missed her so damn much I could feel her next to me at night, like they say a sailor can feel the ocean when he first sleeps on land. I called her place a few times but one of the guard dogs would answer and say she wasn’t in. She never called back.
On West Fourth Street I pass a trio of kids breaking to Public Enemy on a piece of cardboard, their hands and feet almost faster than the eye. Up the block a guy turns a box on its side and sets up three-card monte. His patter and quick hands form an orbit, and a couple college kids pause on the edge, teeter, and are drawn in. I watch them lose and move on.
It’s been almost a year since I threw her over, and like I said I’m starting to wonder if I blew it. Maybe it’s some of the dates I’ve been on. Lisa was my first real girl. Seeing what’s out there is sobering me up a little.
Not counting the one-nighters, I’ve gone with two girls since the split. Well, I shouldn’t count Cindy either, since we knew from the start it wouldn’t last. We just needed the sex. I’d been dry three months at that point and was about in the market for a blow-up doll. I know just how an alkie feels when he goes cold turkey. Even he has it a little better, though, because if he ever wants to jump off the wagon at least he knows he can get himself a fix.
Anyway, I was dying, and Cindy must have been in the same boat, because five minutes into the first dinner it was clear we had nothing in common, but we wound up back at her place just the same. Somehow we reached an unspoken understanding that though we had no future and could barely take each other’s company, we both had some making up to do in the fucking department. And make up we did.
We met twice a week. Before long we dropped the charade of going to a movie or the ballpark. Just met at her place and put each other through the paces. By the end we didn’t even bother with dinner. I’d show up at ten thirty, we’d go at it a few hours, and I’d leave. After two months we’d had our fill, shook hands and went our separate ways. If I ran into her tonight, I doubt I’d recognize her.
Debbie was a different case. We lasted a month. I told myself up and down what a sweet girl she was. And she was. Studying to be a vet. Nice to talk to, and a real looker besides. Liked a Friday night at Shea and a few drinks afterward. Not a thing wrong with her. Except she bored me stiff. And the sex just wasn’t the same. Not that she didn’t know her way around a bed. It wasn’t that—she’d try anything.
But with Debbie … well … I wanted her all right, but the second I’d done my part my mind was out of there, wondering who’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated or who’s starting for the Mets tomorrow. It was all I could do to sweet-talk her a little after the act. Got to the point I’d put SportsCenter on before I jumped her just to have something to tune into when we finished. A few times I even put my hand over her mouth to hear the scores. I’m a bastard, maybe, but what can you do? The feeling’s there or it isn’t. You can’t make it up. Through it all she bought me sweaters and called twice a day just to say she was thinking of me. I broke it off three months ago and haven’t thought of her since.
Since then it’s been Kay’s cousin and a couple of late-night specials I’d
just as soon forget. All of which gets me to thinking about Lisa more and more. Don’t get me wrong—I like the thrill of the hunt, and there’s nothing quite like landing a long shot. But with most girls you get one thing but not another. She might be great in the sack but you can’t talk to her, or maybe she’s fine to talk to and okay under the covers but she thinks four times a week is plenty. Or she’s got no sense of humor, or can’t stand the guys. It’s always a trade-off.
With Lisa, though, I had it all. Not just sex but the eyes behind the liner, the soul beneath the blouse.
Now I’ve got my freedom, but what’s it worth? What’s the good of being free to go after any girl I want if none of them makes me feel like she did?
A few months back Lisa finally called. She sounded great, too. The laugh was back in her voice, though with a little catch to it. She kept the talk friendly. Just wanted to see how I’d been, let me know her job was going well. We met for coffee a month later and I’ve seen her twice since. Always when she wants to. I’m going real slow. She still has her defenses up, and she gets her digs in if I try to get too casual. That’s okay. I hurt her bad, I know, and right now I’m still the enemy in a lot of ways. Little by little, though, I think she’s coming around. Meeting me tonight is a good sign.
At the entrance to the park I turn down three offers of pot. One dealer walks halfway across the grass with me, waving a joint in my eyes, saying I won’t find no better stuff, man. Won’t take no for an answer. Used to be these guys had manners. They’d wait politely while you sampled their stuff and thank you for your time.
At twenty yards I see Lisa under the arch, crisp as dawn. She watches a folk singer in that intense way she has, and from the way he glances up while he plays it’s clear this one’s for her. She doesn’t see me, so I stop a second to watch her. Damn, she looks good. A cotton dress, a red sweater, my favorite black hair band.
Balling the Jack Page 7