by Peter Ferry
"Thanks for tonight," I said.
At midnight, as I was finishing the dishes, I thought to myself that neither Tanya nor I had acknowledged that it was the anniversary of Lisa Kim's death, and I wondered if Tanya even realized it.
On Monday I got a letter with Mexican postage on it. It was addressed to both Lydia and me, and that made me feel for just a second as if I'd gone over a rise in a fast car. I hadn't bothered to tell Charlie, and I imagined that Lydia hadn't, either.
Charlie's Christmas letters were famous between Lydia and me. They consisted of his usual picturesque prose decorated with winking lights and sparkling bulbs. I made a cup of tea to enjoy with it, then sat down at my big table and opened it.
Dear Pete and Lydia,
I'm very sorry to have to inform you that Charlie died of a heart attack in October after he had gone back to school. He had a slight attack teaching and was immediately taken to the hospital. I talked to him by phone that evening, and we made plans for my coming to drive him home in a couple of days. That night, however, he suffered another attack that was massive and fatal. He was in intensive care and surrounded by doctors, but they could not save him.
Since then I've been busy with his affairs. Two of his children were down for a memorial service. He was cremated and buried here at the ranch.
Charlie was a man with many friends, and he counted you among the best of them. I'm sure you'll keep him in kind memory.
Sincerely,
Dick
There's a painting by John Sloan in the Art Institute of Chicago called Renganeschi's Saturday Night, that shows three young women out to dinner in a popular New York restaurant in 1912. The tablecloths are white, the waiters tuxedoed and the place is busy, crowded, and gay. The painting always reminds me of Mia Francesca, the spot Carolyn and I had dinner that Friday night. It's a narrow, bright, loud, and festive room on North Clark Street, just around the corner from Carolyn's place. She already had a table against the wall and a glass of red wine when I came in.
"Thought I better get a place. It fills up fast."
"I'll have whatever she's drinking," I said. "Cold out." We talked about the cold and Christmas and Carolyn's new job and Tanya Kim, who had left me a thank-you phone message and said she was going to send me something that hadn't arrived yet. We talked about that evening.
"You know, it was really interesting," Carolyn said. "These three women . . . they couldn't decide if they were rivals or allies. I've never felt a stranger dynamic in a room, yet it wasn't bad. It was good, really. Don't you think it turned out well?"
"I'm just glad it's over." I thanked her for recommending Gene, and we talked about him. She said she liked that he didn't make judgments rashly.
I said, "Neither do you, you know. I don't know if you've always been like that or if you learned it from Gene, but it seems to me you've always been like that. When people were rolling their eyes behind my back, you treated me as if I might actually be sane. I mean, I did go a little overboard there for a while."
"Maybe, but when you told us about the accident, I was touched. I think it was because you believed that you could have done something—very few people think that they can—and maybe even more, that you should have done something—even fewer of us think that—and I guess I liked that you believed in yourself when you must have known that other people were doubting you, so I just kind of decided to believe in you, too, and it turns out that your instincts were pretty good and I guess mine were, too."
"Then you don't think what I'm going to do is harebrained?" I asked.
"I think it's what you need to do."
"Think it will work?"
"Who knows, Pete. I have no idea. What are we toasting?"
"I'm saying good-bye."
"Good-bye?"
"I'm going to Mexico." Carolyn raised her eyebrows. "It's cheap and I'm not going to have a lot of money. And I really like Mexico; I feel at home there, and I figure I can make a little money writing travel pieces."
"To Mexico, then." She raised her wineglass.
I looked at her and she at me and we smiled. "I did fall a little bit in love with her, you know."
"I know."
"I think its time to get beyond that, too. I've been thinking I might start dating again."
"Good. I think you're ready for that," she said.
"Yeah, but I don't know where to begin."
"You must know a lot of eligible women. Aren't schools full of them?"
"Yeah, but I'm not sure I want to date someone I work with. And I'm not sure . . . that's the thing. What am I looking for? I don't want to do this the same way I did it when I was twenty-two, and you can imagine what criteria I used then. No, I said to myself, don't even think about sex or love or romance or marriage. Think about one thing: Think about someone you would really enjoy having dinner with, nothing more. So I decided to make a list. I went to Café Express with a pad and pen and I wrote down your name, naturally, since we do this from time to time, and I always enjoy it, and then I couldn't think of anyone else whom I'd rather have dinner with, or even whom I'd like to have dinner with, so I stopped."
She looked at me strangely. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'd like to write you while I'm away. May I do that?"
She didn't answer. She was flustered, and I liked that she hadn't seen it coming. For all her wisdom and intelligence, there was something in her that was also naïve and innocent. She regained her composure as we looked at the photographs, ate our meals, and talked of other people. Steve's doing this, Wendy's doing that, and someone else something else. She asked if I had talked to Lydia.
"No. You?"
"We haven't talked." She had called and left two or three messages, but Lydia hadn't called back, and Carolyn thought that meant that she wasn't interested in continuing their friendship. Too many associations, probably. By this time we had paid our bill and were standing in front of the restaurant on the pavement, and Carolyn asked me where I was parked.
"I'm right on your block. Can I walk you home?"
"Sure." I think we were both trying not to touch each other—not even to brush shoulders—but when we came to an icy patch, I took her elbow, and when we got to her steps, she asked me if I wanted to walk Cooper with her. "Sure." Cooper was happy to see me. We followed him down to Halsted Street and back to Clark Street, and when we got there, Carolyn said, "I'll buy you a nightcap at The Outpost."
"What about Cooper?"
"We'll tie him to the no-parking sign, and everyone who comes by will pet him. He'll love it." So we sat at the bar sipping Grand Marnier and watching Cooper through the plate-glass window. Carolyn mused, then turned to me and said, "Pete, I know we've known each other a long time, but I still don't think you know me very well."
"I know you have strong friendships," I said. "I know you like to travel and scuba dive. I know your favorite color is green. I know you don't allow dogs on your furniture. I know you love to read."
"Reading is almost my favorite thing to do."
"And cooking," I said, "and singing."
"Yes," but she said she sang only in big groups or entirely alone. She wanted me to know that; she didn't like to stand out; she didn't like to be the life of the party. "I can't tell a joke, and public speaking gives me panic attacks."
"Not good for a lawyer."
"That's why I'm not a litigator. I do not like to be the center of attention. It makes me nervous. I do not like the limelight. A lot of people find me a little boring."
"I do not, and you still haven't told me anything I don't know. Tell me something that will surprise me."
"I'm a nervous driver. I'm scared of heights. I hate football."
"I'm still not surprised."
"Okay, I don't like Christmas very much except for the music and I hate 'Little Drummer Boy.'"
"Something more."
"You have a white car and I don't like white cars."
"What's wrong with 'Little Drummer Boy'?"
"It's repetitive and sentimental."
"Why don't you like Christmas?"
"It's a hard day for single people. I always try to be traveling on Christmas Day."
"And white cars?"
"They look like kitchen appliances."
I held up my glass. "Would you like another one of these?"
"And I never have more than one nightcap. See, I'm a real stick-in-the-mud."
We walked back. She was standing at the top of the steps with Cooper about to open the door, and I was standing at the bottom when I called her name. "Carolyn."
"Yes?"
"May I write you?"
She thought about that for a moment. "Yes," she said.
BOOK TWO
. . .
SOME TIME LATER, WITH A
CONTEMPORARY
INTERLUDE
1
. . .
TRAVEL WRITING
DATELINE: SANMIGUEL
DEALLENDE, MEXICO
by Pete Ferry
IT WAS LYDIA'S first time in Mexico. We were quite young. My Spanish was a bit rusty, and she didn't speak any yet. I had just gotten my first travel-writing assignments, and I was anxious to get going, but all Lydia wanted to do was hang around San Miguel de Allende.
Not that there is anything wrong with San Miguel de Allende. It is a lovely place, really, one of a handful of towns scattered across Mexico that have been declared national monuments in their entireties and preserved because of their colonial character. That means a cathedral, narrow cobblestone streets, plazas and bandstands, arcades and tile roofs, a colorful town market, adobe walls over which orange and bright purple bougainvilleas crawl and drape, and tantalizing glimpses from the street through a door just closing or one left ajar of private inner spaces, of courtyards, fountains, flowers, secret trees, and hanging baskets of green, blue, and yellow birds.
Maybe it is because San Miguel is so lovely a place or that it has an excellent art school and a couple of little language schools that there are just a few too many Americans around. Enough so that the waiters all speak English, that there's an English-language bookstore on the main plaza, a good pizza place one block from it and, depressingly, a subdivision just outside of town that is occupied almost exclusively by retired gringos.
Of course, as a first timer, it was all of this minus the subdivision that Lydia liked, but as a "professional travel writer," it was all of this especially the subdivision that I found embarrassing. I wanted to go somewhere where I could use my bad Spanish and good phrase-book, where they didn't have Cobb salad on every menu, and where they didn't take American Express. Instead we ate at Mama Mia's three nights running because the pizza was good and also cheap, which I used as a justification because neither of us had much money. Besides, we liked the waitstaff, which was young, casual, irreverent, and after nine there was live music on the tiny stage in the open courtyard. But three nights was enough. I wanted to leave the next day. Lydia wanted to stay through the weekend to see the guitarist we saw the first night. We quarreled and compromised; we'd stay Friday night and leave early Saturday morning.
In the meantime I spent a day driving over the mountain to visit Guanajuato, the old silver-mining capital of the region full of stately nineteenth-century government and university buildings and built quite dramatically in a narrow, winding canyon. I saw no other Americans, spoke Spanish all day long, and drove home feeling mollified and self-righteous.
Strangely, Lydia felt exactly the same; she had explored the part of San Miguel on the hillside above the center and found the little bullring I had searched for in vain, then spent the afternoon in the studios of the Instituto Allende chatting with other painters. We were each a little smug over our pizza that night, and I think we were both wondering just how much we needed each other. The courtyard at Mama Mia's began to fill up, and we turned our chairs toward the stage. Just before nine, five Mexican men crowded into the table next to us. One of them was a big guy with broad shoulders, a bushy mustache, and a big white smile. They talked in loud Spanish. They were wearing cowboy hats and boots, new blue jeans, and brightly colored shirts with snaps rather than buttons. They seemed like farmers out on the town, but they had more money than I expected farmers to have, and they were out of place in a crowd of tourists and urban Mexicans. The big guy stepped on Lydia's foot coming back to the table and apologized in English. She made her stock joke about having two of them, and he laughed appreciatively.
The guitarist came out and then a singer. She was the reason for the crowd; she was very good and sang love songs and ballads in both Spanish and English. A few people got up to slow-dance. We were delivered a pitcher of sangria compliments, it turns out, of the big guy. I guessed that was where he went. This was all quite awkward because he wasn't sitting across the room, but immediately beside us, and there was nothing to do but grin, nod, clink glasses and toast each other. Still, we'd already had a few drinks, drinking at six thousand feet is problematic to begin with, and Lydia seemed a bit tipsy. I tried to catch her eye, but couldn't. Then when the musicians took a break, the Mexicans engaged us. Where were we from? What were we doing in central Mexico? Did we like it here?
Lydia was in her element, and I had fun watching her. She had a brand of gay repartee and easy banter tailor-made for this situation. Pretty soon she had all five laughing, even the two who clearly didn't speak much English. I was now aware of a little guy in addition to the big guy. He may have been the big guy's sidekick or it may have been the other way around. At any rate, they were a tag team; they had lots of eye contact, sidebars, and inside jokes.
There was more music, and at the next break I offered to share the pitcher of sangria the big guy bought us and was relieved when the Mexicans accepted; but when I came back from the bathroom, there was another pitcher on the table, and when I tried to beg off using the elevation as a reason, I saw the big guy's eyes were not on me but on Lydia's face next to me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that she was mouthing something to him. Okay, I got it. There had clearly been a conversation in my absence, and I was now an unwitting player in one of the pocket dramas Lydia regularly produced. This one was called "Pete the prig vs. Lydia the free spirit," and I knew the only way out of it was not to get in it, so I shut up, but it may already have been too late. Then a little later I heard the big guy say to the little guy, "No lleva sostén." She's not wearing a bra.
The little guy answered, "Tal vez tampoco lleva las bragas." Maybe she's not wearing panties, either.
I said, "Las lleva." Yes, she is. Then in English I said, "I watched her put them on," and smiled.
There was an awkward silence. Then the big guy laughed loudly and slapped my back. "You speak Spanish, my friend!"
"Un poco."
"Please do not take offense. It is just that your wife is a very pretty girl."
"She's not my wife," I said.
"Then your fiancée . . ."
"She's not that, either."
"Your friend?" asked the little guy.
"I guess we haven't figured out what we are. We're working on that. Right now we're just traveling companions."
"Then you won't mind if I ask her to dance?" asked the big guy.
"Of course not."
He enfolded her in his arms. He was very large and she was very small. Back at the tables (they had been pushed together), he talked earnestly to her about something while tapping her forearm with his very large index finger. The little guy was sitting on the other side of Lydia, his arm draped across the back of her chair. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Have you ever gone to bed with a Mexican?"
She laughed. "Not yet."
"Have you ever gone to bed with five?" I asked.
She laughed again. "Oh stop it!"
I gave up. I turned back to the stage. There was more music, more wine, more dancing. Things got a little blurred for me. Then the guitarist was putting his instrument back in its case, the waiters were putting chairs up on
the tables, and the little guy had sat down beside me to say, "My friend, we would like you and Lydia to be our guests. There is a wonderful cantina outside of town—"
"What's it called?" I asked.
"It's called La Casa del Fuego. . . ."
"It's a brothel," I said. "I read about it."
He dipped his head once. "There are women there, yes, but it is many things. It is also a restaurant and a nightclub and a casino, and it's open all night."
"No, thank you. We have to get an early start tomorrow."
"Oh come on." Lydia was suddenly sitting where the little man had been. "This sounds like fun."
"You promised," I said. "It's already one o'clock and I want to be in Oaxaca by tomorrow night."
"Come on, Pete, we're on vacation."
"No," I said firmly. "I'm not getting in a car with a bunch of drunken Mexicans I don't know."
"Is that it? Is it that they're Mexicans?"
"Of course not."
"Then why did you say that?" Now we were standing on the sidewalk in front of Mama Mia's and the Mexicans were waiting for us down the block.
"Because we're in Mexico, for Chrissake. If we were in Albania, I'd have said 'Albanians.'" I knew that sounded bad as soon as I said it.
"And if we were in Columbus, you'd say 'drunken Ohioans'?" She was laughing at me. "Sure you would." She turned away.
"Lydia, where are you going?"
"I told you; I wanna see this cantina. I'm going with them."
I caught her elbow. "I can't let you do that." At that elevation, at that hour, at that level of inebriation, it was the wrong thing to say, and I knew it.
"You what?"
"Nothing."
"You can't let me do it? You can't stop me from doing it. Watch." She turned and walked loosely if unsteadily toward the men. One of them was watching her breasts. She hooked her arms through two of theirs, and they all went down the middle of the street and got into a big white pickup truck. Its lights came on, and it drove away from me. I could hear ranchero music blasting from it. The truck went around a turnabout and came back toward me, the music filling the empty street. Three of the men stood in the bed leaning on the cab. I could see the little guy was driving and I could see the big guy was riding shotgun. As the truck passed me picking up speed, I could see Lydia sitting between them, her small, round, alabaster face lighted momentarily by the streetlight, her eyes fixed straight ahead.