by Greg Fields
“That’s a hideous thing to say. I’ve never led you on, Tom. You act of your own accord. The decisions you make are yours, you’ve just said that. But you’re no good at making them. You’d rather sit back and let things run over you and pull you along. Don’t blame your weaknesses on me. I have a direction, Tom, and it’s very important to me. It’s the most important thing. I’ve always been that way, and you know it. I’m stronger than you. I suppose it’s only natural that I lead and you follow. But don’t accuse me of playing on your insecurities. You’ve let your insecurities dictate your whole life. That’s why you came east in the first place.”
They turned down Anne’s street. McIlweath wanted to run this conversation to its full end, but he knew that Anne, now near home and a close to the night, would not allow it. Perhaps it was for the best. Neither of them was in the proper frame of mind.
“Thank God I’m home,” sighed Anne as McIlweath turned into the driveway. “This has been a horrible night. I’m willing to forget it ever happened.” Suspicions confirmed.
“Anne, please don’t mistake my accommodation for weakness. You should know better after all this time. But what I’ve said is true. I am scared to death of losing you.” He grabbed her hand. “And if I’ve made no specific plans for next year, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be with you. You mean the world to me. But don’t pressure me, please. I go about these things differently than you. You might not understand it, but I’ll make my decision when the decision becomes apparent, not before. I won’t force myself into something that doesn’t fit.”
Anne smiled slightly for the first time that night. “Tom, I’m sorry. I just hate uncertainty. I hate not knowing what’s going to happen. And I do care about you. We’re good for each other, and I don’t want to lose you, either. If I seem hard sometimes, it’s just for your own benefit. I know you’ll make the right decision. I hope I’m a part of it.”
McIlweath leaned over to kiss her lightly on the cheek. It was late; he could hope for no more. “Get some sleep, Anne. We can talk about this again tomorrow if you want.”
“We’ll just get upset again. Let’s let it lie for a few days. I don’t understand you. You need a rudder to help you steer a straight course.”
“A straight course sometimes means missing the best scenery.”
“Think kindly of me, Tom.”
“Good night, Anne.” They kissed again, very lightly. “Let me see you to the door.”
“No. Let’s just let this night die. It has been horrible, you know.”
McIlweath laughed quietly. “God, it was. I’ve never seen anything so sloppy. I wish we’d never decided to throw a party at all.”
Anne laughed, too. “Your friends trying to dance was hilarious. They were so drunk they looked as if they were made of clay. They kept bumping into one another.”
“I liked Willie trying to drink a beer and missing his mouth. He poured half a bottle down his shirt.”
“You’re going to have a terrible mess to clean up.”
“I’ll leave it to the others. This was mostly their idea. I just hope the industrial sludge in the river doesn’t dissolve them altogether and they come back somewhat whole.”
“I’ve got to go. Call me tomorrow.” And with one last light kiss, a peck really, Anne had bolted out of the car and run up her sidewalk. Tom McIlweath watched her to make certain that she had her key, then he backed the car out into the street. He felt infinitely better than he had just a few moments ago. He had cleared a major hurdle. There would be others, but not for several days, and he would be able to relax.
On the drive back, McIlweath’s tired mind turned over his options. There was, of course, graduate school, and he had applied to several. His study of classics had been immensely satisfying. Antiquity lured him. Graduate school would allow him to continue his studies in a different place and with different mentors and possibly with a different emphasis. An advanced degree would be essential if he eventually decided to teach.
To his surprise, he had received a totally unsolicited job offer two weeks earlier. The father of one of his teammates was headmaster at a small private prep school in the northwestern part of the state. McIlweath had met him on numerous occasions and they had talked casually. The prep school needed a Classics instructor and, coincidentally, a swim coach. The headmaster had called McIlweath to ask him to send along his resume and transcript. He wanted to offer the young man the job—it would be perfect for him, just starting out—and he needed the materials for the files before a formal offer could be made. McIlweath had sent them along, and four days later the headmaster wrote back with the complete breakdown of his salary and benefits. McIlweath was intrigued. Jobs were hard to come by. A prep school would be incredibly demanding, and he would have to learn by doing, but it could prove to be a handy steppingstone to something more permanent. He had not yet responded to the headmaster, nor would he until he absolutely had to.
And so, as April dawned and a severance with the sureties of his current way of living loomed only a few weeks away, Tom McIlweath sifted as methodically as he could through his options. He was forced to admit to himself that he really had no long range plans. The scholarly life appealed to him in great measure, but that could easily turn sour, just as teaching could turn sour, or business or law.
So there was no need to plan for it. McIlweath would permit himself the luxury of remaining flexible for just a little while longer, and he would fight any urge to conform himself again to what other people wanted or expected. Any decision about the coming year, and about the course of his life in general, would creep up on him like a hawk circling a field mouse. It was better that way.
***
Glynnis Mear sat in a local pub drinking a bitter imported ale. The taste was thick and acrid; it heldw to her tongue in a cloying film. A thin layer of foam coated the inside of her mug. She swirled the remaining ale around the mug to rinse the coating down, then put it heavily on the oak table. She looked across at Lynda Hoelscher, a swath of blond against a darkly wooden backdrop.
“I’d like to meet him, Glyn. Why don’t you ever bring him around? Let him spend the weekend down here for once. I want to check him out. For your own good,” Lynda smirked. “Unless you’ve become as world-wise as my fallen self, in which case we have a great deal to talk about. I’d hate to think that young Glynnis has grown up right in front of me and I missed it.”
Glynnis smiled at Lynda’s kidding. “What’s college if not a place to grow up? But I’ve had to go far afield to find my romance. It would have been so much more convenient if Conor had gone here, if he had been one of those handsome young men standing at the bar there, or if he had gone someplace like Penn. He’d fit in well at Penn, I think.” She paused to sip her ale. It crawled down her throat like a furry animal. “He has quite an air about him that the boys at Penn might appreciate. He’d probably outclass most of them. He might even be resented a bit because he can do so many things so easily. He can be as mature and as serious as anyone I’ve ever known. He can be almost elegant in the way he talks. But then he can turn around and be so earthy. He’s really very spontaneous, Lynda, and he’s so likeable. And I don’t mean that as subjectively as it sounds. People who don’t know him almost always take to him right away. He’ll meet people with that innocent, genuine smile, and his eyes will be so trusting and warm, and he’ll be so natural. People are drawn to him, Lynda. And once he meets them he hangs onto them. He values them, I think. He values their character, and what they show him. It’s remarkable. He’s like a big kid, and he can be so playful, but then something sets him off and he can go on a half-hour discourse about human suffering, and man’s worth, and injustice, and dignity. Things like that. But in the end he’ll usually come back to that innocent, playful kid again.”
“He sounds exhausting,” said Lynda. “And complex.”
“I’m not sure he’s as complex as you might think. In fact, you could really see him as rather simple. I mean, he r
elies on such an optimistic frame of reference. Nothing sad or tragic has ever happened to him, so he bounds along with this constant expectation that everything moves to his own personal rhythm. It’s really an uncluttered perspective, and not very well developed. But so far he’s had nothing to challenge it, so it’s worked for him. He’s lived an incredibly smooth existence.”
“No heartbreaks yet, huh? Nothing to show him our slimy undercharacter, or to hint that humanity is basically shit. He hasn’t turned over the rock to see the squirmy things underneath.”
“It’ll come, Lynda. It has to, and it won’t be easy for him. I told him the very first day I met him, and I’ve told him since, but he doesn’t believe me. It’ll come, all that heartbreak, and it won’t be pretty to see what happens to him. It’s bound to be so much harder for someone so innocent and idealistic. He’ll be shattered.”
“And then,” said Lynda, “he’ll have to regroup like the rest of us mortals. This might sound tough, but it’ll be good for him. It’ll make him harder. And if he can come through it with a few bedraggled strands of that idealism intact, he’ll be okay. He’ll be better than most. And if he doesn’t, then it won’t matter because he’ll be just like everyone else—bitter, cynical and altogether too human.”
Lynda motioned to the server for two more ales, then turned back to Glynnis. “So to the really essential issue, my friend: how is he in bed?”
“Lynda . . . God,” and Glynnis laughed.
“Level with me. We’re not talking about any deep, mystical secrets, sweetheart. This is biology. Does he make you come or not? That’s all that’s important, I’m thoroughly convinced. If he doesn’t, throw him aside for one who does. Nothing else amounts to anything. So level with your soul mate, won’t you?”
“Let’s just say the nights aren’t dull,” said Glynnis, still smiling.
“Good. Stay with him. For now. And let me meet him. I’m dying of curiosity to see this young man. I picture him in a great woolen sweater with a growth of beard and wind-tossed hair, sailing into the North Sea.”
“Not quite, Lynda. He has no beard. But I’m not certain I’ll be seeing him much longer anyway.”
“A change of heart! What are the mysterious humors that bring about such an odd statement?” Lynda purred. She was surprised, although love and abandonment, after all, were commonplace.
“I don’t know, Lynda. I really don’t. I love what Conor offers, but I’m afraid of it, too. I don’t want to get too serious.” Disparate images flashed through her mind, and she paused to sort them. She sipped her ale. “I think of my mother,” she resumed, more slowly, more deliberately, “and I see that she threw away whatever substance she may have had when she married my father. She’s a brilliant woman, Lynda. She’s witty, she reads everything she can get her hands on, and she’s probably the most insightful person I’ve ever known. She can spot the slightest alteration in someone’s behavior, or sense a word or an expression to see what it really means. She knows when you’re out of sorts, or worried, or unusually happy. It’s like she can read your mind. Read your heart. But it’s just that she’s so brilliant, that’s all it is.
“Anyway,” she continued, “what did she do when she met my father? She put her intelligence into mothballs for twenty years, she corked her curiosity and put away any sense of ambition. She continued to work, but not for herself. Her job was just to bring in some extra money to buy new shoes for the kids, or so she said, and that always struck me as incredibly sad. I mean, my father was a doctor, for God’s sake, and he made a small fortune. But the only value she could fix to her work was in what it might provide for her family. She rarely went out with her friends, she was home every night. She said she couldn’t afford the luxury of a social life because my father worked such irregular hours. She said that we were her social life. What a sacrifice she made, Lynda, and what I’ve never understood is why she did it. Because she didn’t have to. None of it.
“And then, with the kids well on the way to being grown, my poor father dies. What was she left with, Lynda, when that happened? All of a sudden, the secure family life she had given up so much for, that she had paid for with the cessation of Florence Parlavecchio’s continued existence, was lopped off at the top. We had no financial worries, Dad had seen to that. But our family had no nucleus anymore. Just memories. My mother did the only thing she knew how to do—she kept at it. But the rules had changed and all of a sudden it seemed so damn empty to me. The standards had been overturned, and we seemed so different. I think my mother saw it, too. She saw the end of our youth and she saw this idyllic family structure that she had worked so hard to preserve blown apart. But what could she do? What was she equipped to do? I think back on my father’s death and I marvel that it didn’t crush her altogether, especially after she saw that she really didn’t have to pull things together the way she did, that our course as a family and as individuals had long ago been set.
“I loved my father, Lynda, and I loved what he provided. And, so you don’t get the wrong idea, I love my mother as well. But her sacrifice scares me. I don’t want to do what she did. I don’t even think I’m capable of it, and I’m frightened that someone will come along to make it look so tempting that I’ll take it upon myself anyway in spite of my better judgment. I don’t want to be defined by a relationship and subjugate everything I could do, all my instincts and creativity, for its sake alone. Those are my greatest fears, Lynda, and I see them made handsome in Conor Finnegan.”
“And yet,” said Lynda softly, “you love him, don’t you?”
“It presents quite a dilemma, don’t you think? On one hand I’ve been looking to recreate the security of my youth, yet on the other hand I don’t want to make the sacrifices required to make that happen.”
“I think,” said Lynda, “that you worry too much. My advice is to enjoy this young man, and when you no longer enjoy him, find someone else. Someday, if you’re convinced there are no longer any alternatives, then join yourself to whomever makes you the most comfortable. And if you never feel ready to do that, then screw it. There are other ways to live your life. In the meantime, there’s something to be said for the animal pleasures.”
Glynnis smiled across at Lynda. The animal pleasures did indeed attract her. Lynda had, since the haunting self-imposed penance of her first year at school, been an active practitioner.
That night Glynnis and Lynda were joined at their table by two young men whom Lynda had met on campus several weeks earlier. Lynda had seen them walk into the bar and had called them over. One had already slept with Lynda, and the other, hearing his friend’s stories, had his own designs. His friend had encouraged him. He had told him that it was well worth whatever effort it might take, and that that effort was likely to be minimal. Neither of them knew Glynnis, but just as Glynnis was avoided in her first year on campus as a friend of her neurotically brutal roommate, now she was regarded by the two as most likely possessing the same appetites as her companion.
They sat at the table for nearly two hours, drinking and, when a band started to play at the far end of the narrow room, dancing on the cramped floor. They had implicitly paired, the one who had already had his session with Lynda deferring to his friend and directing his conversation to Glynnis. Lynda, who had grown noticeably drunker, put her hands around the new young man’s neck as they danced. She gyrated her hips seductively to the music.
Glynnis was not nearly as responsive, but neither did she put her own partner at a distance. She did not know that he had slept with her roommate, nor would she have cared. With each passing week there were fewer and fewer men around campus who had not sampled Lynda Hoelscher’s carnal smorgasbord. He was pleasant, and passingly handsome.
At the end of the evening, toward midnight, Lynda’s companion suggested they leave. He would drive them back to campus, he said, and drop them off at their dormitory. Perhaps they could do this again. At the girls’ dormitory, he leaned over to whisper something in Lynda’s ear, she laughe
d and nodded, then turned to the two in the back seat.
“You can get out here,” she said. “Doug has graciously asked me if I would like to see his room. Some things,” she giggled, “that I must review.”
Glynnis patted Lynda’s shoulder as she got out. The other young man slid out behind her, and together they walked up the slope to the dormitory. The young man fairly strutted. They stopped at the door, he took her hand and kissed her. “Can I come up?”
Glynnis hesitated. The thought of lying in this man’s arms did not displease her, but neither did it have any great appeal. He was, after all, not Conor. Yet perhaps it might be good for her. Perhaps it would be cathartic, ripping out a gnarled branch to let a new one grow in. She pondered. An image of the Raritan, dotted with naked bodies of lovely youth, jumped through her mind.
“No. I don’t think so. Not tonight.”
“Are you sure?” He kissed her forehead. “I’d like to spend more time with you. I think you’re something special.”
“No. I’m sorry, Jeff, but I don’t think we should.”
Jeff sagged in disbelief. He was not certain whether he should walk away nonchalantly or show some anger to let her know how much he disliked being teased. “Well,” he said, his course not so much decided as speaking for itself, “if that’s what you want. Can I see you again, at least?”
“Let’s not plan on it just yet. Maybe something will come up, though.”
He left wondering where he could kill an hour or two while his roommate copulated with Lynda Hoelscher. Glynnis walked up to her room and quietly undressed. She was glad that she had turned Jeff down. But she could not deny that it felt extremely good to be asked.