Almost Paradise

by Susan Isaacs

  She knew it would be their last time alone. The following night was the final play and then the cast party, but Diana would be coming down from Wheaton for that, and then there would be finals and graduation. In the past, Jane had imagined the different ways Nicholas would finally declare his love. At first she pictured herself helping out in the dressing room, smoothing on Nicholas’s pancake makeup with the tips of her fingers, when suddenly he’d grab her wrist, say “Come here,” pull her onto his lap, and kiss her passionately and expertly. But her imagination would not compensate for her height and weight, and she did not want to consider his pulling her onto his lap and saying “Wow, you’re a big one” as one boy had. So she imagined them in Nicholas’s car, ostensibly on the way to the Newport Creamery for ice-cream cones but never getting there; instead, Nicholas would park the car on some dark street and turn off the engine. “What’s the matter?” she’d ask innocently, and, in answer, he’d put his hand behind her neck, pull her toward him, and kiss her, applying just enough pressure so her lips would begin to part.

  But in the weeks before this last night together, Jane had finally surrendered her fantasies after repeated bruising attacks of reality. Nicholas had told her he and Diana had finally decided to wait two years to marry: one year for Diana to finish college and another, once they were formally engaged, for her to find a job and prepare for the wedding. If he wasn’t earning at least a subsistence living by that time, he’d promised to give up acting and go to law school. There was not a single comforting dream left for Jane to cling to, because he’d let it slip that he and Diana had contrived to spend several days of intersession alone at her parents’ beach house on Long Island, and so Jane’s auxiliary fantasy—that Nicholas, while not loving her, would grab her from sheer sexual desperation and then realize how much he cared—was pointless. He and Diana had obviously been going all the way for a long time. His eyes would never grow shadowy with desire for Jane while they were alone rehearsing, nor would he pull her to the floor and tear at her clothes. He had no need.

  Still, she wanted their last night together to be memorable. Nicholas would not oblige her. He’d cut off her reminiscences of the plays they’d been in together by asking her to cue him for his second-act lines. He was playing a British soldier in an all-male production, a play whose entire content was the conversation of three soldiers at Tobruk in North Africa waiting for Rommel’s final attack and their own deaths.

  “‘…and what is the whole bloody point anyway? Is the point that there is no point?’” she read.

  “‘The point is,’” Nicholas said in a British accent far more convincing than his first attempt, “‘that we were born and that we are about to die, and between those points—but what is between is the point after all, Alfred.’”

  “Good job,” Jane said.

  “But you still don’t like the play?”

  “No. It’s a bad combination of Samuel Beckett and those dumb, noble 1941 There’ll Always Be an England movies. Pretentious, sentimental. And C minus to a D plus as far as substance goes.”

  “Well, anyway, thanks for helping. I just wanted to go over it one more time. I’ll walk you back to your dorm.”

  “Do you want to go for coffee or anything?”

  “Would you mind if we skipped it? I have that paper for my Roosevelt seminar I have to retype. I’ll see you tomorrow night at the cast party.”

  She’d planned on saying, Nick, this is the last time we’ll be alone and I just want to tell you how much your friendship has meant to me. If he said something encouraging back, she’d add, Maybe we’ll run into each other in New York, and he’d look stunned that she could possibly think otherwise and say of course they would and they’d make arrangements to meet in Times Square or the Empire State Building right after Labor Day, as soon as their summer jobs were over.

  He opened the door of the small backstage room where they’d been and held it until she passed through. His aftershave smelled lemony. He was wearing the rich boy’s uniform—plaid shirt, khaki slacks, and loafers—and when Jane glanced at him, he was wearing the rich boy’s cool, bland look. She was losing him. Tears dammed up until her cheeks ached. Each time she glanced at him he seemed less like Nicholas and more like any cool, bland Alpha Delta Phi brother, well-groomed, smooth, and distant. As they went into the warm night, he walked briskly, farther away from her than usual, with his hands stuffed into his pockets, not bothering to talk, as if he were taking home a dog of a blind date.

  “Nervous about tomorrow night?” she asked, as they came in sight of her dorm.

  “A little, I guess.”

  “You’ll be fine.” It was nearly curfew, and near the door to her dorm a couple was kissing good night. The girl was short, and even though she stood on her toes, her boyfriend had to hunch over her; her back was arched and he supported her head in the palm of his hand. Jane looked away from them and from Nicholas as well.

  “See you tomorrow night,” Nicholas said.

  She turned to him. He was staring at the same kissing couple. The boy had his other hand on the small of the girl’s back, massaging the area with small circular motions. “Nick,” Jane began. He whipped his head around quickly, as if startled to see she was still beside him. “Nick, I just wanted to say—”

  His hands burrowed deeper into his pockets and he shifted from one leg to another. She knew he was uncomfortable at the thought of her little speech, but she could not stop.

  “This is the last time I’ll really get a chance to speak to you and I just wanted to tell you how much—”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “See you tomorrow night.” Before she could speak again, he bolted. Jane watched as he hurried down the street, picking up speed until he was nearly running.

  Nicholas ran for three blocks. He was stopped by his own confusion. He leaned against a parked car. He didn’t know why he was running or where he was running to. For a second he believed it was to get back to his room to call Diana and arrange where to meet after the play, but he threw that thought aside. When it was gone, no other took its place.

  The night, lit by a yellow-white moon, was balmy, but suddenly Nicholas was freezing. His teeth clacked. He folded his arms and stuck his hands under his armpits. His armpits were soaked with cold sweat. Still, he kept them there, hugging himself, shivering, not caring when a group of students passed and, seeing him, laughed, thinking he was drunk.

  He felt sick with despair. His whole body was weak, as if joylessness were a condition that shriveled the cells. He might have been frightened of the way he was feeling, but his desolation was so profound he was almost insensate.

  For long, terrible minutes no single thought could penetrate the void he felt. When at last one thought did, it was of Jane, of the final words she’d spoken: “This is the last time…” The words reverberated until, silently, he was saying them with her: This is the last time. Then he knew. He stood absolutely still. Then he ran back, faster than he’d ever run before.

  As she entered the area on the first floor of her dormitory where boys waited for their dates, he saw she’d been crying. Her lashes stuck together in wet feathery fringes. “Jane,” he said.

  “It’s five minutes till curfew,” she said. Her voice sounded normal, but was so muted he could hardly hear her.

  “Let’s go outside.”

  “Nick, it’s late.” Her eyes, still moist, were a deep, dark blue, with a fine circumference of black around the iris he’d never noticed before. He wanted to laugh and tell her it was funny, she kept kidding about how he went around batting his big blue eyes, but hers were so much more special. Really beautiful eyes, especially with her dark skin. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she said. “All right? It’s late and I have a hundred and fifty pages—”

  “Marry me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Marry me.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Stop it, Nick.”

  “
I’m serious.”

  “This is a very cruel thing you’re doing.” She blinked but could not hold back the tears. Her voice grew even softer. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this to me.”

  “Jane—”

  “I thought you were my good friend.” He reached for her and pulled her to him and she yielded even as she was whispering, “This is terrible.”

  “No. No, it’s not,” he said into her ear. He kissed the lobe of her ear and then kissed her mouth. He’d never held such a tall girl, and the pleasure of being mouth to mouth, chest to breast, thigh to thigh made him euphoric. He put his hand on the nape of her neck, under her braid, and when he felt her quivering he realized she was still crying. He lowered his arms. “Jane,” he breathed. “Do you think I would do this…” He paused and then plunged. “Do you think I would come here like this if I didn’t love you? Look at me.” She shook her head no. “Listen to me. I left you tonight and then I thought what it would be like never to see you again.” A gulping sob escaped from Jane, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “And then I realized—Jane, for Christ’s sake, say something.”

  She took her hand away, but it took a minute before she could speak. “If you’re kidding me, I’ll never speak to you again. I swear, I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.”

  “Marry me, Jane.”

  “You are kidding me. I know you are.”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “What if I don’t want to?” She was overwrought, breathing hard. Her face was damp. “What if I don’t love you? You never thought of that, did you? It never occurred to you that I might not—”

  “I know you do.” It was only as he said it that he knew it was true. He took her wrists and pulled her close again….

  “Did you know the whole time?” she finally asked.

  “I don’t know. Has it been a long time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the beginning.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” She did not answer. “Well, what are you going to do about it?” She lifted her hand and gingerly, as though afraid he would slap it down, she touched his face. “Are you going to marry me?”

  “I’ll marry you,” she said.

  “Oh, Jane.”

  Before he could kiss her, she added, “But you’re crazy, Nick. You’re making a big mistake.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “It’s all right. It’s the end of college. You’re very emotional. I won’t hold you to it or anything. You can change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’ll understand.”

  “Jane,” he said. He gave her a light kiss. She had a lovely, wide, passionate mouth.

  “What?”

  “This is no joke. This is real. Forever. Okay? Now say it to me.”

  “Say what?”

  “What I said to you. Come on.”

  “Oh, Nick,” she said. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

  12

  …also a marriage of opposites. Handsome Nicholas, the quintessential clean-cut preppy, is silent and mysterious as a Buddhist monk while darkly exotic Jane is as straightforward as apple pie.

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Look, I can see where you’d want to—” James’s voice broke off. He swung one of Nicholas’s suitcases into the back of the station wagon, then sat on the tailgate. The car was parked not far from Nicholas’s fraternity house.

  “Want to what?” Nicholas asked. He hoisted another case, a heavier one loaded with shoes.

  “Put that down for a minute,” his father said. “Listen, I don’t want you to get all hot under the collar, but—”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” Nicholas said.

  “Don’t give me that crap. Listen, let’s not go at each other. I want to have an intelligent discussion with a mature college graduate. Okay?”

  “Stop patronizing me.”

  “Nick, she’s a nice girl. I’m the first to admit it. Smart as a whip. Much more on the ball than the other one. And I’m not blind. She has something. I can see where you’d want to sleep with her—”

  “Dad, cut it out.”

  “—but that doesn’t mean you have to marry her. She’s crazy about you. She’ll do anything you want her to do, and she won’t need a wedding ring to make her do it.”

  Nicholas tossed the suitcase into the back of the wagon, then lifted his record player and jammed it between the suitcase and the side of the car. “It happens I love her. It happens I want to marry her.”

  “Marry her a couple of years from now, then, if you still feel the same way.”

  “No.”

  “You’re a kid. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “You just said I was a mature college graduate.”

  James let out an exasperated sigh. “Christ, stop acting like a kid. You don’t marry the first piece of ass you come across.”

  “You have no right to talk about her like that!” Nicholas barked.

  James lowered his head. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just upset. First you throw away law school, then you come up with some nobody whose parents don’t have a pot to piss in—”

  “How big was your parents’ pot?”

  “What?”

  “Who were you when you met Mother? You were on scholarship. You’ve told me next to nothing about your parents, but it’s pretty obvious they weren’t the cream of Rhode Island society.”

  “It so happens my mother—”

  “You said your mother was an alcoholic who never gave a damn about you. And your father was a shyster lawyer…. I’m sorry. Dad, listen, I don’t want to fight.”

  “Neither do I,” James said. His eyes remained cast down and he ran his finger over the latch of the tailgate. “But you’re young. You’ll change. In a couple of years, you’ll realize you need something more in a wife: a girl from a decent family, a good background….”

  “Dad, don’t you think Grandpa Samuel and Grandma Maisie made the same argument to Mother?”

  “It was different.”

  “How?”

  James’s face lit up with the beginnings of an angry flush, but all he said was, “Nick, you can do better.”

  “No I can’t.”

  “You can. Come on. You’ve had all the advantages. Who the hell is she?”

  “Who the hell is she? She’s the best there is.”

  The guest room Jane slept in in the old Tuttle farmhouse had a fourposter bed. The faded primary colors of a braided rag rug glowed against the gold of the pegged oak floor. Across the room, a blue club chair with fat round arms half faced the brick fireplace. The walls were the warm white of heavy cream. It was the loveliest room she had ever been in. She turned from her back onto her side, drew up her legs, and closed her eyes, just so she’d have the pleasure of opening them and seeing the early morning sky sparkling through the undulating old glass; the windows were framed with tieback eyelet curtains.

  When the door opened she was in such a fog of contentment she could hardly lift her head, but when she saw it was Nicholas the fog was blown away by a blast of clear joy. She sat up and tried to mask her overwhelming pleasure with a yawn. “Oh, hi. I thought it was Abby or Olivia.” She held the blanket tight against her. “You shouldn’t be in here,” she added.

  “Everyone’s asleep.” Nicholas padded into the room in bare feet, wearing an old pair of khakis and a T-shirt which—judging from its snug fit and the way it refused to remain tucked into his slacks—belonged to one of his younger brothers. He sat on the edge of the bed, smelling of soap and toothpaste. Jane slipped her arms around him, nuzzling her cheek against his. His face was sleek enough to show that he’d just shaved, rough enough to be manly. She kissed his ear and eased her hands up his back to knead the muscles in his shoulders.

  Her own audacity—reaching out for him, taking his hand, often asking for a kiss—amazed her. She still could not completely believe she was re
ally engaged. Several times before graduation she felt a shiver of horror as she lay in her dormitory bed, imagining Nicholas telling her his proposal had all been a huge joke planned by him and Diana Howard, to see if Jane was pathetic enough to believe he could possibly want to marry her. Nicholas put his arms around her and pulled her even closer. “Have a good sleep, sweetheart?”

  “Fine.” She edged back so she could see his face. “Don’t get too close. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Anyway, it was fine but short. I was up with the girls until after two. Olivia seems to like to talk.”

  “She never stops.”

  “And Abby told me I looked like an Indian princess.”

  “American Indian or India Indian?”

  “I don’t care. At least she thinks I’m nifty. Apparently that’s the big word at their school, nifty. I’m nifty and my hair is the niftiest hair she’s ever seen. And…”

  “And what?”

  “I’m much niftier than Diana. I’m only quoting now.”

  “Abby said that?”

  “Yes, and she said—I’m sorry, who is her twin?”

  “Mike.”

  “She said Mike thinks I’m nifty too. That only leaves Ed and Tom. Olivia was sitting right there and she didn’t say I wasn’t nifty, so I guess she thinks I’m okay.”

  “Well,” Nicholas said, bringing his legs up on the bed, “you’re in with Tom. He thinks you’re great. And Ed’s in that adolescent stage where anything with big boobs is nifty, so—”

  “So all we need now is for your parents to think I’m nifty.”

  “Stop it. They like you.”

  “No they don’t. They’re just polite.”

  “Jane, it’s not you.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “They just think I’m too young.”

  “You are. Why don’t we forget the whole thing for now? Call me when you’re thirty.”

  Nicholas twisted toward her, then suddenly grabbed her wrists and pinned her down in a wrestling hold. “Take it back.”