by Jones, Craig
“We went to your apartment first,” was my mother’s weak excuse, “but we didn’t know how long it would take you to come down.”
“Frank has a telephone,” I said. “And so do I. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
They had visited me only three times during my college career, and always reluctantly. They preferred my coming home to visit them.
“Well, your father and I thought we’d start doing a few things on the spur of the moment.”
“Did you bring Neil and Barry?”
“No. Neil had a date to go bowling with his girlfriend. Barry went camping this weekend.”
What she said was plausible but not very probable. Neil loved the campus and would go off on his own to explore whenever he came. I couldn’t imagine him passing up this opportunity, especially if he had a girlfriend to show it to. And Barry, who ranked me even higher in his affections than he did his catcher’s mitt and hockey stick, was not likely to let a camping trip interfere with visiting me. Unless he hadn’t been told.
“Would you like some breakfast?” said Frank.
“Oh, no,” said my mother. “We stopped on the way.”
“Coffee, then?”
“That would be nice.”
My father’s eyes were crawling all over the place, until they found my brassiere draped over the desk chair.
“Quite a place you’ve got here,” he said to Frank. “It’s really . . . different.”
“Different from what?” I said.
Frank flashed me a look which meant “Be gracious,” and my mother jumped in to steer the conversation.
“Those big cushions there look comfortable,” she said. “And they’re so practical too.”
Frank brought the coffee, and we all sat down to a grating silence. I broke it with the suggestion that we invite Gloria up too.
“Oh, no,” my mother said, flustered. “She was just going out when we came in.”
“How convenient for her.”
“You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?” asked Frank.
“We don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing. I was just going out to the store for vegetables. Any particular kind you like?”
“No, really—”
“They both like green beans,” I said.
As soon as Frank was dressed and gone, I put on another pot of coffee and took the chicken from the refrigerator to prepare it for the oven. I wanted them to see that I was familiar with everything in the apartment.
“Are you ready to tell me the truth?” I said casually.
“How long have you been living here?” My father’s tone was too nonchalant, the tone people sometimes use when they find they have been shifted from offense to defense.
“I don’t live here. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“We just hadn’t heard from you. . . .” My mother was too unpracticed in lies to complete this one.
“Frank will be back soon,” I said, “and I’m not going to discuss this in front of him. Let’s not waste time beating around the bush.”
“We thought you might be in some kind of trouble,” said my father.
“Where did you get that idea?” Neither of them answered. “I know it had to be Gloria. She called you, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Kenneth!” My mother winced. “You promised you wouldn’t—”
“Because she was concerned. It sounds as though you’re in a situation you’re not aware of,” he said.
“Is that so? What did Gloria use for evidence?”
“Now just hold on. We’d like some explanation from you. What do you know about this guy? How come there’s no furniture in this place? And just what in hell is your brassiere doing over there?”
“Obviously I spent the night here.”
“Obviously. And quite a few other nights, it seems.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m glad you’re so proud of it!” he snapped. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind your brothers knowing about this, either.”
“Kenneth!”
“That’s up to you,” I said. “I didn’t ask you to come spying. I’m twenty-two years old. If you care to remember, you got married at twenty and Mom was eighteen.”
“That’s right. Married. Not shacking up!”
I knew what I was about to say would hurt my mother more than him, but I couldn’t resist. “Married January second. I was born June first. And I wasn’t premature.”
“Irene! We were engaged!” said my mother.
“You don’t have to justify anything to her, Millie. She’s just trying to turn the tables.” He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. I had seen this gesture often enough to know he was shifting to his imperious pose. “You know, young lady, you think just because this college hands you some honors you’ve got the world by the tail. You’ve got all the answers—past, present and future. Your parents don’t know anything and you’ve got nothing left to learn. You’re so clever that everything will go your way, doors will fly open at the mention of your name. Let me tell you something, Miss Honor Student: the world is not holding its breath for you. You may be big stuff on campus, but a university is not reality. Nowhere near it. But you won’t find that out until someone knocks you on your smug little butt.”
“And you’d like a ringside seat for that event, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would.” Pause. “And I’ll probably end up hating whoever does it.”
His frown, as always, was irresistible. I went over and tousled his hair. “You won’t have to hate anyone. I’ve got a pretty good punch of my own.”
“That’s your trouble,” he said, slipping his arm around my waist. “You’ve always been more independent than the boys. Maybe because you’re the oldest. Sometimes you make me feel I have three sons.”
“I’m glad Frank doesn’t see me that way.”
“And how do you see him?”
“I love him.”
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“And he feels the same?”
I nodded and felt my face shining. “You can’t possibly know him from just one visit. If only you could see him—even the way he reads a newspaper.”
He smirked. “He reads it upside down?
“He feels what he reads. The expressions on his face—it’s more than just gathering information. He gets involved with what’s going on in the world, and that’s good for me, it really is.” I went on like a mute who has just found a voice. I told them about Frank’s shyness, his insecurities, how I had had to go after him. I told them about the incident with Larry, about Frank’s childhood of poverty, even about Wanda Hoople.
“So that explains why he hasn’t had a haircut since he was ten.”
“Oh, Dad, that doesn’t matter. It bothered me at first too. But there are other things.”
“There must be. He’s a rather . . . unlikely-looking man. And a little undernourished. You might lose him to the first strong wind that comes along.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if that happened. I wouldn’t ever want another man to touch me.”
This embarrassed them both. They didn’t completely look away, but their eyes shifted just slightly to avoid mine. My father rescued himself by joking. “Your mother was crazy about me that way. She was so anxious and nervous the first time I kissed her that the second we touched lips, she farted.”
“Kenneth Rutledge, you are a liar!” She reddened, and her mouth puckered to stifle a smile.
“Pop! Just like bubble gum.”
“Oh, what a liar you are!”
The telephone rang. It was Frank.
“I’m outside the store,” he said.
“Should I get some ice cream for the pie?”
“Sure. And hurry back.”
He smacked a kiss into the phone.
My father lit another cigarette, imperious once again. “Irene, you’ve always enjoyed playing devil’s advocate. That wouldn’t have anything to do with your taking up with Frank, would it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.” He looked me squarely in the eye. “He’s not exactly what anyone would expect you to choose. It would be cruel to let him fall for you if he’s only a novelty to you.”
“Novelty—you sound like Gloria. You make me out as some kind of prize going to waste. Did it ever occur to you I might consider Frank the prize?”
“It’s just that Gloria made it sound—well, we pictured Frank as the local Lothario making a conquest of our daughter. And now here I am, looking out for his welfare. Just promise us one thing: Keep your head and go slowly. Because, like it or not, you’re our prize. You’re our only daughter and that’s the way it is.”
“That makes us even, since you’re my only parents.”
He shook his head and sighed. “I can’t remember when you didn’t have an answer for everything.”
The afternoon proved to be a victory over Gloria and her scheme. At first, Frank and my father had little to say to one another. Then they landed on the subject of cars, and my father explained the trouble he was having with his transmission. Together, they went down to the parking lot to look at it. When they returned, we spent the rest of the day playing bridge. Frank and my mother established an easy rapport because they discussed me. My mother got a little tipsy on the wine, and by evening the two of them jokingly exchanged suggestions for improving my humility, and ended up assigning me the title Irene the Arrogant.
I lived up to that title the very next night, when I returned to Gloria’s apartment to confront her. Initially, she wouldn’t even deign to justify what she had done, but by the time I finished packing the first suitcase, she was well into a defensive oration on friendship. In the bathroom, where I scooped my toiletries into a box and snatched up my bath mat and toilet-seat cover, she finally apologized by saying she didn’t know what had come over her. Back in the bedroom, she grabbed my wrist as I unplugged my clock-radio.
“Don’t, Irene. Please. I was wrong, I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to Frank, too, if you want me to. You don’t have to do this.”
“Let go,” I said calmly. She released my wrist.
“I’ve made a mistake. Nothing like it will happen again, believe me. This is all so ridiculous.”
“It has been ridiculous.” Matter-of-factly, I wrapped the cord around the clock-radio.
“Friends make mistakes; you don’t walk out on them because of that. Let’s at least talk about it!”
In perfect deadpan, I said, “Consider yourself lucky I won’t talk about it.”
Frank and I settled into a comfortable routine. Since I had more free time than he did (as a graduate assistant, he taught two classes and was adding the finishing touches to his thesis), I took almost full command of running the apartment. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed those menial tasks I had always hated. Growing up at home, I had sneered at cookbooks and dirty dishes and had complained about having to iron blouses and clean my room. All the while I had known Frank, I was amazed at the enthusiasm he had for working on his car. It didn’t mesh with his intellectual pursuits, but he explained that working with his hands on a motor gave his mind a much needed change of activity. Quickly, it dawned on me that I had no hobbies at all except reading, going to movies and honing my tongue on some poor, amazed soul at a party. I turned up my nose at Frank’s suggestion that I buy some plants. To my mind, plants were something old ladies fussed over after their children left home. Then one day he walked in with a philodendron and told me it was one of the easiest plants to care for. I set it in the window and doused it with water each day until it began to droop, then shrivel. I easily dismissed it as an insignificant failure. But it was the source of my first real argument with Frank.
“You’re giving it too much water,” he said.
“If I don’t water it every day, I’ll forget about it completely and never water it.”
“That’s ridiculous. You have to take a plant on its terms, not yours.”
“I’m not going to be a slave to a plant.”
“No one’s asking you to be a slave. Just considerate.”
“For God’s sake, it’s not a pet.”
“It’s alive. And you’re letting it die.”
“What do you want me to do—call in an undertaker?”
“If you can’t take care of it properly, just leave it alone.”
“With pleasure. It’s dead anyway,” I said, pulling off a leaf.
“Just don’t touch it.”
“All right! You don’t have to make it sound like I’m the Dutch elm disease.” I pulled off another withered leaf. He got up and carried it from the living room into the bedroom and placed it on the window sill near his side of the bed.
I was furious.
“Maybe you’d like me to give it a 2 a.m. feeding with an eyedropper.”
“I said leave it alone.”
“Oh, who the hell wants to touch the damned thing!” He sat back down at his desk and opened a book. “I’ll bet your little girl with the grocery bags has green thumbs.”
Silence.
“I’ll bet whole greenhouses burst into bloom when she passes through. She’s probably an absolute Flora. I can see tulips sprouting in her footsteps, breaking right through concrete. What an enviable talent—to be able to bend your wrist just right as you tip the watering can.”
“Don’t belittle something you can’t do. And someone you don’t know.” He didn’t bother to look up.
“I don’t think I can bear going through life now being responsible for the death of a philodendron.”
He smiled incredulously. “You’re unbelievable. Unbelievable.”
“And you’re being redundant. Redundant.”
“If Irene Rutledge can’t do something, then it’s not worth doing. It’s much more comfortable to look down your nose at it.”
“Don’t lecture me. I’m not one of your students.”
“And don’t bother to listen, either, because there’s not the slightest chance someone else knows something you don’t. Or if they do, it can’t be very important. Besides, if it’s not in a book, it’s not worth knowing.”
“Oh, go play with your jumper cables.”
“Right now, they’d be better company.”
I turned and walked out. I flounced down the steps and threw open the door to the parking lot, only to run smack into Gloria.
“Jesus!” she gasped, staggering backward.
This was all I needed, to have her see me angry at Frank. “I’m sorry. Are you all right?” She had dropped a folder full of travel fliers from the agency she worked at. I stooped and picked them up. “I left a book in the library; now I have to go all the way over and pick it up.”
“It’s after ten,” she said. “The library’s closed.”
She was right. During the summer term the library closed early. It was a stupid lie. Still, I couldn’t go back upstairs. I thrust the folder into her hand and said I’d call her sometime.
I walked ten blocks to the student union, but in the grill the custodian was already putting the chairs on top of the tables. There was still time for a quick cup of coffee, but I didn’t feel much like sitting in a place that was closing up around me.
The campus was quiet, dismally so, and that was fine with me. One strolling couple, hand in hand, passed by. I muttered some obscenity under my breath, but apparently loud enough to turn their heads.
I ended up at the botanical gardens, sit
ting on a bench and smoking one cigarette after another. The lamppost globes lit up only the first few rows of flowers. The rest of the garden was a shadowy arrangement of spikes and clumps. What I couldn’t see didn’t matter. I didn’t know a peony from a petunia. I had never bothered to learn flowers, since I had no plans for becoming a gardener or a Southern writer.
If it’s not in a book, it’s not worth knowing.
That remark kept crawling around in my mind. I couldn’t dismiss it in my usual fashion because I couldn’t dismiss the certainty in his voice, the authority on his face. I couldn’t even keep a grip on my self-righteous anger, my only source of protection.
He was right. Since high school, I had been so wrapped up in myself that I dismissed anyone or anything that didn’t in some way profit or amuse me. That night Larry had come to dinner, I could have taken an interest, but I hadn’t because a blind boy didn’t serve my interest. Looking further back, it occurred to me that when Neil was in Little League, I hadn’t gone to a single game. Of course he had asked me, but I figured if my parents put in an appearance, that was sufficient. Not one game. He had been on the team three years, and I didn’t know what position he played. I couldn’t even remember the name of the team. And there was Barry, little Barry, who had written me letters my first two years of college, letters which went unanswered because I was much too busy.
Suddenly, I began to cry. Over Neil and Barry, over being a fool about the plant and a bitch to Frank. And to Gloria. And I kept crying because Frank saw through me before I did, because our relationship was going to require an honesty I wasn’t sure I was capable of.
I thought I had finished crying when I got up and started back to the apartment. But shame was not a familiar feeling to me, and I had no way of fighting the swelling in my throat and the recurring tears. I kept wiping my eyes as I took side streets to avoid the main avenue. I was still wiping them when I reached our building and opened the door at the parking lot entrance. Not since I was twelve had I let anyone see me cry. All right, so he would see me cry; wasn’t that something lovers did in front of each other? I would apologize, slip into his arms, and the whole silly mess would be over. I started up the stairs.