I met Gabe when I’d just finished college and started working for the city. My dad got me the job. A lot of things came our way because of who he was. A prominent citizen. A man who was in the newspaper a lot. There’s a way of trading favors and goodwill in a town like this. Anyway, it wasn’t much of a job, I never felt like I’d benefited from some corrupt system or anything.
I had an apartment with one of my old college roommates. She had her own not-great job. We got up in the morning and went to work and came home and complained about our crummy jobs. But honestly, work wasn’t that important to us. We weren’t especially career-minded. Not like my mother, who was spitting mad all her life because she had to settle for being married. No, our biggest life’s work was going to be falling in love.
Does that sound dumb or backward to you? Maybe it was. Maybe girls your age have more practical mind-sets and don’t let themselves get derailed by foolishness about men. You’ll have to let me know.
On some nights, and always on weekends, we got ourselves dressed up and painted up—those hairstyles! You should see the pictures!—and went out to the bars. Sometimes we’d see a movie, or maybe we’d meet up with other friends and go out to dinner. But the bars were where the boys were. I doubt if that’s changed much over time. I know it hasn’t. I’ve been to some of the same places with my friend Becca when she was looking for a new boyfriend.
I saw your dad there a few times before I met him. He’d come in with some other grad students. You could tell they were grad students, they didn’t actually smoke pipes but it wouldn’t have been out of place on them. I don’t think I gave him any particular notice, though he was nice-looking enough. He looked like a very smart little blond boy, all grown up and ready to do serious, important things.
So, a bar. I guess you can meet somebody in a bar and it doesn’t have to be a sign of trouble to come. Anyway, we weren’t the type to hang out at church, or stay home waiting for excitement to come find us. Me, my roommate, our friends, and all the other girls like us, we all believed there was such a thing as genuine true love. It was out there, but you had to make yourself available to it, you had to be open to possibilities. But once you found it, you’d know. There’d be this certainty. I don’t mean the room fades away and colored spotlights go on, like the dance scene in West Side Story. Nothing corny. Just that feeling of a punch to your heart.
Of course while you were waiting for true love to show up, there were these other characters you kept company with. The guys who’d failed the test they didn’t even know they were taking. They weren’t cute enough or smooth enough or something enough. But they bought us drinks and we laughed at their dumb jokes and sometimes we went home with them.
On this night I’m talking about, I was getting impatient with these boys and their horsing around and their too-loud voices. All of them in general, and the one I often paired off with in particular. Technically, he wasn’t my boyfriend, so we didn’t behave toward each other with any particular sentiment. He liked to complain that I never had anything good in the refrigerator. I knew he expected us to spend the night together, not that he’d done such a thing as call and make plans ahead of time, or even pay that much attention to me once I was there. There was a big football game on, Bears and Packers, and he and his buddies and truth be told, a lot of other people in the place, were staring raptly at the televisions mounted in every corner of the place. But at some point in the evening I’d finish my drink and he’d take his time with the rest of his while I stood there, irritated and waiting, until he finally drained his glass and followed me out the door. It was practically foreordained.
All this, and maybe some mischief or meanness, is why I walked over to where Gabe and his friends were sitting at the other end of the bar, and smiled and said, “How are you guys tonight?”
He always makes a point of teasing me about this: I was the one who came on to him.
Well they didn’t know what to make of me, those grad student guys, those computer nerds and research geniuses. The idea of a woman making herself available to them, even this casually, seemed beyond their experience and comprehension. They even left off gaping at the Bears and Packers. Gabe was the one who finally found his voice and moved off his bar stool to offer me a seat. “We’re good. How about yourself?”
I was introduced all around. There was a little current of talk of the get-to-know-you variety, before the other geniuses went back to their imported bottled beer—this was another way you could tell they were grad students—and the fine points of the ground game. Gabe asked if I needed another drink, and I said I was fine for now. I was drinking my usual, that headache-in-a-bottle white wine they kept behind the bar. I drank more back in those days, that much is true, and so maybe I was less likely to be alarmed by somebody else’s drinking.
Anyway, I liked him. He stood behind me, not crowding me, just close enough to indicate a level of interest, and when he reached around me to get to his drink on the bar, we almost touched. He really was the best-looking of the group, with his fair hair and his smile that had something held back in it, maybe something he’d tell you the next minute or two if you stuck around. He said, “I’ve seen you here before, I know I have.”
“You might have.” I liked the idea that he’d noticed me. “I come here sometimes with my friends.”
“He one of your friends?” He nodded over his shoulder at my not-boyfriend, who was sending us a nasty look from the other end of the bar, the same way a bartender might send a mug of beer sliding down its length. It was halftime, he must have finally noticed I was gone.
I turned back around so I didn’t have to see my soon-to-be ex–not boyfriend. I said, “He’s not my friend tonight.”
Gabe said he guessed I was a femme fatale, and I laughed at that, because nobody before or since ever called me that, even teasing. It made me feel cool and dangerous and sexy, things I never considered myself to be. I was only middling pretty. Even when I was your age, when everybody has good skin and good hair, oh of course you do, don’t be silly.
So it was heady stuff, to have a moment of that kind of attention, the titillating prospect of two men fighting over me, even if there wasn’t any actual fighting, even if there turned out to be more bad mood than jealous rage. I sat up straighter and arched my back and took a deep breath. It seemed like I might be on the verge of having an actual exciting time.
“Are you a student?” he asked me. Standard opening question in a college town. I told him I’d graduated the spring before. “Why are you still here?”
“I live here. I’m from here. I’m a townie.”
“What’s a townie?”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, really, tell me.”
“Somebody who grew up here and never left.” So much for feeling glamorous and dramatic. I felt all the femme fatale draining out of me.
“Well I’m glad that you townies stick around,” he said, which restored a little of my confidence.
He said he was a grad student, and I said I knew that, and he asked if it was that obvious, and I just laughed and slit my eyes at him. He told me about the work he was doing with computers, and I said I didn’t know anything about computers. Like, I couldn’t be less interested. Like Scarlett O’Hara saying she didn’t want to hear about any old war. I guess I really was flying a different flag that night. Usually I’d be doing the typical girl thing where you widen your eyes and act impressed and ignorant and wait for things to be explained to you.
I had another drink and so did he. And maybe another. We were sliding down a slope of blurry alcoholic conversation, of the kind that makes you feel you must be saying really amazing things to each other. He had a sharp edge to his talk, I could tell he was smart and even a little arrogant about being smart. Confident. Like a grown-up. I was ready for a grown-up.
Meanwhile, that other boy was still making a production out of his displeasure. Whenever I turned my head I saw him glowering in my direction, usually with his li
p hanging over the neck of a beer bottle. You want a man’s attention? Try ignoring him. My roommate waved at me and went through a pantomime that was familiar to me. She had the car, she was ready to leave, was I coming?
Now I had to decide, stay or go. I signed for my roommate to wait a minute. Femme fatales didn’t hang around; they vanished mysteriously and left their admirers in a state of fevered impatience. Maybe I couldn’t quite achieve that, but it seemed pretty clear what I ought to do.
I got off the bar stool, a little unsteadily, and held out my hand for him to shake. Which he did, though it confused him. “Listen, I have to go, but it’s been great talking to you and maybe we’ll see each other . . .”
“Sure.” He could have asked for my phone number then, should have done so, but when he didn’t I thought, well, that’s that. I made a wobbly move to get out the door, avoiding the mad boy and watching my roommate head out through the other door. She’d know to meet up outside. We’d done it a time or two before.
Once you get outside and away from all the commotion of a bar, your eyes and ears are blotted out for a minute until you adjust. It was cold, almost November, and I took a deep breath to clear my head. I was still pretty buzzed. So much for my femme fatale moment. Nobody else was out on the sidewalk just then, only a few cars going by and the light from those old-fashioned globe street lamps that they still have downtown. I set off toward the corner, since my roommate would be waiting just on the other side.
From behind me, somebody said, “Hey, wait up.”
I didn’t turn around, because it was that boy I didn’t care to see or talk to anymore, let alone go to bed with. I wasn’t afraid of him, exactly; even mad, even drunk, he was whiny and kind of pitiful. I heard his feet scrambling to catch up to me.
At the same time, behind him, I heard Gabe calling, “Hey, hey, hold on.” He’d come out after us both, and now we were all piling up on the sidewalk.
I did stop then and turn around. “Oh hi,” I said, to nobody in particular.
Gabe took his time. Strolling, very nonchalant. Once he reached us he stuck his hand out. “How you doing. Gabe Arnold.”
That other boy looked at the hand like it might have a joke buzzer in it, like, what was a Gabe Arnold anyway? Then they shook hands, one of those clutch-style shakes. This thing has happened to gentlemen, where they aren’t sure which way to go with handshakes, traditional ones or cool, styling ones. He announced his name, which was Randy Something. I’ve honestly forgotten the rest of it.
“So, Randy, how’s it going?”
“Ah, going OK. Yeah. We’re just talking,” Randy said after a befuddled moment. Not true, technically, because I hadn’t said much of anything to him, even earlier when we were inside. There was never what you’d call a lot of dazzling repartee going back and forth between us.
“Sure,” Gabe said. “Can’t go wrong with talking.”
There was this little current of something acrid and testosterone-infused between them, and did I mention some drinking that had been going on? We all sounded drunker than we had even five minutes ago. Just then, from the bar behind us, a muted whooping and whistling erupted. The two of them turned toward it, looking in through the window.
“Bears score?”
“Looks like it. They were so-oo close. Red zone.”
“Packers had shit for brains tonight.”
“You see their first drive?”
“Totally lame.”
My roommate peeked around the corner. She spread her arms palms up, as in, Now what?
Randy said, “Is it fourth quarter now? I think it’s the fourth.”
“Bears are crushing them.”
“A good old-fashioned butt kicking.”
“Come on,” I said. “Football?”
They both glanced at me. Randy said, “It’s Bears-Packers.” Like that explained something.
Gabe said, “I came out to see if you wanted to wait until the game was over, and then I could give you a ride home.”
“That sounds so fun,” I said. I was being sarcastic but nobody noticed.
Randy said, “Or look, when the game’s over, I can take you.” Like either of them should have been behind a wheel.
“You guys make it so difficult to choose.”
Another burst of noise from inside, and they both swiveled their heads toward it. “Why don’t you go back in and I’ll be there in a minute,” I told them. “I’ll flip a coin or something.”
They went back in and I joined my roommate and we walked to the car. She said, “What happened back there? I thought they were getting ready to fight a duel over you or something.”
“I don’t think anyone does that anymore.”
We drove home. The next night, Gabe called and apologized and asked if we couldn’t start over. I was mad that he was too easily distracted and yes, too drunk to carry out my fantasy of two men fighting over me. Like I said, fair warning. But he really did put some effort into it. I made him call a couple more times before I said yes. He told me he got my phone number from Randy, and I never got a straight story about how that happened, though there were many versions told to me, each more outlandish than the last one, about how they had arm wrestled for me, or Randy had insisted on Gabe buying him three more beers, or maybe it was three beers and a couple of basketball tickets. Oh he used to tease me to death, the way he kept coming up with ridiculous stories. And he was sweet to me, and funny and smart and good-looking, and I hadn’t known him since I was twelve years old, which I thought was a real advantage.
He said he liked that I was unpredictable. He said it like I was somebody who might jump into a fountain in an evening gown. And maybe I was like that back then, a little, because that was what he saw in me. And he was at his best, for a while at least.
Genuine true love, the tragic kind that comes with its own movie soundtrack? I couldn’t say. Of course we went on from there, and we settled into our grown-up selves, and somewhere along there you and your brother came along, and life filled up slow, if you measured day by day, and fast, if you try to account for years. There was good and bad. Some things on both sides that shouldn’t have happened. But if you want to know who really loves you, look around and see who’s still standing next to you.
IV. GRACE
Once the end came, it came on fast. On a Sunday morning in April her mother said she felt well enough to eat a real meal. She slept most of most days now. It was a little bit of an occasion to have her awake and wanting food.
Grace made pancakes and bacon and sliced up some strawberries and her mother made a good effort at cleaning her plate. It was cold outside but the sun was shining. Morphine was a balancing act between pain control and making her breathing that much more difficult, but on this day it seemed to be working right. She said she felt light-headed. “Like I’m drunk!” Grace asked the hospice aide if they should dial the medication back, but her mother said, “No, I am a cloud in the sky, I am changing my shape.”
Grace and the aide looked at each other and the aide nodded, which meant this was to be expected. Grace said, “Well that’s good, Mom. You can be a cloud if you want to.”
Grace kissed her on the forehead, took the breakfast tray downstairs, and started in on the dishes. Her father and Michael had helped themselves to food and left trails of syrup and coffee grounds on the counters. Grace heard their feet on the stairs, going up and going down, a murmur of conversation. They’d each stopped in to the sickroom to say good morning. It was another in a series of abnormal days made normal.
Grace stepped out to the front porch. Pranayama was used to control the energy that animated the lungs. Conscious breathing originated in the more developed parts of the brain, and helped to elevate the functions of mind and body. It was cold and Grace wrapped her sweater closer around her. She breathed in through her nose and exhaled through her closed mouth. It was Ujjayi Pranayama, Victorious Breath. Her mother’s breath was now measured out in the smallest things, in grace notes, in the
sidereal motion of stars. When and when and when. Grace shivered and went back into the house.
The hospice aide came downstairs with a white plastic garbage bag, which she carried straight outside to the cans at the side of the house. When she was once again inside, Grace asked her if she wanted pancakes; there were extras. The aide said no thank you, but she’d take a little coffee please. The aide’s name was Dorothy. She was their favorite, a soft-spoken black woman who kept everything tidy and calm. She said that Mrs. Arnold was asleep now, and that she would go back up and check on her before she left.
Grace said, “I guess people get confused like that. I guess you see that.”
“There’s no one way to go about it,” Dorothy said, and by it, Grace understood her to mean dying.
Dorothy finished her coffee and went back upstairs. Grace started the dishwasher and wondered if she might be able to lie down for a nap. Sleep at night was hit or miss. If Grace woke, she might walk down the hall to her mother’s room to check on her or sit for a while and listen to see if the thin current of her breathing was still there. Or she might wake up and hear footsteps, her father or her brother, going in to do the same. She’d listen until she was sure that no alarms were being raised, and all was as it had been. Sometimes she went back to sleep, sometimes she stayed awake until the sky began to lighten, and then she slept a little while longer.
Dorothy came into the kitchen. She said, “I think . . .”
Did she mean . . . Grace hesitated. So much had been uncertain, a measuring out of each day, gauging if her mother was better or worse than the day before. As if that would keep the inevitable at bay. But was this it? What were you supposed to do?
Grace hurried back upstairs with Dorothy. Her mother’s eyes were open and her head beat against the pillow, as if trying to get free from it. Grace said, “Mom, what is it, are you in pain?”
A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl Page 19