by Deborah Emin
Charles told her, “Where I come from, people don’t prance into someone’s bedroom uninvited.”
Then she looked at me and at Charles and said, “Of course it does depend what you are used to.”
Charles had had enough of her and hopped out of the bed. He took Ivy by the arm and escorted her out of the room and then out of our apartment. I heard her make some comment about the fact that he was naked. I wanted to ask her what did she expect, we were in bed.
Charles had to pry the key from her fingers, but he came back to bed holding it up like a prize.
I asked him how many more girlfriends should we be expecting?
“News travels fast here. I suppose it’s good we got engaged at the end of the term. We’ll be old news by the time we return in February.”
I suggested he make the rounds though and pick up all those old keys or change the locks. I didn’t like lying in bed next to him and being insulted.
I also told him to wear his pants the next time he escorted anyone but me out of this room.
Date: Thursday, 12/11/69
The only person I hadn’t told yet who I wanted to tell in person was Lauren. I had kept to my regular tutoring schedule and thought at some point I would be able to talk to her. She’s been sick for a few days and when I went to the Day Care Center today to work with Jason, Elise said she hadn’t returned to work yet. I asked if it would be okay for me to pay her a visit after Jason and I finished his lesson.
Elise said she was sure Lauren would love to have company. She gave me the address and directions to find it. That was a good thing as I get lost easily in the dark here.
She reminded me to keep my distance from Lauren so as not to pick up her cold. I assured her I would be careful and then gave myself a huge pat on the back for having been around all these sniffling and coughing children and not getting sick.
I walked in the dark to Lauren’s house following the directions carefully. There aren’t many street lamps in Town and the sidewalks are narrow and uneven. I didn’t want to fall on my way to her house.
When I arrived, I took a deep breath and walked up to her front door. I realized I should have brought her something for her cold. I knocked and she opened the door and looked startled to see me. I woke her up. I offered to leave. She begged me to come inside. She led me into her library at the back of the house. Her library was so warm and cozy and it felt like being in a temple devoted to books. Everywhere I looked they sat, spine out, face out, opened, marked with bookmarks. But treated with respect.
“It gets lonely being sick. I forgot. I rarely pick up these kids’ cold anymore but when I do . . .”
She left her sentence unfinished as she is having trouble talking with the cold.
I sat down in a chair as far away from her as possible. Her dog came bounding out of the bedroom to be with us.
Lauren asked me why I looked so brilliantly happy. I loved that description. It made it easy to blurt out, “Charles proposed to me over the weekend.” I showed her the ring as proof of his proposal.
She looked startled. I expected that. Also as I expected, I saw the but, but, buts . . . forming in her mind but she didn’t say them. She smiled at me and said how happy she was for me.
She wanted to know when and where we were getting married. I told her that we hadn’t decided yet. For now, we were going away at the end of the term. We wanted to rest and to be alone.
I couldn’t believe these words keep coming out of my mouth about Charles’ family having a place in Paris we might go to. It sounds foreign to me too that some place in a country I have never been to there is a house that I am free to go to with my future husband.
She laughed and put her hand out to her dog to keep her from bothering me. I didn’t mind though.
She said, “You’re set then? Life is going to be very different for you now, isn’t it? Having a wealthy husband is a game changer as they say.”
I looked at her as if I could see her words balloon up in the room. She said it. Now that Lauren has said that about the money, I know others are thinking that too. Charles is very wealthy and that will change my life immensely, I know that. How, at this moment, I’m not sure.
“Yes, he has money. But as old-fashioned as this sounds, if he lost it all right now, I’d still marry him.”
“And I’m sure that’s true but you’re not going to have to worry about that right now. I am still sick, Scags. I hate to have to kick you out, but I must go back to bed.”
I left Lauren’s assuring her I wasn’t going to catch her cold and that I was still going to work at the Day Care Center.
She laughed at me and said, “Of course you are but you’re going to work for free.”
I laughed too. I so like being with Lauren and I am going to be able to spend more time at the Day Care Center next term because my life will be much simpler.
As I closed her front door against the cold air, I heard her yell after me, “Congratulations, and you’d better invite me to the wedding.”
I ran off and came back to Charles’ place. I made a note in my head and now in here. No matter where we get married, Lauren will be there. I’ll make sure of that.
Date: Saturday/Sunday, 12/13 & 14/69
Charles and I had one more person who is special to us to celebrate our engagement with and that was Tony. He was going to cook for us a feast at his place, where I had never been so we could sit for as long as we wanted and have fun, the three of us.
All week long he had been bothering Charles, asking him questions about foods I liked and didn’t like. What wines went best with what he was cooking. He was in agony that this dinner be first class.
We were supposed to get started early in the evening because no matter what else may be happening in my life, I must run or everyone pays the consequences.
I was up here in my dorm room putting some things away for next term when Charles came racing up the stairs to ask me a question. I can’t recall at this moment what it was. In the process of answering that question, he and I started talking about the winter recess and how we now certainly needed to make reservations if we were going anywhere at all.
I don’t know why putting clothes away distracted me so much but it did. He wanted me to make a decision and I replied that I would leave it up to him but it dawned on me that I had had enough of the cold so why couldn’t we go some place warm.
He laughed. He said, “I offer you Paris and you want Florida.”
I could have killed him at that moment. “That was not what I meant by some place warm,” I said. “I meant an island somewhere that is quiet and romantic. Why would I want to go to Florida?”
“I thought you all liked Florida in the winter. Isn’t that why you don’t want to go to Paris now?”
“What kind of dumb fuck question is that?” I looked at him as if he had just transformed from some kind of kind, innocent soul into the devil incarnate.
“Don’t you talk to me like that,” he said and walked out the door. “I’ll be back to pick you up in an hour. If you’re lucky.”
He walked out and I threw the shoe that was in my hand at his retreating back.
That was the last I saw of him.
I never should have let him leave my room without finishing that argument and settling that he isn’t anti-semitic and I’m not some Jew from Skokie who needs to be in Florida in the winter.
The fact that we will never see each other again after that kind of stupid argument is going to keep me in limbo about what life is about for a long time.
Who can I tell about this fight and why we fought and how I desperately want to call him back. How I want him to wait for me so that I can die in the crash with him.
In my head, all night long, ever since Eileen came up to my room to tell me what happened, I have played that fight over in my head. I’m looking for that hole in it where I can crawl
in and become a part of the newsreel rather than someone watching it.
I have no other options. Either we finish that fight or I go with him in the car.
I’ll never see him again. He’s never coming back ever. We should be at his apartment right now, asleep, next to each other with our whole lives ahead of us.
Yes, that is what should be happening right now.
Why did he have to go off and get killed like that? At the bottom of the hill in that stupid awful car that should have been junked months ago? Now Charles is dead and the fellow who ran into him is dead and their bodies incinerated by the fire that burst out when their cars collided.
I never said I wanted to go to Florida. He was right, who objects to going to Paris? I really thought I wanted to be where it was warm. It is so cold here. I was tired of it. I don’t care about the cold anymore Charles.
I should have been more specific. I could have named an island. Then we wouldn’t have fought. He wouldn’t have walked away angry.
I’m angry, angrier with myself now but then . . . I thought what a stupid insensitive thing to say to your future wife. When he said that he thought all of us liked to go to Florida, I should have kept my mouth shut and let him sound stupid, like Goldie would have advised.
Now we’ll never talk about this. He’ll never curl up with me and apologize for hurting me.
Then I can remind him that I didn’t like being lumped in with all those people in Skokie who flock to Miami in the winter. Didn’t he know how hard I worked not to be that girl from Skokie?
I asked him how he could be so nice and kind and sensitive one minute and such an asshole the next, he looked at me and said that it just came naturally and walked out of my room. He told me to be ready in an hour. He would be back to pick me up for dinner. If I was lucky.
I guess my luck ran out.
He’s not 10 hours late; he’s dead. I want that argument to be finished and resolved. It can’t end now because Charles isn’t here to finish it. I was ready for him to pick me up and for us to say none of that mattered.
Charles didn’t walk into my room, it was Eileen who appeared with this horrible look on her face. I was ready for a fight with Charles. Looking at her face, the fight fizzled out of me. I thought something horrible had happened to her. Like magic the anger disappeared and in its place was my concern for her.
I even thought that the president had been assassinated. But then I wondered who would shoot Nixon? I wasn’t really listening to the words Eileen said. I had no idea why she took me in her arms. I never liked Nixon and neither did she.
Then I heard her say Charles.
“What happened to Charles?” I asked her and pushed her away from me. I didn’t mean to be mean but I was so confused.
From that stupid fight to him being unrecognizably dead in about 10 minutes time.
It’s 4:00 am and about 11 hours ago he was supposed to pick me up and take me to Tony’s house for dinner.
Did he do that on purpose? Did he race in front of that car so he could show that guy how his car wasn’t a piece of shit? That it was just as good as Charles wanted it to be? That no one got in the way of Charles Foster Payne?
Losing Charles so fast, so soon and so stupidly with that fight unfinished inside me—damn it. That beautiful body is all burned up. Let me finish with him the right way, end it the right way. Not like this.
Charles is dead. I have nothing more to say.
Date: Thursday, 12/18/69
Charles’ family held a memorial service for Charles in the church in Town. We all sat still and rigid with the grief. It is still unbelievable that he is gone. Friends and his family filled the place up so that there were no empty seats. We all loved him so much.
It was a beautiful service. His brothers spoke, there are three of them. They all referred to him as the crazy guy in their family who never did what was expected of him. They had always forgiven him because he was so lovable and loving and never meant anyone any harm.
His father tried to speak but he looked like he had been run over by a truck.
One of Charles’ sisters (he had two sisters) mentioned that Charles had been engaged to me. I never knew he had such a large family.
The whole family treated me well. It was spooky to see his family gathered together for the first time and not for him to be with us. However, it was even spookier that they all looked like him except for their father. He seems to have grown out of a different stock and that he might die of grief any minute. Charles’ mother looked like she was in charge. She had that strong jaw like Charles’. I imagine it was his mother who put this service together so quickly.
When I walked into the church, I saw his coffin at the front. The coffin was closed, covered in a white cloth and covered with flowers, so many flowers I wondered how they stayed on the coffin. The whole place smelled like a hot house because of them.
We had driven to the church, Lauren took me, in a blizzard. They were predicting so much of snow that everyone was going to the service and then getting out of town as soon as they could. Mrs. Payne had worried about all these details, I thought, and none of us can remain to show Charles the respect he deserves.
There was nothing religious in the service at all. I thought there might be a priest to read a passage from the Bible or to say a word about the meaning of Charles’s life and now the loss of it. The church itself had been stripped of anything religious. In the sparseness of the moment, perhaps that was the best plan.
Flowers and candles were all that Charles needed to be remembered by or with.
Tony sat on one side of me and Lauren on the other. Each held my hand but with a different purpose. Lauren helped me get through this one awful moment. Tony was there to remind me of all that the three of us had done together.
I’ve never been to a funeral for someone my own age before. Looking at his coffin and thinking that so little of his physical being existed anymore, it wasn’t possible to equate the man I had inside my head with the box in the church. The box became the end of the road. I don’t even know how to talk about death or what it feels like to lose someone like him.
I still wear the engagement ring. I can’t take it off because now it feels like a part of me.
I sat and stared at the coffin until they took it out of the church and placed it in a hearse that was going to take it/him back to New York.
That box was haunting and I wanted to throw myself on it so that they could burn it and me together. It was the pressure of Lauren’s hand on me that kept me in my seat. I think if she hadn’t been there next to me, I would have become quite the mental patient for all of them them to see. I would have done my Pops one better.
I think too, I didn’t want to spoil Charles’ memory by acting like that. He would have had a fit if he knew I behaved like that at his funeral.
I wisely kept my mouth shut that I was the cause of Charles’ death. That wasn’t the best moment to tell them.
After the service, Mrs. Payne asked Tony and me to join them for lunch. Tony went with them but I told her I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t sit down with them to eat. I don’t eat now. I can’t put anything inside me. I’m blocked up. Nothing goes in and nothing comes out. A perfect homeostasis.
Because I couldn’t join them for lunch, she took me aside to talk. She held both my hands in her gloved ones. Mine had no gloves and were cold; even in her gloves, her hands were cold too. We looked at each other, the two most important women in Charles’ life before his death.
Her resemblance to him was even more striking when we stood so close to each other. I also noticed that like Charles, it took her time to speak. Like him, she had to find the precise words she wanted to use.
“I have something for you. It isn’t much but it is what I think Charles would have wanted me to do for you. Any time you ever need anything, please, Scags, come to me. As
you know, Charles didn’t talk much. He was a lot like me, I’m afraid. But he had the most beautiful things to say about you. He loved you and so do I.”
She put an envelope in my hands and closed them. She walked back to her family, all of whom waited on her and then walked out of the church together. They took Charles with them.
I shoved the envelope into my pocket. Lauren had been waiting for Mrs. Payne to finish talking to me and arrived at my side to help me out the door and to her car.
As we walked out of the church, I said good bye to as many people as I could. No one wanted to hang out. How fitting I thought that Charles’ funeral was on the day of the first blizzard. I didn’t even know if he liked snow.
The snow was deep and Lauren had to park quite a ways down the road. There had been so many cars for the funeral. Walking in the snow was hard work. I concentrated my whole mind on getting to the car without falling.
Just as I approached the car, someone grabbed me. I may have yelled because I remember Lauren’s shocked face turning to see what had happened. It was Prof. Keating who grabbed me and then he needed to help keep me from falling. He was the last person I wanted to see.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in a long time but I didn’t care.
“I know I shouldn’t be bothering you right now,” he said, “but I wanted you to know how sorry I am that Charles is gone.”
“Thank you,” I said and turned away.
“Wait,” he called at me.
I stopped but I didn’t turn again to look at him. His breath filled up the air around me as he said, “We’re leaving here. My whole family hates living in the country so we are going back to the city. I wanted you to know that.”
I kept still, waiting for him to say good bye. And I waited and waited until Lauren came back to get me. She asked me why I was standing there. Why didn’t I get into the car already?
I did get into the car already but not before I turned to look back. Prof. Keating was running to catch up with his family. I got into the car and we waited for the heater to warm us up. It took Lauren’s car a while to warm up and melt the snow. Then she got out of the car again to clear the windshield.