Rules Get Broken

by John Herbert

  “I thought if you wanted to talk about those things, you’d bring them up,” Nancy said. “I shouldn’t because I don’t know if you want to talk about them or not.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, “but don’t be afraid to ask those questions if you ever want to.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, maybe I can ask you something now?”

  “Sure. Fire away.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t ask you this,” Nancy started hesitantly, “but I need to. So my question is, what about Peg? Do you think about her? And about what happened?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “I guess what I’m saying is…we’re sitting here talking about fun things, fun memories, and you seem perfectly okay. But I can’t believe you are. So I’m wondering if you think about Peg. That’s my question. You have to be. She must be right below the surface, and yet you don’t show it. And I’m wondering how that’s possible.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Wow, that is a question,” I said. I pulled at an eyebrow, buying myself time.

  “You don’t have to answer. I probably shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No. No, it’s all right. I’m glad you did.” I took another deep breath, this one shakier than the first, and my eyes started to fill. “She is right below the surface, as you put it, Nancy. She’s there all the time. Even now as we sit here. But I can’t let myself think about her, because when I do, this is what happens.” I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand.

  “So most of the time, when I’m in the office, when I’m with a customer, with the kids, with you tonight, I don’t think about her. I don’t let myself think about her. Because I know if I do, I’ll start behaving like this.” I shuddered and wiped my eyes again.

  “I miss her so much I can’t think about her or talk about her without coming apart. She was the most important thing in the world to me. And when I realize I’ll never see her again for as long as I live…”

  I stopped talking and reached for my handkerchief. “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to expose you to this.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t need this, and I don’t need this.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have asked,” Nancy said, visibly annoyed with herself.

  “No, no. I’m not saying that. Not at all.”

  “What are you saying then?”

  “I’m saying you don’t need to watch a guy you hardly know cry. And I’m saying, trying to say…Let me put it this way. When I was with you Sunday night…I was running away. And tonight, sitting here with you…I’m running away again. I know that’s wrong, but it’s just so good to forget all the stuff that’s happened. If only for a little while. Is that so terrible?”

  “No, that’s not so terrible. But you should talk about Peg to someone. Because you need to. To feel better. To be happy again. To be able to face the rest of your life. And if you want to talk to me about her—if you think that’ll help you—I don’t mind. I’d like to hear about her. And I don’t mind if you cry. Honest.”

  Nancy watched me wipe my eyes with my handkerchief. She watched me blow my nose one last time, and she watched me carefully fold the handkerchief before stuffing it back into my pocket. She watched me shudder again and heave a deep sigh. And as she watched me, she thought about herself and what she was doing.

  This is absolutely crazy, she thought. Why am I doing this? Why am I telling you to talk to me about your wife? About something so terribly personal and painful? Why am I letting you use me like that? I guess because you’re in pain, and you need help. And because something tells me you’re special. Maybe very special. So I’ll let you run away to me. At least for now.

  Sixty-Two

  I started to tell Nancy about Peg that night. She asked how we met, and I told her about Sarah O’Connell and New Year’s Eve and the umbrella stand.

  “Did Peg live in the city while you were going out with her?” Nancy asked.

  “Yeah. She had an apartment.”

  “Where?”

  “East 67th street. 220 East 67th Street. On the 8th floor. A really nice apartment too. Big living room, separate kitchen, dining alcove, two bedrooms. Hardwood floors. Even had a small balcony overlooking 67th Street.”

  “Wow. That’s quite a place for one person.”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t mean to imply that. She shared it with Sarah, who was her roommate, and two other girls.”

  “Still, that’s quite a place. Especially in the city.”

  “You’re right. It was. And because her apartment was on the East Side, she was in the middle of everything. We went out every weekend to really great spots for drinks, dinner, whatever. Romantic ‘New York’ type of places, if you know what I mean. We went to shows. On Broadway. Off Broadway. Concerts. You name it. We did it.”

  I realized I was looking past Nancy, not at her, as I got caught up in the memories of Saturday nights in another life. I purposefully shifted my gaze back to her.

  “We had a lot of fun,” I continued. “And sometimes all of her roommates would go home for the weekend or go away with their boyfriends and we’d have the whole apartment to ourselves. That was really neat.”

  “What was Peggy’s maiden name?”

  Another question from left field. “Reilly. Her full name was Margaret Ellen Reilly.”

  “So she was Irish?”

  I smiled. “Oh, yes, she was Irish. Very much the Irish colleen, as my father used to call her.”

  “Was she born in Ireland?”

  “No. She was born here. Her parents were born in Ireland, though. Both her mother and her father. Her mother, Maureen—her maiden name was Casey, I think—came to the States when she was in her late twenties and worked as a hotel maid. Her father was a sailor and came here when he was about forty. He met Maureen somehow somewhere in New York, married her and moved to Englewood, New Jersey.”

  “Was Peg their only child?”

  “No. They had four daughters. Peg was the oldest. Then there was Kathleen, then Megan, then Erin.”

  Nancy reached for her glass of Chardonnay and took a sip. “Did Peggy go to college?” she asked as she sat back again.

  “She did. She went to Douglass College for Women in New Brunswick, New Jersey—I think it’s part of Rutgers—and she majored in English.”

  “I take it she graduated?”

  “Yes. But she almost didn’t because she almost didn’t go to college.”

  “Why?”

  “While she was a senior in high school, her father died of complications from gall bladder surgery, which left her mother with no income except for a small police officer’s pension. So Peg thought she wouldn’t be able to afford to go to college. But an old-line women’s club of some sort in Englewood learned of her situation and asked her to meet with them. She did, and they gave her a full scholarship to Douglass. She really lucked out.”

  “I’ll say. Did she move into the apartment right after she graduated?”

  “No. When she graduated, she moved back home with her mother and commuted from Englewood to a job in the city for about a year. And then, like you, she decided it was time to move out and get a place of her own. Which is how she ended up in the apartment on 67th Street.”

  “Is that when you met her? After she moved into the city, I mean?”

  “No,” I said with an apparently suspicious-looking smile. “She was still living at home when I met her.”

  “Why are you smiling like that?” Nancy asked.

  “Boy, you don’t miss much, do you?”

  “I try not to,” Nancy answered, a bit smugly.

  “I was just remembering the first time I picked Peg up at her house. On our second date. Our first date, you’ll recall, was on New Year’s Eve, and I picked her up at my cousin’s house. Anyway, I ring the doorbell, and Peg answers the door, says hello or whatever and asks me t
o come in so she can introduce me to her mother. I come inside, and I find myself face to face with a little, wiry, blue-haired old lady who’s sitting on the sofa, with crochet work or needlepoint or something in her lap. And she’s looking up at me through horn-rimmed glasses with these incredibly piercing blue eyes. My first reaction is, ‘My God, what a nasty old bitch.’ I’m almost scared of her as I stand there saying hello, trying to be charming. Turns out she wasn’t like that at all, but that was my first impression. The funny thing is, looking back years later, I realized I was probably her worst nightmare come true. She was undoubtedly hoping someday Peggy would marry a Michael or a Sean or a Patsy, and here I was, a dyed-in-the-wool WASP. That’s why I smiled.”

  “How long did the two of you date?”

  “Before I asked her to marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see. Our first date was New Year’s Eve in 1968. And I asked her to marry me in October of 1970. So that would make it almost two years. Which reminds me of a funny story.”

  I leaned forward, picked up my glass from the cocktail table and took a quick sip. “The night I proposed to Peg, I made reservations at a really nice place on Central Park South called Harry’s New York Bar. To me, Harry’s New York Bar was the perfect place to ask someone to marry you—dark mahogany paneling, thick carpets, starched tablecloths, waiters in tuxedos, really subdued lighting, quiet even when the place was full. A really cool place.

  “I made reservations for eight o’clock, but I went to Harry’s around seven-thirty before I picked up Peg. I wanted to tell the maitre d’ what I was going to do, and I wanted to leave Peg’s engagement ring with him so she wouldn’t see the lump in my jacket pocket from the ring box or feel it and ask what it was. So I go there, I tell the maitre d’ my plan, give him the ring, and then I take a cab over to Peg’s apartment. But as I’m riding over to her place, it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve just given a total stranger a $4,000 ring. I don’t know his name. I don’t have a receipt. I don’t even have something to prove I went there. So I’m sweating bullets all the way over to Peggy’s and all the way back to Harry’s. Well, to make a long story short, I get her seated at our table, I go up to the maitre d’, and I ask him for my ring box…”

  I paused for a second to add to the suspense.

  “…which he instantly retrieves from his desk and hands to me…with a huge smile…a pat on the back…and a really nice ‘Good luck, son.’ “

  “That’s a great story. Was she surprised?”

  “Yes, she was,” I replied as my eyes started to fill with tears. “And very happy. She loved me very much and wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. And she did. Just not for as long as either of us thought.”

  Nancy put her hand on my arm, but she said nothing. She just listened, and I kept talking. About Jennie and John and what we’d gone through to have them. About the trips we’d taken. About our house and how we’d made it our own room by room. About how my parents had loved Peg like the daughter they never had. About the beautiful, seemingly charmed life we had led. About how we learned Peg was sick and what we did, step by step, day by day, until she died. About how much I loved Peg and how much I missed her.

  I told Nancy how grateful I was to be able to talk to her about things like these. How much I appreciated her listening, and how she always seemed to know what to say. I told Nancy many things that night.

  We never did make it to the movie.

  Sixty-Three

  I hadn’t yet pulled away from the curb in front of Nancy’s apartment before the voice started to grumble. Do you mind telling me what that was all about?

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I really wasn’t enthused about another encounter with me.

  What do I mean? Well, let’s start at the top. First of all, tonight was a date. I think we can agree on that. Reprehensible though that may be. And given tonight was a date, why the hell did you spend most of the evening talking about Peg? You barely know this woman, and yet you tell her all about your dead wife and how much you love her and miss her. Why would you do that? I’m sorry, but something’s wrong here, and I don’t get it.

  “What’s to get?” I replied reluctantly. “I needed someone to talk to, and for whatever reason, I can talk to Nancy.”

  But why are you talking about Peg when that’s so painful for you? And why are you talking to Nancy about her?

  “Maybe talking about Peg,” I said after several moments of thought, “is a way of keeping her here—with me—a little longer. Maybe it’s a way of not letting her slip away. Maybe, if she can hear me, it’s a way of telling her I love her. I don’t know. You tell me.”

  Can’t help you there, pal, the voice retorted. Only you know the answer.

  I slowed down for an upcoming red light. “As for why I talked to Nancy about Peg…I have no idea. I only know I was able to. About Peg. About everything. We really connected. I think maybe we’re a lot alike. Kindred spirits, sort of.”

  Oh, gimme a break, will you? the voice shot back, exasperated by this last speculation. You just met this woman, and suddenly she’s so special? I don’t think so, John.

  The light changed to green. The voice said nothing more.

  Sixty-Four

  I saw Nancy the following Saturday night and the one after that. Both times the same thing happened. We made a drink before we left the apartment, then we sat down on the couch to talk, and we kept talking until the evening was half over, and it was too late to do what we had originally planned.

  But on our fifth date, Saturday, September 27th, we were determined not to let that happen again. We had resolved earlier in the week that we wouldn’t have a drink before we went out, that we wouldn’t even sit down. But our resolution didn’t help at all, because instead we stood in the middle of the kitchen and talked. Finally Nancy realized if we didn’t stop, it would once again be too late for us to go out.

  “We really should be leaving if we’re going to go,” she reminded me.

  “I know,” I replied, but I didn’t move from where I’d been standing for the last twenty-five minutes.

  “Don’t you want to go out for dinner?” she asked.

  “I do. I was just enjoying talking to you. But I can do that over dinner.”

  “Well, we don’t have to go, you know. If you want to stay here, that’s fine with me. I’ve got crackers and cheese we can have with our drinks and frozen pizza we can have for dinner if that’s what you want to do.”

  “No, no, I’d like to go out for dinner. Assuming you do.”

  “I do. I’m ready.”

  “Then why aren’t you moving?” I asked.

  Nancy smiled. “Because I’m waiting for you to. You really don’t want to go, do you?” she added a second later.

  “I want to if you want to.”

  She smiled again. “I’d rather stay here,” she admitted.

  “Me too.”

  “Does this mean we can sit down now?” Nancy asked.

  I started to laugh. “I think so.”

  “And I can get out of these high heels and into something comfortable?”

  “That too.”

  “Good. Then take off your jacket and tie and make yourself something to drink. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  She opened the closet, took something off a hanger and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I laid my jacket and tie over the back of the armchair and stood in the living room doorway, uncertain as to whether I should start rummaging through Nancy’s closet for something to drink or wait for her. After a second of deliberation, I decided to wait and went over to the couch to sit down.

  A minute later, Nancy emerged from the bathroom with her dress and slip over her arm. She pulled a hanger out of the closet for the dress and hung her slip on a hook. Then she turned and came into the living room.

  The transformation was startling. Instead of a black cocktail dress and black high heels, she now wore a faded denim work shirt, probably her
father’s or her brother’s, and many sizes too big for her. The shoulders came a third of the way down to her elbows, and the shirttails came almost to her knees. She had left the top two buttons undone, and she was barefoot. She looked…undressed. Yet she wasn’t. The shirt and bare feet gave her a totally relaxed look, but her make-up and hair were just as they were before and added an elegant dimension to her appearance.

  “You look beautiful,” I said to her softly as she walked over to the couch. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  “Yeah, right,” Nancy replied, oblivious to the effect she was having on me. “Don’t you want something to drink?”

  “I do. I was just waiting for you to get dressed. Or undressed. I’m not sure which you did.”

  “Is this okay?” Nancy asked, suddenly serious. She held out the side of the shirt between a thumb and forefinger. “I can put something else on if you want.”

  “No, you don’t have to change,” I said, shaking my head and smiling at her obvious concern. “I meant it when I said you look beautiful. You really do. It’s just that you also look…sexy. Very sexy, as a matter of fact. That’s all I was trying to say.”

  Nancy looked hard at me for a few seconds and then started to head back into the kitchen. “I’m going to pour myself a Chardonnay. What can I get for you?”

  “I’ll have some Chardonnay too if you have enough.”

  “Oh, I have enough. Not much for dinner, but lots of Chardonnay.”

  She came back a few minutes later, a glass of wine in each hand, and sat down next to me. We touched glasses and took a sip.

  “This is good,” I said after the first swallow. “And this is good.”

  “What’s good?”

  “The wine and being here. With you. Just the two of us. Not having to sit up and behave in a restaurant.”

  “Sit up and behave? What do you mean?”

  “Oh, that’s just an expression my folks used when I was little and started to get fidgety at the dinner table. I’d be told to ‘Sit up and behave.’ In no uncertain terms, I might add. So I think of going to a restaurant as meaning I have to sit up and behave.”