by John Herbert
Her apartment was on West 73rd Street, she said. Apartment 3B. I told her I wasn’t familiar with the west side of Manhattan and asked if she would mind making dinner reservations for us. She assured me that wasn’t a problem. A new restaurant had opened a few weeks ago around the corner from her apartment, and she’d been anxious to try it out. We could go there if that was all right with me. I told her that was fine.
The buildings on Kate’s end of West 73rd Street were all five- and six-story turn-of-the-century brownstones, ranging from exquisite to neglected, each with high ceilings, tall windows and a flight of steps leading up to the front door. Kate’s apartment was in one of the better ones.
I arrived promptly at seven-thirty, climbed the steps to a set of wood and glass double doors, and stepped into a small vestibule. I pressed the buzzer for Apartment 3B and heard Kate’s voice on the speaker. She’d be down in a minute, she said. She’d ask me up, but two of her roommates were still getting dressed and, well, I understood, she was sure.
A minute later, Kate McPherson stepped out of the elevator.
Kate was different. I think she was a year or two older than I was, and she was a big woman, solidly built and at least five-ten in her heels. She worked as a personal shopper for wealthy women at one of New York’s leading department stores, and as a result she was high fashion—very stylishly dressed, very well made up. With shoulder-length, deep red hair, she was stunning.
Kate was different, and so was our evening. We had dinner at the new restaurant, a dark, quiet establishment that did as nice a job on the food as they did with the atmosphere. After dinner, Kate suggested we have a drink at a lounge around the corner, and for the next hour and a half, we sat bathed in soft blue neon light, drinking Grand Marnier, listening to a jazz trio. When the trio took their second break, Kate said she had a surprise for me.
We walked five blocks south and then turned onto a side street. Midway down the street Kate went up to a steel door belonging to what I thought was a warehouse. She slapped hard on the door twice, and an imposing fellow pushed the door open. Kate said something to him, and within seconds we were walking down a long flight of stairs to a huge basement, easily the size of a basketball court, jammed with people dancing to a live hard rock band playing at earsplitting volume. We had a drink and danced to a couple of numbers as best we could, given the crush of people, until I signaled to Kate that I wanted to leave. We climbed back up to street level and stepped out into the quiet darkness.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I apologized, “but that was a little too loud and a little too crowded for me.”
“No, that’s all right,” Kate said, taking my arm. “It’s not that bad normally. I don’t know what the deal was tonight.”
We headed for the lights of 9th Avenue and then started to walk uptown towards Kate’s apartment.
“I hope you enjoyed tonight,” Kate said.
“I did. Very much. Tonight was the kind of night a guy like me from the suburbs could never pull off on his own. This was cool.” I gave a little bow. “And I thank you.”
“You are most welcome,” Kate replied, returning the bow in exaggerated fashion. “Now, on to more important things. Can I buy you a drink when we get back to my apartment?”
“Are your roommates dressed yet?”
Kate laughed. “They’re dressed and out for the rest of tonight, I’m sure. They’re stewardesses, so they’re not around much, but when they are, they really try to pack everything in they can.”
I looked at my watch. “God, I can’t believe it’s almost one-thirty.”
“Is that a no to the drink?”
“No, it’s not,” I said, feeling quite relaxed and happy at that moment. “Yes to the drink. To hell with the hour.”
We reached Kate’s building within a few minutes, and I followed her into the elevator. She punched 3, and a moment later we stepped out into a short, tiled hallway. She unlocked the door to her apartment, and I followed her inside.
From where I stood, I could see a living room and a hall onto which several doors opened, presumably from the bedrooms, the kitchen and the bathroom. The living room was sparsely furnished, with only a sofa along one wall and a bookcase and two armchairs along the other. Floor-to-ceiling windows at one end of the room afforded a view of the street below.
“If you need to use the bathroom, it’s the first door on your left,” Kate said, as she took off her coat. “Make yourself at home while I get comfortable, okay?”
“Will do,” I replied.
I took off my coat and jacket and looked around for someplace to hang them. Finding none, I laid them on one of the armchairs.
I walked down the hall to the door Kate had pointed to, opened it tentatively and confirmed it was in fact the bathroom. I quietly locked the door, lifted the toilet seat and took in the room around me. Shampoo bottles, hair spray cans, lipsticks, toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, hairbrushes, combs, and every other imaginable beauty product or hygiene product occupied every available horizontal surface. I was putting the toilet seat down when I noticed a red rubber bag hanging over the bathtub faucet and connected to a long rubber tube with a nozzle of some sort on the end.
“What the hell is that?” I wondered as I washed my hands. “A hot water bottle? Or…? No. Can’t be that…but I’ll bet it is.”
I shook my head and unlocked the bathroom door, feeling like I’d led a very sheltered life. Had I been sober, I probably would have felt less than comfortable.
I walked over to one of the living room windows and parted the curtains. I was peering down into the street when I heard a door close down the hall. I turned around, and a second later Kate walked into the living room—naked.
I knew my mouth was open, but I was powerless to close it and unable to say a word. So I just stared at her—first at her face, then at the rest of her—while Kate stood where she was in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, enjoying my reaction thoroughly.
Finally words came. “Jesus Christ, Kate,” I stammered. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I told you I was going to get comfortable,” Kate replied, smiling.
“Yeah, but…I mean you’re…you’ve got nothing on, Kate. And I feel a little weird standing here like this…looking at you.”
“Of course you do, silly. That’s because you still have your clothes on. Get undressed.”
I started to say something, but Kate had already turned away from me and was starting to take the cushions off of the sofa.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“I’m pulling out the sofa bed,” she said over her shoulder. “My bedroom’s a total disaster. I can’t bring you back there.”
She stood up and faced me, a cushion in one hand. “Are you going to get undressed,” she asked, “or do I need to help you?”
I felt like I was in another world, like this really wasn’t happening. But it was, so I started to undress. By the time I was down to my shorts, Kate had finished pulling out the sofa bed and was lying on her side, her head propped up on one elbow, watching me. As I put my shorts on the armchair, now piled with my clothes, she eyed me from head to toe, smiled and patted the bed next to her.
“Come here,” she said in a throaty whisper.
I lay down next to her and kissed her. She immediately wrapped an arm around my neck and returned the kiss hungrily, almost urgently. She kissed me once, twice, three times—deep, wet kisses—pressed her body against mine and draped one leg over my thigh.
But suddenly I was repulsed—by Kate’s nakedness, by her kisses, the smell of her perfume, the feel of her hair tumbling into my face, even by the weight of her leg on mine.
I disentangled myself from her and sat up quickly. “I’m sorry, Kate,” I heard myself saying, “but I can’t do this. It’s not right.”
“Don’t be silly,” she replied, sweeping her hair away from her eyes. “Of course it’s right.”
“No, it isn’t. But I can’t expect you to
understand that.”
“I think I do, though. What you don’t understand is you’re not married anymore, which is what makes this okay.”
I exhaled sharply as I got up off the bed and walked over to the chair where I’d hung my clothes. “This isn’t about my wife, Kate,” I said, pulling on my shorts. “Should be, but isn’t.”
Kate sat up and tucked one leg under the other. “Well, if this isn’t about her, then what is this about? Have I done something wrong? Is something wrong with me?”
“No, nothing’s wrong with you. And you haven’t done anything wrong. Other than shock the hell out of me.”
“Then why are you leaving? Why won’t you make love to me?”
“I told you, Kate. I can’t make love to you because…this doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t.”
I buttoned my pants and pulled up my fly.
“You can’t be serious,” Kate said incredulously.
“I’m afraid I am.”
I tucked in my undershirt. Kate looked down at one of her hands for a second before looking up at me again.
“I guess this is where I’m supposed to say I understand,” she said quietly.
“I think so, but then…I really don’t know what the rules are any more. I thought I knew how to behave in different situations, but I’m finding out that I don’t.”
I tucked my shirt into my pants and sat down on the now-empty chair to put on my shoes and socks. Kate sat on the bed watching me, making no attempt to cover herself.
I stood up, put on my jacket and draped my coat over my arm. “I…uh…gotta go,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the door.
Kate sat perfectly still.
“I didn’t mean to put you in this position,” I said. “I really didn’t.”
“What position did you put me in?”
“Well…you know…this.” I indicated her nudity with my free hand. “Without anything happening, I mean.”
“Hey, that’s life, I guess,” Kate said with a shrug.
“Yeah. Well…I…uh…don’t know whether to shake hands or give you a kiss or what.”
“Let’s just shake hands,” Kate replied flatly, and she extended her hand up to me.
Three minutes later, I reached the sidewalk in front of Kate’s building and started the two-block walk to my car. As I walked down the empty sidewalk, I tried to understand what had made me leave Kate. My adolescent fantasy could have come true tonight, I realized, but I’d run away. I wondered why, but the answer eluded me. Instead I found myself wondering where Nancy was at that moment.
Seventy-Five
Dave was wrong. Four dates with four very different women convinced me of that. Maybe he had been right in theory when he said I shouldn’t be seeing only one person, but I wasn’t living in theory. I was living in the shadow of Peg’s memory. Whenever I thought of her or looked at my children or at the woman who now managed my home, first sadness, then loneliness, then terror swept over me, and I felt an irresistible urge to run away, away from all the things that were not as they were supposed to be.
So I did. I ran away. But only to Nancy. Because only with Nancy could I forget. Theory be damned.
And some nights, even with Nancy, I couldn’t forget. The memories would be too much to handle; the tears would start, and they wouldn’t stop. Nancy would hold my hand or stroke my head, and she’d listen and let me cry. When I was finished crying, she’d tell me that she understood and that everything was going to be all right. And the storm would be over. For the moment.
But escape was essential. Escape from a world turned upside down. From a world of what had been but was no more. Escape to a place of warmth, understanding and safety.
Escape was non-negotiable. I had to be with Nancy to survive. I found that I could live in my new world, with all its darkness, but only, only, if I were able to rise to the surface now and then for a breath of the fresh air and a glimpse of the light that Nancy brought me.
Foolishly, I never thought about the effect my behavior was having on Nancy. I never reflected on how difficult it was for her to see me cry over the memory of a woman I still loved. I never wondered how long she’d be able to listen to me talk about Peg before she decided she couldn’t listen anymore. I never noticed she stopped asking questions about Peg, and I never saw how she looked at me sometimes. I never realized how deeply involved with me she was getting, which meant I didn’t worry about what might happen to her if things didn’t work out. I was like a drowning man—so terrified at the prospect of losing his own life that he endangers the life of the person who swims out to save him. I only knew I wanted to survive, and Nancy was making that possible.
But Nancy was no fool. She knew she was exposing herself to heartache, and she knew the emotional investment she was making would probably be for naught. But she ignored her concerns and fears. Instead she took our relationship and its risks one day at a time. She tried not to worry about the future and endeavored to enjoy the time we had together —for however long that turned out to be.
Nancy and I saw one another through November. We spent most of our time together alone, insulated. No one took notice of us. No one demanded either an explanation from us for our actions or retribution from us for having dared to ignore their conventions. Everyone—family and friends—simply left us alone—uncriticized, unaccountable—expecting me eventually to behave properly and us to go our separate ways.
But then came December, and December is different. December is a time for celebration. A time for parties. Christmas parties. New Year’s parties. A time of lights and carols and candles and presents. A time to eat and drink. A time to be with people celebrating a wonderfully religious time of year or a wonderfully sentimental time of year or both. A time to be with people celebrating the end of the year just past and the promise of the new year about to begin. December is not a time to be insulated or withdrawn. It’s a time for inclusion. A time to embrace the people you love and the people you like and even the people you just know in passing.
So in December, Nancy and I emerged and allowed ourselves to be drawn into the rhythm of the season. Friends extended holiday party invitations to us, and we accepted. First to Amy and Frank Bennett’s for a Christmas party the Saturday night before Christmas. Then to Bob and Audrey Weber’s for a cocktail party the Saturday night after Christmas. And then out to dinner with Beth and Dave Clayton on New Year’s Eve, to put 1980 behind us and step forward into 1981.
But emergence brought visibility. And visibility brought examination. And examination brought criticism. And criticism brought guilt…and pain. Much of the pain was caused by others. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes not. Some of the pain we created ourselves. The pain that each month brought—from January through the following December—took its toll on us, punished us and threatened to break us apart.
Seventy-Six
We sat across from one another in a booth at a diner a mile or so from Nancy’s apartment. Although it was only ten-thirty New Year’s Day morning, the diner was filled to capacity, and we had gotten the last table.
“You don’t look too good this morning,” I said to Nancy.
“I feel like hell. I was up all night crying. I didn’t sleep at all.”
“That explains your eyes then. They’re all swollen and bloodshot. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you really tied one on.”
“I wish I had. Maybe then everything that happened last night wouldn’t hurt so much.”
I reached across the table to take one of Nancy’s hands in mine, but she pulled her hand away and looked around the diner. She shook her head and sighed deeply.
“Last night with Dave and Beth was so bad…I can’t believe it. And then our conversation when we got back to the apartment…What a terrible New Year’s Eve.” She looked at me sadly. “Do you really have to go to lunch with your parents this afternoon? Can’t we spend the day together?”
“Nan, we talked about this last night. Do I hav
e to go? No. Do I want to go? Not really. But my folks asked me to go with them, and I said yes—I probably shouldn’t have, but I did—and I can’t back out now.”
“But they asked you to go so these friends of theirs can introduce you to their daughter. That’s why your parents asked you, and that’s why you’re going, and that’s what really hurts me.”
“I know, but I’ll only be there for a few hours, and I’m sure as hell not going to get involved with this woman.”
“That’s not the point,” Nancy said. “The point is you’re not going to be with me today because you’re spending the afternoon with another woman you haven’t even met.”
“Why are you getting so upset, Nan? You know I’ve seen other people over the past few months. What’s the big deal about this, other than we won’t be together this afternoon?”
“How would you feel if I went out with someone else? You wouldn’t like that one bit, would you? That’s the big deal.”
“Nan, I never said you couldn’t go out with other people. You just haven’t.”
“Are you saying you don’t care if I do?”
“I’m not saying I don’t care. All I’m saying is I wouldn’t get upset if you did. Not like you’re getting upset now. Sure, I’d prefer you didn’t go out with anyone else, but…I’d understand if you did.”
Nancy looked at me for several seconds and then stared at the open menu in front of her for half a minute before closing it.
“Let’s go,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “This isn’t getting either of us anywhere, and if I’m going to cry, I’d rather do it in my apartment. Alone.”
“You don’t want breakfast?”
She shook her head.
“Not even coffee?”
“I want to leave, and I want to be alone. Can we go now?”
I closed my menu and followed Nancy out to my car.
1981 was not starting out particularly well.
Seventy-Seven
Snow was falling steadily on Tuesday night, January 6th, as we traveled west from the Cleveland airport on our way to Toledo. We’d been on the road for forty-five minutes, but thanks to poor visibility and lower than normal speed on I-90, we’d gone less than forty miles, which meant we wouldn’t arrive at our hotel until well after midnight.