by gay walley
She caught a vision of herself in the mirror and she was surprised. She was not an oddity, but pretty, with a gentle smile, gentle hair, gentle eyes. She was healthy. She was lucky for that.
The next morning she put on her jeans, a pink sweater, sneakers, and took a walk by the sea. The sun sparkled on the water and the air was fresh and she felt herself expand. The sun fell on her face and she felt good, life was beautiful. Cars passed her by and she thought, What if David drove by? Probably a woman would be in his car. Even now, she could not face that. She passed the golf course, where he used to play with such passion. Duet knew nothing of golf but she could see that his swing had the perfection of a poem.
She would ride the golf cart with him and read a book. “Did you see that?” he’d yell excitedly. “Did you see that shot?” And inevitably she had missed it, deep into a story. She’d look across at him guiltily, and he’d laugh.
One time they had gone to a driving range together and she agreed to try swinging at some balls. She had been wearing a low cut sun dress and she only had bare feet and she swung away, a basket of balls by the tee. She finally looked over at him and there he was, holding his club, standing there strong and in the light, staring at her, along with every other man out there. They were all just watching her. She shrugged and went back to missing her shots. He told that story for years. They were young then, young and exquisite in the sun and in their loving being together.
She finally arrived at Good Harbor Beach and sat down. The sound of the waves crashing in was more melodic to her than any of the music she had ever played or listened to. For a second, she wished Oskar was with her. Would he like it too? Would she ever have that feeling again of sharing effortlessly and confidently? Well, yes, if Paula has her way. She’ll make sure Duet dates every man in New York until she meets one who wants to be with her. She smiled and thought, God, it’s good to be hopeful again.
On the walk back to her hotel room, she thought, Should I call David? But what would I say? Better to leave it alone and not go backwards. Her trainer at the gym, who annoyed her with his booming platitudes, always said, “Remember they call them exes for a reason.”
She lay down on the hotel room bed. Should she check her blackberry? No, sit through it, she told herself. Maybe Oskar emailed her. Maybe he didn’t.
She pulled out a book and began to read. My God, at least she hadn’t had to deal with hallucinations and mental illness. All she’d had was being a certain kind of guy’s wet dream. That’s how I should think of myself. As a walking wet dream. Now there’s a thought.
David used to tell her the same, but she was too young to believe him. When you’re young you focus on what’s wrong with you. Too big hips. Too small breasts. Not flat enough stomach and so on. Too many vaginas. The nights, the weeks she had thoughts of herself as a monster. As a teenager, she had literally thought of joining the circus, just to punish her parents. No one had told her why this happened to her. There wasn’t even anything about it on the net.
“You’re a sex bomb,” David had said. She had cringed then.
Lying on the hotel bed, she thought, Maybe I am.
That night she called information. No, no number for David Trecchio.
Well, that’s good. At two in the morning, she got her blackberry and emailed him.
At ten the next morning, she was washing her hair and reading in the bathtub when she heard a knock on her door.
“Who is it?”
“Room service.”
She smiled. “One minute.”
She quickly found her sexiest jeans, and put on the Prada heels, David had always loved heels, a white blouse and looked in the mirror, oh god may I not look too much older, and opened the door.
He filled up the doorway, so masculine, so steady. Then he smiled. Those blue eyes. That dark blue sweater. Is that one she bought? Couldn’t be.
“Took you long enough to get here, “ he said.
She laughed.
Then he turned from her and yelled, “Solo, over here,” and into her room ran an Australian blue haired heeler. David always had a dog. He used to rub their stomachs, “You’re such a handsome dog,” he’d say. Was he talking to himself? The dog was sniffing round her room and David yelled,“Get in the truck.”
“Who?” she asked. “Me or the dog?”
“Both of you.”
Nine:
He drove them out of town, the dog sighing in the backseat and then settling himself down, with his cone like head watching the world as it passed by, the white houses with their endless variety of porches, the rose bushes, the pine trees by the sea, the harbor, the fishing and sailboats, the cleaners and 7-11s, the few parents out with their rushing children, the roads.
“Where are we going?” she asked, putting her slim bare feet up on the truck dashboard.
“You’ll see.”
He had always loved surprises. He’d slip a box out of his pocket and it would be a gold necklace with an amythst or sapphire stone. He would send her flowers, or a piece of music he knew she liked. He knew how to love, such a beautiful trait, she thought. He rarely complained, even in prison, he never felt sorry for himself. “Can you imagine,” he’d say on one of his collect phone calls, “I am doing more time than rapists just for giving people the munchies?” He knew what deprivation was and he wasn’t about to complain about minor problems. If you needed him, he was there and he acted as if it was not an imposition. “I like solving problems,” she remembered him saying. ”That’s why I like you.”
He smiled at her. “You look great, honey.”
And he meant it, she knew, because he loved who she was. Her quirks. Her intensities. Her slight impatiences. Her kindness for strange people. Her arrogances. Her fears. They didn’t faze him. To David, to be a man was to be a man for a woman.
She felt inexpressibly happy riding next to him. He at the wheel, like the old days, a dog in back, the sun and the sea nearby.
“ So what have you been doing,” she asked, “over the past six years?”
“ I bought a house. A condo in West Palm Beach. It’s beautiful. You should go. Right on the water. It looks like Rio from the window.”
He had a way, she knew, of going for it.
“My daughter is grown up. First she was with the Peace Corps, now she’s teaching in China. She’s doing fantastically. I just took a trip with her to Vietnam. She’s like a human Rosetta Stone when it comes to ordering in Asian restaurants.”
“Wow.”
“It’s all good,” he said.
“ Women? “she asked. She didn’t want to, but she had to.
“There’s always girls around, you know that.”
“For you, yes.”
“I’m sure you have a slew of men.”He looked at her questioningly. He was doing reconnaissance. But then so was she.
She thought she would outsmart him. He would never tell her the truth on his own. He was a wonderful person, but he also was a manipulator. Maybe she was too.
“I saw Charlie,” she said, “and he told me about your girlfriend. “
David smiled, holding on to the wheel, and took a drag from a menthol cigarette. She didn’t know one person in New York who still smoked. “Nice try but he didn’t.”
“He did,” she asserted. “Why do you think he didn’t?”
“ Because I don’t have a girlfriend. I’d rather play golf.”
“ Don’t you want to get married again?” she asked. He’d had two wives. She doubted he wanted to get married again. Few men after losing everything, their money and their trust, want to go through it again.
“The only woman I would marry is you.”
Why did he say things like that? For the effect or did he mean it?
“But you’re a big city girl,” he said. “You couldn’t live here.”
“No,” she said, looking out at the old circle where each road went to a different beautiful beach or cove.
“I love it but I am hooked on the adrenalin.�
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“All girls love cities,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
“Not all girls.”
“Well all girlie girls,” he said.” The women round here look like he-shes.”
He was trying to derail her. So let him.
She immediately recognized that they were pulling up to a breakfast place by the sea they used to go to. Right on the water. They jumped out. Solo too. And got a table near the door so Solo could wrestle about outside watching them. David ordered her a coffee, then ordered fruit for her since that was what she always used to order. She felt herself leaning toward him.
“I have kind of stayed away from men,” she said, “because of…”
“ Honey, most men are going to like your build.” His eyes lit up.
“ Maybe. But I have to deal with their dealing with it and I hate it.”
“ What do you mean? What do they do?” he asked. He always asked.
“ People are scared of what’s different. Do I have more sex drive? Am I voracious? You know… and then –“
“They leave you for a normal woman…” he said.
“They have to,” she said. “Who wouldn’t?”
“I never did.”
She studied how his blue eyes burned through whatever he looked at. Was that what scared her? “Your whole life has been about what’s different. Growing Marijuana. I don’t know,” she said.
“So then why did you leave me?” he asked, “if I like what’s different…”
She hesitated.
“Didn’t like what was different about me?” he asked, smiling.
“Maybe I did have a craving for some kind of normalcy, given it wasn’t my birthright. It’s possible,”she said.
“ That’s not fair of me,” he said. “I was a mess then. Living a silly life. I was lost. You couldn’t handle it. Nobody could. I couldn’t.”
She said nothing. There was some truth to that. But it wasn’t the only truth.
“ I wasn’t ready David to be involved with anyone.”
“So tell me about your work,” he said, changing the subject. There was nowhere to go in this conversation unless they were really going to go there. And neither of them were ready for that.
And so she told him about her work. He nodded. He listened. She opened up.
“Tell me about your music,” he said.
And she began. She told him she was writing small pieces on the piano.
“Hum one,” he said.
And she did, as the waiter picked up her fruit bowl and his empty plate with only scattered remnants of pancake, bacon, and eggs. “ It’s really much better than that,” she said, when she was finished.
“I’m sure.” He smiled. He too was happy sitting there with the one woman he felt he was himself with. She knew him. She used to call him Finnish ice, with 7/10th of him under the surface. Most people only understood 1/10th of him. She had chipped away to understand more.
Then she suddenly grabbed his cashmere arm and put her head down on it.
That night he stayed at the hotel with her but they didn’t make love. They snuggled and ordered up pay per view movies and ordered in food and Solo either jumped on the bed or lay next to the bed and carried over, between his teeth, his bowl of food so he could be next to them. David would pretend he was going to attack her and Solo would jump up to protect her. David found this amusing. She looked at them, two protecting dogs, she thought.
Later that night, she took Solo out for a moonlit walk. David had always hated walking. So she and the dog went out, exploring the sea and the rocks, the mournful sound of the foghorn in the distance. She loved calling out “Solo” as if in counterpoint to the horn, and there the dog would appear, running up from some unexpected place of digging.
She came back into the room. “Get in here honey,” he said, and she got into bed and she ran her hands over his naked body and he put his big arm round her and he was beautiful and she did not know why they didn’t make love but they didn’t. It was as if they couldn’t go through the pain of separation if they did get involved.
She had told him when they were driving she didn’t want a long distance relationship. He listened. He didn’t argue or try and talk her into one. He seemed to accept that this was all they could have. It made her feel he had someone there or maybe he just didn’t want anyone. She would never know.
He stayed the whole weekend and drove her to the bus on Sunday. They never slept together but he talked to her as she took a bath in the morning, they took drives, they held each other, they ate, and it was as if no time at all had passed since they had seen each other, no time at all.
Ten:
She returned to New York, her face slightly tanned from the sun, her freckles shining, making her look even healthier. She bought a pair of tight jeans and threw out her old maroon sweater. She would find something hipper, more stunning. She bought herself a form fitting white t-shirt, expensive hoop earrings, high heeled sandals with jewels on them.
She noticed that she no longer heard from Oskar and it made her a bit sad but he had never really indicated that he was that interested in her.
“Maybe it’s a strategy,” Paula said.
“Some strategy. Hurting someone.”
“I agree,” Paula said.
Duet needed to find someone who loved her, as David had once loved her, Paula said. It could be possible.
“Are you still meeting new guys?” Duet asked.
“I cancelled my subscription. I am just going to be with Lars.”
“Oh how wonderful,” Duet said. “It’s amazing how easily that worked out. I mean you didn’t even date a lot of men who turned you off. “
“I know. It’s great. I see him every night. I just gave up my apartment.”
Duet turned around toward her, “What do you mean? You’re moving in with him?”
“No. I’m moving near him. Round the corner. I found a studio there.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I want to be near him. Now we can walk over to each other any minute we want to. We can be together as much as we like. You need to find someone who loves you like Lars loves me. You should see how he looks at me. Sometimes he says, ‘I could cry looking at you. You’re so beautiful. ‘ Isn’t that gorgeous?”
“Yes,” Duet said, “Not bad. “ She fiddled around at her desk and then said, “I’m going downstairs to get a coffee. Want one?”
“Nope, I don’t like coffee as much as you do.”
Duet then left, walked through the office, went down the elevator and found herself standing outside. Okay, she said to calm herself down, I can accept I am meant to be alone. I will get used to it in time. She turned to go into the coffee shop and debated buying some blueberries from their buffet area.
She dialed Paula from her cell as she stood in line to pay. She had wanted to say, Paula*** you’re going a bit fast with this Lars business, but Paula was so happy. Maybe true love did go fast. “ Do you need help moving?” she asked, instead.
“No, Lars is paying for it.”
“Great.”
“You’ll have to meet him,” Paula said. “Maybe we can all get together. I’ll ask him. He wants to meet my friends.”
“Okay. Set it up,” Duet said and then hung up. “See you back upstairs in a minute.”
That night she went home feeling dejected. Maybe she should move, start some kind of new life. She stopped off at the Food Emporium and thought she’d get some fruit. She was ambling around when she heard a deep Southern voice. “What do you think are better? The raspberries or the blueberries? Or the blackberries?”
Startled, she turned around. The man asking her was so stunning in his height, smile, dark eyes, even- featured face that Duet had to tell herself to focus. She blushed. He smiled. “Well?”
“Quite some accent,” she said, idiotically.
“I’m from Mississippi originally,” he said as if it was a line of music.
“Oh.”
&nb
sp; They stood there. ‘How about, how about I take you out for dinner rather than we eat this stuff?” he asked. “This stuff is disgustingly healthy, don’t you think?”
“Now?” she smiled.
“Why not?”
“Okay.” She couldn’t believe it.
“Do you live near here?” he asked. “I guess you must do.”
She nodded.
“Me too,”he said. “On 13th. Let’s go to the Italian place there, I forget the name. Near Souen. We can sit by the window. They know me.”
“Okay.”
Why was she so tongue tied?
As they walked the two blocks, he said, “I guess since we’re having dinner together, we could break down and tell each other our names.” It was odd walking with someone so unusually tall, she noticed.
“Good idea,” she laughed. “Duet.”
“Mitchell. Mitch,” I mean.
No comment from him on her name and she liked that.
Over dinner, he told her he came from LA (“and I don’t mean Lower Alabama”), and he had just moved here. He had been an actor, and that made sense with his voice. He was now in the clothing business. Designed men’s wear that was being picked up by Nordstrom’s and other stores. On the verge, he said.
“It’s wild to be settling down into a business that might work,” he added.” You know I have never owned much, always lived like I could be leaving any minute.”
Once again she nodded, not knowing why he brought that up but he could be reciting the phone book and she would have been happy listening.
“I mean I’ve never committed to anyone,” he added.
How odd she thought. He is smart and attractive and creative. Why would he never commit? At least, she thought, in her case, she has an excuse. She’s deformed. Hardly his problem. What’s his reason? Maybe artistic people have trouble committing. They feel on the outside too much, like she does.
He certainly had his own “look.” He kept woolen gloves on during dinner, with naked fingertips extending out of the black wool. He even kept his cap on. It didn’t detract from his charisma, but she wondered about it.