by Nick Totem
19
“Why didn’t you finish school?”
“Be careful. Don’t press a lady too hard, Thomas,” Lana said.
They were back in the hotel, lying in bed facing each other, and under the watchfulness of the round mirror, Thomas had been nudging her to tell him more.
“I’m sorry. I’m just curious that’s all. It’s not just any second rate college, it’s Stanford we’re talking about.”
“Well, a lot happened after I got together with Cristiano. We got engaged at the end of my third year. I was delving into his world. It’s really hard to describe how I felt, how I was swept away by his youthful reverie and optimism. You know, he could trace his lineage to an explorer, a governor of one of the earliest colonies in America. Outside of school, he introduced me to his world at night, a Latin night club in San Francisco. He played in a Latin ensemble with three other musicians and a female vocalist; it was quite beautiful. They could almost resurrect the air of the favelas of Argentina and the rhythm of the samba, rumba, and tango. Sometimes he led in with the violin, and at other times he picked the guitar, harmonizing with the bass, the piano, and bandoneon. He would look at me and nod during the most passionate part of the tango. I could sit there and absorb the flavor of all that—the music mixed with the smell of rum and tequila and cigars wafting in from the backroom—but a girl in a nightclub couldn’t sit still for long. Soon enough, I found myself on the dance floor learning the steps of the tango.
“I later found out that by doing gigs in nightclubs, Cristiano earned some money to pay for room and board. But more than that, by working in the clubs, he could be close to the life of the working people that he’d seen during his travels. He said he heard the voice of God in the quotidian struggle. Even though he was constantly in need of money, he had an utter contempt for it. People who were chasing after money were headless chickens; he viewed it as a disease that has been infecting people from the very beginning, passing from one generation to another, making them all headless chickens. He had quite a theory regarding monetary behavioralism, otherwise known as the headless chicken monetary theory. Haha . . .
“But everything was secondary to his music composition. His brilliance was tremendous. He composed, first and foremost, every day, and then he would do other things, like eating or sleeping. He told me to imagine rows and rows of violins, violas, cellos, and basses, that together come alive as a swarm of insects or sparrows, or a quadrillion raindrops falling on tin roofs, or the interminable waves lapping on the beach, or the cosmic wind at the edge of the universe. That was his ‘String Symphony.’
“Sometimes he played a new piece for me. Sometimes I wrote him a poem.
“We came together through Christmas break and well into the following year. We moved in together and planned for a small wedding . . . Then things began to change that summer. Something happened, I still don’t know what. He began to change and one day he was just gone. That summer I went looking for him. I never went back to school.”
Her voice faltered at times as if with pain. She seemed to have relived the emotions, touch, smell, and happiness, the things that Thomas, stranding on the other side of a barrier, could never breach.
Through the window, the darkening sky was lit by the faintest blue, and the melancholy of the sky seeped into the bedroom and held them spell-bound. There were many questions still that Thomas wanted to ask, yet he couldn’t get himself to say anything. Her story left him feeling like an intruder. Most men would not want to hear about his woman’s ex-fiancé, but Thomas didn’t mind because Cristiano had disappeared. From Lana’s description, he realized that Lloyd had been right, that he could never measure up to Cristiano.
“Well, let’s get going.” Suddenly she got up. “I’m fully rested now, Thomas. The booze is gone and so is the food. Darling, I can’t talk anymore.”
“Sure.” He got up as well.
Thomas took a shower first. As usual, Thomas put on a dark, striped suit and a white dress shirt, and wound a wool scarf around his neck. He wiped his glasses.
Then exiting the bathroom, Lana went to the mirror and stood in front of it to examine her dress. The dress was light turquoise and had a velvety shine, contrasting the paleness of her shoulder and her upper chest, and went just below her knee and gloved her body finely. Against the white skin of her face, red lipstick brought out her lips.
God, she is beautiful, Thomas thought
Then she put on a necklace of rubies. The chain was so fine that the rubies appeared to be floating. Next, a pair of silver earrings. She turned this way and that, examining herself. At last, she turned to him and said, “Please darling, zip me up.”
He came up behind her, and as he zipped up her dress, he smelled her perfume. He touched her hair lightly before stepping back.
Abruptly an inadequacy came over him, an inadequacy that must have existed since the beginning of man and in which all men must partake at some time in their lives if they are lucky enough to be in love. It reminded him that maybe Quattleberns was right, that she was out of his league.
They left the hotel, and Thomas’s inadequacy became a full fledged moroseness that seemed to merge with the evening fog.
“I love this fog,” Lana said. “Darling, do you mind if we walk?”
“Are you sure you won’t be cold?” He adjusted her scarf. She was wearing a Celine gray wool coat that reached to her thigh.
“I’m fine. As long as you’re warm enough.”
Going away from the wharf, they headed up hill on Hyde St. He held her hand. He was glad that it was already dark so she couldn’t see his expression. Cold air blew up behind them, and the fog wavered under the streetlight. Though he held her hand as he walked, he was thinking as intensely, as though he was alone. Until she held him back.
“Thomas, I can’t walk anymore.” She laughed lightly. “I’m sorry but my feet hurt. I can’t manage this hill in . . . heels of all things.”
“Let’s see if we can catch a taxi, or Uber.”
“That’d be great.” She took off her shoes—black heels with string straps—and inspected them. “I’m surprised they’re not broken already.”
The street was nearly deserted, and only an occasional car passed by. Toward the Bay, they could see through the fog the strings of white lights of the Bay Bridge, hanging from the suspension cable. Such a nocturnal wonder could only happen in San Francisco. An exquisite forlornness emerged in the view, such transient beauty struck them both, drawing them as they leaned toward one another. Thomas put his hand behind her and pulled her in, inhaling her perfume. She turned her head and rested on his shoulder.
“We’ll have to wait for a car,” he said. “Or . . . or . . . I can carry you.”
“What?” she gasped.
“You can hop on my back.”
“Hah,” she giggled, “It’d be delightful, but are you sure? I can walk barefoot.”
“Of course. What man wouldn’t want to carry a damsel in distress?” He bent over, putting his hands on his knees to steady himself.
“I’ve been carried like this before but only by my father. Can I trust that you won’t carry me off to a harem?”
“You can trust me with your life.”
“But I’m wearing a dress, Thomas.”
“Just roll it up or something.”
She giggled and wiggled the dress up, until her panties were nearly showing. “I hope no one will see me like this.” Holding her shoes in her hands, she jumped on him and inched her way up his back, all the while giggling deliriously. Once she was in place, with her arms over his shoulders and her face next to his ear, she whispered, “I’m ready.”
“Okay, here we go.”
Slowly, he took steady steps up the hill. All proceeded well. They got to the first stop sign. Then up another block to the second stop sign, he began to breathe more heavily.
A faint mustiness rose from his hair, and she let his thick hair brush against her cheek. She kissed his ear lightly and whispered, “You
sweet, sweet man.”
At the top of the hill was Union St. He put her down. “Ah, you weigh a ton.”
“Haha. Thank you, darling. Where to now?”
“Down that way.”
By Washington Square, there was a grand cathedral painted in white. The fog hid the spire in a morphing sfumato, evoking the mysterious in onlookers.
“I don’t think I’ve been to this part of San Francisco before.” Lana stood still and observed the cathedral.
Thomas came up behind her and turned his eyes toward the cross perched on top of the spire.
“I feel I should go inside and confess,” she said.
“Let’s go inside . . . and get married.”
“Now that’s a reckless idea.”
She turned around, her face bright with a smile, perhaps to say something hilarious, but she encountered his serious face. “This fog is really getting into your head, darling.” She moved past him, tugging him along. “Come. I’m famished.”
He followed her. “I’m serious, you know.”
“I tried to do just that and it didn’t work out so well for me.”
“I did that and it didn’t work out well for me, either,” he said with jocular tone.
“When you know all about me you won’t want to marry me.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I bet you I would.”
She squeezed his hand. “What are we eating?”
The restaurant served upscale French fare. Inside the warmth was a welcome change. Eyes were raised to her as they were seated. As he walked behind her to the table and sat across from her, that sweet buoyancy of being lifted high returned strongly but now the sensation was much richer and warmer, anchored by the privilege of knowing the depth of her past and his admiration for her intelligence. They ordered a steak and a duck breast and a bottle of Syrah Hermitage, and of course an onion soup. If she were ever to consent, would he really marry her after knowing her for such a short time? The question crossed his mind.
“Here, try this. Quite delicious.” She put a piece of duck breast on his plate. “It is the small gestures that tell of a great love,” she said with an impish smile.
“Or sometimes it’s just one big one.”
“Haha, true enough, darling.”
At times during the meal they were deep in their own thoughts, exchanging glances, or she would give him the now familiar half smile.
“There is something you should know about me. Do you know what BRCA is?” she said with a serious face and watched him for the faintest reaction, as if she was testing him.
“What?” His head popped up. “Isn’t that the breast cancer gene?” His jaw dropped. “Oh my God.”
“Yes, I have it. My fraternal twin, Bethany, has it, too. Our family have known their devastating effects first hand. Before our mother was diagnosed, our parents had spoken of another distant cousin succumbing to the disease. A young, beautiful woman in the prime of her years. Our grandmother also died young, but she died of ovarian cancer. Other family members had died of pancreatic and prostate cancers. It’s a disease spectrum—breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate cancers, but you must know all about it.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with it. Poor baby. How long have you known?”
“Since high school. We had our mother’s DNA analyzed. She passed away in her early thirties. Our mutation is bad. It has high penetrance, concurrence of different cancers, and extremely aggressive disease processes with early distant metastasis.”
“I’m so sorry. Is that why you were seeing the doctor in my building?”
“Yes. I knew I would have to have mastectomies, but just to hear it from the doctor, I lost it. My mind went blank. After I left his office, I sat there like a ghost. That was when you met me . . . Do you still want to marry me?”
“Of course. Don’t worry, baby. I’ll help you through.”
She smiled.
Then came a cheese plate and creme brulé and espresso.
“Tell me about your ex-wife,” she said suddenly.
“Hah. My ex. Hm, that’s awkward.”
“I’ve shared with you all about mine.”
“What would you like to know?” He leaned forward as he spoke. “She is very good with money. She didn’t have much when she married me, but she was good at making money and spending money. She has an MBA. She made a lot of money from her pharmaceutical business, more than I can ever make from being a doctor. Money changed her. She wasn’t the same after making a lot of money, and we became two very different persons. She likes spending her time with the money-men.”
“I’m sorry, Thomas. I’ll never be able to make that kind of money. Though I have spent enough time with money managers and their talk of hedging and derivatives and fees to know something of it, money just makes my head spin.”
“Mine, too. But don’t worry, I don’t care about that. In fact, when we divorced I left her eighty percent of everything.”
“That’s the right thing to do if she’d made most of it. Otherwise, I imagine it’d cause a lot of resentment.”
“Exactly, I thought the same. Another reason is that I wanted a quick divorce. I had waited six years already, hoping to have a child. I didn’t want to give her another reason to fight. With the majority of the money, she’d be happy to let go, and I was right. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I volunteered for Iraq because I wanted to get away from her . . . What else about her. A feminist to the core. Stubborn as nails. Argumentative as hell. Never yielding even a quarter of an inch. But very diplomatic all the same, friendly to everyone. I’m not sure why we got together, even less why we kept it up, except for my hope to have my own children someday.”
“Then why did you get together? It appears that you were acting blindly.”
“Yes, sometimes things just happen, happen too fast, you know. It was the thing to do at the time, when I was much younger, before I knew what to think, how to think. And when I got older, I didn’t see the point any longer.”
“What about now? Are you acting blindly now?”
“No. Lana, I’m so in love with you, but I also see so clearly. I see you, I see where we’ll be in thirty years. We’ll take care of your medical problem together. We’ll both be old and wrinkly, but I can’t wait to prove to you, that I’ll love you all the same, just as I do now.”
“That’s a lovely thought, Thomas. It’s a lovely human thought.”
“It’s my thought, Lana. I know you’re very smart, and you can see things through, but I swear to you, I can see it so clearly.” Across the table he took her hand, and looking up at her, he said, “Lana, I don’t have Lloyd’s wealth, or Cristiano’s talent, but whatever I have is yours.”
“Oooohh.”
“What I have is a lot of foolishness. A ton of it.”
“I’ll take it. Foolishness with a dash of luck is courage.”
It was past nine o’clock when they left the restaurant.
Outside the fog had cleared up, and in its stead the sweet languor of a San Francisco night seemed to seize the air itself.
Later that night they made love with the light on. Thomas turned her this way and that way as if to inspect precious merchandise. He kissed every inch of her, and his hand traced the length of her soft skin. He breathed in her perfume, her breath. A melange of sensuality, passion, and some indescribable desperation surged from him in waves as she yielded with giggles and moans. When he entered her, the softest tenderness was punctuated with a savage intensity. He clung to her, as though he was in prison, a confinement not of concrete walls and metal bars, but one in which if he were to wander the earth, he would never find an exit, save through her.
20
Midmorning the next day when Thomas woke up, Lana was gone. His eyes opened to silence. Bright light warped the edges of the window blinds. The wrinkles in the sheet where she had lain teased his reality, and his hand, moving over the sheet, touched the wrinkles she had made. By the clock on the night stand, it was nine thirty, but he
was still sleepy. All night long happiness had kept him in semiconsciousness, pulling him back from restful sleep, making him want to wake up to confirm that she was next to him. A while before he had heard Lana moving about and then the door opening and closing, and he had turned and buried his face in the pillow, abandoning himself to deep sleep, feeling safe and happy, knowing his love had awoken first. Perhaps she had gone for a cup of coffee.
He caught the elevator down and greeted a couple of strangers cheerfully. In the hotel lobby, he headed to the restaurant, expecting the full pleasure of her smile. At the entrance to the restaurant he stood adjusting his glasses and looked about. Several tables were taken up by groups of people having breakfast. The smell of toast and scrambled eggs made him hungry, but he looked over the restaurant one more time and went out.
After taking a few steps along the sidewalk, he decided to call Lana. The call went straight to the voicemail, eerily reminding him of the day when she had disappeared. He let out an uneasy breath and texted her: Baby, where are you?
He walked on, merging with the morning activities, the shops opening, the early tourists entering and exiting the breakfast joints. He could almost see her black hair, her face bright with the morning at any moment; perhaps she was window-shopping or taking a morning stroll, though he had no particular reason for thinking so. Passing through a long stretch of shops and restaurants, he saw the bakery where they had had breakfast yesterday and went in. The sight of the food no longer stoked his appetite, and he went upstairs to the same table they had sat the day before. To each woman there, he threw a cursory glance. Seeing no sign of her, he exited through the back. He passed the shops offering trinkets, the fast food restaurants, and the art galleries that they had entered the day before on their “Art and Booze Tour.” After a short distance, he came across a panhandler, dressed in a dirty brown coat that went to his knees, leaning against the wall and extending an open palm to passersby. Thomas gave him a five dollar bill, noting how the man looked oddly similar to his brother John.
The sky over the San Francisco Bay was clear and blue, and in the sunlight, the Golden Gate Bridge glowed red. Thomas found a bench and sat looking out at the water. The morning air was cold and refreshing and smelled of sea life.