What You Remember I Did

by Janet Berliner

  Actually, she observed with pleasure, Matt did remind her a bit of James Mason; he had that same nearly-palpable sexual tension. He'd traded the denim shirt and jeans for a good-looking navy blazer over a silvery-gray polo-neck sweater and, in the low yellow light, his brown eyes looked dark and mysterious, his jaw more square. "Matt," she said, hoping she didn't sound nervous. "Come in."

  "Hi." He was carrying flowers. Roses. Two-dozen long-stemmed roses, one white and one yellow, in the crooks of his arms like twin infants. Forced to turn a little sideways to keep the flowers from brushing the doorframe, he handed the yellow ones to her. "These made me think of you." For a moment he met her gaze. "And these–" looking past her–"are for your mother."

  "They're beautiful. Please, make yourself comfortable. I–I'll go find a vase–Mother's–." She was stammering as if she'd never received flowers before. Gary, in fact, had often brought her flowers. She collected herself. "Matt, listen. I'm afraid we can't go out tonight after all. Something's come up and Becca can't stay with Mother, and I can't leave her alone."

  Matt looked crestfallen. Nan was about to suggest they stay at the house for dinner, though she knew her mother would take center stage, when Catherine swept out of her room in a cloud of rose perfume and white taffeta. Her thick white hair hung down her back in elaborate ringlets, and scarlet lipstick and the silver eye shadow had been liberally applied. "Heavens, I am perfectly capable of staying by myself! Whatever are you thinking? You two young people just go on and have fun! I'll be fine!"

  There was no purpose in debating the point. Nan started to make introductions, but Matt had already said, "You must be Catherine," and Catherine had already said, "You must be Dr. Mullen," and they'd both said, "I've heard so much about you."

  "Please. It's Matt," he said. He handed her the white roses. "These are for you."

  "Oh, they're exquisite! And aren't you charming, Dr. Mull–Matt? Nan, darling, could you get that red crystal vase?" Nan and Becca exchanged glances. Their mother never called her children "darling."

  "Has anyone ever told you, Sir, that you have an air about you of James Mason?"

  "Has anyone ever told you, Madame, that you look like the wonderful Ms. Bergman, with whom I have been in love forever?"

  Catherine preened. Nan took the white roses and exited with both bouquets into the kitchen to look for vases and check the refrigerator for something interesting and uncomplicated she could throw together for dinner, omelets maybe, with mushrooms and sautéed potatoes. A bottle of wine; a salad.

  She stayed in the kitchen longer than necessary, fussing with the flowers though her mother would re-arrange them anyway. Judging by the chatter from the living room, her mother and Matt didn't need her there to keep things going. There was no telling what would happen if she stayed away for a while, but whatever it was would be interesting. Their animated conversation both pleased her and made her nervous. She loved it that her mother and Matt seemed to be enjoying themselves, and she prayed her mother wouldn't say or do anything too embarrassing.

  To Nan's immense relief, the two of them were engaged in a perfectly polite conversation about an antique pocketknife. She watched from the kitchen as he pulled it out. Gold, small and delicate, it might be used by a man who studied old books, did calligraphy, and smoked a Meerschaum. "My great grandfather left it to me, along with a matching gold pocket watch," Matt was telling a rapt Catherine. "Swiss movement. Works as well as it ever did."

  Catherine took his hand in both of hers on the transparent pretext of examining the watch. "Really, this is quite exquisite," she crooned. "They don't make things like this anymore, do they?"

  Nan set a tall vase of roses on each of the ledges flanking the bay window. They did look lovely. She took a deep breath and turned to look at Matt, hoping he'd pick up from her the same unspoken message she'd caught from him at the reading the other night: Help me out here. "Would you care to join us for an omelet?"

  "Sure," Matt said at once, and, though Nan was pleased, it was Catherine who clapped her hands.

  They made it through dinner with nothing more embarrassing than a few off-color jokes from Catherine, set-ups and punch lines so botched there was no way to know when to laugh and when to blush. Ashley called as they were lingering over coffee and Oreos, the only thing Nan had been able to come up with for dessert on the spur of the moment. She spent a few minutes talking to her and then to Jordan, both of whom seemed particularly eager to chat. Usually Nan would have liked that, but tonight she was determined to spend at least a little while with Matt Mullen, who was, after all, her date. When she could do so without being too obvious about it, she called Catherine to the phone. As the older woman took the receiver, she pinched Nan's cheek and said in a not very sotto voce, "Ooh, Nanny, you got yourself a hot one this time. But there's something about his son. Find out what that's about."

  Nan grabbed another two cookies, knowing they wouldn't help her already wired state of mind. "Sorry," she said to Matt, partly ingenuously and partly to see where a conversation about children would lead. "That was my daughter and granddaughter. We're pretty close."

  That shadow passed over Matt's face again. "You're lucky."

  "You and your son are–not close?"

  "Not very."

  "Do you get to see your grandchildren?"

  "I've never met my daughter-in-law or the grandchildren. My grandson is five but–."

  "–Oh," Nan said. "I'm sorry."

  "So am I." Matt pushed back his chair and began clearing the table.

  After a moment, Nan stood up, too, stuffing one more cookie into her mouth as she collected silverware. Going to and fro to the kitchen, they passed each other, and Matt flashed her a grin over a stack of dishes. "So how am I doing? I think your mother likes me."

  "My mother has the hots for you."

  Carefully he set the dishes down. Then he put his hands on Nan's shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth.

  It was a short kiss. Too short. She took his face in her hands and kissed him back. "My mother," she murmured when she could catch her breath, "is a smart lady."

  Catherine joined them in the kitchen, puttering around, doing little of anything. The three of them sang as they cleaned up the kitchen, discovering that among them they knew songs from six decades. Nan and Catherine delighted Matt by performing an entire scene from Some Like It Hot. Matt delighted them by reciting "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" and, in a charming if exaggerated burr, "O' My Heart Is Like a Red, Red Rose." By the time the dishwasher was running and the counters wiped down, spirits were high, and Nan had resigned herself to a threesome for the evening.

  But Catherine extended a demure hand to Matt. "It's been a delightful evening, my dear poet. Now I must retire to get my beauty sleep."

  He bent over her hand. "Dear lady, the pleasure has been mine, and you have no need for beauty sleep."

  Catherine patted his cheek and came to Nan to hug her good-night and whisper, "Have fun!" With a toss of drooping curls and a swish of taffeta, she swept into her room and shut the door.

  Nan and Matt met each other's gaze. A little breathlessly, Nan said, "How about we sit on the porch? It's a nice night."

  He nodded. She took his hand. On the way out, she switched off the porch light, leaving the swing in shadow.

  They were in each other's arms before they had even sat down. His hand cupped the back of her head, and her lips moved against his. It had been a long time since Nan had kissed a man like that, and she was more than ready to keep kissing him, keep touching him, keep responding to the corresponding hunger she felt from him.

  Matt pulled away. "I'd better go."

  "Oh. Why?"

  "I–Nan, listen. There are things about me you don't know."

  Pressing her foot against the porch floor to stop the swing from moving, she snapped, "Well, yes. I should hope so. This is a beginning, remember?"

  He stood up. "I hope so. I hope it is. But I have to go now." He reached to
touch her hair, then turned and hurried to his car.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "I did not do what you remember I did."

  The odd words kept swimming into Catherine's head. A line from a movie? She tried it aloud:

  "I did not do what you remember I did."

  Maybe it was a song lyric. She stood up straight, breathed from her diaphragm, and sang it. She didn't like how her voice cracked these days, but she could still sing, no matter what anybody said.

  "You like that poem, don't you?"

  That was her daughter speaking. Nan. Yes, Nan, she was sure of it–Nan, who was living with her now, poor thing, after that awful divorce, and for the most humiliating of all reasons. Catherine had always adored Gary. She still did. But when she saw him again she was going to give him a piece of her mind about how there are some secrets better kept secret. Why didn't you just go on and have your little affairs with men–or with fence posts, for all I care–and not feel compelled to tell my daughter about it and break her heart? That's what she'd tell him. Lord knows there were plenty of things I didn't tell my husband. She knew there were; she couldn't remember any of them right now.

  She must have said it aloud, the first part at least, because Nan–Nan, yes–said, "You say that to Gary every time you see him. Give it a rest, Mom."

  "I didn't do what you remember I did." This time Catherine whispered it into her daughter's ear.

  "Yes, you did. And do. Every time you see him."

  "Who wrote that?"

  "Wrote what? Oh, the poem. My friend Matthew Mullen wrote it. 'Defense,' he calls it. You remember Matt. He brought us roses. He signed the book for you."

  "He's a nice young man," Catherine said conspiratorially. "You hold onto this one, Nanny." The trouble with young women these days was they didn't know a good man when they had one. Nan wasn't young, though. She was a grandmother. Could that be right? Yes, Nan was the grandmother of precious Jordan, and Catherine was–good Lord!–a great-grandmother.

  She rather liked that. Grand dame suited her well. She swept around Nan, who was loading the dishwasher, and declaimed like Kate Hepburn talking to Bogey: "He doesn't say 'what you think I did' or 'what you imagine I did.' He says, 'What you remember I did.' If she remembers it, I'd say it must have happened."

  Hogwash. People remembered all sorts of things that hadn't exactly happened. She herself certainly did, which was frightening sometimes and sometimes amusing and usually just the way things were. She was old, and, though she wasn't a potato yet, she suspected she might be getting a little dotty. It wasn't just old people, though; young people, like this girl putting dishes into the dishwasher–who ate on those dreadful plastic things–relied entirely too much on memory, which at best was like Kate and the Gentleman Caller in "The Glass Menagerie" or Kate and Burt Lancaster in "The Rainmaker," never entirely reliable.

  This wasn't a girl. It was Nan, and Nan, though certainly an attractive woman, was not a girl. She was a grandmother. It did scare Catherine when she didn't recognize her children, even though it wasn't very often or for very long. To make up for it, she patted Nan's hip, then remembered Nan didn't like that. Or was that one of her other daughters?

  "Maybe her memory fails her," Nan said.

  Catherine didn't know what she was talking about, and then she did: the poem, the person who "remembered."

  "And how do you know it's a 'she'?"

  Why would that matter? Catherine ignored the question, as she ignored everything that didn't make sense to her. But then, suddenly, it did. "It's got exclamation points, and he repeats 'I did not!' Methinks he doth protest too much."

  Nan volleyed back, "Or maybe he really didn't do whatever he's accused of and he's just being emphatic. And maybe it's not about him at all. Maybe it's about somebody he knew, or it's just made up."

  "It's about him. Matthew Mullen. I'm sure it is."

  "How do you know that? You're the one who said poetry isn't always autobiographical."

  "I never said that."

  "You did. You do. All the time."

  Catherine ended the interchange by assuming a dramatic pose and proclaiming in stentorian if shaky tones, "You mark my words, this man has a dark and troubling secret!"

  "Well, Mom," Nan said, turning on the dishwasher and starting out of the kitchen, "the gentleman and his secret will be here any minute and I need to get my face on. Becca's late. I told her to be here early."

  She went off to finish dressing but when the doorbell rang she rushed out of her room to get it. "I'm capable of opening the door," Catherine muttered.

  "My sister's late, again," Nan said, sounding embarrassed. Catherine hovered beside her.

  "No problem." Smiling at her, the nice young man took Catherine's hand in both of his. "This lovely lady and I have plenty to talk about."

  Nan retreated into the kitchen to get coffee. Catherine took the opportunity to talk about Nan. "She's very capable, you know," she said, "and talented."

  "And beautiful," Matt said. "Like her mother."

  "I bet you say that to all the girls."

  "Only the beautiful ones."

  Catherine laughed but would not be deterred. "She was a terrific student. Could have been anything she wanted. She's a very good mother, you know and–"

  "Don't believe everything she tells you."

  Leaning toward each other on the sofa, Matt and Catherine started like guilty lovers. I should be so lucky, Catherine thought. I have been so lucky. Who's to say I won't be again? Who's to say–

  With an "oh, God!" expression on her face that Catherine knew well, Nan was bracing three mugs in a somewhat precarious triangle between her hands.

  "Don't disrespect your mother." Catherine tried to sound breezy, but she really didn't like it when Nan didn't believe her.

  Looking annoyed, which didn't become her, Nan handed a mug of coffee to each and sat down–rather petulantly, Catherine thought–on the other side of the room, although there was a perfectly comfortable chair right beside the couch.

  Matt's eyes twinkled over the mug. "I didn't realize I knew a famous tennis pro."

  "Hardly famous."

  "She was!" Catherine crowed. "She had her picture in the papers and everything! Wait right here, I'll get them."

  "Mom, please–"

  Catherine ignored her and swept out of the room to find her scrapbooks. Behind her, Nan said to the young man whose name and purpose here Catherine had forgotten but didn't need to know, "You'll have to excuse my mother." How rude. I'll speak to her about this later.

  "Not at all," she heard him say. "She's quite delightful."

  "You know, she is, isn't she? I think so, most of the time, but I'm always afraid other people won't be quite so taken with her."

  "She told me all about your daughter–Ashley, right? And your granddaughter–Jordan?–she showed me pictures."

  It was harder now for Catherine to hear what was being said. What had she come in here for? Ah, yes, the scrapbooks. She burrowed into her closet.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nan talked about Ashley and Jordan and watched Matt's face, hoping to learn something about him. He was into his social mode and betrayed nothing. "Ashley and I have always been close," she told him, "except for a period when she was about fourteen. Fourteen-year-old girls are nuts, and so, coincidentally, are their parents."

  True as that was, it was also a shameless ploy. She hoped he would reply that he knew nothing about raising daughters, which would give her an opportunity to ask about raising a son. But she saw that he was bent on a different conversational goal. "Your mother also told me about Gary."

  Nan waited.

  "That must have been a difficult time."

  "Once in a while it would be nice if she'd let me tell people about my life," Nan said, though she was actually pleased to have been spared the task of covering the basics.

  "I'll bet there are still plenty of discoveries to make." His smile might have been a request, an invitation, a promise. Or, s
he told herself, a come-on. Whatever it was, she felt a pleasurable tension.

  "You have the advantage," Nan said. "Your turn. Tell me about you. Tell me about your son. All I know is his name."

  Something changed in Matt's face. He took a long, slow sip of his coffee before he answered. "He lives in a small town in Pennsylvania with his wife and two children. I think I mentioned them to you once before."

  "A grandson of five, you said. What about the other one?"

  "She's three."

  "Isn't it fun being a grandparent?"

  "I wouldn't know, except in theory. I've never met my grandchildren."

  "Oh." She decided to take a chance. "Why?"

  "My son and I are–estranged."

  Again she waited. He didn't explain. Tempted to ask "why?" again, she said only, "I'm sorry."

  "So am I."

  "Nan! Nan! Help!"

  Catherine's voice floated into the room. Nan leaped to her feet. Matt followed her, and they rushed to the back of the house, where the old woman was sitting on the floor in tears.

  "Mom? What's wrong? Did you fall?" Nan knelt beside her.

  Catherine furiously indicated the scrapbooks scattered on the floor around her. "I can't find them! Someone's taken them!"

  "Taken what, Mom?" By now Matt had crouched beside Nan. She could feel his body heat, smell his after-shave. Despite her concern for and irritation with her mother, she wanted more than anything for him to put his hand on her thigh.

  "The clippings! All those clippings of you in your tennis glory days! Someone's stolen them!"

  Trying not to laugh or cry, shaking off the distraction of Matthew Mullen, Nan kissed the top of her mother's hair, reached up, and pulled two large brown scrapbooks from her days on the circuit off the top bookshelf. "They're not stolen, Mom. Here they are. Come on, let's get you up."

  "They're here? They're not stolen?" Catherine kept whimpering as Nan and Matt together helped her into her chair.