Late in the Season

by Felice Picano

  His know-it-all attitude was especially galling, coming from someone who could barely take a cab across town without having some kind of mishap. “Just a change of life, darling. Male menopause, some call it. I had mine last year, remember?” That must be the role he’d decided on—he had to have a role—the friendly psychiatrist. He’d listen wonderfully, suffer patiently, even explain in detail what precisely it was that Jonathan was feeling, as he was feeling it. Dan’s sympathy would be boundless, his attentiveness minutely calculated, his understanding complete and unremitting—unendurable. Jonathan would become the patient, the convalescent, Mr. Rochester after the house had burned down. It would be intolerable!

  “…a teenager.” She wasn’t really a teenager at all. In many ways, Stevie was far more mature than Dan would be at seventy…

  “…that’s who you are!” Said so smugly, Jonathan could have slapped him for it. The whole speech, in fact, cried out to be completed by a hefty backhand across Dan’s complacent mug. Especially that “in this love-filled and hate-filled existence” touch! Leave it to Dan to embroider so cunningly, so spontaneously, one scarcely noticed the embroidery it was—unless you knew him as well as Jonathan did. He was probably already mentally fitting on his Dr. Kildare jacket as he said the words, gazing admiringly at his own compassionately fixed face in the mirror.

  “I do have a right to change, to be myself,” Jonathan said aloud, but softly, so as not to wake Stevie. “I’ll take the chances. I’ll take the responsibility. Wherever it may lead.”

  And so on, and so forth, until morning.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Stevie’s first hint that all was not well was that Jonathan was not in bed next to her when she awakened. Of course, there was always the off chance that he’d gotten up early. He’d done that before.

  She threw on the T-shirt and shorts dropped by the bed last night, and went out into the living area. No Jonathan. He might be at the beach.

  Brewing coffee, she realized how effortlessly she now went through all the preparations she’d had to think about a week ago: grinding the beans, selecting the mixture, boiling cold tap water only to the first whistle of the kettle, pouring just enough of the water into the filtered cone so that it merely dampened the ground coffee, letting that seep, then pouring the rest of the water in slowly. She knew she’d never make instant coffee again—or if so, only in an emergency. It wasn’t the technique of the coffee-making she’d accepted, so much as the evident higher quality of the result—coffees that leapt at you, that caressed the palate, that were desserts, experiences. The gap that had suddenly yawned open between her and that man—Matt—that’s what that had been all about: her commitment to quality, to the better things in life. Of course there had been other matters involved too—almost too many of them for her to think about. But that point stood out; how first through Rose Heywood, and now through Jonathan she’d learned to aim a little higher in life—higher than her parents had ever thought to teach her, despite their devotion to money and what it could buy. She hoped Jonathan would be back soon, before she had to reheat the coffee and ruin its flavor.

  The second sign that this was not going to be a good day happened when she looked out the kitchen door. For the first time in weeks, there was no sun. Instead there was a warm, yellowish mist that seemed to hang inches away—so that when she stepped out onto the deck, coffee mug in hand, her skin was immediately clammy. It wasn’t thick—nothing like a real fog—and it might still burn off before noon. But it seemed all-pervasive. It beaded the lawn furniture, strung droplets on spiderwebs, covered the bushes with a heavier dew than usual, darkened the wood decks in splotches of dampness, hid the surf from view.

  It was bound to happen. Two weeks of perfectly sunny, clear weather had to break sometime, she told herself. But why today?

  Walking around the house, she encountered the third sign portending trouble: asleep on a brown and white plastic chaise longue, his clothing soaked through, his face shining with dew, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up around his face like a visor—Jonathan.

  She looked at him for a minute, deciding whether to wake him or not. She decided she had to—if only because of the dampness; it might lead to a chill, to a cold, to who knew what.

  He looked so exhausted, even asleep. His face seemed fragile, and oddly pale, despite his rich tan. His body, too, seemed contorted, so unlike the ease with which he ordinarily took his rest. One hand was twisted inside his sweatshirt, the other curled around and inside a pocket of the shirt. One leg dangled off the chaise completely, the other leg was half under it. He reminded her of Griinewald’s painting of the Crucifixion she’d studied in school, where the foreground Christ just removed from the cross was contorted like this; each bend of a finger, each jutting elbow or bony knee gave an emotional charge to what otherwise was a rather static depiction.

  “Jonathan,” she whispered, touching his face with a finger.

  It was enough. His eyes opened. They didn’t immediately focus on her.

  “You fell asleep,” she said. “You’re wet. You ought to change.”

  He sat up and looked around. He made a face at the weather as though to say, “I told you so,” although he didn’t say anything.

  “I made fresh coffee.” She offered her mug to him.

  When he didn’t take it, she said, “I don’t know how long you’ve been out here. But I think you ought to take a hot shower and change into dry clothing.”

  He sighed loudly, forcefully. “Morning,” he said, then reached up to her. His kiss on her cheek was clammy and brief. He got up and went into the house.

  She followed a few minutes later, after telling herself she was being foolish. So what if it was a lousy day. They’d stay inside, listening to music, perhaps; sitting by a blazing fire; doing what they usually did. It might be pleasant for a change if it grew stormy and rained hard. He’d awaken, get warm, and be himself. He couldn’t be comfortable in that position for hours, out here in the dampness. She made a cup of coffee the way she knew he liked it and brought it into the big bathroom.

  He was just getting out of the shower. He took the coffee, sipped it, wrapped himself in a large Egyptian motif towel, and sat down on the toilet seat, avoiding her look.

  Stevie felt so suddenly, utterly distant from him, she had to do something for contact. She picked up a smaller towel and began toweling his hair in soft little massaging motions.

  “You have wonderful hair,” she said.

  “What’s left of it.”

  “There’s plenty. Only this.” She lightly tapped the bald spot in the center back of his skull. “You can hide that easily. It’s hidden most of the time anyway, because your hair is so curly.”

  “I’ve been covering it for five years. Good coffee.”

  “I hope you don’t come down with something.”

  “I feel all right. It was warm out.”

  “But damp. Were you out there long?”

  ‘‘An hour or two.’’

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  ‘‘No.’’

  “Did you fight with Dan?”

  “Didn’t have the chance to fight with him.”

  “Maybe that’s better,” she said. It was one of the most direct conversations they’d had; but it was necessary, she felt, for it to be so. “There! That’s pretty well dry.” She moved around in front of him, and began to rub the big towel over his chest, then opened up the towel, and began drying him with another smaller drier towel.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “Try to stop me.”

  When she’d reached the area of his groin, he lifted her face and put his own down next to it. For a second she thought they were going to kiss—but no. He simply looked at her. He seemed sad, resigned, very handsome and quiet.

  “I have to go into the city today.”

  When she didn’t answer, but continued to allow her face to be held, and continued to stare at him, he said: “Dan’s coming here.”<
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  She lowered her eyes then, knowing that what she saw in his eyes was pain; she couldn’t stand looking at him, knowing that’s what it was.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.

  She pulled out of his loose hold on her, and sat back on her haunches, her eyes still averted.

  “I don’t know if I’m saying this well. You’re the first woman I’ve ever been this close to, and you’re so different from a man.”

  She looked up and even smiled a little. He was so unhappy.

  “I mean, I’m not sure how to gauge what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling as I talk. You seem so…” He appeared to give up. “I don’t know. So different.”

  “Vive la difference,” she said, trying to make it into a joke.

  Then he did kiss her. Softly, warmly, but briefly. He pulled back before she could respond.

  “He’s flying in today. Coming out here, he said. He wants some kind of confrontation. Which is fine with me. But I don’t want you around.”

  Now she saw a trace of anger replace the pain and sadness in his eyes; and now she really began to feel afraid for them, for him, for herself. She threw her arms around his waist, her head into his lap, and held him tightly, as though if only she could keep holding him tightly now, all would be well.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back here,” he said. “Maybe…maybe, you ought to close up your family’s place too.”

  “And then?” she mumbled. She wasn’t sure she wanted even to know.

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  So here it was, Stevie thought. I’m holding him, but he’s already gone. Tears came to her eyes as though it was already over, to be mourned for. But she wouldn’t let them fall, wouldn’t let this happen. She would change this moment, as she had changed yesterday’s incident with Matt. This too was a test of some sort for her. Something for her to pass through, not fall into, if she were to go on. She had to show who she was—who, potentially, at least, she could be.

  She wiped her eyes on his towel-covered legs, and looked up.

  “All right,” she said, pleased by the steady tone of her voice. “We’ll close up and go into town together.” She even managed a smile. “No sense hanging around here if it’s going to be nasty weather, is there?”

  His steady look was unfathomable.

  She stood up, rather than fall victim again to her worst fears. “Come on. Stand up,” she said. “Let me dry you off properly.”

  He let her, and that pleased her. Once more she was able to see, touch, and review this body, once more be thrilled and astonished by how perfectly he fitted into that heretofore unsuspected ideal she had unconsciously earlier formed of what the right man for her would look like.

  For a minute, she thought they might make love, he seemed so comfortable in her hands. But he never got erect; only kissed her and played with her breasts a little, before shrugging. She let it pass. He had things on his mind.

  They spent the next few hours having a leisurely breakfast and then packing for the trip to the city.

  The sun came out briefly around noon, bringing up the temperature to an uncomfortable damp warmth, but it never completely burned off the mist. By the time the two houses were deemed ready, the sun was gone, and a sickly yellow green mist had replaced the earlier yellow gray one. At sunset it would turn a gray green. It would be an eerie night out here. She was almost glad she would miss it.

  After a phone call, Jonathan discovered there would be no seaplanes flying because of the bad weather. Visibility was too low.

  His attempts to get them a limousine on the other side of the bay were tiring and fruitless, despite his calling three cab services. They’d have to ferry across and take a train into the city.

  Their walk to the harbor was silent, both of them oppressed by the weather and the almost alien shapes the familiar landscape evoked with the sudden coming and going of the heavy mist.

  Closer to the bay, the mist seemed almost fog. It was white, however, rather than that awful color. The ferryboat they rode across the bay was one she’d never been on before: small, closed-in, small-windowed, musty, as though seldom used—although Jonathan said it was the usual off-season boat. It was the last ferry; the boat schedule had been reduced to four crossings a day. She and Jonathan sat in the back section, surrounded by luggage, most of it his. The front of the boat was occupied by haggard-looking workers returning to the shore side: construction men, carpenters, plumbers, a few clerks from the two stores still open on the island. From behind, one of them looked like Matt. But of course, Stevie reminded herself, Matt was a ferry hauler himself; he would ride across on one of the flatboats he’d loaded and unloaded.

  Jonathan was, if not in good spirits, at least not as grim as when she’d awakened him. He’d taken two large leather valises in addition to the flight bag slung across his shoulder, saying that now was as good a time as any to start moving stuff back to town. He sat back among them in the corner of the boat, reading a book on Italian art. She kept her hand in one of his, in his lap. Sometimes he held it. Sometimes he would let go of it, to turn a page, and forget to take it back again.

  The shore side of the ferry station—ordinarily a bustling scene of people, cars, trucks, and shops—was as desolate as the island side.

  The railroad station, a half green lean-to, its paint much chipped and discolored by bad weather, surrounded by tall trees, was as lost in the fog, as mysterious to her as any depicted in a nineteenth-century Gothic novel. It was much cooler on shore than it had been on the island, where heat was retained by the mist and lack of breezes. They sat on the rickety built-in seat, along with two elderly ladies who occasionally stared at them. Once more Jonathan held her hand. They didn’t speak. Both had put on windbreakers. Hers was bright blue, his a brilliant yellow.

  The train that finally arrived was an express, but as it went in the wrong direction to attract many passengers during rush hour, it was initially deserted. They took a double-facing seat in the back of one car near the doors. Jonathan soon went to sleep against her shoulder. Stevie remained awake, checking outside the dirty green-tinted windows at the bleak and dreary passing scenery. She tried not to think about anything, and succeeded fairly well, but she couldn’t bring herself to nap. She reminded herself that he’d only gotten an hour or two out on the deck after being awake all night.

  At one stop, two young women came into the car, at the door nearest her. They seemed to be about her age, working girls, just on their way home. They stopped, and were turning to come into the section of the car where she and Jonathan were, then hesitated.

  As they paused, Stevie could suddenly see herself and Jonathan as though she were one of the two girls. The older, handsome man sleeping against her shoulder: their casual clothing, obviously summer wear; their deep tans; the bags around them, on the seats and floor; his art book face down on the opposite seat. The girls’ eyes rose to meet Stevie’s and seemed to ask her: Is this true what we are seeing? Is he your lover? Are you just back from a vacation? Are you both wonderfully attractive and happy and terribly in love?

  Stevie’s look back to them was bold, confident. “Yes!” it said, “Yes. It’s all true.”

  They turned around then, embarrassed or happy or upset—she didn’t know which or in what combination of the three—and went away toward another section of the car. They never looked back.

  She exulted. Yes, she’d told them, without words, but told them clearly enough anyway. And, yes, they’d seen and believed, and left her, unwilling to invade the delicacy of her love bubble. She said yes because now, in their eyes, at this moment, if not forever, it was true. She loved and was loved, was happy and could make someone happy; she was strong, getting stronger all the time.

  It followed her throughout the trip, would follow her for a long time to come, she suspected.

  When the train next stopped and Jonathan shifted in his sleep, she slipped off his shoulder, kissed him lightly, on one cheek, and sa
id so low that he couldn’t hear her, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me this moment.” He mumbled a bit, and she let him put his head in her lap, while she contemplated the various futures that lay in front of her—until the train went into a tunnel, and she knew they would be at Penn Station in Manhattan in a few minutes.

  “Rest well?” she said, awakening Jonathan.

  “Terrific. You make a great pillow.”

  “Thank mother nature,” she said. “Built-in padding.”

  “I really needed that,” he said, getting up, rubbing his eyes, looking out the windows at the blackness. Even though it wasn’t a smoking car, he lighted a cigarette.

  “Where are we?”

  “Almost there,” she said, gathering the bags together. The train pulled into the station a minute later. The platform was filled four deep with people who Stevie knew would be getting into this car, charging right by her, whether she was in or out.

  It took them as long to stand up and organize the carrying of the bags as it did for the train to stop and the doors to open.