The Last Chance

by Rona Jaffe

  He put her coat on her, buttoned it up as if she were a child, and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. “We must stop meeting like this in delicatessens,” he said in a foreign accent that she took to be Transylvanian. “People will find out.”

  Despite herself, Ellen smiled. She hugged him. He felt fragile in her arms, like a young boy, but strong. Did he mean he wanted to see her again or not?

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  He did not drop the accent. “I will send you a message,” he said.

  “I don’t want anybody to suffer,” Ellen said. “I have to think about this.”

  “Of course.”

  She went down to the street and found a cab. This afternoon had been a mistake. She would have to keep away from him. One of the people who could easily suffer the consequences would be herself.

  May 1975

  The winter was really over. Since New York has had no real spring for many years, people were planning for the summer. Cars were rented for forays into Connecticut and the Hamptons to look at houses to rent. Children were told how much they would enjoy camp. Teen-agers worried about the shortage of summer jobs. Apartment buildings with air conditioning sent handymen around for the annual changing of the filter. The poor had no such problems; they only hoped this year would not be as hot as last, that prices would stop rising, that no one would steal the Social Security check again this month, that the landlord might fix the broken window, the leaking ceiling, the broken toilet. The middle class worried about prices and crime too. The rich discussed these problems, but they did not worry, except those who depended on the stock market for their income. They worried a great deal.

  The Lawrence Fowlers were rich enough to be able to ride out any temporary economic fluctuation. They had owned their own home in East Hampton for many years. They kept year-round servants there, to prevent robberies in winter and to be available in summer. In past springs Rachel’s main concerns had been shopping for her summer wardrobe and getting Lawrence to set the date of their annual May trip to London, Zurich, and Paris, so that she could arrange their New York social calendar accordingly. This spring was different. She had decided to go back to college in the fall.

  She wrote to her high school back home for her academic records, sent for brochures from Barnard, NYU, and Columbia, and decided to apply to all three. She’d had good marks in high school, but no one in her family had thought it necessary that she consider going to college. She had already done some local modeling, she was the model type, and they had very little money, so they agreed with her that she try New York, try to be a cover girl, maybe land a rich husband. Although she was an only child, her parents were not protective. They felt her looks were a godsend; she could become rich and successful with those looks. The only stipulation her parents made when Rachel left for New York at the age of eighteen was that she stay at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. She did—for two weeks.

  Then she began making her own money and moved into an apartment with three other girls. Shortly afterward she moved in with the son of a rich man. He said he would marry her. He didn’t marry her, but he taught her how to read menus in French and Italian restaurants, how to play tennis, and he paid for her abortion. After he lost interest in her she moved in with a young man who had made his own money, who said he would marry her. She was now using birth control. She got pregnant anyway, which was very strange, but the young man she was living with paid for her abortion and managed to have it done in a good hospital instead of the sleazy place she’d gone to the first time. When she got out of the hospital the next day Rachel discovered that her fiance had closed his apartment and left town for an indefinite period. She couldn’t get any of his friends to tell her where he had gone. By then she decided she had learned more in three years without college than most girls learned in a whole lifetime, and she began to devote herself wholeheartedly to the development of whatever it took to find a rich man to marry her.

  Whatever it took, Rachel did everything wrong. She enchanted phonies who passed bad checks, gamblers, men with divorces that were not final, liars, and several genuinely rich young men, one of whom wanted her to spank him with her hairbrush and another who wanted to try on her clothes. When she met Lawrence Fowler she was twenty-four, had her own apartment, was recovering from her third abortion, and hated men.

  He was twenty years older, which was not ancient, but she found herself thinking of him as a father image. He didn’t want anything from her. He was very nice to her, but he didn’t try to keep her or change her. He mentioned that he was getting divorced, but she didn’t pay any attention because she’d heard that one before. After she had been going with him for a year he told her he was going to marry her. She was sick and tired of hearing that one. She insisted on telling him all about her past. He was not shocked, but he was very angry at all those men who had undervalued her. He told her to forget the past. He said he just wanted her to be with him, and he would make it up to her.

  It was after she was safely married to Lawrence Fowler that Rachel allowed herself to fall wholeheartedly in love with him. She stopped being afraid of things. He said he didn’t want children, since he already had one son, Kerry, and he wanted to be able to travel with Rachel, to have her all to himself, he didn’t want to start all over again with babies. She discovered she couldn’t have any more anyway, so that was fine. She decided everything that had ever happened to her had been for the best.

  It was only during this past year that Rachel had discovered her happiness was not enough. It was satisfaction but not joy. She had been lying dormant. She knew you could never go back and do everything all over again, but you could make up for things you hadn’t done. She didn’t know exactly what she expected to get out of college, but she knew it would make her feel less different, less inadequate. The fact that being a thirty-five-year-old freshman would make her very different didn’t matter.

  On one of her gym mornings she got up earlier than usual so she could catch Lawrence before he left for his office. He looked up from the breakfast table and his newspapers in amazement at the sleepy figure trailing into the dining room in a misbuttoned robe.

  “Well, what is that?” he asked, amused.

  “It’s me.” She sat down across from him.

  “I’ll get you some tea.”

  “No, coffee’s okay,” Rachel said. She let him pour her a cup of it. “Can we talk?”

  “Of course.”

  “I want to go to college.”

  “All right. But we’re going to Europe, and then we go to East Hampton every weekend. Summer school might be too much.”

  “I mean real college. I want to start in the fall.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re leaving me?”

  “No, I’ll go in New York of course. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a good idea.”

  “You don’t think I’m too old?” she asked.

  “Not at all. Nobody’s too old for education.”

  “Will you pay for it?”

  “I don’t expect you to,” he said with a smile.

  “You really don’t mind? I’ll be busy doing homework, there’ll be things I can’t attend to around the house …”

  Lawrence shrugged. “If I need a social secretary I’ll hire a social secretary. I thought you enjoyed doing those things. If you’d rather go to college, that’s fine.”

  Rachel took his hand in both of hers. “You’re really good, do you know that? You didn’t even ask me what I want to be when I grow up.”

  He laughed. “What do you want to major in?”

  “I want to take history, government, and banking.”

  “Banking!”

  “I want to know what you do,” Rachel said seriously.

  “Why do you want to know what I do? It’s boring.”

  “You don’t think it’s boring.”

  “Okay. If you want, I’ll help you. We can have talks.”

  “Oh, I’d love
that!” Rachel said. “I’d really love that.”

  “Which college are you going to?”

  “The one that takes me.”

  “I hope they all take you,” he said. “If you want any help in applying, ask me. I have a few friends.”

  “I’ve already applied.”

  He looked annoyed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you.”

  “I want to get in on my own.”

  “You’re so stubborn,” he said.

  “Why do you sound so angry?”

  “Because I don’t want you to be hurt.”

  “You think I won’t get in.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you’re afraid of it,” Rachel said. “You think I’m too dumb. I know it. I want to show you I’m not too dumb.”

  He patted her hand. “It’ll be all right.” But he still looked disturbed. Rachel had the disquieting feeling that Lawrence was going to investigate all this, maybe pull a few strings. She didn’t want to tell him she suspected, because then he’d get angry and not help her at all. She didn’t know what she wanted. She had grown so used to having him make everything easy for her. She wanted so badly to get into college that she hoped he would help her—now that he’d mentioned it and made her insecure again. Oh, if she could only do one thing on her own! But even if he helped her get in, she would still have to do her own work. If she was too lazy or too stupid they would throw her out. She hated the way she felt, so easily manipulated, so easily made insecure. All Lawrence wanted was the best for her, not to have her get hurt any more. She ought to be grateful. Why, then, did she feel so disappointed that he had taken her hand and walked into her dream?

  “Why do you look so sad?” he asked. He smiled and kissed her. “Be happy. You’re going to go to college.”

  On a hot day Rachel went to Bloomingdale’s to buy a typewriter. She had been too poor to own one in high school, and afterward there had been no need. Now that she was going to go to college she would teach herself to type. That would be her summer project. It occurred to her that perhaps she should have gone to an office-supply place, but Bloomie’s was one of the stores where she had a charge account. She walked right into the middle of the lunch-hour crowd.

  She had never seen so many people milling around. Some were there to buy, some to look, others just to get out of the heat into the air conditioning. This was her morning; it was their noon. She was aware that her daily rhythm was different from most other people’s, and so was her life-style, but being buffeted around by all this humanity made her more aware than ever. At least nobody else seemed to want to buy a typewriter today. She bought a portable, had it sent, and went down on the escalator.

  It was strange about crowds: usually they didn’t bother her, but today somehow she felt touched and prodded, as if someone was personally brushing against her, the light flick of a damp hand on her hip. She didn’t like it. She turned around twice to see who it was, but there was no one she could pick out as a possible public feeler. It was probably just her mood. Still, her mood was getting worse, and she escaped into the street. The crowds there were thicker. These people were all so anonymous, each concerned with getting somewhere, but Rachel kept feeling that personal force directed against herself. She actually felt eyes on her, someone watching only her, but when she looked from side to side, there were only the self-absorbed strangers. She got into a taxi and went downtown to NYU.

  The university area looked nice in the springtime. All the trees in the park were trying their best to flourish. Rachel went into one of the buildings and walked around, imagining herself a student here. It was quite empty. The students were either in classes or outside in the sun. This was certainly a big place. She could disappear here when it was filled with students, and nobody would think she was too old. She read the hall bulletin boards with amusement, trying to understand the world of these young kids, a generation removed from hers. A lot of them seemed to have their own apartments. There were handwritten cards advertising Village sublets wanted and available, furniture for sale, even kittens. Flute lessons. French books for sale. Roommate wanted. It was too bad she couldn’t live her eighteenth year all over again knowing what she did now. She would have handled everything differently, all the way through, until she met Lawrence. Of course there had to be Lawrence in this second chance. She couldn’t imagine being happy without him. But would he have wanted her if she were different? Would she have found him such a savior, or would she have been contentedly living with a group of her contemporaries, not vulnerable, not in pain, not bitter? Had he been drawn to her need and her dependence as much as to her looks?

  She heard a sound and saw a door open a little and then close again, but not all the way. It seemed to be some sort of utility closet. There was no one in the hall but herself. Rachel walked to the water cooler at the end of the hall and leaned over to drink, watching the partly opened door. It moved again, just a bit. Maybe some student, stealing something. This was a college. Colleges were safe, not like the street, not like the real world. It couldn’t be someone watching her. Why would anyone want to watch her here? Still, she had that eerie feeling she’d had in the crowd in Bloomingdale’s, and she walked away from the corridor and down the stairs to the street. She felt safer in the sunlight.

  She had to get herself under control. This was probably just some psychological reaction to the nervousness of starting a new life. Instead of facing it she was imagining invisible enemies. That had to be all it was. So okay, she was scared about getting into college, scared about keeping up, getting good marks, passing exams. That was natural. If she would face it, she would stop imagining bogeymen in closets and eyes in crowds. She walked to Washington Square Park, through it, and then took a cab uptown. College faded from her mind as she concentrated on what she and Lawrence were going to do that evening with the grown-ups.

  He was getting braver. For a moment in the hall he thought she had noticed him and his excitement almost exploded him into his fantasy. He could have come out of the utility closet and confronted her. She was alone, and so close. He had been following her all day, to the store, to the university, getting closer and more reckless in the noonday mob. It was getting harder for him to separate his fantasies of her from the real thing because his secret encounters with her were so like fantasies. He had even started dreaming about her at night, and these dreams mingled with his daytime imagining. Sometimes he worried that he was losing his mind. The important thing was control. There were too many things to worry about during the normal day, to keep control over, without trying to hold down these lapses too. A man had to have somewhere to blow off steam. You couldn’t hold everything down forever. There was an image to keep up—a job, a life, a family—and then there was his feeling about Rachel. It was all so carefully held in check, but once in a while something opened up a crack and he knew something very dangerous was going to come out. He didn’t want it to happen at home or at work; those areas had to be protected. It was why he had let himself follow his needs in this secret obsession with Rachel. He didn’t think he would ever hurt her. She was one of the only people in the world for whom he felt absolutely no hate. To her he was just another one among her large group of friends and acquaintances. He wondered why he didn’t resent more being so unimportant to her. He ought to hate her for it. Maybe one day he would find a way to test her.

  The people on Margot King’s television show, like all the news shows lately, put on a great public display of their friendly relationships. They teased each other on the air, they laughed, they had fun. With the arrival of the good weather, there were base-ball games in the park against the staffs of other news shows. But after all of this was over, they were like the people who worked in any office anywhere in the city; some were friendly, most went their separate ways. The commuters dashed home, those who lived in the city had errands to do, friends to meet. Enough was enough, they all seemed to feel. Margot, in particular, had always been a loner. While rep
orting the news she had been totally isolated in her own world. If their appearance on television made all of them more visible than most people, they had to try harder to keep to themselves the part of their lives that was private. One of the women on the show was pregnant and the world saw it, when she was absent because she was having her baby the world knew it, and cards and little presents came flooding in. But- she never invited Margot to come home with her and see the new baby, and Margot didn’t expect her to. She mentioned on the air that the baby was a boy, but she didn’t say what his name was, nor did she tell anyone that the name she used professionally was not her married name. There had been a kidnap threat. It was obviously from a lunatic, but it had been handed over to the police and was not mentioned on the show. Being a public person had dangers.

  Margot was used to receiving crank letters. She got fan letters too, even proposals of marriage from strangers. She wondered what kind of lonely people sat around writing to total strangers. The hate mail was the most perplexing. When the members of the show were photographed for a newspaper ad, people cut out the photograph and sent it to their favorite hates, writing on their faces. Margot got six pictures of herself with penises drawn on her body, one with a moustache, one with a big nose, and one with swastikas all around the margin. She was called bitch, cunt, whore, fascist, and communist. One letter said: “You believe in abortion, you will die.” She kept all the crank letters in a folder in her file cabinet, just in case someone killed her. It was probably paranoid, she was aware that people who wrote crank letters seldom went further; but by the same token, she knew that anonymous people who sprang to prominence by killing a celebrity had been known to write crank letters that were ignored. She had an unlisted number and never discussed her personal life on the show. She never answered letters unless they were from schoolchildren who seemed sweet and bright. Even then she kept her letters brief and typed them on office stationery. She felt no warmth toward her public. She had often heard celebrities gushing on talk shows about how much they loved their public, and she wondered if it were possibly true. You needed your public in order to remain popular and employed, but how could you love them when so many of them obviously hated you for no reason?