He went immediately for her, held her, put his nose to her neck and breathed deeply.
“I miss you,” he said.
She knew that he missed her body.
“You’ve stopped giving me stories.”
“I got tired of hearing whom they were derivative of.”
“They haven’t all been derivative.”
He was still smelling and kissing her neck.
“That ‘If I want to read Salinger, I’ll read Salinger,’ remark was kind of harsh.”
“I hope it did the trick,” she said.
He force-walked her to the bed and they crashed down on it. They rolled. His hand went for her crotch but she gripped his wrist.
“No.”
“Oh, God, please. I’m so hungry.” He put her hand on his crotch.
“Begging for a mercy fuck?” she asked, giving him a squeeze.
He sat up immediately and faced her. “No, there’s sex to be had all over this campus tonight. I want you. I miss you.”
He seemed genuine.
“Do you think you could love me?” she asked.
He thought long about this. She wasn’t sure if he was considering a lie or trying to figure out the answer himself until she heard his response.
“No—I don’t want to love anybody right now. But I really, really like you. And I want to know you forever.”
That seemed like the truth. So she rolled on her side, propped her head on her hand, rubbed his crotch. “Oh, my,” she said. Then, “Tell me a story.”
Em groaned. “Oh, please. Grimsley.”
She was enjoying this. She could tell how aching he was for release.
“Can it be really short?” he asked.
“The shorter the better. Tell me the shortest story you can.”
Em settled a little, thinking. He faced her, head likewise propped on his hand, a mirror image.
“Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.”
“I’ve heard it. Attributed to Hemingway. I want a story from you. And besides, that’s not a story. A story is where something happens.”
“The king kills himself,” he said.
“Still not a story.”
He smiled and said, “The king killed himself, and the queen died of grief.”
She smiled. She grabbed hold of his belt, said, “That’ll do,” and kissed him.
*
That was their first time after the breakup and last time before school ended. If anyone had better sex on campus, she wanted to know who and how.
A month later, she wrote to Emerson in Chicago where he had a summer job in the factory where his father worked (conveyor belts, she never bothered to find out what kind) to tell him of the pregnancy. She’d forgotten to put her diaphragm in, she said, so surprised by the visit. They’d gotten lucky their first time (but after that she’d always taken precautions). She was sorry. She was writing to let him know she’d gotten the confirmation only hours earlier and did he have anything he wanted to say?
He phoned immediately; they discussed the situation. He asked her if she wanted him to come down to be with her. She said she hadn’t decided yet what she was going to do. She could all but feel his stomach turn in the silence on the other end of the line.
“Well, do you have anything you want to say?” she asked. “It’s not mine alone, you know.”
“You’re certain it’s mine.”
“Yes.”
And here she felt he committed the single act of selfishness she’d experienced. She never felt their relationship was selfish, that the sex they’d continue to have without commitment was selfishness. She never did anything she didn’t want to do. But here, she felt he thought only of himself.
“Jesus, Grimsley, you’re not thinking of having this baby.”
“As I said, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. These are the first words I’ve spoken aloud to anyone in the few days I’ve known.”
“You can’t have this baby.”
“Well that’s not a fact.”
“Think what it would mean for you. Would you leave school? How would you take care of the baby. I beg of you—”
When he didn’t say more, she said, “I wouldn’t ask you to do anything. I would make no requests. My family and I will take care of anything and everything. I won’t even tell them whose it is. Though if I did go ahead with it, I’d never shut you out. I’d welcome you in if that’s what you wanted.”
“I can’t do it, Grimsley.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Grimsley, if you have the child, I can never see you again.”
She was so hurt and shocked, she didn’t speak.
He said, “This is something I don’t know. Are you religious, is this a religious decision for you? We’ve never discussed religion, I only assumed you weren’t, given our relationship.”
“No, I’m not religious. Per se.”
“Then why on Earth would you have a baby in the middle of your senior year of college?”
“It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” she said. “I mean, it’s the one thing we know for sure is that we’re meant to have babies. That and death. We’re all going to die, and our only known purpose is to have children. Otherwise, it’s the end of us, right?”
“Generally speaking, I suppose you’re right, but the human race is not going to die out soon from underpopulation, and this is by no means your own single opportunity to have a baby. There will be time, once you’ve got a degree and have a known way of supporting a child.”
She said nothing.
“I’m sorry, Grimsley, I’m amazed you would even consider having a baby.”
“Well, at the moment, that’s all I’m doing.”
“I urge you not to go through with it. I certainly can’t be a part of it and am grateful beyond words that you claim that’s an option for me.”
“Are you angry? You sound angry.”
“I’m just upset that’s all.”
“Well, so am I,” she said. She hung up in anger, leaving him to stare at the phone in his hand.
Ultimately it was her mom, who’d come of age in the sixties and had fought for abortion rights in the early seventies and had rejoiced only a decade earlier at the Roe v. Wade decision, who had convinced her daughter to terminate the pregnancy. Grimsley agreed it was best and really knew from the beginning what she was going to do when she realized she’d never be able to bear telling her father. Her mother was with her every step of the way and, while the procedure went without incident, it was passing through a line of anti-abortion protesters, under her mom’s powerful arm, that was the worst part of the affair.
A few days later, she wrote to Emerson a two-sentence letter: “It’s done. You don’t need to worry anymore,” signed only with an austere “G.”
She received his letter the very day she posted her note, and he broke her heart with the kindest apology she’d encountered to date. He explained how terribly he’d been feeling when he thought back on their conversation, and said that while he stood by everything he’d said, he felt that given this, it was her decision to make and that he would support it in his heart if she followed through with it. He begged her forgiveness. He asked her to please let him know one way or another what she was going to do, so that he could sort things out in his own mind. And he said the most important words of all to her: he said summer would be over in two months, noted the date that he planned to arrive in Durham to begin his sophomore year, and wrote that “I hope I haven’t broken our friendship beyond fixing with my selfish response to a situation that must be so hard for you, far harder than it is for me. Will you see me when I arrive?”
She wrote back immediately, fearing that the coldness of the letter he’d receive in a day or two would be misconstrued and that of course she’d never not want to see him, explaining more fully her rationale and how it had all played out. And they corresponded all summer. He even sent her a story, though he confessed he was so tired from work that he wasn’t w
riting nearly as much as he’d hoped. She wrote to tell him how much she loved the story (though with a little more enthusiasm than she actually felt). By the time he rolled into town, it was as though they hadn’t been apart at all. If only because he felt completely free to ignore her.
He called her the day he arrived (he’d bought a used car and driven down himself). After a tentative reunion on the quad, they decided to have a beer at the Hideaway, the on-campus watering hole. It turned into a delightful pitcher, several beers. It was easy and fun. They laughed. They embraced chastely on parting. They didn’t see each other again for three weeks.
Six
I turned right on Broad Street, back in Durham, having accomplished our errand. He’d stayed in the car when we’d arrived at my sister’s with McGee. Thinking it wasn’t like him not to want to come in—he was always a gleeful snoop and a gossip when we were together, always hunting fodder for story, wouldn’t dare not look in a medicine cabinet in the bathroom of a stranger’s house—and asked him why not. It was a development McMansion, and he was pretty much right when he said, “I can already see what’s inside—it’ll depress me.” I knew what he meant, though I suspect it wouldn’t have depressed him as much as he presumed.
The worst part of the trip was the ride back to Durham. Because we didn’t say anything. He just stared straight ahead and I kept trying to come up with something to ask, but each question—how’s your relationship with your kids, your son and your daughter, what are you working on now?—I could foresee from the look on his face would muster only a half-hearted answer. I didn’t want to do that to him, and neither of us went in much for small talk. Honestly, he was that low. And I didn’t know him well enough, after all these years, didn’t know how to make him feel better or at least try to buck him up.
Truly, I was so sad for him that I was ashamed of my behavior earlier. What had I been thinking? How awful to throw more confusion into his mind. Something was going on. Maybe there was more to it with his marriage (there always is—no one is ever honest about their marriage if things are bad). Maybe financial matters were worse than he was letting on. People say that sex and death are pretty much what everything boils down to, Eros and Thanatos, but if you don’t have the money you need, that ranks pretty high. The responsibilities of being a parent, too—I wouldn’t know, but judging from the fathers I’m close with, kids weigh heavily. Was he having issues with his children? He’d already shown me pictures and mentioned nothing beyond the suggestions of an argumentative marriage—but one he adored—and a difficult fifteen-year-old daughter, which is par for the course according to every parent I know.
So whatever it was, I couldn’t know, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
I pulled up in front of the Grocery, a restaurant run by a Durham native serving really good, locally sourced food, and looked at my watch. “Bingo, right on time.”
He didn’t move to leave the car.
“Food’s really good here, you’re going to love it.”
He turned to me. I held his gaze. It looked like he wanted to say something, and desperately at that, but couldn’t. As in a dream when you’re fleeing something and can’t move, he looked into my eyes, lips parted—nearly trembling, I thought—but saying nothing.
I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “You need to do something for yourself.”
He smiled sadly and said, “Such as.”
“Write.”
He smiled. “You’re the best, Grimsley. Always were.”
If this whole day hadn’t been so charged, I’d have gotten out of the car to say good-bye, give him a last hug, but I didn’t want to risk it. I’d have done something, I know it. So I said, “Ditto.”
He waited. He waited some more. He wanted me to act, I could see it. Now was my opportunity to take what I’d initially and immediately wanted at his first embrace in the chapel. I did nothing (sometimes inaction is action). He got out of the car, paused a while, let me stare at his starched shirt midriff, then leaned down through the window.
“Hey. There’s another gathering of some of Blackmore’s old students, assistants, colleagues at the Washington Duke. I mentioned it, eight to ten. Will you join me?”
“I’d better not,” I said. Did he know what I meant? Did I? “But say hey to Professor Porter for me.” I called him by his first name now, Elgin, when I saw him, retired but still around.
“Good Lord, is he still alive?”
“Alive? He wasn’t that old when we had him. He’s late seventies but in pretty decent shape. The chalk treatment worked!”
That got a smile out of Emerson, but it quickly turned sad again as he continued looking at me with that seeming urge to say something.
“You should join me then.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He nodded and reached his hand out to me. My hand met his but he simply touched my fingertips.
“If I don’t see you …” he said. “Well. Maybe I’ll be back in town one of these days. Research for a biopic on Daniel Blackmore.”
“Do you think we’ll ever meet again?” I asked.
“I doubt it not,” he said.
“Then adieu,” I said, and was soon headed to my very lonely house, nothing but sadness in my heart. The image of that fine-looking face framed by the car’s window—how pale his face had gone when I asked if we’d ever see one another again. He surely presumed we wouldn’t, as did I.
Untitled
Memory is untrustworthy, but there are landmarks in most people’s lives that can serve as reliable, permanent markers in a trek through one’s past. For instance, she would never forget the summer she had the abortion, the August before her senior year—that was too awful to forget, though she didn’t let him know how she’d actually felt about it till years later, the wretched words shouted at her by the protesters. Both recalled his third nocturnal visit to her dorm room during the fall of her senior year—as a senior she’d been able to get a single—in which they had resumed their physical relationship. They hadn’t seen each other, except for that once at the Hideaway, drank a pitcher of beer between them, embraced once, and went their way. Three weeks later, he showed up at her room a little before midnight. She’d been studying. He was clearly tipsy but he hadn’t been hunting sex. He had a short story he wanted her to read—the first since the one he’d sent over the summer. It was the third draft of something he’d begun in the summer, and rewritten— “figured out what it was really about,” he said. He hoped to present it to Professor Blackmore for the longer narrative fiction class he’d been accepted to. (Blackmore refused to call writing “creative,” arguing that fiction was not the only writing that was creative; maybe not instructions of how to put together your outdoor grill, but newspaper articles, even recipes for tomato sauce can be creative, and not even to a degree but absolutely creative.) Em’s eyes were electric and his whole body seemed charged, not from the alcohol, but from excitement, from the sheer youthful energy of his work, and she found it powerfully attractive.
“What’s it about?” she asked.
“It’s about the accidental death of a thirteen-year-old girl and its impact on her boyfriend and both of their families. It’s about the way love and death—”
“Well, gracious,” she said, hearing her mom in her voice. “Don’t tell me. Who else has read this?”
This halted him. He looked at her for what felt like a long time. “No one,” he said, apparently baffled by the question. “Who on Earth besides you could I show this to first?”
She thought immediately of the girl she’d been seeing him with all over campus. Short and cute with very dark hair who dressed in long, hippie skirts and a lot of bangles (walk the hallways of most dorms and half the music coming out of the rooms was Grateful Dead, a band she never took to). She thought of this girl. Why not show her? Or his friend and fellow literary aspirant, David?
“I mean, who else could I trust?” he asked. “I need to know what you think before I give it t
o the class. David is smart but far too ruthless and articulate, damaging rather than useful. In class they’re knuckle-headed hyenas. But you. You’re such a good and thoughtful reader. Your criticism, it doesn’t hurt, unless you think it should. Mainly you say things like ‘Here’s what gave me pause.’ Instead of ‘Here’s what’s wrong,’ or ‘The problem with this is.’ And even when what you say stings, you’re always right.”
She felt an enormous rush of pride. Suddenly joyful, as if the story were his heart itself. And wasn’t it?
She nearly knocked him off his feet. She hugged him. She drew his head down and kissed him hard. He resisted a little but maintained the embrace.
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
“Off and on, nothing serious.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m just surprised. I didn’t come here for this.”
“You’ve earned it,” she whispered, undoing the button and zipper of his jeans, giving his mind no time to override the body. She was pretty sure there wasn’t a guy alive who didn’t love oral sex, so even if he wasn’t in the mood, they’d been together the previous year enough that she knew exactly how to get him going, and once she got him going he’d never be able to stop. He moaned when she stopped to stand and remove his shirt, so she knew he was hers and would carry them both through to their mutual satisfaction.
That time he stayed the night, and he was always welcome. They made love in the morning, which, like their very first time, was brief and quiet and for him alone. And this was fine for her. She loved every moment near him. But sometimes he waited till she slept and was gone when she woke, or sometimes he dispensed with any waiting at all and simply dressed and departed with a kiss. And this was fine, too. Whatever he needed.
The next time he showed up, it was three in the morning. He’d been drinking with his buddies. She’d been dead asleep. She opened the door a crack, squinting in the fluorescent light.
“I’m sleeping,” she said and asked him if he knew what time it was (he didn’t). Beer made him exuberant and playful and, if anything, overly solicitous. He’d start going Elizabethan in his language, which annoyed her vaguely, but no matter how much he drank, she never worried about his being overly aggressive.
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