“Not sure. My professors teach us how to develop character, build tension, weave in backstories, create protagonists, and try to heighten suspense. They can’t teach us to come up with ideas. The creative part, which I thought was my forte, is where I’m getting stuck.”
“Read science fiction,” she said. “That will get you out of the mundane. Those writers, like Asimov and Heinlein and Sturgeon, soar with imagination, their tales bizarre, weird, unimaginable, and elegant all at once.”
“I could never write science fiction.”
“You don’t have to. You only have to read it.”
There was so much more I wanted to know about her, but how would I go about it without prying, or presuming, or annoying?
“Do you live near here? Grow up in LA?”
The look on her face said she knew I was struggling, so I believe she decided to rescue me.
With a bemused smile, she said, “South Los Angeles. I’m kind of dark, you notice, and that’s because my father was from Puerto Rico. My mother was half English, half German, an unlikely combination given that her parents met when the two countries were at war with each other. Her father was a British pilot, shot down over Germany, and this young German girl hid him from the Nazis—rescued him, actually. Anyway, they had a daughter a couple of years later, and she migrated to America in the seventies, met my father right here in Los Angeles at a soccer match—Latinos as well as Brits love soccer.”
“Sorry to tell you I don’t. Fast-paced game, but not enough scoring. They can play for two hours and it ends up one to nothing.”
“True. I like basketball myself. Something always happening.”
“So, you still live in South LA?”
“Kind of. I left my parents’ home two years ago. Got an apartment near Culver City. I’m twenty-one. I’d had enough of their dysfunctional relationship. He was abusive and she was vain. He wanted her to look perfect and she obliged, but if she dared look at another man, wham! he’d go nuts. Affected me too. I mean his violence and all. I think I’m permanently scarred.”
“You don’t look scarred,” I said with a smile.
“I don’t mean physically.”
“Emotionally scarred?”
“Aren’t we all?”
“I don’t know about all, but I certainly am.”
“Oh? How do you manifest it?”
“Dreams.”
“You have bad dreams?”
“Do I!”
“Neat! So do I.”
“Boy, we’re going to have to share our dreams.”
“That could be taken in a lot of ways.”
“I meant our creepy ones, the nightmares.” I hesitated then asked, “Are yours repetitive?”
“Some. A couple. One or two keep popping up every few weeks, the same ones, sometimes with slight variations.”
“Mine too. I’ve had one from childhood. Never seems to settle down. Keeps plaguing me.”
“Ever see a doctor? I mean a shrink?”
“When I was a kid. Not lately. I function okay, but these dreams come when I least expect them and they sour my mood. How about you?”
“I see a counselor regularly. It keeps me toned down.”
“You get hyper? That’s hard for me to imagine. You seem so calm.”
She laughed. “You ain’t seen me under pressure.”
“I hope I will.”
Her look was penetrating, and I saw, for a fleeting instant, what she might have meant—an ignition in those black-emerald eyes, as if any little spark could bring on an inferno of passion. From my young perspective, that was both daunting and promising.
With quiet intensity, she replied, “Don’t worry. You will.”
FOUR
That was the beginning with Abby. I tended to pout if I didn’t get my way and she tended to explode, mine a legacy from Mom’s doting, hers from her turbulent home life. The seeds for friction between us were clearly present and ominous.
Two weeks after we met, I had my first-ever sexual experience. I didn’t ask but it was obvious it wasn’t her first, since she had been on her own for a time and told tales of different “boyfriends” she’d been involved with, though without specifics.
How someone could be so naïve might be hard to understand, but considering the coddling I got from my mother, it makes sense. It has to do with my dreams, the hurts I got when I was growing up, and the consequences of all that. See, I thought that as I got further away from the painful incidents, the remnants and the cruel leftovers would fade, like an old picture, or a setting sun. What I didn’t understand was that all through life new insults can occur, imbedding themselves in the psyche, intruding themselves into dreams, torturing what some people call the soul.
That first sexual event with Abby was one of those nasty augmentations and now, at thirty-one, I’m aware it was nothing I did wrong, though at the time I was devastated.
She invited me to her apartment, a one-bedroom affair in a three-story brick building on a cul-de-sac. It was neatly furnished with only the necessities, no frills, not much color, but comfortable.
After an hour of drinking tea and talking, she made a move on me. I can’t say I minded in any way, though it was forward of her. The way she did it—we were sitting side-by-side on the couch—sent my passions through the roof: without warning, she laid her hand on my groin and began rubbing.
“Come on,” she said. “Enough of this small talk.”
She pulled me into the bedroom with one hand, while she unbuttoned her blouse with the other. Nothing on underneath! So, what did I expect? But here’s where it grew eerie.
We kissed for a couple of minutes, tongue and all, and then, with both of us naked as statues, I rolled over on top of her. I have to say, even without experience or any way to compare, Abby had a most sensual body, curvaceous, smooth, with a perky bosom and a full triangle of dark pubic hair. I was in absolute heaven.
“No, you don’t!” she squealed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” I yelled apologetically, though not sure why.
She said nothing, but pushed me off and inserted herself on top of me. Without words, she resumed the lovemaking, rocking slowly at first, then faster, then furiously.
At last she was done, lay quietly on me for a long moment, then slid off and onto her back, where she stared at the wall.
I didn’t know what to do. Nothing in my suburban cocoon prepared me for this—what could I even call it?—conundrum. As was my pattern, I wanted to fault myself. Three minutes of silence pierced my heart with recriminations: I didn’t know how to do it; I was hurting her; she was disappointed; worst of all, I was inadequate.
Finally, she said in a flat, basso voice, “When I was sixteen, I was raped.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to think of anything else.
“My stupid father blamed me, said I was a puta, a whore. And my mother? Well, it was my father’s nephew who did it, so naturally she didn’t believe me.”
“Abby, I….”
“That’s okay. I’m not looking for sympathy.”
“I know, but….”
A brittle laugh escaped her as she turned and placed her hand on my chest. “I can’t tolerate the man being the aggressor. Has to be my call, my way. Hope that didn’t put you off.”
I shrugged. For all I knew, all women could very well act that way. Anyway, I was prone not to buy her story totally. The rape part, sure, but beside that, I must have fucked up in my approach.
“So as you can tell,” she added, “I’m a wounded specimen. Fragile is another way to say it. And a third is—I lack freedom and spontaneity.”
“I don’t know about that,” I managed to say. “You have a great laugh, you are quick-witted, you see through to the heart of an issue. You’ve got me hooked.”
“Nah. You’re flattering me.”
“Not true. I think you’re amazing.”
“I’m not complaining. I’ll take it. But you still don’t really k
now me.”
“A little bit at a time.”
She was quiet, staring into my eyes in the muted light of her pastel bedroom. I wasn’t swift enough to put much importance on that: her apartment was the perfect portrait of her verbal self-description—flat, lacking in spontaneity.
She said in a somber tone, “You’re going to run. Not at first. I’m volatile enough to keep it interesting. But after a while you’ll get frightened, and you’ll run.”
“Uh-uh, I won’t.”
She smiled—a wry, sad smile—and said, “You’ll run.”
FIVE
“How come her name is Justice if her father is Puerto Rican?” It was the third degree from Mother—not a surprise, but surely a bore.
“His name in Spanish was Guillermo Maldonado Justicia. Translated, that’s William Justice. Abby decided to go with the English version.”
“Is she poor? A poor Mexican?”
“Mother!”
“Not meant as an insult, only a question.”
I wasn’t courageous enough to stand up to her completely; after all, without a father around, one gets addicted to the mother figure and her parental bounty. But this cross-examination felt to me, even in my youth and dependency, as pure prejudice.
“With a lot of innuendo.”
“Well, son, you are rather special. I don’t want you tossing yourself away on mediocrity.”
“You don’t know that she’s mediocre. You don’t know anything about her.”
“Only what you’ve told me.”
“Which is superficial, and anyway only because you asked.”
“You surprised me. You said you had a girlfriend.”
“I do. My girlfriend, not yours.”
“Oh, I’m not going to meet her?”
“Not with that attitude. You’d scare the hell out of her.”
“I’m not an ogre, Clarence, only watchful, guarding my son’s best interests.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re your best interests.”
“What’s the difference? We are the same family, the same blood. You and I have a common interest. What’s good for me is good for you.”
Something was wrong with that, but I didn’t quite know how to respond. Yes, we were family, and yes, a lot of the time our interests merged. But the way she put it—I mean her implication—was that we were like one person, inseparable, joined at the hip. That I didn’t like. That I didn’t agree with.
Finally I said, “You have to trust me, Mother. I’m a man now, all grown up. The way you reared me, your influences and your values are precisely what help me make choices.”
I caught her approving smile. In some ways I knew how to play her, but down deep I wondered if she was playing me. Now, with perspective, I’m sure she was.
“You are a sweet boy,” she said, and crushed me in her arms.
Growing up in that place, those bear hugs meant safety for me. It would be hard to escape that subliminal message.
A couple of weeks later, she convinced me to invite Abby over for dinner. It wasn’t a disaster, but I was riddled with anxiety from the moment the evening began.
“Marilyn Candle,” Mother said, offering her hand. She always shook hands with new people hard, the way a man might; it was a message of intimidation.
“Nice to meet you,” Abby said in her agile but guarded way.
“I opened a bottle of superb Fetzer Carmine—a true red. It’s been breathing for twenty minutes.”
“Nice,” Abby said.
“So, you are a writer too.”
“I’m learning. I wouldn’t yet call myself a writer. I’ve had nothing published.”
“It takes time. Clare here is terribly talented, and so far his only publication is a poem in a children’s anthology.”
“The Alumni Magazine at USC printed an essay of mine a year ago.”
“Oh, yes, I recall that. Quite good, too. Took on the campus jocks for not attending classes regularly.”
“I edited my high school yearbook,” Abby said, “though it wasn’t a very creative job. More like organizing and cutting and pasting.”
“I hope you get encouragement from your family. Support is a must. We all need a little push now and then.”
“I don’t see my family much. It’s just as well.”
There was a short silence, filled with Mother saying, “Clare doesn’t have all that much to do with his father. That is just as well too.”
“I see him now and then. I like his daughters.” I turned to Abby and said, “He remarried—a woman with two kids.”
“Yes,” Mother said, “and the older one, who is now sixteen, has a crush on Clare.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Well, now, Clare, you don’t see it but I do. She moons all over the place when you are around.”
“That’s just typical teenage hero-worship of older guys. She has her own friends and, for all I know, a boyfriend.”
“She hasn’t. She’d like you to be her boyfriend. Your father even mentioned it to me in an email a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, you’re emailing with Dad now?”
“Strictly business. He was supposed to contribute to the health plan we have for you. Nasty man always forgets.”
I took a risk and said, with sarcasm, “And you remind him.”
“Someone has to.”
She laughed, waved her arm as if to say, Enough on that topic, looked at Abby, and said, “You are a pretty thing. Your hair is striking. Dark and straight, like an ebony cascade.” She said this as if reading from a billboard.
“Thank you,” Abby said, blushing—the first time I ever saw her blush. In my presence she was on top of her game, more sophisticated than I, more aware of men-women agendas, so that I tended to follow her lead.
“Was your mother dark?”
“Dark hair, like mine, but kind of, surprisingly, green eyes.”
“Yours are kind of green,” I said. “On the fringes.”
Abby smiled. “I have two-tone eyes.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mother said. “I know an actress who has one brown eye and one blue. Kate something. Very striking.”
I knew my mother so well: all this banter was camouflage, or more likely her way of circling the wagons; beneath every sentence was a purpose, under every topic a motive. She was out to discover Abby, desiccate her if she could and pull her frailties out into the open so I would see how inadequate she was for me. I hated it. At the moment I hated her.
What I didn’t anticipate was Abby’s resourcefulness, bolstered by her measured ire. When cornered, she was a clever combatant.
“We are,” she said, “certainly gabbing away about trivia, aren’t we?”
I could see Mother recoil. It would not be easy, this process of undressing the young woman: sly, cunning, not easy to push around.
“Yes, well that’s what an introductory evening is all about: frivolous conversation, humor, inanities, getting to know one another. Don’t you think?”
One of my professors at USC told me that when someone says ‘Don’t you think?’ she really means ‘I think.’ Mother’s point was priceless. She was––her rare talent––defining the agenda.
That sweet Abby smile showed again as she said, “I see that you certainly think that, Marilyn, and I am happy to oblige.”
In that moment I realized that Abby was a veteran at deflection. Growing up as she did, in a disputatious home, she must have had to use all her wits to survive, had to refine her fencing skills, become expert at parrying all kinds of verbal thrusts.
Mother was a rather good cook, her culinary interests honed in the pursuit of nourishing her precious little son. She turned her attention to food.
“Let us dine,” she said. “I hope you like veal. I made veal cutlets, apple sauce with raisins, sweet potatoes, and a very special cream horse-radish sauce.”
While we were eating, Mother’s agenda resurfaced. “What kinds of food did your mother prepare?”
“What my father said he wanted. Usually had peppery paste all over it, the hotter the better. He likes spicy stuff. But I wouldn’t say she was a great cook. The food was starchy and plentiful, even though we weren’t in any way affluent.”
“Sounds like your father kind of ran the show.”
“Like all men, he thought he did. She had her own way of controlling things.”
At last a common thread, a mutual meeting ground. Mother, not surprisingly, jumped on this perspective.
“Right! Same as in our family; Clare’s father was a self-appointed, hollow hero. The truth came out when he left us.” She looked at me. “Right, Clare? He turned out to be a phony.”
“That’s your opinion, Mother. I get along with him okay. He’s tried to make a new life for himself.”
“He’s welcome to it. For me it was good riddance. Let him do his gaming with someone else.”
I could have fought with her––if anyone was gaming in my parents’ relationship, it was my mother––but what was the use? She would never have admitted it, and it would have simply roiled the waters and messed up our dinner. I knew what she meant by gaming: manipulative, secretive, controlling, and even dishonest. She was more that way than he.
“You’re better off, Mother, and so is he. Let’s leave it at that.”
“It is important, Abby, to see your parents in the proper light. Ours is an educated family, sometimes contentious, and when Phillip was with us, dysfunctional, but we never lost sight of the aesthetic. To learn is to flourish.”
Oh-oh. That was a backhanded insult. I wondered how Abby would handle it.
“My family was dysfunctional most of the time. I pride myself on my curiosity. I relish reading and I love learning. Self-educated is what you might call me.”
“That’s nice, dear,” clear condescension in Mother’s voice.
I wanted to stay out of it, but found myself saying, “It takes a lot of self-discipline to learn on your own. Quite an admirable trait.”
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