“Do you snore?” she added.
“I … I don’t think so, but then I’m asleep so I don’t know for sure. I dream, though, a lot, and not always pleasant.”
“Then what do you do, wake up screaming, crying, or what?”
“I’m pretty used to them by now, so usually I wake up with an ‘aha, so that’s what’s buzzing me.’ The last few years it’s been a lot better. I cleaned out some of my real nightmares by going to a shrink for several months.”
“I think I might do that.”
“You? What would be your issues?”
“I’m not sure, but it would be a valuable experience, especially for a writer.”
“That it would. Has been a life-changer for me.” I stopped then thought to say, “If you decide to do it, let me know. My therapist was superb.”
“You’ll be the first one I consult.” She smiled at me, turned, and began scanning the landscape again. At last she said, “So sleeping with your stepsister won’t turn you off too much?”
Was she playing a game, toying with me? What in hell was going on? With as much sincerity as I could muster, I began, “Jeri, if you feel comfortable sharing a bed with me, I’d…,” I paused, and finished, “well, I’d feel honored,” aware that I switched intent in the middle of my sentence, ending with a toss of my head and an air of triviality.
“The honor is mutual,” she said with her sweetest smile.
Jeri knew that Abby and I were history for a few years already, but she didn’t know a thing about Abby’s whereabouts. Once in a letter, she asked if I knew, and I had replied rather vaguely that she was living up north somewhere.
I was trusting to luck that we would not have to get into the awkwardness of a sudden meeting; though Ashland was a fairly small town measured by permanent residents, it burgeoned with tourists and visitors over the summer months. My best guess was that the inhabitants would just as soon avoid the invaders.
We had tickets for a Tom Stoppard play called On the Razzle, a pure farce, rather different from his other plays, reminiscent, in fact, of Shakespeare’s comedies, with pithy situations, clever quips (made me think of Cole Porter’s lyrics), and a variety of inane characters. I was aware that Stoppard had written the screenplay for Shakespeare In Love, which won an Academy Award, so it was apparent he knew his ancestral Bard. The play took place in Venice, Italy, as did some of Shakespeare’s.
A college pal of mine who majored in English and went on for a doctorate at the University of London told me that when he saw the Stoppard film, he was put off by the mongrelization of Shakespeare’s life and work. As a reaction, he wrote a one-act play about old Will encountering the upstart Tom. He let me read it, and I found it humorous and irreverent, especially the first meeting between the two, where Shakespeare asks, “Are you that Mr. Tom Stoppit?” It goes on with the reincarnated Bard excoriating the current playwright for his liberties and scrambled history.
We went directly to the theatre, since it was evening when we arrived, and Jeri phoned the B and B to tell them we would check in at 10:00 or 11:00 PM. Both of us enjoyed the frivolity and stopped afterwards for some very rich homemade ice cream before driving the half-mile to our residence.
As Jeri said, we had one second floor room with bath and one bed, all elegant and tastefully appointed, with luxurious coverlets, puffy pillows, sweeping drapes over the double windows, a whirling ceiling fan, and a decanter on the bureau filled with a tasty port, which we sampled before preparing for sleep.
“Go ahead,” I said, “you can use the bathroom first. I’ll read for a bit.”
“Think I’ll shower,” she said. “The long trip made me feel grimy.”
In my distorted and foolishly hopeful mental diagram, that simple sentence was a message: got to be clean, fresh, prepared to be touched, smelled, ravished. How inane of me, but then she did make the plans.
All right, though normally I showered in the morning, this time I would follow her. Both of us would be clean and fresh and … whatever else.
Ten minutes later, she smelled pure—not perfumed or saccharine sweet—like a baby bathed and powdered, and wore a long floppy shirt over shorts, or something that didn’t cover her legs. In my imagination, she wore only the shirt.
When I emerged from the bathroom, she was reading a hardbound book by Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions. My night outfit was usually a white thermal underwear type top and bottom, not very aesthetically pleasing, certainly not designed for sensuality. This time, instead, I slipped on a tie-dye shirt, dark blue, with red and yellow bands on the short sleeves. I did wear the long thermal bottoms out of some kind of false modesty—or, as I allowed myself to admit, some embarrassment over my skinny legs.
“Clever writer,” she said, looked up, caught herself, and tacked on, “Neat shirt.”
“You like Vonnegut.”
“I can’t write like him, condensed sentences, bizarre scenarios, characters that do the unexpected. But I find him valuable to read. Teaches me how to be more irreverent in my own writing.”
“When I’m struggling for inspiration, I like to read either the simplest sentences, like Hemingway, or the most descriptive, like Annie Proulx. Her book, The Shipping News, was like poetry, won her the Pulitzer.”
“You know, she didn’t write her first novel till she was in her fifties. She also wrote the short story, Brokeback Mountain, which was made into a powerful film.”
“Aren’t we both just bubbling over with literary insights,” I said, with a little laugh.
“Was I pompous? I’m sorry.”
“Not at all, I started the name-dropping. Anyway, it’s fun that we’re on the same page and can share.”
She stared at me for a moment then said, “It’s late. We don’t have anything special to do in the morning, but the breakfast part of Bed and Breakfast is at nine o’clock. I like to run in the morning. Probably get up around seven and run for half an hour.”
“Oh,” I said lamely.
“Isn’t this fun? No obligations. Free as the wind.”
“Free as mountain streams.”
“Free as eagles on wing.”
“Free as sunlight.” I was relishing this metaphorical exercise.
“Free as fire.”
“Fettered,” I said, “only by our own internal censors.”
She laughed and said, dismissively, “I don’t have any.”
“Good,” I said, laid my watch on the night stand, switched off my lamp, and climbed onto my half of the bed.
She place-marked her Vonnegut, set it on the floor near the bed, pushed the button on her side-lamp, pulled covers over her, turned toward the windows and whispered, “Good night.”
“Uh, good night.”
There was a brief silence, and without turning, she said, “I like your thermal leggings.”
In that moment, I hated them.
As I have said, and as is obvious, I am a restless sleeper. My dreams, when at crises, snap me awake—avoidance, I’m certain, of scary endings or outlandish situations.
My fear, sleeping next to Jeri, was that I would churn and toss and disturb her. Abby, when we would spend the night together, had no problems with my restiveness, since she, too, was a wild dreamer.
I should have guessed: Jeri slept like a child, breath quiet, body immobile, hardly a stir, no hidden pain streaking through her demanding resolution.
I began to sleep more soundly in the dark moments of early morning, and awoke hearing, then seeing, Jeri fiddling with her clothing near the window. I sat up and she saw me and said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you. I’m heading off for a run. Be back in time for breakfast.”
“Sure.”
“Go back to sleep.”
She stepped into the bathroom, took a couple of minutes to change into a black halter and shorts—though maybe she had been wearing them under her shirt—and danced out, smiling, frisky as a kitten.
We waved at each other as she exited our room, and I saw her again, flush
ed and pink, almost an hour later.
Breakfast was scrumptious, a table set for ten, in the bright dining room opposite a glass expanse of window and back door that led out to an elevated porch. On the menu: orange juice, coffee or tea, sesame seed rolls, a saucer of fruit delicacies, and on each main plate, a spinach quiche and three strips of well-cooked bacon.
One older couple sat near us from Carmichael, California, up-slope from Sacramento. They owned five acres, cultivated assorted trees, grew most of their own vegetables, and mentioned the deer that visited their yard. The woman did all the talking, not oppressive, but continuous; her husband nodded and confirmed.
When eating was over, Jeri and I decided to wander the town, window shop, check out any interesting events, and make reservations for dinner before the next play—which was to be The Taming of the Shrew, brilliant, as were all of Shakespeare, but rather outdated applied to women.
We had hours to spend, and strolled into Lithia Park, near a pond inhabited by half a dozen ducks, fed occasionally by children tossing bread pieces into the water. She wanted sun and I wanted shade, so we found a bench beside a tree that accommodated both of us, and read our books, she continuing with Vonnegut, I trying to finish Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, sharply written, but very British.
All of this felt serene and comfortable, though my confusion about the sleeping arrangements and our obvious mutual sexual abstinence grated on me. I wanted—no, I hungered—to break through with Jeri, become physically intimate, change our historical alignment. Silently, I promised myself to do something about it after the evening’s theatre was over.
Do something about it, in my timid repertoire, meant explore her motives, gauge her interest in me: had it ever been, was it now, could it be, by some stretch of the imagination, erotic? I honestly had no clue. She was always my little stepsister, and while Stevie’s intent left no doubt, Jeri’s had never been declared one way or the other.
My cautious agenda was plotted, but, as is often the case, something happened to disrupt it, to alter, in fact, the entire stasis of our orderly arrangement.
Prior to the evening performances, ‘dancing on the green,’ on a verdant area between theatres, was presented, obviously an attempt to be authentic about Elizabethan practices, though, in this case, the dancers were four shapely women wearing very little and three muscular men in leotards, all barefoot, all performing athletic modern dance routines to the music of Kurt Weill.
For forty minutes they entertained, theatre patrons assembled on the grassy slope around the raised polished wooden platform, enjoying the evening frivolity in surprisingly pleasant weather, no rain, low humidity.
It ended twenty minutes before the eight o’clock shows at the Globe and Angus Bowmer theatres were to start. We brushed ourselves off and headed toward the Globe Theatre, and, as we did, a voice from behind us said, “Well, hello.”
No mistaking it. We turned and Abby was standing there, smiling, at her side a long-haired bearded man wearing a nose ring and one left-side circular earring.
“Abby!” Jeri bellowed with delight, and leapt back to embrace her long-absent friend.
Abby stepped around and hugged me, my emotions roiling, her look so different, my confusion spread out as if under glass, an acrylic display for all to see.
“You look … super, Abby,” I said, not convinced of my words, but not able to come up with any other. She was still beautiful, but grubby, the way hippies look, the way counterculture people look.
“Brother and sister together,” Abby said. “Oh, this is Angelo, a friend. My old lover and his stepsister, Clare and Jeri.”
“Hey, man,” the fellow said, “which one’s which?”
“Yes,” Abby replied, “each could be boy or girl.” She pointed at me, “That one’s Clarence.”
He didn’t reach for either of our hands, but saluted instead, as if we were officers and outranked him.
“I’ve certainly missed you. Have you lived here all along?” Jeri was charged with electricity, blue eyes latched on to Abby’s darker ones, her usual genuineness brimming over.
“Oh, sweetie, I’ve been hiding out, looking for myself. Think I may have found me here. Progressive community, aesthetically rich, less bullshit, fewer people. Too many tourists, but what can you do—they know a good thing so they fill up the B and Bs and little hotels from March through September.” She stopped, and added, “Like you.”
She turned and said, “You look astonished, Clare, healthy and robust, but astonished.”
“I’m surprised to see you.” Damn, she always nailed me. How come she didn’t hide out, the way other Ashland year-round residents did, and avoid the bustle of vacationing gawkers?
“Sure. Well, Angelo and I get season tickets. We tolerate the visiting rabble for the joy of the theatre, though we know all the world’s a stage.”
“And we’re the players,” Jeri concluded.
A serious look absorbed Abby, and she almost whispered, “I hope you’ve been enjoying your journey, Clare. Silly, the twists and turns of a life, totally unpredictable, from crisis to delirium, from the dungeons to the towers.”
“You’re still the poet, Abby. Yeah, have to take the soaring with the sordid.” I stopped and, after a brief moment, added, “You seem to be soaring. I’m happy for you.”
“You guys are over my head,” Angelo said.
In that instance, I wondered about the effect on Abby of a boyfriend wearing the same kind of earring as our imprisoned adversary, good old Kentucky Prism.
Jeri said directly to him, “They know each other so well. It’s esoterica, a private inside language, only for the initiated. I’m on the outside too.”
Lights along the exterior of the Globe Theatre blinked in the twilight, the universal signal to find seats and settle in.
“Better go,” Abby said. “I’d love to catch up with both of you. Let’s do it with email when you get home.”
“Sure,” I said, aware on one level that it was a dismissal—no expectation to meet after the play for drinks or snacks or conversation.
“Oh, Abby,” Jeri said. “I really have missed you. I treasured our connection and learned a lot from you. We were true friends. I hope we can hold on to some kind of connection.”
“Of course we can. I’m far away in miles, but we can be close together in our hearts.”
Abby turned and kissed my cheek, then hugged me extra long, tight, bodies melded. Angelo took it in with a foolish, fixed grin, and my fantasies told me that he was familiar with divided loyalties and maybe even free love.
Though years had passed, for some inexplicable reason that moment felt like the finale in my love drama with Abby, a period at the end of our long sentence, the closing of a door, the final reprise in our melodious voyage, no curtain call commanded.
With a palpable sense of trepidation, I wondered what impact that denouement would have on my quixotic, nocturnal dreamland.
We, Jeri and I, turned left, and they, Abby and Angelo, turned right. We did not see them again.
THIRTY-SIX
There was a shift in Jeri’s demeanor. I drove back to the Bayberry at eleven—the play had been quick-paced, superbly staged, witty as always, and, at the end, to soften the message that women were under the domination of their men, the director had Kate grab her husband’s ear and pull him off stage, meager compensation for a misguided message. My companion, by comparison with Abby in her new look and manner, seemed all the more desirable, yet, exaggeratedly unspoiled, almost unreal. How could any woman be as pristine, as untarnished as Jeri?
Juxtaposed, as I saw them outside the theatre, the vagaries of life showed dramatically, the planet’s secluded arbors, which each of us inhabits alone, having woven their mysterious influences to make Abby one way, Jeri another, brought each to exactly where she was at that moment.
And now, with Jeri, something was different. We climbed the carpeted steps to our room, keyed our way in, and began our separate tasks of pu
tting things away, preparing for the bathroom, preparing for bed.
When our ablutions were over, I sat on my side and read, and Jeri approached from her side. With a harder tone than I can remember her ever using, she said, “I read somewhere that a woman—or a man—becomes more desirable to her partner after having been seen in deep communication with another. Could be a kind of jealousy thing. You know, ‘Wow, that other person finds him interesting, entertaining, maybe even exciting.’”
Her intent escaped me, though I agreed with the message. “Makes sense,” I said, my earlier determination to confront her with our celibacy now softened in the afterglow of the encounter with Abby. Yet Jeri was obviously pursuing a new tack, and I needed to trace it out. “So, what’s the significance of that to you?”
She looked puzzled, scrunched up her pretty nose, and said, “Even when you told me it was ended, I kept thinking of you as Abby’s man. Never occurred to me to look at it any other way. Then, tonight, when I saw her with her new boyfriend, changed—I mean, she is definitely changed—and when I saw the two of you hug…,” she stopped, her face suddenly flushed, the color of a pink sunset.
“What?” I asked, staring up at her, aware of the ceiling fan beyond her, whirring almost silently, feeling my heart rate surge.
“It’s embarrassing, because I may be way out of line.”
“Give it a shot. What is it?”
“Well, when you and Abby were hugging, I felt this odd sensation that I wished it were me.”
“Oh, Jeri.”
“I’ve always thought of you as attractive, but off limits.”
A laugh exploded from me, unbidden but uncensored, “I was scared. How could I pursue my step-mom’s kid?”
“You wanted to pursue me?”
“You bet. When you invited me on this trip, my fantasy world began to turn real. But until this moment, I was sure I had it wrong.”
“But how could I presume to have a romance with my step-brother?”
“We both were doing a number on our feelings. Too many outside no-no’s, too many prohibitions.”
She seemed recalcitrant for an instant, and said, “I don’t want you to think I had ulterior motives for inviting you. In all honesty I wanted my great friend to join me. The awareness, the possibility of something more, dropped on me like a massive weight after tonight’s episode with Abby.”
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