Nothing Serious

by Daniel Klein

  Mary and Digby do a mutual super-hand squeeze. Its meaning is unambiguous: they are both moved by Aylesworth. Being genuinely moved at the same time and in the same place—being moved together—promotes a species of intimacy that is unfamiliar to Digby at this late date in his career. It is, he realizes, a supreme form of intimacy.

  Aylesworth gestures through the window and now President Herker comes slowly walking out onto the terrace followed at a discreet few feet by his first lady. He is displaying what Digby’s mother used to call ‘a brave face,’ which is to say he looks defeated. Digby believes that he is now going to publicly tender his resignation—for the good of dear old Louden. But before Herker reaches center stage, a barrage of ‘boos’ bursts from the gay contingent. The opposing tribe instantly answers back with a chant that Digby suspects was pre-orchestrated, “Herker must stay! Homos must go!” Digby has to admit that distasteful as this chant is, it is kind of catchy. It is also the long-anticipated spark.

  A young man sporting a lavender T-shirt belts a chanting young man wearing a “Louden Varsity Squash” T-shirt right in the larynx. Then a pony-tailed blonde on the opposite side of the divide knees a pony-tailed brunette on the gay side. Screams, yelps, and, in a trice, general combat is engaged.

  Winny and her friend sprint off, out of harm’s way, but neither Mary nor Digby seem to be able to move, even if they both believe it would be the prudent thing to do. Instead, they stand perfectly still, their arms wrapped around one another, their heads tucked down, cheek to cheek.

  Police whistles pierce the clamor. Then, out of the corner of one eye, Digby sees the uniforms come rushing into the melee, batons raised. A loud whack, then another. It is terrifying.

  “Please! Please! For the love of God, please!”

  This cry, in a deep baritone, seems to come from the heavens. For starters, it has the resonance and authority of a deity, perhaps a Greek god, say Prometheus. But more to the point, it very much does appear to come down at them from overhead. Outdoor Yamaha speakers? Somebody on the roof of the Administration Building? Virtually everyone present, including the police, suspend their fists and batons to gaze upward.

  And there they behold Miles “Kim” Herker riding astride the broad, square shoulders of Daryl Aylesworth. The vertical duo is charging into the center of the warring tribes, their combined height easily ten feet. They look glorious, astounding, and even vaguely mythological—a double-blazered Chiron.

  “Please!” Herker cries again. “We are better than this!”

  His voice has the timbre of a Shakespearian actor. It has power and commanding urgency. To be sure, there is something wildly comical about two middle-aged men in coats and ties doing the piggyback thing, but this act also vouches for sublime courage, daring imagination, and the spot-on reflexes of born athletes. Further, it strikes Digby that Herker’s legs slung over Ayesworth’s shoulders, crotch to neck, has vaguely homoerotic overtones.

  In any event, it works. Arms are dropped to sides, heads are bent in embarrassment. A brief, stunned silence.

  “Thank you,” Herker says, still astride his mount. “We have all made mistakes here. I certainly know I have. I deeply regret them. But I am not too old or too stubborn to change. And I want to thank the board of overseers and Mr. Aylesworth in particular.” Here—swear to God—he pats Aylesworth, his faithful steed, on the top of his golden head. “Because they have given me another chance, a chance to make things right.”

  A number of the gay contingent again starts to raise their voices in protest that apparently he is not resigning after all, but Herker soldiers on. “As a start in that direction, I am appointing June MacLane as Associate Dean of Students with a full vote on the student policy committee of Louden College. Effective immediately. Miss MacLane? Come on out here.”

  June, head high and stately, steps onto the terrace arm-in-arm with none other than Ada, the blushing barmaid. For the occasion, Ada has donned a teal, Vera Wang knock-off halter dress. She looks gorgeous in the extreme. Indeed, the men in both camps cannot take their eyes off her. Many of the women in both camps also.

  “A miracle,” Mary whispers to Digby.

  “Of nature?” Digby asks.

  Mary laughs. “That too,” she says. “But the whole image. And what it means.”

  “What does it mean?” Digby asks, but before Mary can reply June begins to speak.

  “President Herker, I am honored. And I accept. Together we will create a more tolerant, happier Louden College. One where people can proudly be themselves without shame or fear.”

  Then it is June’s turn to pile on with bromides about broad-mindedness and respecting differences, demonstrating once again that those on the fringe can be just as banal as those in the mainstream. Mary takes this opportunity to pick up her whispered conversation with Digby.

  “June called me about an hour ago,” she says. “Wanted me to be her onstage consort. But I declined. Said it would send a confusing message. I told her to find a sister lesbian for the occasion in order to demonstrate her pride. She sounded hurt, but I thought she sounded relieved too. She and Ada were a hot item before she became pregnant. Look at them! Delicious, huh?”

  “Delectable,” Digby replies.

  June appears to be winding down. Herker dismounts and, apparently following June’s lead, hooks up with his Muffy and the pair mosey up beside June and Ada, Daryl Aylesworth shuffling behind them. Daryl is slightly stooped, his back a little the worse for wearing Herker. The five of them line up side-by-side and smile out upon the assembly.

  The entire tableaux has a corny, photo-op-at-the-conclusion-of-a-Mid-East-peace-conference gloss to it, but that is clearly just the ticket. All traces of belligerence have evaporated from the erstwhile combatants beyond the CRIME SCENE barrier. Camera clicks fill the air. Digby’s eyes are now drawn to Muffy Herker’s face. She, alone, appears discontented up there, her mouth drawn tight, her heavily mascaraed eyes narrowed. Does this merely come from wounded vanity at having to share the spotlight—and share it with the magnificent Ada, no less? Or is some deeper resentment at play on her brow?

  Muffy provides the answer forthwith. She pivots toward her husband, reaches both hands around his neck, and yanks his head down level with hers, face to face, whereupon she plants a long, steamy smooch on his lips. Digby is certain that this act is not born of a sudden passion for her hubby. No, Muffy Herker, with her gift for dramatic expression, is definitely making a public pronouncement, to wit: Yes, but Sacré bleu, we all still know that the man-woman thing is the real thing!

  Ada and June read Muffy’s meaning instantly. So they do exactly what the situation demands: they wrap their arms around one another and produce an even longer, even more succulent kiss complete with some visible, slinky tongue work. What the onlookers have before them is a kissing contest the likes of which have never been seen at any state fair.

  Digby surveys the mob of Herker supporters, the über-loyal Louden men and women. Have they tuned in to the high political stakes involved in this smooch competition? Will they, too, be inspired to reassert the natural supremacy of heterosexuality—perhaps with some more chants or even a few renewed pokes and punches?

  Nope. And the reason for this has nothing at all to do with anyone’s pride in his or her sexual orientation. No, the men and even many of the women in both groups are way too turned on by the sight of the scrumptious Ada getting lusty in her spaghetti-strapped halter dress to have a single thought about ideology. Hell, she could be making out with a rock for all they care. A lusty young beauty of either orientation whips identity politics every time.

  Muffy has lost the contest big-time, knows it, and promptly leads President Herker by the hand back into the Administration Building. Aylesworth follows, then June and Ada—but not before they perform a quick, giggly reprise of their frenchie. It elicits cheers from one and all.

  “Perfect,” Mary says. “Every last bit of it.”

  Digby is pretty sure he knows what she means
. June, with her new job and status, not to mention a gorgeous woman with whom she seems poised to again share her bed, will undoubtedly be less preoccupied with parenthood, especially shared parenthood with a straight woman. Like all good wrench throws, this one appears to have had some marvelous, totally unpredictable consequences.

  Mary and Digby are now sitting on what he likes to think of as their personal rock near the woods on the outskirts of Louden. They are still holding hands, glory be. Winding back from the Administration Building terrace, they had some fun creating an imaginary highlights reel of the athletic press conference, finally deciding that the June–Ada kiss trumped the Herker–Aylesworth piggyback ride, astonishing as that was, for the opening sequence. They have also had some intermittent hand squeezes, the meaning of which Digby dares not contemplate. They sit quietly for a long while, then Mary says, “That talk we had the other night. Out here. It helped more than you can imagine.”

  “I’m glad,” Digby says.

  “Cathartic, I guess. And clarifying.”

  “Good,” Digby says.

  “I’m giving up my pulpit,” Mary goes on. “After the baby is born. It’s a boy, by the way. Reuben. I’m naming him Reuben.”

  The patronymic version of the continuum hypothesis.

  “Sounds right,” Digby says. “What will you do?”

  “Teach,” Mary says. “I found a job teaching high school in Rockport. Rockport, Massachusetts. That’s where I’m from.”

  Digby does a mental Mapquest—Rockport is only a three-hour drive from Louden. This is good.

  “I had almost made up my mind before all this happened today,” Mary goes on. “But now I am convinced that it will be easier, much easier than I was afraid it would be. You know, June will be more okay with it.”

  “I’m sure she will,” Digby says.

  A long stillness. Then, for the first time, Digby is the one to plant a kiss—on Mary’s sweet lips. It is divine.

  “I’ll visit you,” he says.

  “I certainly hope so,” she says.

  CHAPTER 21

  Toward the end of her life, Digby’s mother developed a postscript to her theory of Unremitting Universal Decay and she named this P.S. ‘Salvation’ in heavy, ironic quotation marks. She was a Catholic, of course, but Cynthia-Marie Maxwell’s notion of salvation was far more interesting and fanciful than, say, St. Augustine’s. She saw salvation more as a trick ending than as a reward for good works or deathbed conversions. On the philosophical spectrum of teleological outcomes, Mrs. Maxwell’s occupied the space assigned to ‘goofy blessings.’

  All of this clearly made an indelible impression on Digby’s own worldview. He, too, has a thing for quirky finales, but in his metaphysics the name for it is luck. Good luck. His. No matter how much he fucks things up—and clearly fucking things up is the leitmotif of his life—he remains optimistic about a lucky, if tricky, ending.

  Indeed, even Digby’s mother would have concluded that 'The Kiss,’ as Digby would ever after designate it, was none other than her son’s Salvation, the beginning of his happy ending, his long-awaited goofy blessing.

  Possibly.

  Digby is sitting at his office desk with the page proofs of the Cogito Heaven Issue in his hands. The FedEx man just delivered them along with a package from babyGap containing a pair of blue, fleece-lined dinosaur booties for Reuben Jr. who, as of June’s latest checkup, is due in fourteen days. The proofs look splendid—wry, classy, brimming with visual wit—and Digby is pleased, although not as pleased as one might expect, just as he had merely smiled when Bob Baskerton phoned him with the news that Mrs. Hastings had officially reversed course and given her approval of the Saatchi & Saatchi ads. Digby just cannot summon up the old self-congratulatory spirit that used to come so easily to him.

  What he would mostly like to do right now is to show the proofs to Mary, especially the spectacular way her piece on ‘The Eternal Now’ jumps off the page next to the Heavens to Betsy panel of St. Peter who, in the illustrator’s imagination, resembles a bearded Mr. Magoo. But Mary is once again in Rockport furnishing her new digs and meeting with her prospective colleagues at Rockport High and interviewing nannies. In the weeks since The Kiss, Digby and Mary have spent time together only twice, both delightful, but both kiss-less. Digby has to admit to himself that he is a bit jealous of Mary’s excitement about her new life. He also has to admit to himself that it is just plain silly to feel jealous about that. At least, he hopes that it is just plain silly.

  Digby decides that his next best option is to immediately call a meeting of his staff and show them the product of their hard work. It is a team spirit-building tactic that he learned from Phil Winston, who undoubtedly learned it while trading management tips in the Yale Club common room. Digby reaches both June and Elliot on their cell phones, but is unable to contact Rostislav at his only phone, a landline in his department office that is without an answering machine; so he saunters out to Madeleine’s desk where she is industriously plugging in personal ads submitted at the eleventh hour. These now occupy two pages of the renovated Cogito.

  “We’re having a staff meeting at three,” Digby tells Madeleine. “Kind of a celebration for our first issue—my first issue, that is.”

  Madeleine nods, but continues typing.

  “I wasn’t able to reach Rosti though,” Digby goes on. “Can you—you know—position him?”

  “Rosti is no longer with us,” Madeleine replies.

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s on his way back to the Institute. In Moscow. He may even be there by now.”

  Although Madeleine has delivered this information in a dispassionate voice, Digby naturally suspects her tone to be a cover-up for a broken heart.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says.

  “I’m not.”

  “Really? I thought you and he were—”

  “We were,” Madeleine says, finally looking up at Digby with what appears to be a world-weary expression on her heretofore unsophisticated face. “It’s over. I had to put the kibosh on it. That’s why he left.”

  So, it was the logical positivist whose heart was crushed! Digby finds this news more disheartening than he would have thought it merited. Because, just below Digby’s consciousness, this news stabs at his increasingly anxious faith in the constancy of the female heart.

  “Ran its course, eh?” he says, trying to balance nonchalance with intimate concern.

  Madeleine shrugs. “If you really want to know, he just got to be too much. Too heavy. He wanted to get married, for God’s sake. Get married and stay here in Louden forever and ever.”

  “But, uh, that’s not what you had in mind?” Digby ventures.

  “Of course not. I mean the whole idea was he was only here for one term. A one-termer, you know?”

  “I see,” Digby says, starting back to his office before Madeleine can see the shock of middlebrow disapproval that is contorting his facial features. He is now quite sure that love has not merely weakened him, it has transformed him into a bourgeois saphead.

  Again taking a cue from Phil Winston’s playbook, Digby decides to make the staff meeting festive by ordering in some snack food. He looks through the Louden Yellow Pages for a pizza joint that delivers. He finds three and deliberates on his choices for a few moments; he sees it as an executive decision. He settles on Mario’s Oven and is about to dial when the phone rings. Madeleine answers it, then calls to him, “It’s for you.”

  Digby picks up. “Maxwell here,” he says, still in executive mode.

  “Hi, it’s Felicia.” Mrs. Hastings sounds positively girlish.

  Mrs. Hastings and Digby have not spoken a word to one another since the dressing down she gave him in her parlor over what she referred to as the ‘obscene’ ads that Saatchi & Saatchi had proposed. Digby has heard that Ronald LeFevre left Louden literally under the cover of night on the very day of Felicia’s fateful breakfast meeting with Bob Baskerton. That was only two weeks ago, but by t
one of voice, she sounds as if she has recovered completely from both shock and heartbreak, not to mention remorse and embarrassment for having behaved so deplorably under LeFevre’s tutelage.

  “Nice to hear your voice, Felicia,” Digby says, feeling giddily absolvitory.

  “I hear you’re having a special staff meeting this afternoon,” she says cheerfully.

  Whatever else may have changed, clearly sub-rosa campus communications have not slowed any.

  “Yes. A little bit of a celebration,” Digby says. “Show off the page proofs of the new issue.”

  “So I hear. Mind if I join the fun?”

  “I’d be honored,” Digby says.

  Even before he bids goodbye to Felicia, Digby realizes that pizza simply will not do and, still in the spirit of inclusion, he phones Winny to see what she can cook up on such short notice.

  “I have a half a box of spanakopita in the freezer,” Winny says. “And I can whip up some tzatziki. Maybe pick up one of those raw veggie trays at the Grand Union. It’ll be Greek themed. In honor of Aristotle or whoever.”

  “You’re a doll, Winny.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “By the way, how goes it with that dashing reporter from the Addison County Independent?”

  “Oh, him? Kaput. E.D. problems.”

  It takes Digby a moment to decode these initials: ‘Erectile Dysfunction,’ the drug industry’s snappy euphemism for what used to be called impotence. Under its former name, it was a shameful condition, whether occasional or permanent, but now that it can be addressed by a pill, E.D. is clearly the subject of casual conversation, like discussing someone’s athlete’s foot or asthma. Digby briefly considers suggesting Cialis for the poor bloke, but decides to skip it. Digby also briefly notes that this is the second perfunctory rejection of a male suitor that he has heard about today, but he decides to skip that thought too.

  At the last minute, Digby dashes out to what is known in Vermont as a package store and picks up a magnum of California Champagne although, as the earnest young clerk explains, it is not legitimately Champagne because it was not made with grapes from the Champagne region. (Feeling cute, Digby inquires in what state the Champagne region is located.)