Letters To My Mother

by Rebecca Heath

  “Frank, take me home.”

  “Right now? The party’s just getting started.”

  “Please, Frank. I don’t feel well.”

  “You don’t have to pay any attention to them,” Frank said, nodding toward David’s group.

  I laid my glass and napkin down and started to put on my gloves. “All right, if you want to stay I can take the bus back.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’ll take you. Let me grab something else to eat first.” Frank loaded his plate with enough food for a CARE package, camouflaged it with a couple of napkins, and we left the room. On the way out, I turned to look at David, who was standing as before with the same group of people; he wasn’t gesturing with his right hand this time, though, because his arm was around Arlene’s shoulder.

  Chapter 15

  Blaine Hall, Room B102

  University of Washington, Seattle

  March 14, 1957

  Dear Mother and Daddy,

  I’ve been elected to Phi Beta Kappa!!!!

  “Kate! Alice! I just heard the news. Congratulations to both of you!”

  I looked up from my lunch as Rosemary bubbled into the dining room. She approached the table, her face wreathed in smiles, looking first at me then at Alice Duchek, on my left.

  “Congratulations for what?”

  “There’s a big sign right inside the front door. You’ve been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, you and Alice. It was in the newspaper this morning, too. Didn’t you see the article?”

  I turned to Alice. “Oh, I saw our names in the paper”, she said, “but I forgot to mention it to you.” A Monday night Bible reader, Alice was majoring in Home Economics, a cheap way, I thought, of getting good grades; the science majors probably thought the same thing about me. She was completely blasé, as if being elected to America’s most prestigious honor society was an everyday event.

  “Forgot to mention it” – I was dumbfounded. Phi Beta Kappa. How many hours of study did that represent, how many dates and facts committed to memory – the causes of the fall of Rome, the geologic eras, the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, how many term papers? When I went to the registrar’s office at the end of every quarter to pick up my marks, I stood in line with sweaty palms and a pounding heart, and then rushed outside to calculate my grade-point average. Three point eight zero was the magic number for election to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, and I had cleared the hurdle with room to spare. I was beyond ecstatic.

  I thanked Rosemary profusely for the news and hurried through lunch. I thought of my father and smiled, and David – how proud he was going to be.

  I reached my room at a twenty to one, with barely enough time to write Mother and Daddy a note and to call David before leaving for my next class. My heart started racing when I heard his deep voice on the other end of the line.

  “David! I have the most fantastic news! I can’t tell you over the phone, though. I want to keep you in suspense. Are you free tonight?”

  “My whole evening’s at your disposal. Let me guess. You got an A+ on the human paleontology quiz?”

  “Much better than that.”

  “You’ve inherited a million dollars, bought a yacht and we’re sailing around the world together.”

  “Don’t I wish.”

  “You’ve been chosen the sweetheart of Sigma Chi.”

  “I’d rather be yours,” I giggled. “Stop guessing or you’re sure to hit on it eventually, and I want to surprise you.”

  “Whatever it is, I can tell your news calls for more than coffee at the HUB. Let’s eat dinner at Sam’s and go to Sturmvogel afterwards; we can pull out the starboard bunk, find some soft music on the radio and – uh, celebrate.”

  “That sounds great. There’s only one problem though – your last suggestion – I’m afraid it’s the wrong time of the month. I’d rather tell you now than disappoint you later on the boat.”

  “Oh.” There was a long pause and I began to wonder if we’d been disconnected. “Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow?”

  His response stunned me. Didn’t my news mean anything to him? Was sex the only thing that mattered to David?

  “I … I’ll have your typing ready tomorrow afternoon,” I finally managed to say.

  “Very good, I’ll see you then.”

  Convulsed with sobs, I hung up the telephone, devastated by David’s cruelty. Phi Beta Kappa seemed so trivial. I sat crying at my desk until time to leave for class, then filled my fountain pen, attached a notebook to my clipboard and left the room; I wanted to go out, anywhere, and human paleontology was as good a place as any.

  Dr. Osborne’s lecture dragged on. I tried to pay attention to his slides of Javanese fossils, but I kept hearing David’s voice.

  “Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow?”

  “A study of the stratification in the Trinil layer shows …”

  “Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow?”

  “If you look closely at this next slide of an immature Homo erectus, from the Djetis bed, you will observe the premature ossification is characteristic of…”

  I couldn’t focus on the immature Homo erectus through a blur of tears, so I got up and left the lecture hall. For the next three hours I wandered aimlessly around the university, avoiding the south end of the campus where I might run into David. I didn’t think; I was past thinking or feeling. I just walked.

  When I returned to my room at six the telephone was ringing, and I dashed for the receiver, praying David was on the line, but Frank’s voice greeted me instead. “I was hoping I’d catch you before dinner. I’ve got the most terrific news! Kathleen‘s been offered a teaching job in Seattle next fall – second grade – and we’ve set the date. We’re getting married June 15. How about that? Another three months and I’m a married man!”

  I congratulated him, hoping my voice sounded more cheerful than I felt.

  “The reason I’m calling is to invite you to have dinner with me, at my place. I’ve got some of Mamma Caputo’s internationally famous spaghetti sauce in the freezer, a pound of noodles, a loaf of French bread and a bottle of Chianti. Say you’ll come. I feel like celebrating. I’ll pick you up at 6:30, okay?”

  I couldn’t help smiling at the irony. I was going to celebrate after all, not my good fortune, but someone else’s and not with David, but with Frank. At least Frank wanted my company. I told Frank I’d come, and when I phoned Norma to tell her my news, I was almost looking forward to the evening.

  Frank’s apartment was located on the ground floor of a rambling house the owner had converted to student lodgings. His room was sparsely furnished, with a hide-a-bed, a square table, a bookshelf and a tiny kitchenette. The bed was open. There was a large poster of Marilyn Monroe – nude – hanging on the wall beside the refrigerator, a record player on the floor and a stack of phonograph records, mostly operatic, leaning against the bed.

  Frank tuned his radio to a popular music station and harmonized with the “The Platters” as he lifted strands of noodles from the boiling water.

  “'They-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey call me the Great …' chop the garlic finer, will you, like this,” he instructed, taking the cleaver and demolishing several cloves of garlic against the chopping board. “Now sauté this in one cube of butter … 'Pretender. My need is such, I pretend too much. I'm lonely, but …'”

  “Do you sauté on high or low heat?

  “Child, didn’t your mother teach you how to cook? Sauté, from the French verb sauter, otherwise known as saltare, to jump.” He made leaping motions with his hands. “High heat. 'I seem to be, but I’m not you see, I’m wearing my heart like a crown…' Hey, Kate, if this was a pizza, I’d flip it up like so and catch it like….” Frank tossed the noodles into the air, grabbed a plate and intercepted the pasta less than a foot from the floor. “See all those spots on the ceiling? That’s from when I was just an amateur.” His mood was infectious and I laughed in spite of myself.

  Frank cleared a Playboy magazine, two soiled undershirts
, and a pile of uncorrected test papers off the table and dragged it across the floor. We sat facing each other, Frank in his one-and-only chair and me on the edge of the bed, both of us gorging on hunks of garlic bread and his mother’s spaghetti. Frank was right about the sauce. It had lost nothing in translation from Italy to Spokane.

  After dinner I washed the dishes, trying to keep from dropping the plates while dodging Frank, who was determined to pinch me. He said the spaghetti made him feel very Italian and it was every Italian’s prerogative to pinch a few fannies.

  Frank poured more wine and changed the music to something softer. We settled down on the bed, half-sitting, half-reclining, with our backs against a row of cushions along the wall and our feet sticking out in front of us. Frank pressed his leg to mine and seemed pleasantly surprised when I didn’t resist; he moved closer still, and put his arm around me.

  “What would you say if I told you I was just elected to Phi Beta Kappa?”

  “I’d ask how many professors you’ve been sleeping with.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Hilarious. Well, I am telling you.”

  “Congratulations! All the more reason to celebrate. David must be pleased.” He filled my wine glass again.

  “I haven’t told him.”

  “That’s as in ‘you haven’t told him’, or ‘you haven’t told him yet’?”

  “The first one.”

  “Oh?” Frank looked at me curiously.

  “You know, there’s one thing I like about you, Frank. When I’m with anyone else, even David, maybe especially with David, I feel as though I’ve got this big intellectual image to live up to, but when I’m with you I know there’s no way I can impress you. You think I’m a dumb broad, just like every other dumb broad. From anyone else I’d resent that attitude, but with you I can relax and be myself.”

  Frank laughed. “I don’t think you’re dumb, au contraire. Actually, I’m not a bit surprised you’re a Phi Bete. You’re just the type.”

  “What type is that?”

  “A memory machine. I could give you this telephone book and you’d have it down cold in an hour. I’ve known dozens of students like you. They impress the hell out of everyone else, but there’s not a creative thinker in the bunch. If you don’t mind me saying so, you’ve even fooled David.”

  “I do mind your saying so and I don’t want to talk about David.”

  “Well, well. While you’ve been exploring his body it looks like you’ve found his feet of clay.” Frank started to caress my thigh.

  “I don’t mean to put a damper on the festivities, but isn’t your conscience bothering you?”

  “Why should it?”

  “Are you dense or something? What does your Catholic morality say about a man who’s engaged to one woman and practically in bed with another?”

  “Oh, I won’t do this sort of thing after I’m married. That would be adultery, a mortal sin.”

  “What do you call this?”

  “Fornication, merely a venial sin. I’ll go to confession before the wedding and get forgiven.”

  Frank poured himself another glass of wine. “I’ll bet you think I’m very experienced.”

  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Aren’t you?”

  “Like to guess how many times I’ve done it in my whole life? Twice. Two times. Due volte. Two lousy times and I’m 25 years old.”

  “When was the first one?”

  “I was sixteen. I had this girlfriend – Gina – from a really strict Italian family, I mean her parents didn’t let her do anything. She had so many relatives crawling around the house you’d have thought they took in boarders. Her mom used to slip Gina’s kid brother a quarter to keep on eye on us and if it wasn’t Spartaco – honest to God, the kid’s name was Spartaco – spying on us from behind the couch, it was Aunt Flora vacuuming the rug, or Uncle Giorgio detouring through the living room every fifteen minutes on his way to pee in the bathroom. I mean their place was like a hotel! Well, anyway, one Saturday the whole family went to a funeral. That is, everyone but Gina, and she got to stay home because she had a big test coming up. So she phoned me and I went over to her place with some records, and we sat on her bed and listened to music. We started fooling around and … it sort of happened.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Frank stopped me.

  “Wait, there’s more. Just as I was finishing, there was a sound of tires screeching and a dog yelping. We got dressed as fast as we could and ran outside. God, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Some guy in a pickup hit Gina’s little dog. He was laying in the street with his ribs crushed and the blood running out of him. The driver kept saying over and over how he tried to miss him and how sorry he was.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I got a burlap bag out of the garage and we buried him in the garden. The whole thing made me sick. Gina was a nice girl, you know, very parochial school, very quiet, all that sort of thing. I was scared shitless she’d get pregnant, but a couple of weeks later she told me everything was ok; she moved to a different part of town at the end of the semester and I didn’t see her again.”

  “How about the second time?”

  “It happened at a party. I was so smashed I don’t remember much.” He paused and took a sip of wine. “How big is David?”

  “He’s six foot three.”

  “I didn’t ask you how tall he is. I know that. I asked you how big he is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I hadn’t, but his tone of voice enlightened me.

  I shrugged. “Why are men so preoccupied with genital size? I don’t know because I don’t have anything to compare him with.”

  “Do you give him a blow job?

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you suck his cock?”

  “Do I what?”

  Frank hooted with laughter. "Were you a virgin when you met David?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it hurt the first time he did it to you?”

  “A little.”

  “Did you come?”

  “Come where?”

  Frank laughed again. “I mean did you have an orgasm?”

  I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. Maybe it was the wine. “Not the first time, but afterwards, yes.”

  Frank shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t get it. David’s pushing fifty; what do you see in an old fart his age? It must take him all night to get it hard.”

  I didn’t feel like offering a testimonial to David’s sexual prowess. Frank opened my blouse and slipped his hand inside.

  “What you need is a young man.”

  “Like you?” Frank was too aroused to notice my sarcasm.

  “I’d rather have sex with you than with Marilyn Monroe,” he whispered in my ear.

  I suppose he meant it as a compliment, but Frank’s remark struck me as outrageously funny, and I burst out laughing. “We can’t.”

  “I bought a condom.”

  “It’s not that; I’m having my period.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Frank flung himself on top of me and we kissed. I felt a curious sense of detachment, as though the real me was standing in the wings watching someone else play the role of Kate Collins. I might as well have been looking at two strangers queuing up at a bus stop.

  He put his hand in my crotch. “Are you wearing a tampax?”

  “Yes,”

  “Take it out.”

  I went to the bathroom to wash; when I returned, Frank had turned out the lights and he was waiting for me by the bed in his underwear. He clasped me from behind and cupped his hands over my breasts, reminding me of the evening in the Health Sciences Building when David had embraced me the same way.

  “Was it you, that night in the hallway? I know someone was watching us.”

  “Yes, it was me. I wasn’t spying on purpose. I just happened to be leaving the lab, and there you were. It drives me crazy to see you
and David together like that.”

  When it was over, I lay beside Frank wondering if he’d noticed my lack of response. I knew I’d cheated him; he must have expected I’d give myself to him as I did to David, passionately and without reservations. After one especially torrid session, David had said making love would never be the same for me with any other man. At the time, I thought his remark a bit conceited, but I was beginning to wonder if he was right. I only hoped Frank’s lack of experience kept him from passing judgment on me.

  I sat up and glanced at Frank; his eyes were closed and he was covered with sweat. He took my hand and put it on his penis. “Make it big again, Katie, make it big again, Katie,” he crooned over and over. I snatched my hand away and started to put on my brassiere.

  Frank opened his eyes and pulled the sheet up to his chin.

  “He’s huge,” I said irritably. “Like a bull.”

  Frank sighed. “It figures.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “I’m sorry. Next time it will be good for you, too.”

  “There isn’t going to be a next time,” I snapped.

  We dressed in silence. The feeling of detachment was gone, and I was filled with self-loathing. How could I have done something so idiotic? David trusted me and I’d betrayed him. And for what? Not love surely. Frank was probably flattering himself he’d seduced me, but I’d known I’d go to bed with him from the moment he called. I was lashing back at David’s cruelty with my ultimate weapon, but there was no joy in the victory.

  Frank and I didn’t exchange a word on the ride to the dormitory. He walked me to the steps, and when we reached the door, I paused for a moment before getting out my key. “Do you have a picture of your fiancée?”

  Frank took a photograph from his wallet and handed it to me grudgingly, as one might proffer an heirloom to a leper. The picture was taken in a classroom, and showed a young woman bending over beside a child. The photographer must have called her name and snapped the shutter just as she looked up. I was unprepared for the face that met mine; it was a gentle face radiating goodness and serenity, a face that almost mocked mine with its goodness. I was expecting someone plain, homely even, but Kathleen was beautiful, and it was easy to see why Frank adored her.