Fall Love

by Anne Whitehouse

  Now plans were being made around him; it was time for him, too, to pick up the pieces of his life which he had neglected. Before he left New York, he had made professional and financial arrangements for his absence. He'd completed his most pressing jobs, taken some work with him, and referred other clients to a former classmate who had agreed to help him out. As for his expenses, his mortgage and maintenance were paid automatically each month by electronic transfer from an interest-bearing account. He hadn't known, when he left, how long he'd be away, but he had deposited three thousand dollars in the joint checking account with Paul and asked him to take care of the remaining household bills and expenses. He assumed that the apartment was fine, for Alonzo, the porter in the building, had keys and instructions to contact him if anything was amiss, and he hadn't called.

  Paul's New England tour had been scheduled before Bryce left for Mississippi. When Bill died, Bryce believed that Paul was dancing in Massachusetts. The day after the will was read, Bryce telephoned the Kurt Matthews Dancers and reached an answering service whose operator confirmed that the company was out of town until mid-November. When he asked her for the schedule, she said she didn't know it.

  He hung up the phone slowly, feeling an odd mixture of exasperation and relief. He was exasperated to be still out of touch with Paul, but relieved at least to know what Paul was doing. Now that Bill had died, Bryce wanted to tell Paul about it and try to explain why he hadn't confided in him before he'd left. But after ten weeks of silence he didn't know what to expect from Paul. Even though he wanted to speak to him, he was somewhat relieved not to have reached him yet. Trying to picture their reunion, he found himself instead recalling the winter day long ago when Paul had moved in. In his mind's eye he saw Paul standing in the entrance to the roof in his multi-colored coat, the cold wind ruffling his hair. He remembered Paul's mixture of nervousness and bravado as he had waited to be welcomed, and his pleasure when he was. Bryce knew that he didn't want to lose Paul, not even if he had already lost him.

  He thought of the money that he had left for Paul to live on, and he didn't begrudge it. He imagined himself dead, and Paul staying on in the penthouse afterwards, and he almost didn't mind. Perhaps this is love, he thought, and if it's not, then I can't express it.

  What he really wanted was to return to New York to find Paul waiting for him with a greeting and an embrace, as he once had waited for Paul. His hopes were connected to this image of Paul reaching out in welcome and taking him in his arms as if nothing had ever led him to think it might be otherwise. He yearned for this scenario while he realized it was a fantasy. All his questions about their future remained unasked and unanswered.

  * * *

  His father's invitation to accompany him to Florida allowed Bryce to postpone a return to New York that he was reluctant to undertake while Paul was still away on tour. Originally Bryce wasn't included in his parents' plans for the trip, whose purpose was to find a vacation home to buy. The destination was Sanibel Island, a mangrove and barrier island in southwest Florida, where Russell and Mary had spent some time before in the company of friends. For Russell the encounter with the island had been love at first sight. In spite of the distance from Meridian, his heart was set on buying on Sanibel. The travel plans were upset, however, when two of the granddaughters came down with chicken pox and the third was expected to. Bryce's sister Peggy was desperate, since her husband was scheduled to attend a regional meeting of the insurance company's mid-level managers in Memphis. He didn't see how he could get out of it, so Mary offered to remain in Meridian to help her daughter out.

  "But you go on, Russell," she insisted. "Don't let this spoil your trip. You deserve a change of scene after all you've been through recently."

  "You're sure I'm not needed here?" asked Russell, clearly reluctant.

  "What good will you be around sick children? You didn't nurse your own children through chicken pox, I recall. There's no sense in your changing your plans because of this."

  Bryce, overhearing the conversation, discerned his mother's tendency to absolve and accuse simultaneously. Now it's her turn to be needed in a sickroom, and she's enjoying it, he reflected. Her granddaughters, unlike Bill, are likely to get well, and she can look forward to sharing in the credit for their recovery.

  "I trust you to find a nice house," she told her husband.

  "What about your plane ticket?"

  "Maybe Bryce will go with you," Mary suggested.

  "Do you think so? It hadn't occurred to me. I assumed he had his own plans."

  They speak, Bryce thought, as if I weren't present in the room with them.

  However, his mother then said, "Why don't you ask him?"

  "What do you say?" said Russell to Bryce, as if he'd just discovered him there. "Are you willing to keep an old man company for a few days?"

  "When will you be going, and for how long?"

  "We'll leave on November 12, stay a week or so."

  "Do you really want me to come?"

  "Sure," said his father. "I'll be glad to have you."

  Behind Russell's hearty words, Bryce detected his nervousness. Still, he was amazed at the change in both his parents. This invitation, suggested and seconded, seemed a genuine attempt at a rapprochement, and as such, he could hardly resist it, particularly since it coincided with his present unwillingness to go back to New York. According to Kurt Matthews' answering service, by the time he returned from Sanibel, he calculated, Paul should have arrived in New York. "All right," he nodded to his father. "I'll come, and I'll try to help you all I can."

  Bryce thought his father seemed surprised at how readily the invitation was accepted. Bryce didn't attempt to renege, but placed a phone call to the porter entrusted with the keys to his apartment in Manhattan. In response to Bryce's careful inquiry, Alonzo related that in Paul's absence he had been collecting the mail and caring for the plants. He had taken some of the potted perennials indoors, he informed Bryce, and described their relative healths in detail. Listening to him, Bryce felt suddenly homesick. Maybe I ought to go back to New York now, he thought. But having given his word to his father, he didn't feel he could change his plans. "Is everything else all right?" he asked the porter.

  "Not to worry," assured Alonzo. "Is under control."

  "Because of family reasons, I probably won't be back for a couple of weeks. Most likely after Paul," Bryce explained, as if he were sure of him, and then he thanked Alonzo for looking after the place in their absence.

  "No problem," said the porter. "Have a nice visit with your family."

  * * *

  Bryce hadn't spoken to his aunt alone since the night of his uncle's funeral. Once, when he was picking up some groceries for his mother, he spotted her in the parking lot of the local supermarket. He avoided her by ducking behind a truck and waiting until she got in her car and drove away. He believed that she hadn't seen him. When he returned home, however, he discovered her in the living room with his parents. He hadn't known she was invited to dinner, or else he would have found some excuse not to be there. They greeted each other with stiff politeness, and it was unpleasantly apparent to Bryce that by now their antagonism was firmly established, though they both endeavored to conceal it from the others.

  During the tedious evening, he kept contrasting his aunt's rigid self-control with the terrifying image of her rage when she had cornered him in the attic. The memory of that attack continued to disturb him, causing him to doubt his own motives. Had he, unknown to himself, really intended to steal from her?

  To Bryce, these speculations seemed not untrue, but unreal, because nothing was said, and like the awful encounter itself, they had the quality of an hallucination or a dream. What was all too real was the rupture between him and his aunt, and for this Bryce knew that he, as well as his aunt, was to blame. They were waging a silent war, camouflaged by a steely etiquette, in which neither had the least intention of calling a truce or admitting defeat. As they concealed their antipathies at the di
nner table, they were a match for each other.

  Afterwards his parents ascribed Margaret's strained attitude to her recent grief. Although his father often annoyed, embarrassed, or bored him, Bryce now found himself grateful for his obtuseness. His father was incapable, Bryce reflected, of his aunt's subterfuges—or of his own, for that matter. His mother, on the other hand, like so many Southerners, was fond of delivering cruel comments in a gushing voice, smiling all the while. The minor crisis of her granddaughters' illness, however, brought out the best in her. She spent nearly all day at Peggy's house, returning exhausted and fulfilled. Her nagging and complaints were for the sake of appearances; they had no sting. "I can't wait to get you men out of the house," she exulted. "I have enough to do without taking care of you, too. I may sleep over at Peggy's while you're gone."

  "Don't worry about us," said Russell, winking broadly at Bryce. "I'll show Bryce around, we'll look at houses, relax, and loaf. I'm planning to wear old clothes you won't be seen dead with me in, eat whenever I like, and generally descend into anarchy."

  Bryce heard his father with a sense of wonder. It was the exactly the kind of remark that he remembered his uncle used to make to Margaret.

  "Men are slobs," Mary replied to her husband with a satisfied sniff, and Bryce, who dressed carefully, was regular in his habits and rarely untidy, was content to let her have the last word.

  * * *

  Bryce left Meridian with his father by plane on Wednesday morning, November 12, and by mid-afternoon he was being driven in a rented car across the wide, flat Florida landscape towards the causeway leading to Sanibel Island. The air blowing through the car's open windows was warm and mild, the sky a pure blue with puffs of cloud. In the front passenger seat, Bryce felt lethargic, almost sleepy. As they stopped for a red light, he looked up and noticed a girl sitting on a wooden chair in front of a filling station at the intersection. With the sun glinting in her long, wavy hair, she leaned back, tipping the chair until it seemed it might topple over. As the traffic light turned green, and they drove on, the image stayed with him.

  He was content simply to receive impressions as they sped through the landscape. Seeing silhouettes of coconut palms against the horizon, with their cylindrical trunks like sculptures and their rakish branches dripping with leaves like heavy fringes, he thought of how images like these were reproduced in picture postcards mailed from tropics all over the world. As the dense green waters of the Gulf came into view, and they crossed the causeway, he saw a Brown Pelican plunge straight down into the water from a great height, at full speed. The large, heavy bird broke through the surface bill first, with a dramatic splash. As the car proceeded, Bryce kept his eyes trained on the area where the pelican had disappeared, until he saw it emerge with a telltale flutter in its pouch. It had caught its fish, but there was a gull waiting, who was trying to steal the fish away. The gull hovered, beating its wings in the pelican's face, trying to force the pelican to open its bill so that it could snatch up the prize. For as long as Bryce could see, the gull was unsuccessful.

  Russell, who, keeping his eyes on the road, had not seen the drama, switched on the radio. "Only fingertips can reach and touch the dream," intoned a melodramatic voice. "Come see 'Tropical Dreams,' a multi-media show presented at the unique Waltzing Waters on Highway 41 south of Ft. Myers."

  "What does it mean, fingertips touching the dream?" Bryce grumbled, instantly annoyed by what seemed stupidity to him.

  Russell attempted to excuse himself for turning on the radio. "I'm trying to get the weather."

  "Let me change the station." Bryce cruised the band until he found an announcer with the forecast, which was fair. The air temperature was eighty degrees.

  "Better than New York, eh?" said Russell.

  "Yes," said Bryce, willing to please, to adapt to his father's arrangements, despite a twinge, already, of boredom.

  After they were settled in at the condominium which Russell had rented, he went out to buy the local papers. Father and son occupied themselves with the real estate listings. "It's more expensive than I thought," said Russell. "I may have to scale down my plans. Still, I'd like to try to get a house. A condominium is all right for a short trip like this, but I'm too old-fashioned to want to live in one. For me, apartment living is a contradiction in terms."

  Bryce wondered whether his father was making a veiled criticism of his own life in New York, or whether he was simply oblivious. Bryce decided to let the comment drop. "No harm in looking anyway," he said. "Asking prices are always negotiable."

  "You're right. We'll make phone calls and go out tomorrow. What about a walk on the beach before dinner?"

  As the sky gradually turned rose-colored and then darkened, Bryce and his father strolled down the white beach. Sanderlings, terns, and gulls scattered before their steps. Soaring pelicans swooped low without nicking the water's surface in search of fish, and Bryce, remembering, told his father about the pelican and gull he had seen that afternoon when they crossed the causeway.

  "What a rascal!" Russell commented. "When we fish from the pier, you'll see how the gulls come by and beg for handouts." He gazed up at the sky. "There's the first star. I guess we had better head back now. I want to take you to the Coconut Grove for dinner."

  "What's that?"

  "It's a restaurant where your mother and I ate. They offer a Hawaiian luau."

  "Is it good?" Bryce asked skeptically.

  "We like it."

  At the condominium Bryce went into his room to change. He put on a fresh shirt and trousers with a neat crease. Deciding against a tie, he carefully arranged a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his shirt.

  When he entered the living room where his father was waiting, Russell's face fell. "You don't need to get dressed up like that. We're on vacation."

  Bryce felt embarrassed. "I thought because we were going out for dinner," he began, and then stopped, remembering what his father had said to his mother.

  "Now I'll have to change, too," Russell complained, glancing at his checked sport shirt and the khakis he'd worn all day, which were now wrinkled.

  "No, you don't. I'll tell you what, if you're uncomfortable with me now, I'll change back."

  "That's silly. I'm hungry. I'll tell you what, let's just go as we are."

  On the way to the restaurant Bryce felt glum. My instincts with my father are inevitably wrong, he reflected. As he had anticipated, the restaurant didn't suit his taste. The interior was dark—so that it really wouldn't matter what one wore, Bryce thought. Each table was lit only by a small candle in a glass globe. The chairs were uncomfortably low. The food consisted of various shish kebabs garnished with pineapple and maraschino cherries and served with sweet, thick sauces. Little paper parasols decorated the fruity cocktails. Not wishing to create another conflict, Bryce was determined not to complain. But he ate little, afraid that he might choke on the food. He knew he'd disappointed his father.

  Russell was making an effort as well. On the way back to the condominium he said, "Why don't you pick the restaurant tomorrow? I thought that you would enjoy this, that it would be different for you. But I guess you can get anything you want in New York. I don't know what you prefer, so you tell me."

  "A fresh grilled fish would be just fine," said Bryce. "It doesn't have to be fancy."

  Their parking place was next to their rented unit. As Bryce got out of the car, he smelled night-blooming jasmine and pointed it out to his father.

  "It's fragrant, isn't it," said Russell. "I hope you like it here. I want you to enjoy yourself."

  "I came down to help you out," said Bryce.

  "I haven't forgotten. Speaking of which, I guess I'll turn in for the night. I'm pretty beat. But you stay up if you like, watch TV."

  "I'll stay up for a little while," said Bryce. "I'll turn out the lights when I go to bed."

  "Good night, son."

  "Good night."

  Bryce went out to the screened terrace after his father had g
one into his room. The air was humid, warm, and balmy. He preferred it to the air conditioning within. The radio advertisement he'd heard that afternoon repeated itself in his mind, an annoying jingle. Tropical dreams, he said to himself, at first sardonically, then wistfully, Tropical dreams, lush and tender. A wish that he had suppressed all evening came flowing out into the soft night air, where he could examine it. He wished that he were here with Paul instead of with his father. He imagined standing on this terrace with Paul, breathing the night blooming jasmine. I’m lonely, he thought, and tired of having, on the one hand, to conceal my feelings, and, on the other, of having to try hard to make myself understood. I even miss the jokes that Paul and I would have had at the expense of that Hawaiian luau. It would have been fun to destroy it verbally together. What is Paul doing now? he wondered. Is he dancing tonight? Where is he? When is he returning to New York? The answering service didn’t say exactly.

  Bryce listened to the wind in the casuarinas, the hum of the air conditioner, and the murmuring conversations of a group of people passing nearby. Distantly he could hear the slap of waves on the beach. A feeling of possibility, even of romance, seemed to beckon to him on the warm night air, but it was flimsy and easily lost. He went inside, and when he slept, he was unaware of his dreams.