by Teri Emory
As to my personal life, these days I run it the way a manager would operate a business: with an appointment calendar and clearly defined job descriptions. Occasionally, I catch a movie with Wayne and Thomas, the couple who live next door. Weather permitting, I pencil in a colleague at work for tennis in Central Park. I frequently take my old friend Cameron with me to social events when I’d rather have a date than go alone.
I called Cameron just yesterday and invited him to the Gillians’ party. He’s sociable and bright enough to hold his own. I can dress him up and take him anywhere. I can depend on him not to drink too much or flirt with other women. He’ll tell me how lovely I look. He’ll use the right silverware at dinner. He’ll graciously thank the hosts. He knows I’m not likely to fall in love with him, and he doesn’t care.
It’s as much a surprise to me as to everyone who knows me that I’ve remained single. In my twenties, I returned several engagement rings to perfectly nice men who were almost right for me. A lawyer. An advertising executive. A history professor. We went through predictable courtship rituals. We met each other’s families. We invented private jokes. We planned our wedding and how we’d decorate our home. We made lists of names for the children we’d have.
With each engagement—there were at least six—I described myself as being “in love.” As if “love” were a geographical destination, a place on a map. Have you ever spent time in Miami? In Marrakesh? In Love? What was missing in each relationship, I could never say. No, I’ve never actually been in Love, only visited the suburbs. I called things off when I realized that sooner or later we’d wind up—the lawyer and I, the ad exec and I, the professor and I—sitting silently across restaurant tables like countless other mindless married couples, barely aware of each other.
My parents, who had reminded me every day of my young life that I was beautiful and smart and therefore destined to marry well, responded to my behavior with a mixture of confusion, frustration, and worry. In the end, they grew resigned to what they saw as my sad fate. My mother attended wedding after wedding of her friends’ daughters, bought gifts for other people’s grandchildren, and fended off questions about Miriam’s “situation.” After my father died, twenty years ago, and my brother and his wife moved to Phoenix, Mom stopped asking me about the men in my life. We had a new bond connecting us. We were both women who had to go it alone.
In recent years, I’ve had a succession of social companions and bed partners who I knew from the outset showed little promise for the long run. I dabbled with the long run just once, when I was convinced that I had met the right man to grow old with. When things ended with him, my life took a definitive turn: people stopped describing me as “Miriam, who is single”; I became “Miriam, who never got married.” As if I were beyond the possibility.
__________
Twelve years ago, when Sarah still lived in Acedia Bay, Beth and I visited her to celebrate Beth’s completion of her internship in psychotherapy and the beginning of my one-year sabbatical from teaching. Sarah’s friend Violet insisted on throwing a barbecue in our honor while we were in town. Violet is publicity director of the First Coast Environmental Conservancy, and every nature-loving historian, writer, and photographer in the Southeast was in attendance at the party, drinking mint juleps from Violet’s silver-handled cups and speculating on the ingredients in her famous barbecue sauce.
I was talking to Violet’s mother, who was already close to ninety at the time, when I heard a male voice behind me.
“Gorgeous as ever,” said the voice, making “gorgeous” about four Southern syllables. When I turned to see his face, I saw the man looking down at Violet’s mother, seated in her wheelchair.
“Miz Della! Be still, my heart,” he said.
“You rascal, stop flirting with me!” said Della, beaming. “Peter, have you met Violet’s friend from New York? Miriam Kaplan, this is Peter Robinette. Peter is a photographer. He visits us a few times a year, breaks some hearts, and then disappears home to Savannah.”
“And what brings you to Florida, Ms. Kaplan?” he asked, smiling at me. His dusky blue eyes were as cool as a winter sky.
“Do you know Violet’s friend, Sarah Roth?” I asked. “I was her college roommate. So was Beth, that tall blonde over there in the black dress. We like to come down and check on Sarah from time to time.”
“I do know Sarah. Violet brought her to Savannah once, and we three went to dinner at Elizabeth’s.”
“Who’s Elizabeth?”
“I can tell you’ve not been to Savannah. Elizabeth on 37th Street is a restaurant, one of my favorites.”
We had moved to one of the round tables set for dinner. Peter pulled out a chair for me. He sat in the chair next to mine, continuing to smile and look into my eyes, not leering, exactly, but reminding me of the pivotal moment in Gone with the Wind when Rhett gazes up the staircase and sees Scarlett for the first time. He makes her feel, she says, “as if he knows what I look like without my shimmy.”
I pointed to the camera dangling from his shoulder. “Are you the house photographer?” I asked.
“I don’t usually bring a camera to parties, but I promised Violet I’d get some candids. I’d do anything for her.”
I believe we sat at that table and talked for a long time, but I have no idea about what. In the years since, I’ve tried to remember details of that afternoon in Violet’s backyard, as if some elusive scrap of memory could patch my heart and help me make sense of what I felt, and still feel. But what actually happened that day I can’t say. Only feelings remain, with excruciating clarity. Being swept away by something out of my control. Spinning through space. I had never thought it possible, not for me, but there I was, almost forty years old, falling in love with a man I had known for less than ten minutes.
Sarah, Beth, and Violet were there, but they never talk about Peter anymore. If I say his name, they look away and change the subject. Violet still blames herself, as if my having met Peter at her house makes her responsible. I know they think they’re protecting me by avoiding Peter’s name. I wish they would tell me what they recall, but my pride won’t let me ask them. I feel foolish enough at still being heartbroken after all this time.
__________
Back in New York a week after I met Peter, I received a small package from him. Inside was a silver frame with a photograph of Violet, Sarah, Beth, and me that he had taken at Violet’s barbecue. Oblivious to the camera, we appear to be sharing a confidence in the shade of the huge magnolia tree in Violet’s backyard. A note in Peter’s perfect script was taped to the back of the frame. It said, “Lovely! Peter.”
When the phone rang that night, I was at my kitchen table, examining swatches of fabric and paint, planning the apartment renovations I was going to undertake during my sabbatical from teaching. When I answered the phone, Peter greeted me the way he would every time he called me from that moment on, “Hi, Sugar.” With his Southern accent, it sounded like “Ha, Shugah.”
I thanked him for the photo.
“Think of it as an early birthday gift,” he said. I imagined that Violet had told him my fortieth birthday was coming up.
“It was very thoughtful of you,” I said, rather formally.
“I’m glad you like it. And I understand this is an important birthday. A new decade! I have another idea. May I take you to dinner?”
“Dinner? Are you going to be in New York?” My heart was racing.
“Actually, I wanted to take you to Elizabeth on 37th.” I could imagine his handsome face, his mischievous smile, as I struggled to speak.
“In Savannah?” I finally asked.
“Well, that’s the only Elizabeth on 37th I know. I thought you might want to see the city. Do you like to sail?”
“Sail?” I realized I was sounding idiotic. “I’ve never been, but I’ve always wanted—”
“I hope next Thursday is a good t
raveling day for you. I was able to get reservations on direct flights both ways. I’ll have to send you back on Sunday because I have an out-of-town shoot, but we’ll have a long weekend together.”
“You already have a plane ticket for me? How did you know I’d say yes?”
He laughed. “Just a hunch. Pack a dress for Elizabeth’s and something to wear on the boat. If you don’t have what you need, we’ll buy it here. It’s not New York, but we actually have some shops you might enjoy.”
“This is the craziest thing . . .”
“Have a good week. I’ll overnight the plane ticket to you. I’ll see you at the airport.”
After Peter hung up, I stared stupidly at the receiver in my hand.
I called Violet, who confirmed that to the best of her knowledge, Peter was not a homicidal maniac.
I ate half of a frozen chocolate cheesecake without bothering to defrost it.
I called Sarah, who asked if I had noticed Peter’s resemblance to Steve McQueen (I had).
I examined my entire wardrobe and selected, then rejected, five possible dresses to wear to Elizabeth on 37th.
I called Beth, who, in her best therapist’s manner, made me promise to pack condoms.
I picked up the phone half a dozen times to call Peter and cancel. Each time, I hung up without dialing.
I lay awake all night, trying to catch my breath.
__________
When my plane landed in Savannah, I was gripped by a wrenching, oh-my-God moment of doubt. What if he’s not here? What if he sees me and decides he’s changed his mind? What if I hate him?
But Peter was at the gate, waving to me, behaving as if we weren’t virtual strangers. He kissed me on the cheek and hugged me, saying, “Welcome to Savannah. I’m so glad you’re here.” He led me to his black convertible, put the top down, and drove me to his house.
I was a little surprised that Peter didn’t live in the heart of the city. I had imagined him in a charming, old house overlooking one of the historic squares I had read about. Instead, we arrived at a subdivision on the outskirts of town that looked like any suburb I had ever seen. I don’t like suburbs much. Even the fancy ones, like Beth and Jim’s gated enclave of manicured lawns and high-columned manors, leave me cold. Peter’s neighborhood was far more modest than the Gillians’. At least, I noticed with no small relief, the houses were not identical boxes side by side.
Peter pulled into a cul-de-sac called Stephan Marc Lane.
“Let me guess, a Civil War hero?” I said, pointing to the street sign.
“Not exactly,” he said with a laugh. “I think it’s the name of the developer who built these houses in the nineteen-fifties.”
He parked in the driveway of a dark brown, wood-shingled house. A large magnolia tree, like the one I remembered at Violet’s house in Florida, graced the front lawn. He reached across me to unlock the door on my side of the car.
“I’m not trying for an early grab here,” he said. “But that lock is tricky sometimes.”
I smiled weakly. He jumped out of the car and walked around to my door to offer his hand as I got out. So effortless, his good manners.
Sunshine poured into Peter’s living room from a skylight in the cathedral ceiling. Enlarged photographs of mountains, rivers, and city skylines lined the walls. The floors were gleaming strips of oak. Through a large arched doorway was a dining room with a circular glass table and six chairs; beyond it I could see the black and white ceramic tiles of the kitchen floor. Furniture in the living room was spare and dramatic: a black armoire with louvered doors, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that framed a bay window, two futons—one deep red, one dark purple—near the fireplace, a slab of streaked white marble that served as a coffee table. I could have been standing in a loft in SoHo.
“Peter, it’s beautiful!” I said.
“The place was a mess when I bought it. I’ve been fixing it up for ten years.”
I noticed some photos of a young woman on the dining room wall. “That’s my daughter, Michelle,” he said. “My favorite model. She’s in college up north. Come, let me show you my studio. It was the first thing I designed when I bought this house.”
He has a grown daughter. And a life I know nothing about. I am hundreds of miles from home, spending the weekend with a stranger. Have I lost my mind?
A few feet from the house was a structure that resembled an enclosed gazebo. He held the door open for me and switched on a light. In the middle of the room were two drawing tables covered with cameras and lenses. Against one of the windows, boxes of negatives and film were piled waist-high. At the far end was a door that led to a small darkroom.
“I used to live in the city, in a restored guest cottage. Great neighborhood, but there was no room for anything like this. I was renting studio space, but I needed a studio at home.”
“You built this yourself?” I asked.
“Yes. Not that difficult, actually. It’s mostly a matter of finding the time.”
It was already evening. Peter grilled steaks, which we ate on the back porch. After dinner, we moved indoors to the purple futon, where we sat for hours, sipping wine, exchanging stories about our work, our friends, life in Savannah, life in Manhattan. He didn’t say a word about his marriage or about any other women in his life. I didn’t mention my string of ex-boyfriends. He never touched me.
Suddenly, I yawned.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was up so early this morning.” I didn’t tell him that anxiety about coming to see him had made it impossible for me to sleep all week.
“You must be tired,” he said. “Let’s get you to bed.”
He hadn’t shown me his bedroom earlier, though he had already put my suitcase on a small bench beside his dresser. The room was painted steely gray. Dominating the wall facing the bed was an antique mirror framed by leaded glass in brightly colored geometric shapes.
Peter sat on the bed. “Come here, Shugah,” he said, holding his arms out to me. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I set eyes on you at Violet’s house.”
Peter talked the whole time he made love to me, narrating each move we made, describing what my body looked like to him, how my touches made him feel. The words he whispered and the expression on his face dissolved every trace of inhibition. It was intoxicating. For all my sexual experience, this was new territory, a new language. I felt happy. I felt safe.
__________
I awakened on my first morning in Peter’s house to the smell of coffee and the sound of dishes rattling in the kitchen.
“Hello?” I called.
“I’ll be right there,” Peter answered. “I left my old robe for you on the bed.”
I looked around the room at the aftermath of our night. Just a sheet covered me. The blankets were in a tangle on the floor at the foot of the bed. On the small night table were the remains of the citrus-scented candle whose glow had cast our flickering shadows on the wall while we made love. Next to it, on its side, was the wine bottle we had emptied.
I slipped Peter’s faded blue bathrobe around me, dug my cosmetics case out of my suitcase, and made my way to the bathroom. I thought about showering, but I was reluctant to wash the smell of Peter off my body. I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face. I ran my fingers through my disheveled hair.
In the bedroom, Peter was on the bed, propped up on his elbow, naked except for a towel wrapped around his waist. Two cups of coffee, a plate of fruit, and a basket of croissants were on a tray in front of him.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said.
“I’m starving.”
“I can imagine. Well, this should help. I know you have a healthy appetite. Violet told me that your friends are jealous that you can eat anything you want.”
“So, you did a background check on me? What else did Violet say?” I asked.
He grinned and leane
d forward to kiss me on the cheek. “Enough to know I wanted to invite you here.”
“Not fair. I demand the phone number of someone who can give me the lowdown on you.”
“I can do better than that. My mother lives on Tybee Island, not far from here. I need to drop off some photos at her house. I know she’d love to meet you.”
“You like surprises, don’t you? Does she know I’m here? Who will she think I am?”
“I told her a friend from New York was visiting. That satisfied her. We can stop off and say hello to Mom, and then I can show you around town. We don’t need to be at the restaurant until nine, which gives us plenty of time for Mom and a walk around Savannah. We probably should get going, though.”
I stepped into the shower, letting the warm spray cover me. My arms and thighs ached a little from all the activity in bed. I was leaning over the sink, blow-drying my hair, when from the corner of my eye I saw the bathroom door open. As I lifted my head to the side, there was a sudden flash of light.
“Peter!” I cried. “How could you take a picture now? You could have waited until I finished drying my hair. And until I was wearing something other than your bathrobe.”
“For the record,” he said, planting a kiss on the back of my neck, “you look lovely wet or dry, and in anything you wear.”
I pushed him out of the bathroom. “Let me finish or we’ll never get out of here.”
“I could think of worse things,” he called from the other side of the door.
__________
We followed the highway signs to Tybee Island. “Have you always lived in Savannah?” I asked. Considering the night we had just spent, it felt strange to be asking so elementary a question about Peter’s life.