Shaken and Stirred

by Joan Opyr

  My mother looked tired. So did Nana. Neither of them had cried at the hospital, and I wondered if they’d cry now. My mother perhaps, but only late at night, long after my grandmother had gone to sleep. Nana, probably not. I’d never seen her cry, not when pets died or sad movies came on television. She was a complainer, not a weeper.

  I wasn’t even sure that this was an occasion for crying. In life, my grandfather had been an emotional black hole. He sucked up anger, and fear, and sadness and channeled them into a swirling vortex, a hurricane wall surrounding a calmer but constant eye of self-pity. And yet I didn’t just miss the good man he could sometimes be—a part of me that I didn’t like to acknowledge also missed the turmoil and the excitement.

  Abby and I said goodnight. Nana yawned. Perhaps she was sorry that the man she’d married twice, the man she’d had a child with, was dead. Maybe she felt old or worried about her own mortality. There was no telling. She might just as well have been thinking about bunions and duct tape.

  We listened to the radio as we drove to the lake. I found an eighties flashback program featuring greatest hits from our college days. I’d never given Abby an answer about rooming with her at N. C. State. At the end of that week, on the day I’d promised to tell her, we left for the beach. Hunter and Jean took off the following Tuesday. Mike called, Susan left, and Jack reported for duty at Camp Lejeune. He went on to fight in the Persian Gulf War. Kim missed her period. I received my financial aid packet from UNC. They offered me full funding. I turned them down.

  Abby and I roomed together for the next two years. I met my first post-Susan girlfriend in the fall, a woman who played on the N. C. State volleyball team. Her name was Jimmie. She was six-foot one, the only woman I ever dated who was taller than me. Abby didn’t like her, so we met in her room rather than mine. She lived in the international dorm with a roommate from Cyprus, a raucous Greek with wild brown hair. The roommate had very orthodox ideas about what was and was not appropriate behavior, and we shocked her terribly on more than one occasion.

  When Abby moved with Rosalyn to Chapel Hill, I was involved with a sorority sister. Leesa with two e’s. Leesa had been hammered by God, her mother, and the state of Virginia from the original template of true Southern womanhood. She was a debutante, an equestrian, and she called her father “Daddy.” She’d been the N. C. State homecoming queen. Her closet was so wide and deep I didn’t think she’d ever find the way out. She did, though—she left me for one of her sorority sisters. They graduated, moved to Atlanta, and had a baby via donor insemination. Leesa sent me Christmas cards every year, always including a copy of the latest family portrait.

  Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs were singing What’s the matter here? It was a song I’d nearly forgotten, though I’d been a big fan when the album came out. I’d played it over and over, driving Leesa to distraction. She liked country music.

  “You remember this album, Abby?”

  “Of course. You gave me a tape of it.”

  “That’s right. I suppose if I did that now, I’d be sued for piracy. You know, Napster and all that.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You forget, I work with human bodies, not computers. The digital age has passed me by. I can surf the web, but that’s about it.”

  She pulled into the gravel parking lot on Millbrook Road. There was a larger, paved parking lot farther along, which constituted the official entrance to Shelley Lake. It led to a dock and a boathouse, where, during the day, you could rent rowboats and paddleboats by the hour. We’d rented a rowboat on many a summer day gone by. Sometimes we came alone, but more often Kim was with us. She always wanted to row until we were just out of sight of the boathouse, and then she’d dive head first into the water. Swimming in Shelley Lake was strictly forbidden. It was actually a small reservoir, home to a few ducks and a copious assortment of water weeds. The risk of drowning seemed slight, though I suppose if she’d gotten tangled up in the weeds, we’d have had the devil’s own time pulling her out. Abby didn’t learn to swim until college, and I was no Esther Williams.

  Abby switched the engine off. “Do you have your penlight ready?”

  “No.”

  “Do you just want to sit here?”

  “For a minute.”

  “Do you want me to turn the radio back on?”

  “No. Stop asking questions. I want to talk.”

  “How can we talk if I can’t ask questions?”

  “Abby,” I warned.

  “Sorry. I’m listening.”

  I found then that I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to convey what I thought and felt without saying a word. The sky was clear and the moon, just as bright as two nights before, was hanging heavy and full just above the trees. It seemed to me that it should have been raining. Huge drops should have been beating down on the car’s roof and hood, with claps of thunder echoing off in the distance.

  Abby was afraid of thunderstorms. All I needed was a dramatic flash of lightning, a crack of electricity, and Abby would be out of her seat and into my arms. Instead, I turned the penlight on and off. I shone it onto the floor, the dashboard, and out the window.

  I held it beneath my chin and said, “Boo.”

  “Boo,” Abby replied.

  I switched the penlight off. “At home, I have dozens of photographs of myself with Hunter. Especially when I was little, maybe three or four. In all of the pictures, I’m either sitting on his lap or right up next to him. He’s always got his arm around me, and we’re looking at one another, smiling and laughing.”

  “You were close.”

  “In a strange way, I guess we were. For a time. I only have one picture of myself with Lucky Eddie. You’ve probably seen it. I’m seven or eight, and we’re sitting on opposite sides of my grandparents’ sofa. I’m staring glumly into the camera and Eddie’s looking off in the opposite direction. He’s smoking a cigarette, one of those thin, brown things he always smoked. I think they were called More cigarettes. If I ever decide to go in for psychoanalysis, I’m going to take those pictures with me. Pictures don’t lie. Not about family dynamics, anyway.”

  “I only have one picture of me with Edna,” Abby said. “The one Vince DiMarco took at high school graduation. He had it blown up into an eight by ten and sent it to her.”

  “That was nice.”

  “It was. I think Kim might have arranged it. She was always good about things like that. She organizes all of her photos into scrapbooks. I keep mine in a junk drawer.”

  “Why do you think Edna never remarried?”

  “I don’t know. I guess she never met anyone who could compare to my father. She loved him. He was fifteen years older than she was, a real radical. He was a member of the Black Panther Party.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I don’t suppose I ever told you. I don’t think about him very often, probably because I never knew him. He wrote poetry, Amiri Baraka sort of stuff. They’d only been married for a year when he died. Six months later my mother had me. It was a good thing I was a girl—the only name they’d discussed was Abia. No boy’s names.”

  “Poor Edna.”

  “I know. How many men have heart attacks at thirty-four? He died of an aortic rupture. He was really tall and really skinny—I think he might have had Marfan’s Syndrome.”

  “Isn’t that genetic?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t have it. Look at me. I’m not tall, and I’m certainly not skinny. I probably ought to diet. I’ve put on twenty pounds in the last five years.”

  “You don’t need to diet. You’re just right.” I started to run my hands through my hair and then I stopped. That was what Hunter used to do—run his hands through his hair and despair over circumstances that he could have changed if he’d tried.

  “You’ve always been just right,” I said. “And I like your hair. It suits you. If it would be okay—if you wouldn’t mind—I’d like to go with you sometime when you’re having it braided. I want to watch.”r />
  She laughed. “You want to sit in a beauty parlor for six hours reading old copies of Ebony and Essence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you definitely need to get out of this car and walk.”

  She opened her door. Her face was illuminated by the soft yellow glow of the overhead light. She was beautiful, from the arch of her eyebrows to her small round chin. When she smiled, deep dimples appeared in her cheeks.

  “Are you coming?” she asked.

  I put the penlight in the glove box to stop myself fiddling with it. The moon cast enough light that we didn’t need it anyway. I followed Abby up the embankment to the top of the reservoir. There were a few other cars in the parking lot, but there was no one in sight.

  “Should have parked around front,” Abby said, breathing heavily. “Not so steep.”

  “A little exercise won’t hurt either of us.”

  “Speak for yourself. It’s hurting me plenty. Which way now, left or right?”

  To the left was the boathouse, to the right, empty grass fields and then the trees.

  “Neither,” I said. “This is as good a place as any.”

  “As good a place as any for what?”

  “My speech. You made a speech here to me once. Now I want to make one to you. Do you remember the night we came here and you asked me what I’d decided about N. C. State?”

  She turned her head to one side and gazed at me warily. The beads in her hair made a quiet clacking sound. “I remember.”

  I took a deep breath and launched myself into the void. “I want to live with you, Abby—no, that’s not quite right. I want you to live with me. I think my place would be better for Belvedere. I have a bigger back yard.”

  “You want to be roommates?” she asked, frowning.

  “No. Yes. I want to be more than roommates. I want to be more than friends.” She opened her mouth to speak. “Wait,” I said. “Don’t say anything yet. I don’t want you to answer until I’m finished.”

  I took a deep breath. “Abby, if we never have anything more than what we have right now—if all we ever have is this friendship—then that’s still better than anything I could ever have with anyone else. I love you. I’ve loved you for a long, long time. If I’d had any brains at all, I’d have told you that in ninth grade biology class. Maybe we’d be in Atlanta now sending out baby pictures in our Christmas cards.”

  During the long pause that followed, I gave up and ran my hands through my hair. I was surprised to find that it made me feel a little better, and I wondered for a split second if it had worked that way for Hunter, too. I sat down on a bench and stared out over the lake. After a moment or two, Abby sat down next to me.

  She said, “I don’t get the Atlanta part.”

  “Do you get the rest?”

  “Yes.”

  I continued to look at the lake. A path of light from the moon bisected it neatly. It looked as if you ought to be able to walk right across it. I was tempted to try.

  “I think you’re the biggest thumb-twiddler in the world,” she said.

  I looked up then. “The biggest what?”

  “Thumb-twiddler. Procrastinator. Time waster. You know why you didn’t tell me this twenty years ago? Because you prefer to be a victim of circumstances. You think you want certain things to happen, but you’re not sure, so you just let the chips fall where they may. Susan happened to you. Leesa happened to you, and the other Lisa, and Tracy, and that damn vegan from Yellow Springs, and . . . God, I can’t remember all the rest.”

  “It’s an illustrious list. I gather you don’t want to add your name to it.”

  She shook her head. “Not if this is another one of your idle offers. You’re always making idle offers. That’s how you’ve managed to rack up five thousand ex-girlfriends. You ask, just out of curiosity, if they’d like to, you know,” she lifted one eyebrow suggestively. “And you’re always surprised when they say yes. You’re surprised, and then you’re stuck. I don’t want to be your latest . . . sticky situation.”

  “Fine, don’t be. I don’t know why I thought . . .” I stopped. “What if I want to be stuck? Have you ever considered that?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, why? Why me? Why now?”

  Her tone was belligerent. I was familiar with angry, irritated, and downright snappish, but this was new to me. I found it aggravating, provoking. I stood up, the better to glare down at her. “Why do I want to be stuck? Because, goddamn it, I am stuck. I’m in love with you. Can’t you see that? And as for why now, I can only tell you that this didn’t happen all of a sudden. I didn’t wake up this morning and think, ‘I’ll brush my teeth and then I’ll fall in love with Abby.’ I’ve been getting more and more stuck as each year has passed. This feeling—it’s always been there, constant, reliable, and comfortable. That’s why I didn’t notice it. You don’t notice the things you depend on. Your heart, your lungs, your . . . your . . .”

  “Your uterus?” she suggested.

  “Your uterus. Who the hell ever thinks about her uterus? But without it, no children. No monthly reminder that you could, if you wanted to, have a baby. You don’t think about anything important until it all gets shaken up.”

  “And what about Susan? Three days ago . . .”

  “Three days ago I thought I might find it painful to see her again. And guess what? It was. But I’ve learned something. I won’t love Susan Sava until the day I die. I don’t want to—she’s not worth it. You are.”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Your speech was better than mine,” she said, “all those years ago. Although mine was a lot shorter.”

  The belligerent tone was gone, and in its place was calm assurance. I liked this even less. I wanted to shake her, shake her and then throw her into the lake. I sat back down, defeated.

  I said, “How can you just sit there like you’re attending a second grade piano recital? You’re polite, but you’re bored. You’re waiting for it all to be over.”

  “Is it over?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think,” she said, moving close enough to put her arm around me, “that that was a very brave speech. Especially for you. I admire your courage.”

  “Gee, thanks. I feel like an idiot. I’ve been yelling for the past five minutes.” I leaned forward. Her hand, which had been squeezing my shoulder, dropped to the small of my back. “I want to throw you into the lake.”

  “Don’t. You’ll only have to fish me back out.”

  “I hate it when you’re like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Calm. Cool. Collected.”

  “I can afford to be calm,” she replied. “I know something that you don’t.”

  “Oh, yeah. What’s that?”

  “I love you, too.” She tugged on my shirt. “Come on, sit up. I can’t talk to your back.”

  I sat up. I didn’t want to look at her, and I didn’t want to cry, so I closed my eyes.

  “No,” she said, “that won’t do. You have to look at me. Can you do that? Good. Do you know what funeral sex is?”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes, when someone close to you dies, you feel the need to reaffirm the fact that you’re still alive. You have sex with someone.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t want to have funeral sex.”

  “I did,” she said. “After Rosalyn died. I met a woman in a bar, and I went home with her. I’d never done anything like that in my entire life. When it was over, I wished I were dead.”

  “Abby.” I reached out to touch her shoulder, but she leaned away.

  “No,” she said. “Not yet. Please. I’m telling you this so that you’ll understand. I still feel guilty. I feel, right now, like I’m cheating on Rosalyn. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that. As much as I love you, I still love her, too. I always will. She wasn’t perfect, God knows, but she was a part of me.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. Honey, I w
ant to cheat on Rosalyn. With you. Tonight.”

  “With me,” I repeated slowly. “Tonight. You mean you want to have sex?”

  “Yes, if we can figure out who kisses who first.”

  “What about feeling guilty?”

  “I can live with it if you can,” she replied. “I just wanted you to know that it’s there, and that it might always be there. Rosalyn looms pretty large, Poppy. Just like she did in life.”

  I took her by the hands and helped her to her feet. “Thanks for the warning, but I’ve made my decision. It’s you, me, and Rosalyn. I just hope she doesn’t hog the covers.”

  “What about our other problem?”

  “The who kisses who first thing? It’s not a problem.”

  Before she had time to panic or object, I kissed her. I caught her off balance and held her there, with my arms wrapped tightly around her waist. When she reached up and put her arms around my neck, it felt like a triumph. I had no illusions about making her forget Rosalyn. I was content to live with Abby’s memories just the same as I lived with my own, but I’d be damned if I’d let them occupy the space between us. In that intense moment of physical connection, as Abby tangled her fingers in my hair and kissed me back with a rare passion, I knew that we could push Rosalyn and Susan and everyone else into some far corner, and even if we couldn’t keep them there forever, it would be enough for us to go on.

  Several minutes later, giddy and breathless, I asked if she was ready to drive us back to the hotel.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Can you drive quickly?”

  “I can get a speeding ticket.”

  I glanced at the illuminated dial of my watch. “I don’t care about the speeding ticket. Put your foot down.”

  She laughed. “You’d think we’d never done this before.”

  “We haven’t, but that’s not what I’m worried about. We’ve got exactly fifteen minutes before my grandmother calls the police. Unless you’d care to be interrupted by Raleigh’s finest, we’d better get back to the Velvet Cloak.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight