Portion of the Sea

by Christine Lemmon

  That night, after the interviews were over and the energy died down, Ethan and I parted outside the front doors of the convention hall. He insisted on driving me home, but I knew he had deadlines to make, and, besides, I didn’t want him knowing where I was living. It was my problem, and I’d work my way out of it soon enough.

  The next morning, Ethan was like a burst of living energy when he showed up in the obituary department.

  “I was wondering what time you break for lunch,” he said. “Maybe we might try someplace quiet being that last night we were surrounded by thirteen hundred GOP delegates.”

  “Yes, quiet does sound nice,” I answered. “I just have to finish this last obituary. Did you get everything in last night?”

  “Of course. That speech by Barry Goldwater removing himself from the race, where he called on the conservatives to take back the party, was the highlight of the convention. I got a great interview with him outside after we said good-bye.”

  Over lunch, Ethan and I discussed the other side of things, of Senator Kennedy’s theme of getting the country moving again, and how he assailed the missile gap with the Russians and denounced the Eisenhower administration for allowing a Communist regime to come to power in Cuba. And we talked about how Nixon criticized Kennedy for his lack of experience.

  We went for lunch again the next day and the next and the next after that, and soon we started going for dinner after work, long and quiet at a nice restaurant or quick as a midnight snack, depending on the hours we worked and the deadlines we had to meet. And once, we went to see Marlena as supporting actress in an independent film that made it to the States! It was playing at a little art theater on the south side of the city, and I could hardly contain myself, for when she showed up on the big screen, playing the part of a nasty school teacher at a private girl’s boarding house, I jumped up from my seat, whistled, and screamed, and Ethan had to pull me back down again. I went back and saw that movie five more times by myself. I was so proud of her!

  Ethan and I could analyze the news for hours, turning headlines into major discussions. We differed on what constitutes newsworthiness, or which story should have made the front page and why, or which story appeared slanted, or why one story was given abundant coverage while another got a blurb. Events I hadn’t paid attention to were escalating in Vietnam, and Ethan insisted it was newsworthy and would only become more so.

  But I was mostly interested in things happening locally, in the windy city, until one September evening another wind from far away caught my attention.

  “Hurricane Donna is headed for the Caribbean,” I said to Ethan over dinner. “I hope it doesn’t hit Florida.”

  “Too soon to tell,” he said. “There’s uncertainty at this point.”

  “Donna is moving into the Gulf to the west of Sanibel,” I said the next day over lunch. “With winds over a hundred miles per hour.”

  “I didn’t hear any mention of Sand-ball,” he said. “What exactly is Sandball?”

  “Sanibel. It’s a barrier island in Southwest Florida. Maybe they didn’t actually mention Sanibel. Maybe I just thought I heard it. I know it’s still too soon to tell where the thing is headed.”

  I didn’t want to say more about Sanibel, for the weather forecasts were already stirring up thoughts of Josh in my mind, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Ethan and I had become romantically involved just a few weeks prior; so, the thoughts and concerns I was having for Josh were only confusing me. I didn’t feel like going back there in my mind, to some guy I hadn’t seen or spoken to or written in ages. But still, my feelings for Josh felt stronger than those I had for my current man, the one who was a realistic part of my everyday life. I scared myself but couldn’t help it.

  “Many lives were lost as Donna skirted to the north of Puerto Rico with one hundred-and-thirty-five mile-per-hour winds,” I read from the paper to Ethan over dinner.

  “It doesn’t look good,” he said.

  “Its course suddenly changed to almost a true west heading,” I told him over coffee Wednesday morning, September 7.

  “You still don’t know for sure that it’s going to hit your little Sanibel Island.”

  I wandered in and out of the weather department all morning, and, later in the day, Donna had begun to move more to the northwest, and the Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for southwest Florida.

  Shortly after, the watch had been upgraded to a hurricane warning, and I pictured both Marlena and poor Josh boarding up their windows and securing anything that might blow away. I knew from a letter that Marlena had returned to Sanibel after finishing work on her first film, and I worried about her.

  It was mid-afternoon on Thursday, September 8, when my phone at work rang.

  “Hi Lydia,” said a female voice.

  “Marlena! I saw your movie! You’re going to win an Oscar for that. I just know it. You were amazing!”

  “Thank you, but did you know there’s a hurricane headed for us?”

  “Yes, I’ve been tracking it. Are you okay? What’s happening there?”

  “I’m using the pay phone at the ferry landing, and there’s a line behind me like you wouldn’t believe. And there’s also a line to get off this island. I’m the thirteenth car.”

  “Good. You’re leaving. That’s wise. You’d be crazy not to. Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got an actress friend, aspiring, who lives in Chicago. She’s trying to break into television. I haven’t seen her for some time. I could visit with her, and maybe you and I could meet up for dinner if you’re not too busy? I don’t want to interfere with your job.”

  “I’d love to. When are you flying out?”

  “I’m not. I’m driving, but I drive fast and straight through. It might take me awhile to get out of town with all the evacuees, but once I’m out, I plan to cruise. Long car rides relax me.”

  “You’ve got both of my numbers?”

  “Yes, you gave them to me in your last letter.”

  “I’ll give you one more number, just in case. I might be at that number over the weekend.”

  “Got it,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.” And then, just as we were about to hang up, she added, “Guess whom I bumped into here at the ferry landing a few minutes ago?”

  “Who?”

  “That guy you used to like. I didn’t know it was him until we got to talking, and I mentioned I was leaving for Chicago, and he said he knew someone who lived there, someone pursuing a journalism career and what a small island. We put two and two together.”

  “Josh! Did he tell you we wrote letters for three years and they just stopped?”

  “No. He was with his father and …”

  “Did you say he was in line for the ferry?”

  My stomach swirled, and rudimentary questions thrashed about my mind like debris flying around in a hurricane. Who did she say he was with? I know I interrupted. What was he doing with his life? Why was he on the dock? When was he evacuating? Where was he going? And how was he getting there? I’m sure they only spoke small talk, but still, I had other questions, like what did he look like and it’s not one of the “w” journalistic questions, but did he ask about me?

  “No, he wasn’t in line for the ferry. They’re hunkering down, weathering out the hurricane. He said weather doesn’t upset him at all. Hey, I’ve got to go, Lydia. There’s a line of people behind me waiting to use this phone.”

  “Wait,” I cried into the phone.

  “Can’t. I just watched nine cars in front of me board. I’m not losing my spot in line. I’ll call you once I’m in Chicago. Bye.”

  She hung up.

  The next morning, Friday morning, the Miami Hurricane Center had positioned Donna’s center at 175 miles south of Miami, heading northwest, and it was reported that the storm was releasing energy equivalent to a hydrogen bomb exploding in the atmosphere every eight minutes—and it had been strengthening.

  “Its forward movement is becoming erratic so its true
direction is difficult to predict,” I said as I stopped by Ethan’s desk.

  And that night I too was becoming erratic, for I no longer knew whether I wanted to move forward with Ethan. How could I when my thoughts were with Josh? It wasn’t right. It was criminal to lead one guy on when I still loved another. I hoped it was love. It had to be. Obsession or infatuation is over a movie star, I convinced myself, someone you’ve never known or truly loved. I knew Josh, and what I was feeling now was simply a love that wouldn’t go away.

  “Let’s stay in and have dinner at my place tonight,” he said after lunch. Did you pack your things for the night?”

  “Of course,” I said, preferring to spend the next two days in his cozy arms as opposed to my lonely rundown shoebox of an apartment.

  But when I slipped into his arms that night, I could only imagine Josh and his father in the darkened midst of the deafening, howling winds, with objects striking their house, fearing for their lives.

  As dawn approached, Donna’s eye passed through the central Florida Keys. I tuned Ethan’s radio to the weather and insisted we stay in bed, listening to any changes in its course. It was both of our days off, and neither of us could remember the last time we stayed in bed without rushing off. For me, I think it had been way back when I faked having polio, and for him it was mononucleosis in college.

  At eight-thirty, the Weather Bureau’s Miami radar had shown the eye approaching Everglades City, and the hurricane’s forward speed at 20 miles per hour.

  I got out of bed and showered, and at around noon, about the time they had predicted Donna’s eye to arrive near Sanibel, Ethan’s phone rang. It was Marlena. She had arrived to Chicago early and wanted to meet for lunch instead of dinner.

  XXXIII

  ETHAN KNEW AND MET every politician in Chicago, but he had never met a movie star before; so, I invited him to walk over with me to the John Hancock Building on Michigan Avenue, where I was to meet up with Marlena. On the way over, he tried telling me she wasn’t technically a movie star until she starred in a leading role or won some awards. He was probably right, but still, she was the only person I ever knew to play any role in any movie, and I was proud.

  “There she is!” I exclaimed when I saw her, looking more glamorous at age forty-nine than she had ever looked before. “Isn’t she amazing? She’s more beautiful in person, don’t you think?”

  Ethan nodded. “I guess.”

  I dropped his hand and threw my arms around her.

  “Lydia, my darling, you cut your hair,” she announced.

  “You like it?”

  “Professional. There’s no hint of little girl left in you.”

  We held hands long after our hug ended, and I wiped a tear from my eye as she consoled me about my father. For a blink of a moment I felt like pouring it all out about his will and where I was living and how I had barely been staying afloat financially, eating like a pig whenever someone brought donuts or bagels in to work and lying awake at night amidst the noise of my apartment, but I refrained from all of that and accepted her words of sympathy regarding my father instead. I didn’t in any way want her to assume I was hinting for money now that she was rising to fame. And, besides, Ethan was standing close, and I wouldn’t want him hearing. I wouldn’t ever want any man feeling sorry for me. I was a strong woman and could manage fine on my own.

  “There’s someone who is dying to meet you,” I whispered to Marlena, then turned to signal Ethan closer. “Ethan,” I said when he stepped up to us. “I’d like to introduce you to Marlena DiPluma.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said shaking her hand. “You were wonderful in your movie. Congratulations.”

  “Oh please,” she said. “I swore that if I ever made it big, I’d never become one of those types that have to be the center of attention. Maybe that’s why I don’t like talking about my performances. But thank you.”

  Ethan glanced at me, and I nodded back, and we both knew it was best that he didn’t ask for her autograph. That had been my plan. I thought it might boost her ego, but I don’t think she wanted that.

  “I heard you two spent your first night together at the Republican Convention. Are you Republican?” she asked Ethan.

  “Off the record,” he answered. “Yes, I am.”

  Marlena looked as if she were about to pull a shotgun out of her purse as her character had done in the movie. “I’m a Democrat,” she said, and then broke into laughter. “But that doesn’t matter. I’m not the one dating you, am I?”

  I kissed him on the cheek and told him we girls had better get going. We didn’t have much time together, just a lunch. Marlena and I walked up Michigan Avenue until we reached the Lincoln Park area and then walked into a good Irish pub.

  “The eye of the hurricane is probably over Sanibel,” she said, glancing at her watch. “That means it’s peaceful there now.”

  We both knew that in about an hour onshore winds could bring the highest tides and likely do the most wind-related damage. There was nothing we could do but wait and hear the news after it happened. We tried talking of other things. She had recently found six gray hairs, and it bothered her, as did talk of a causeway going up that would link Sanibel to the mainland.

  “It’s only talk,” I reassured her. “It probably won’t happen.”

  “I think I’ve heard you say that before.”

  “What?”

  “That it won’t happen. If I remember correctly, it was when I told you I didn’t get the role I wanted in that movie, and you told me, ‘Don’t worry, Marlena. That movie probably won’t even happen.’”

  I rolled my eyes, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “So did you go see ‘Pillow Talk’?” I asked.

  “Who hasn’t seen a movie that got nominated for a half-dozen Oscars?”

  “What do I know?”

  We laughed, and Marlena took a swig of her beer. “You think I could have done as well as Doris Day? Be honest.”

  “Better,” I said. “I know she got nominated for her first Academy Award, but she overacted in my opinion. You could have done much better.”

  “You think? You think Rock Hudson and I would have looked good together?”

  “Great together.”

  “Damn,” she said as the waitress set our fish platters down. “We probably would have.”

  I took a few bites of my sandwich and then dared to ask what I had wanted to know the moment I gave Marlena the hello hug.

  “That guy I used to like, you bumped into him on the dock?”

  “Lydia,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “He’s hotter than Rock Hudson! And he was pleasant, too.”

  “Anything else?” I had been starving for news of him, anything at all, but like an egret perched on the Sanibel Fishing Pier, I wanted my tidbits without looking too eager.

  “Nope. I told you everything there was.”

  “What do you think of Ethan? He’s an ambitious man,” I said. “His coverage is excellent. I could learn a thing or two from him.”

  “If there’s anything to learn from a man,” she said, “I suppose.”

  “You’re not one of those man-haters, are you, Marlena?”

  “Of course not,” she said, batting her false eyelashes at me. “But I think men are for loving, not learning from. Do you love him?”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m still gathering information,” I said coyly. “Not to change the subject, but did you talk with Josh for awhile?” I feared she might hear my stomach growling for more. “I hope he is doing well.”

  “I only paid him attention because he’s darn good-looking, the best-looking thing I’ve laid eyes on. All man.”

  I was glad when the waiter brought another beer so I had something to down before my curiosities poured out further. But I could see in her eyes that she had more scraps to toss my way.

  “He was holding hands at first with a blonde,” she said, glancing at me as she drank.

  “What else?” I insisted, wondering if that was why
he stopped writing. He could have had the courtesy of telling me. Then, again, our letters weren’t the mushy sort. Neither of us described any relationship or feelings we had for each other or whether or not we were seeing anyone else. We only wrote about our lives, our philosophies, and our day-to-day thoughts. Pretty much we wrote about things that turn friends into really good friends, and I feel like I grew to love him on a deeper level through those letters, a level that couples don’t get to unless they’ve been separated by time and distance and keep on writing through it all. I wrote gooey stuff once in a letter, but then I held it over a candle flame and burned it to ashes!

  “Nothing else to report,” Marlena declared.

  But there had to be. She wasn’t looking at me straight on, but still from the sides of her eyes. I always knew sources had more to say when they looked at me like that. “It’s not nice to tease a bird,” I said. “What else?”

  “I did ask him what he was doing, and he said he’s chartering by day and something about practicing his music at night.”

  “Good for him,” I said. “Sounds like the life he had wanted for himself.”

  “Write him, Lydia. Why don’t you write him?”

  “Why would I write him a letter? He’s got a girlfriend.”

  She gave me a suspicious look. “Yeah, but it looked more like that girl was hanging onto him. She was holding his hand, if you know what I mean. The way in which couples hold hands tells you everything. And it looked to me as if she liked him more than he liked her. Does that make sense?”

  It did. I knew that to be the case with Ethan and me, only he had stronger feelings for me than I did for him.

  “You think I should write a letter to Josh?”

  “Absolutely. Your eyes tell me you’re still interested, and I think his eyes said the same.”

  “Maybe, but it’s impossible,” I said, then stopping what I was about to say to correct myself when she rolled her eyes. “I mean, nothing is impossible, but right now, it would never work out between us. We can’t go on writing letters forever without ever seeing each other. I think that’s why our letters ended in the first place. He probably got bored or fed up with just writing. Besides, I only knew him a summer, you know. And now I care for Ethan and we’re in a relationship, a real one. So did Josh say or do anything else?”