Someone to Love

by Norma Fox Mazer

  Cradling a Styrofoam coffee cup, Nicholas Lehman spoke of how much he missed the child. “I get her for the summer. It’s terrific when she’s here, but I have to wait all year for that. I would have held the marriage together—for Mindy’s sake. But her mother … No, Claudia wasn’t interested.”

  Nina listened, saying little, her eyes on his face. That he was talking to her in this way surprised and humbled her. She touched the thin silver hoops in her ears—a present from Mitch. She knew she had something of a schoolgirl crush on Nicholas Lehman. When she and Mitch first started going out together, it had bothered her that she still was ga-ga over the other man. But she’d worked out for herself that her feelings for Mitch were one thing; for her professor, entirely different and separate.

  She loved Mitch and he loved her. Mitch was, well, real. Sometimes he smelled of machine oil or paint; he yawned and burped; he wore socks with holes in the toes, and left half-opened cans of food on the counter to rot. She didn’t—couldn’t—think of Nicholas Lehman in those terms.

  He was like a movie star (in fact, he somewhat resembled an older Warren Beatty with a beard); he was like someone she might read about in People magazine, someone she could daydream about or put into her fantasies, but not someone you would expect to be part of your ordinary, everyday life.

  And yet here he was talking to her, softly, intimately; leaning toward her as if it were important to him that she understand about his marriage. “It was a mistake. Sure, you can say hindsight—and you wouldn’t be wrong.” (Nina wouldn’t have dared say any such thing. Wouldn’t even have thought it. If the marriage had been wrong, surely it hadn’t been his fault. Claudia—didn’t that just conjure up an image of a cold, smiling blonde!) “But, Mindy,” he went on, “Mindy came out of that.…”

  There was appeal in his blue eyes. Do you understand? he seemed to be saying. Do you see why I am the way I am? I smile, I joke, but the smile covers pain.

  Leaning toward him, Nina noticed a thin spot in the waves of his hair. Oh, poor man! she thought. And she wondered if his wearing the same, elbow-patched tweed jacket day in and day out was, after all, style, or the outward sign that he was neglected in the way that a man without a woman is neglected.

  Afterward, when he was again sitting in the student chair by the window and she was again typing, Nina was intensely aware of him; her whole back was warm. She sat up straight at the typewriter, but made more mistakes than she ever did when she was alone.

  But of all this she said nothing to Mitch, only mentioning the least important part, that Professor Lehman had made a casual remark about teaching her to play racquetball. She couldn’t very well not ever talk about Nicholas Lehman—working for him, he was too much a part of her daily life—but she was careful what she said to Mitch. Why make him unhappy? His jealousy annoyed her, but it also made her want to laugh. Did he really think there were legions of men out there waiting to snatch her away from him!

  She leaned toward him now and kissed him. “I’m hungry, I’m getting really hungry.”

  “After that big breakfast I fed you?” He brushed her hair off her face.

  “It’s the cold weather. I’m always hungry in cold weather.”

  “Let’s get roast beef sandwiches when the laundry’s done. My treat.”

  “You treated me last time.”

  “I just got paid yesterday, Nins. What am I going to do with all my money?”

  “I’ll pay my half. I’m working, too.”

  “I don’t think you’ll get rich in that job, sweetie.… Nina?” He nudged her foot with his. “I’ve been thinking—I want you to move in with me.”

  “Move in with you?”

  He nodded. “I woke up this morning and I thought about it. And I realized it’s ridiculous for you to live in one place and me in another. As it is you spend more time at my place than yours.”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Yeah, really,” he said. “You’re already half moved in. You’ve got stuff all over. The other morning—did I tell you this?—I put your T-shirt on.”

  “You didn’t.” She laughed.

  “I did, before I realized.…”

  “Which one?”

  “That blue one you left, the one that says I’D RATHER BE IN DENVER.”

  “I left that? I must have forgotten it last week.”

  Nearly everyone had left the campus for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Lynell had gone home with Sonia, and Nina found their empty apartment dim and depressing. After her first night alone she had packed up Emmett and spent the rest of the holiday with Mitch. The weather had turned sleety, and they had stayed in nearly the whole time.

  “So, what do you think?” Mitch said.

  “Move in,” she repeated. Funny how her mind worked. Imagining the two of them living together, the first thing she thought about was food. He liked a big breakfast. She didn’t. Then she thought about studying at the library table evenings while he read in the old velvet chair. She almost hummed at that image. And they’d go to bed together, wake up together. Their toothbrushes would nudge each other in the same jar in the bathroom.

  She got up to put the wet wash into one of the drum dryers. Machines whirred and hummed on every side. A boy and girl folded clothes together at the long yellow folding table. Mitch came back from the candy machine with a chocolate bar that he broke in half for the two of them.

  “You want us to live together,” she said.

  “It would make life a lot simpler for you,” he said, standing close to her. “You’d be done with all this coming and going stuff.”

  “Yes …” She found herself a little disappointed that he sounded so practical. But what did she want? Him down on his knees? Nina, wilt thou move in with me? Had her father proposed to her mother on his knees? Even if he had (she knew he hadn’t; family history had it that his head was under the hood of his car when he popped the question), it was utterly different. One was marriage, and one was living together. L.T. Then she thought of her parents again, and she knew that if she moved in with Mitch she could never tell them.

  She pushed those thoughts away, went back to more practical considerations. Furniture. She didn’t have much: a rug, a pair of curtains she’d never used, her cot, a few other things. Her room was so small at Sonia and Lynell’s apartment. If she moved in with Mitch, she could really fix up his place—no, it would be their place. Nina’s and Mitch’s.

  “You know what my father calls it when people live together?” she said.

  “Don’t tell me, I can guess.”

  “Shacking up.”

  “Well, look, it doesn’t lessen my respect for your father, but that is a pretty narrow-minded point of view.”

  “I agree; you don’t have to convince me.”

  “My father lived with his girl friend before they got married.”

  “Yes, but your father is a professor.”

  Mitch laughed. “Meaning?”

  “Well, my parents … You know what a small town I come from—”

  “Oh, I see. Professors are exotic types. Not like your average Mom and Pop mortals.” Nina nodded. “Well, he’s still just Pop to me,” Mitch said. “And to tell the truth, I think the problem with him and his girl friend was that they didn’t live together long enough. Five or six months, and they got married. And the next year, divorced. Now he’s married again, but he and Cynthia lived together for four years first.”

  “They haven’t been married very long, have they?”

  “Not quite a year yet. Not long enough to know if it’s going to last.”

  “After four years? That was like marriage, too, wasn’t it?”

  Mitch shrugged. “I’m just being realistic. Look at my parents. Seventeen years and then they divorced. You’d think people would stay together after seventeen years.”

  “My parents have been married thirty years.” Nina opened the dryer to check the clothes, then snapped it shut and put in another quarter. “Do you want to get marrie
d someday, Mitch?”

  “Someday, definitely.”

  “Me, too. I want kids, but not yet, not for a long time. Not till I’m twenty-eight or twenty-nine.”

  “Maybe they’ll be my kids,” Mitch said.

  Nina squeezed his hand. “They could be as cute as you and—”

  “I’m not cute, Nina.”

  “Yes, you are. I’m not the only one who thinks so. That’s what Sonia said about you. I told you, didn’t I? ‘That Mitch is cute.’ Mitch, listen. What if we decided to do this, and thirty years from now we’re telling our kids about it? Telling them how one morning, in the Laundromat, we decided to live together. How we thought it would be for now, but it turned out to be forever.”

  “Sweetie, forever is an absurd word. Nobody knows what the future is going to bring.”

  “Well, I guess that’s true.”

  “No guess about it. I don’t know the future. You don’t know the future. No one knows the future. Anyone who did could clean up. That person would have their mil a long time before old D.G. ever sees his.… So, Nina, what about it? Do you want to do it?”

  She sat down again and took out her knitting, telling herself to be thoughtful rather than impulsive, but knowing that her mind was already made up. Wasn’t everything in favor of the move? First and foremost, they were in love. Then, they were spending so much of their time together that it really would make life simpler, especially for her. Simpler and better. Much better. Irrelevantly, she wished she’d been the one to ask Mitch. Then she wondered where they’d keep Emmett’s litter box, and after that she thought, Well, for once I’ll have something that Lynell and Sonia don’t have.

  “I can’t just walk out on Lynell and Sonia,” she said, doing penance for her petty thought.

  “I’m sure they can find another roommate,” he said. “There are always people around looking to move.”

  “It can’t be just anyone.”

  “Right. Somebody good will show up.”

  “And something else. It’s not only me that moves in, Mitch. It’s Emmett, too.”

  “Sure, it is. Love you, love your cat. Anything else?”

  “Well … money.”

  “It won’t cost you any more, Nina. I don’t pay that much rent. We’ll split everything down the middle, okay? Food shouldn’t be any different.”

  “I should think about it some more,” she said. “This is important. I shouldn’t just rush into it.”

  “I agree,” he said, “but it’s not as if we just met. Nina … I want you to move in.” His hand covered hers. “I really want you to do this.”

  “I really want to, too, Mitch … but it’s a big step. We should think about it.”

  “I have. That’s why I asked you.”

  “What if I’d asked you?” Nina said.

  “I’d have loved it,” he said. “Did you think about asking me?”

  “No, I just wish I had. Why didn’t I think of it first?”

  He laughed. “We can pretend you did. Ask me, Nina. Ask me to live with you. See what I say.”

  “Mitch, what if we don’t get along?”

  “Why wouldn’t we? We get along fine now.”

  “We fight. We fight a lot.”

  “And then we make up,” he said.

  “What happens if you hate living with me?”

  “I won’t. You could hate living with me, though.”

  She shook her head. “No, I won’t. I’ve been thinking the dumbest things, Mitch. Our toothbrushes together …”

  “Our shoes side by side … Nina, it will be so fine and great living together. Don’t you think so?” he said anxiously.

  She put her hands on his shoulders so that they were looking at each other full face. “Okay,” she said after a moment.

  “Okay?” A smile broke over his face.

  She nodded. How extraordinary, how wonderful, to be able to make someone else so happy!

  The Laundromat was packed by now. Standing by the steamy window, they put their arms around each other in a long, warm hug. I’m going to remember this, Nina thought. I’ll never forget this moment.

  Chapter Eleven

  On a cold, bright Saturday in December, Nina moved into Mitch’s apartment. Sonia, Lynell, and D.G. all helped in the move. Not far to go, about three blocks, but as none of them had a car, everything had to be hand-carried. In short order Nina noticed that even a box of clothes that started out light in The Lion’s Arms ended up heavy by the time it was lugged through Mitch’s doorway.

  Although she hadn’t come to school with a lot of stuff, Nina had managed to accumulate enough to keep them busy for a couple of hours. “If I’d known it would be this much work, I wouldn’t have been so quick to move,” she said.

  “Too late for regrets,” Lynell said. “You’re stuck, baby.”

  Nina had been pleasantly surprised when Lynell and Sonia volunteered to help. When she’d first told them she was planning to move in with Mitch, they had not been happy. “That is a hell of a note,” Sonia said. “You realize you’re going to leave us in the lurch?”

  “I’m not making the move until you find someone else,” Nina protested. “You don’t think I’d do that, do you?”

  “And what if we don’t find someone else? It’s pretty late in the season, you know. People have made their arrangements a long time ago.”

  Nina’s heart sank. “We’ll find someone else. I’m sure we will.”

  She had been right. Later that same day Helen Wander, another music student, would move into Nina’s vacated room. Helen, also a singer, had had a serious fight with her boyfriend a few days after Nina had made her announcement. When Sonia mentioned that Nina was moving out and that she and Lynell were looking for another roommate, Helen took it as a sign from heaven that she was meant to leave her boyfriend.

  The whole time they were moving Emmett was underfoot, rushing to the door every time it opened. There were constant cries of, “No, Emmett! … Out of the way, Emmett … Emmett, get back.” Finally, when only dustballs were left in her room, Nina carried the cat downstairs. At the smell of fresh air his nose turned bright pink and twitched wildly.

  “You should have a leash for him,” Mitch remarked. “He’s as big as a dog.”

  “Wait till you see the way she feeds him,” Lynell said. “Now that you’re leaving, Nina, I can tell you that I’ve never liked your dear Emmett that much.”

  “I always knew that,” Nina said calmly, as if Lynell’s remark didn’t hurt.

  In Mitch’s place, Nina showed Emmett his box in the bathroom and his food dish in the kitchen. She left him to sniff around the jumble of boxes while they all went out to eat.

  “Here’s where it all began,” Mitch said when they walked into the sandwich shop. “Let’s take the same table.” He and Nina sat close together. She liked the way he looked in a dark blue sweatshirt and sneakers.

  “I thought you met on a ladder,” Sonia said.

  “Yeah, true; Nina was giving me the eye all the time I was painting. Then she followed me in here, and after that, she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “Sonia and I met in the park last year,” D.G. said. “She caught my Frisbee. Come on, now, folks, don’t laugh. That’s literally true.”

  Nina was tremendously excited. She couldn’t stop laughing and smiling. I want to remember this, she told herself again. Mitch … my friends.… They were all smiling benignly at her. They had ordered a huge amount of food. Pizza, sandwiches, cookies, and frosted cakes. Mitch’s treat. There was good will in the air. Sonia caressed D.G.’s neck, and Lynell said almost wistfully, “Too bad Adam couldn’t make it.” As if Nina’s moving in with Mitch was a special occasion to be shared with those closest to you.

  All at once the old childhood rhyme flashed into Nina’s mind. Nina and Mitch sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g! First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Nina with a BABY carriage! She moved closer to Mitch, pressing her leg against his. Of course she wasn’t thinking o
f marriage, neither of them was, but all the same …

  “Well, now, Mitch,” Lynell said, glancing obliquely at him through her hair, “you have someone to do the cooking and cleaning, right?”

  “It’s not going to be like that,” Nina said. “We’re going to share everything.”

  “Ninny, I was baiting Mitch, not you.”

  “You need better bait for me.” Lazily Mitch curled his hand through Nina’s hair.

  “I’ll remember that. I happen to be a very good fisherman.” Lynell and Mitch had established a kind of teasing rapport. It had happened only this morning. Over Emmett, Nina thought. Mitch wasn’t an enthusiastic cat lover, either, and the two of them had batted Emmett jokes back and forth. “Let’s enroll him in a diet workshop.” “Oh, I don’t know, why don’t we just admit his useful years are past and make a cat scarf out of him?” and when Nina protested that none of that was very humorous, they had only laughed harder at the spectacle of her so passionately defending her beloved cat. She consoled herself with the thought that living with Emmett, Mitch would learn to love him as she did. She certainly wasn’t going to let herself get too upset over what had to be a minor flaw in Mitch’s character. Her cheeks were steaming, and she burst out suddenly, “Do any of you guys think of yourself as an animal?”

  “Sure,” Sonia said immediately. “I’m a cat.” She purred.

  “And I’m Bozo, the faithful dog,” D.G. said, lolling his head on Sonia’s shoulder.

  Nina added to the merriment by saying that she was a donkey. For years she’d had that mental image of herself, head down, pushing along stubbornly. And who, she had thought, would ever love a donkey? She had become that donkey that moment in Mr. Pretorious’s office. After, secretly terrified, she had forced herself to keep her promise … or vow … or resolution—whatever it was. She was going to college. She had plugged along, going her donkey way, her mostly solitary way. She had said it; now she had to make it happen. And all the time yearning for other things: for love, for friendship, for touching and closeness. For someone else, for the other, that someone who would say, Let’s spend the day together.… Let’s … Let us … Us is what she had yearned for. Nina and … someone.