by Alice Adams
Jonathan’s eyes were large and very dark. Very unlike Sebastian’s narrow, gold-brown eyes.
“Does it feel better when a divorce is sort of finalized?” Holly attempted, thinking that divorce or separation was actually what they most had in common, at that time.
Rather defensively Jonathan told her, “Mine’s nowhere near final. In fact, we’re still in the very early stages. Thrashing things out. Kicking the ball around.” He grinned, as though to assure her of the non-seriousness of his divorce.
His face was better in its serious phase, Holly decided. The grin was too much just that, a grin. So many large healthy white teeth that you missed his eyes, by far his best feature.
It was impossible now to imagine the long easy fluid talk that Holly had silently enjoyed with him, all those conversations in her head. Whatever had they talked about? She could no longer remember, even.
“How about dinner?” she asked. “It’s not too early? It’s all sort of ready, won’t take a minute.”
Jonathan looked at his watch and they both saw: 7:30. “Fine by me,” he said.
Mercifully alone in her kitchen, Holly faced or tried to face the fact of this awkward evening. She was pleased at the degree to which she could accept its semi-failure. Not her fault, and it meant nothing, really. Just two people shy with each other, in an unaccustomed situation. Jonathan as a doctor, her doctor, was of course considerably more assured. Good at his work, always knowing what to say.
And Holly herself could be fairly animated, talkative, although it felt like rather a long time since she had been so.
Steak-and-kidney pie. A favorite of Sebastian’s, and received enthusiastically by Jonathan, at first. “What a great crust!”
But Holly next noticed that he was picking out pieces of steak, avoiding the kidney. She supposed that she should have asked, but still she would not have expected that sort of squeamishness from a doctor. On the other hand, why not? Maybe doctors are more squeamish, really, than other people are? And with considerably more reason, so much exposure to visceral ugliness.
“This house can get awfully cold in the winter, though,” Holly found herself babbling (obviously they would do well not to talk about the food). “Drafts everywhere. Damp.”
“It feels very comfortable.” Courteous Jonathan. And then, conversationally, “In your settlement, you get the house?”
“Uh?”
“The house. It’s yours now?”
“Well, not exactly. I mean, I’m not sure yet. My lawyer—”
“Oh. Lawyers.” Jonathan’s mouth curled.
Are they really so much worse than doctors? Holly did not ask this.
Jonathan chose not to have dessert. “Got to stay in shape.” He grinned, and then, “Help you with the dishes?”
“Oh, no. Just go on in the living room. I’ll bring coffee. Decaf?”
“Please.”
Holly brought in the coffee, which was unaccountably cool. They sat sipping at it as Holly thought again, Well, so much for that. How silly I was. And whenever will he go?
Instead of going, though, Jonathan Green moved closer to her, on the sofa where they sat. Very gently he put one arm around her, and then still very gently he began to kiss her. Their mouths were open, but not in an urgent way. Just kissing, hungrily (at least Holly kissed hungrily, she had not kissed anyone for so long), but the hunger seemed for more kissing. No question of anything further.
At some point Jonathan murmured near her ear, half laughing, “High school.”
“Yes.” And Holly thought, This is perfect, this is what I really wanted. All this tender kissing, this is what I’ve missed. Much more than sex. To his ear she whispered, “Jonathan, I really like you.”
It went on and on, this gentle semi-greedy kissing, along with mild back-stroking caresses. Touching Jonathan’s shoulders, which were broad, strong-feeling, Holly was intensely aware of maleness, such very male shoulders. Another quality she had missed.
After what could have been an hour of this occupation (impossible to tell about the time), Jonathan, still gentle, began to start to disentangle himself. He still clung to her—or was it that he allowed her to cling? No way to remember that, later on.
At last they stood kissing at the door. Good night.
“I must see you very soon” was what Jonathan said. “I’ll call you.”
And Holly went off happily to bed, leaving the dishes and thinking, How nice, that was just right. How nice Jonathan is, after all. I was right about him, sort of.
But the next day, on waking, Holly’s first thought was that Jonathan would not call. She knew this as surely as she had always known, in her bones, that eventually Sebastian would leave her.
Her bedroom that morning was fiercely cold. Sharp winds blew through as outdoors, beyond the shuddering French windows, rain dripped from everything, from heavy rhododendron leaves, from ferns and winter weeds.
If Jonathan had stayed over, had slept there with her, there would now be another warm body in her bed. Sometimes Holly had thought that was what she most missed of Sebastian, simple bodily warmth. On the other hand, perhaps it was just as well that Jonathan had not stayed; he would not like this awakening to cold drafts, probably.
I hate this house, Holly thought as she forced herself up and out of bed. Off to do last night’s dishes, to make her small breakfast.
“It was, well, sort of nice” was how Holly described the evening to Mary, who of course called to see how things had gone. “No big deal, in fact he’s not the easiest guy in the world to talk to. But at the end it was, well, nice. Affectionate.”
“Well, that’s nice. I don’t see why you’re so sure you won’t hear from him.”
“I just am.” For one thing, it’s after noon, he must have been up for hours by now, he could have called. Holly did not say this, although it was much in her mind.
“Well, in any case he’s a start,” said Mary ambiguously.
At least we didn’t actually make love, Holly also later thought. Or would that in a way have been better? Would Jonathan be more apt to call if we had? And come to think of it, why didn’t we? Does he go out with a lot of women, and only make love to one, or maybe two? Is he into safe sex, scared of AIDS?
Over the years, in waiting rooms and on planes, Holly had seen articles about men who take you to bed and then never call, no matter what they said. But she could not remember any proposed solutions. Especially not after just kissing.
Should you call him, pretending that it doesn’t matter who calls whom?
“Oh, Holly. Well, I should have called you yesterday” was available Jonathan’s instant response, the next morning (Holly had told his nurse that this was a “social” call, and was nevertheless put through right away).
“Well, I decided it didn’t matter who called whom,” Holly lied. “But I was thinking about this weekend. I sort of feel like cooking again.” (Another lie, she did not feel at all like cooking. She felt like more kissing, perhaps a long slow progress into bed.)
“Well, this weekend. Not good at all. I’m on call, beeper always going off. Such a nuisance. Seeing my kids on Sunday. But next week, first thing. I’ll call you.”
Hanging up from that conversation, on Thursday morning, Holly thought, I really cannot bear this. I cannot get through until Monday. Anxiety is the worst of all, worse even than grief. And, as she sometimes used to do, in the early days of knowing Sebastian was gone, Holly took to her bed, with a pile of magazines. Getting up from time to time to heat a can of soup, or make tea.
She cried, so that even calling Mary was out of the question.
And whether she wept for Sebastian or for Jonathan seemed hardly to matter.
On Friday her lawyer called. “You sound terrible” was his comment.
“Well yes, this cold. I can’t seem to shake it.” Not an inventive lie, but it served.
“Well, there’s a lot of flu around. Have you called your doctor?”
“No.”
“You should. Anyway, I have some news that may cheer you up.” His good news was that Sebastian, in New York, had signed papers: a quitclaim to the house, in return for assurances (elaborate, binding) of no further claims, ever, on him or his estate. No alimony. No-fault divorce.
“He must be planning to marry someone else.” Holly had only dimly thought of this before.
“Sounds like it. Well, I guess you’re in no mood for a visit. I have to be in Marin, and I thought—”
“No. Thanks.”
For Holly that Saturday represented a sort of nadir, given over to pain. Bad thoughts. Self-pity. Solitude.
On Sunday, Mary called, and she too commented, “You don’t sound very good.”
“I don’t feel too great.” Holly then described her conversation with Jonathan, and finished by asking, “Why am I so sure he was lying?”
“Maybe because he was,” Mary contributed (too quickly? had she seen him somewhere, with someone?). And then, possibly to change the subject, she continued, “You really sound bad. Have you considered taking your temperature?”
She told Holly about a party in Sausalito the night before, mainly colleagues of Mark’s, at which, Holly thought, she could easily have seen Jonathan Green. With whoever.
On Monday, Holly conceded that actually something physical could be wrong with her; she had chills, aches in all her joints, and an entire sense of bodily weakness. She did take her temperature, which was 102 degrees.
The fact of an actual illness with a probable diagnosis, flu, was cheering. To go back to bed would be sensible, a yielding to the superior claims of illness rather than to sheer self-indulgence.
Quite early on Monday night the phone rang, and there was Jonathan Green, right on schedule—as he had said, first thing in the week.
“Odd you should call,” Holly told him. “I have a sort of high fever, a hundred and two degrees. Flu, I guess.”
“Well, that is pretty high. More of a child-sized fever than one we see in adults. What do you have around, medicine-wise?”
Having ascertained that she had nothing in the house beyond aspirin and cough drops, Jonathan said he would be right over.
“Okay, but Jonathan, I feel really terrible. I mean, I don’t feel up to getting dressed.” No long black silk, she added to herself.
“Oh, that’s okay. Consider this a house call.” He chuckled.
Holly changed into a prettier nightgown (cotton, nothing sexy), a good robe, and settled in the living room to wait for him.
By this time she had taken down most of Sebastian’s paintings and stacked them in a closet, and had put books up on the shelves (eccentric Sebastian was fond of bare bookcases, empty shelves). There was a sheaf of magazines on the table, and flowers. Still, the room looked bare and cold, Holly thought. So large, it dwarfed every effort at warmth, and color.
She heard the car, and then the footsteps of Jonathan Green. A somewhat distant handshake at the door would be right, she thought, getting up.
Going to the door, extending her hand as she had intended, Holly found herself instead embraced. Chastely, perhaps paternally, but still, there she was, enfolded in the arms of Jonathan. For one moment.
In the living room, though, he seated himself quite apart from her, choosing the chair adjacent to the sofa where she sat (where they had spent all that time necking, before). And in a kindly, interested way, he listened to her description of her symptoms. He had even brought along some magic remedies, which he took out from a pocket: samples of antibiotics, Tylenol, cough medicine.
Holly was touched by what seemed simple human kindness. He was nice, after all.
Their medical business over, Jonathan even seemed inclined to stick around. He was looking forward to the end of winter, he told her, stretching long legs before him. Spring skiing, sailing. Baseball. His wife had not been very interested in those pursuits, and so he hoped that this year he could put in more time in that way. He grinned.
Had he guessed that Holly was not exactly a sports fan either? She rather imagined that he had, and even that she was forgiven. But she also imagined, or perceived, that he no longer saw her as a woman to kiss on a sofa. However, to some degree Holly dismissed all her crowding intuitions regarding Jonathan. After all, she was sick.
It was, though, all around a pleasant conversation, far easier than their halting, strained attempts at dinner. And then Jonathan got up to go.
At the door he embraced her again, more briefly than before. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.
About what? Holly wondered, as she shivered in bed a short time later. And then she answered her own question, About my flu, that’s what. That’s what he finds interesting in me. What he likes best, now.
She was then assailed by familiar, painful thoughts of Sebastian. His beauty, and his terrible, implacable indifference to her. But she did not, as she so often had before, engage in imagined conversations with Sebastian. Perhaps she had said it all already? Nor did she cry.
Jonathan called the next day to see how she was.
“My fever’s gone down. Your magic pills seem to work.”
“Good. Well, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
On the night that he came to dinner, when they had sat there necking, why had he not gone on to take her to bed? This was something that Holly pondered, in her illness. Something that she could discuss with no one. Not even with Mary.
Because she was old and fat, was that it? And Jonathan knew just how old and fat she was, he had seen her, everything about her was down in his charts. That could be the explanation, but in that case why kiss her at all? He didn’t have to, under the circumstances, he could have just been a very polite, onetime dinner guest.
Or was it because he did not want to commit himself to that extent? In a rational way, this made more sense. It was even a little too rational for Holly, who after all had the flu.
• • •
A day or so later, kind Mary came over with mushroom soup and some home-baked bread, and a basket of fruit, grapes and peaches and papayas. They sat in Holly’s living room, in some rare February sunshine, a brief false spring. They talked.
And at last Holly asked her friend, “I really wonder whatever gave you the idea that Jonathan liked me.”
“Well—” To Holly’s surprise, Mary, who never blushed, now did so, a slow red flush that rose on her neck. “Well,” Mary said, “that may have been a small case of wishful thinking on my part. And a little simplistic. You know, someone nice to replace mean Sebastian. And there was Jonathan, just getting a divorce, and nice. I thought.”
“He is nice, in a way.” He had called every day about Holly’s flu, which was considerably better. Now she was just a little weak, and slightly light-headed. “I still don’t quite see why Jonathan,” she persisted, for no good reason. Giddily, perhaps.
“Well.” Amazingly, Mary’s flush deepened. “I have to admit I had the smallest crush on him myself. He is sort of, uh, cute.”
“I guess.” They both laughed nervously.
“And then,” Mary went on, “there is this sexual fix we all seem to have on doctors. Little kids playing doctor, all that. Even before Mark, I always liked doctors, remember?”
“Yes.” But Holly found herself uncomfortable in this conversation. It had gone far enough, she felt. She did not want to discuss Mary’s possible crushes—nor, in a general way, sexuality.
Mary may well have felt the same, for she next asked, “What you have to do now is put on a little weight. Do you know how skinny you are? You look like that model we used to use, remember? Miss Anorexia?”
“But me? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not, take a look at yourself.”
Restored to their more usual tone, both women were happier. “I’ll start by eating that whole loaf of bread you brought,” Holly told Mary. “It smells fantastic.”
Late one night in March, Holly’s phone rang—shrill, an alarm that cut into her already unsettled sleep.
“Hello.” A male voice that she did not instantly recognize, but that in a moment she knew could only be Sebastian’s voice.
“Oh. Hi.” Sitting up in bed, Holly pulled the covers around her shoulders. It was spring, but the nights were still very cold, and damp.
“Well, you don’t sound too welcoming, but I really can’t say that I blame you. Or not very much. I don’t blame you very much.” The slightest slur informed Holly that Sebastian was very drunk—of course he was, at three in the morning, New York time.
He laughed, and Holly heard the familiar contempt in his laugh. “I just wondered how you were,” he said. “You and my house.”
“I’m okay,” Holly told him. “And I guess I’m going to put the house up for sale.” Strangely, she had not known this was her plan until she said it to Sebastian.
He exploded, as she may have meant him to do. “Christ, do you have any idea how dumb that is? A valuable house, more valuable—Christ, how stupid can you get?”
“I need the money,” she told him. “And I really don’t like it here.”
“You don’t even know what you like! Ignorant Slavs—”
Holly replaced the receiver into its cradle, then reached down to unplug the cord. She was trembling, but only a little.
Several times later that night, in the course of her troubled sleep, she heard the dim sound of the living-room phone, which rang, and rang.
Nevertheless, in a way that she could not quite understand, the next day Holly felt considerably better. Even rested.
“I’m definitely going to move back to the city,” she told Mary, over the phone. “Maybe back to our old neighborhood. I want to go back to school.”
“North Beach is impossible now.” Unenthusiastic Mary.
“Well, with the money from this house I could even go to Pacific Heights. Then I’d be close to the bridge. To Marin.”
Mary laughed. “You’re right. I just don’t want you to leave. But I agree that’s what you should do.”