Ordinary People

by Judith Guest

  So much for 4. A Job. Ah Jarrett attaboy just like you to give it all up after one try how about the volunteer work how about the placement office all the things you were going to do? And how about lacks? 1. Experience. 2. Financial Need. 3. Confidence. 4. You Name It. He shifts his books to fit under his arm, zipping his jacket against the wind Face it kiddo things are not gonna be that easy so grow up.

  A blue Karmann Ghia is parked in the lot, beside his car. Bent over, half-in and half-out of it, is the woman from the library stacks. He recognizes the legs, the blue skirt that matches her car. The open car door is blocking his path. He stands, waiting for her, his face wooden. He will stare her down this time.

  She glances over her shoulder. “Oh, sorry.” Then, she straightens up. He has caught her off-guard, but she is still more poised than he, and this close he can see her face: small, delicate features, the casual elegance of a painter or a dancer, a beautiful pointed nose. She smooths her hair back from her face. “I embarrassed you in there, didn’t I? I’m sorry.” She shrugs her shoulders. “You’re very good-looking. But I’m sure you already know that.”

  She closes the door on the passenger side, moving around him, around her car, to get in on the driver’s side. The car starts up and she backs out, carefully, in no hurry at all. She waits in the drive for the traffic to clear, then pulls out into the street and disappears.

  He stands, looking after her, his books still under his arm, while a feeling of total displacement sweeps over him. Mechanically he opens the door; tosses his books on the seat; gets in. You’re very good-looking. Observing meticulously all traffic signs, all other cars on the road, all pedestrians, being careful, missing no turns. He arrives home safe and intact, and parks in the circular drive so that his father can put his car in the garage. He enters the house through the door in the garage. His mother’s car is still missing. There is no one home but him. He goes straight upstairs to his bedroom, without taking off his jacket; drops his books on the bed; goes into the bathroom and turns on the light.

  You’re very good-looking. But I’m sure you already know that. He studies his face in the mirror. Heavy, dark brows and brown eyes. A nose. A mouth. Right, everything there. His hair, clean and decently cut at last; his skin, clear. God, his skin is clear, when did that happen? How long has it been since he looked at himself? He turns on a foolish, fake smile. Another plus. Straight, even teeth. An outside chance. That she is right.

  He turns off the light and goes to sit on the edge of the bed. The freak, the one-man side show answer no longer fits. So, what is the catch? Some danger he is not yet aware of? What will he have to pay for all of this, for thinking well of himself? He lies back on the bed, hands over his head, staring at the ceiling. Whatever the price, it is worth it. Even for ten minutes, it is worth it.

  “So, then what happened?” Berger asks. “C’mon, I’m spellbound. You followed her home and she took you into her bed, right?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He takes a bite of the sweet roll he has lifted from the bakery box on the floor next to him. “She drove away, and I went home. I told you not to get your hopes up.”

  Berger sits like a plump guru, legs folded under him. There are flecks of powdered sugar dotting the front of his sweater.

  “Anyway,” Conrad asks anxiously, “what d’you think? She’s probably some woman who goes around saying stuff like that to guys all the time, huh?”

  “Do I know?” Berger raises palms upward, flashing a sly smile. “She’s probably some woman who goes around saying stuff like that to guys who are hideously ugly. You know, to make ’em feel better about themselves.”

  “Okay.” He bangs his head smartly against the wall. “You won’t take it serious, your loss.”

  “I take it serious! I want to know something else. What happened when you looked in the mirror? No censoring voices?”

  “Not at first. Then, later on I heard, ‘Conceited, fantasizing, delusions of grandeur,’ stuff like that. I ignored it.”

  Berger laughs. “There’s hope for you yet, kiddo.” He shifts position, brushing the sugar from his sweater. “So, how you feeling now? About Christmas. About the car.”

  “Better, I guess,” he says. “I drive it, don’t I?”

  “You still think it commits you to something?”

  “Sort of. Like a bribe. ‘There, now be happy.’ ”

  “So, what’s the problem? Aren’t you happy?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want him depending on me for it. What if I can’t live up to it? What if it’s a temporary thing?”

  “Ah, he doesn’t seem like the type who asks for the impossible, kiddo. He doesn’t expect you to be happy every minute of the day, does he? He’d probably settle for an hour or two a week. And maybe his big motive was a selfish one. You’re his kid. He gets a kick out of giving you presents. No big contract, just Merry Christmas. Period.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He considers. “It takes a long time to get over the feeling that everybody’s watching all the time.” He clears his throat. His eyes are fixed on the desk in front of him. “Listen, there’s something else I’ve been wanting to talk about.” In a careful monotone, he relates the problem he has now, of female bodies; the fact that the world has suddenly become overpopulated with them and with their individual parts—breasts and legs and round-apple asses that he would like to fit his hands around. The day Lenore Phillips slid silkily into the desk beside his and he had gotten a hard-on that lasted halfway through the English period. Violent urges that entrap him each morning and each night and for which he knows only one cure. Afterward, he suffers the most intense spasms of raw and painful guilt.

  “Is that it?” Berger asks. “Listen, I told you, it’s a tension-reducer. And it’s normal, don’t worry about it. It’s also a sign that you’re waking up, so relax, will you? You know what I think you oughta do? Call somebody up. How about that girl you know from the hospital? The one who lives in Skokie?”

  “Karen,” he says. “No. I haven’t seen her since November. She’s got this ten-foot pole she’d like to keep me away with. It’d just bother her if I called her up.”

  “Baloney. It’s gonna bother her—a good-looking guy like you wanting to see her? A guy that women proposition in library parking lots?”

  He laughs. “I thought psychiatrists weren’t supposed to give advice.”

  “Or how about the one in choir? She sounds like a nice girl—”

  “The problem is,” he says, “the only dates I ever had were the All-skate type. A bunch of us getting together and going to the show, or getting a pizza after a basketball game. Nobody was with anybody else. I don’t know how to act, you know, with A Girl, one-to-one.”

  “Simple,” Berger says, grinning. “Listen to the expert. It’s just like skiing. The first few times, you close your eyes and fake it, hope for the best.”

  “That’s crap. What do you know about skiing? Right from go, there are a million rules.”

  Berger sighs. “Rules, again. They oughta burn every rule book that’s ever been written!”

  “And where would we be?”

  “Out of the box!” He shakes his fists at the ceiling, in a parody of rage.

  “That box,” he says. “I feel like I’ve been in it forever. Everybody looking in, to see how you’re doing. Even when they’re on your side, they’re still looking in. Like, nobody can get in there with you.”

  “Yeah. Not much fun, is it?”

  “No. But sometimes I can get out of it, now. And then, there’s you.” He clears his throat nervously. “I never saw you out there, you know? You, I always saw inside the box. With me.” He laughs, suddenly embarrassed. His face is hot. He brings his gaze to the opposite wall, glaring at the books, daring them to move from the shelves, daring the windows to shatter. “What I’m saying ... I guess I think of you as a friend.”

  There is movement at the edge of his eye. Berger, nodding.

  “Well. I think of you as mine, too, kiddo.�
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  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “Right. I don’t. So, I wouldn’t.”

  They look at each other, and, abruptly, he relaxes, grinning.

  “You understand, there weren’t a helluva lot of people standing in line.”

  “Good,” Berger says. “I hate competition.”

  17

  He finishes tying the last bundle of newspapers; small, portable piles to be carried out to the street on Monday, garbage-pickup day. He gives the knot a yank; cuts off the ends evenly with a paring knife.

  “Some birthday present,” Conrad says, leaning on his broom. “Cleaning the garage.” The dust settles around them.

  “Come on, don’t be a crybaby. How long did it take? An hour?”

  “One whole hour out of my birthday, when I oughta be blowing out candles, opening presents—”

  “Finish the sweeping, then tell me your sad story.”

  He goes inside to make lunch for the two of them; rummages in the refrigerator, pulling out salami, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, mayonnaise. Two cans of beer.

  Conrad comes in as he finishes assembling the goods on thick, dark slices of rye bread.

  “No mayonnaise on mine, okay?”

  “Oh, hell—”

  “All right, forget it. I’ll eat it.” He grins. “Jesus, what a birthday!”

  He sits at the table, drumming lightly on it with his fingers.

  “Thought I heard you playing the guitar last night.”

  “Yeah. Am I rusty.”

  “Sounded good to me.”

  He laughs. “You were always easy to please.”

  “No, uh uh. Not me. Good guitar player, lousy garage cleaner, that’s my opinion.” He picks up his beer. “Happy birthday!”

  “Thanks.”

  The beer slides, golden and cool, down the back of his throat. “I used to have to keep an eye on both of you, whenever we did that job,” he says. “Couldn’t give you anything to put away inside the house, or I’d never see you again. Buck, especially. He was a genius at getting out of work.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “In fact, the only time he worked his tail off was when we finished the rec room. Remember the plastering job we did down there? You guys wrote dirty words on the wall, and then gave it away, laughing so hard—”

  “They’re still there,” Conrad says.

  “What?”

  “They are! We put ’em all back when you went upstairs. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  And they head for the basement, Conrad leading the way to the room that is Cal’s pride; he had designed it all himself; the three of them had finished it together. Dark Tudor beams in the ceiling; flat boards in an X-pattern on the walls, and between it they had slapped on the thick, curling plaster with their hands. In a corner near the furnace room, Conrad shows Cal the upside-down obscenities, carefully printed and preserved. And, another memory slips out, then, of himself, lying on the sand at the beach while Buck and Con are building a sand sculpture. The sleek lines emerge and he sees the outline of a huge race car. When they leave, he goes to view it; sees, instead the flaring hips and generously mounded breasts of a giant woman, stretching seductively at his feet. “Sexl” he shouts. “Maniacs!” and, behind him, the laughter becomes obligingly maniacal.

  He straightens up, smiling. There is pressure behind his eyes, and the blood is beating in his head.

  They go upstairs and finish eating lunch. Cal is busy, filling out this Saturday in his mind. A cake, a few presents, nothing fancy this time, nothing big. They will go to Howard and Ellen’s because she makes a big deal over birthdays. She always has felt sorry for Con, as his comes so close to Christmas.

  Conrad is whistling; drumming again on the table.

  “You’re in a good mood today,” Cal observes. “You like being eighteen, do you?”

  He laughs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Tell me something,” he says. “You and this Dr. Berger, what do you guys talk about?”

  He shrugs; looks surprised. “Anything. I don’t know. Why?”

  “Just curious. What kinds of things?”

  “Whatever we feel like. He’s an easy guy to talk to. There’s not a lot of jargon. Once in a while he gives a little lecture—” he leans back in the chair, hands on his thighs, in imitation:“ ‘Perspective, kiddo, that’s the key word—’ ”

  “What would you think,” Cal says, “if I were to go and talk with him?”

  “What for? About me, you mean?”

  “No. Just—I don’t know. To get a few things straight in my own mind.”

  Conrad sets his beer down; says with finality, “There’s nothing wrong with you, Dad.”

  “Nice. How do you know?”

  “You fishing? You want a grade? Okay, I give you a B plus.”

  “That’s great,” Cal says. “I buy you a new car, teach you everything I know—how to play tennis, how to clean a garage, I let you beat me at golf—and the best you can do is B plus, that’s great.”

  Conrad laughs. “So, I’m a hard marker.”

  “Anyway it isn’t important. Just an idea I had.”

  “See him if you want to, I don’t care. It’s okay with me.”

  But, do I want to? Why do I want to? What’s happening? Nothing is happening, except that now he is imagining. A peculiar, stiff set to Conrad’s shoulders when she speaks to him. But, does she speak to him? She issues directives: “Wear the sweater your grandparents gave you for Christmas,” she says, walking out of the room without waiting for, without having any interest in his reply. And Conrad is cool to her, cool as he lowers his head in a mocking bow: “Yes, ma‘am. No, ma’am.” As for himself, he feels undercurrents at work: tremors in the earth.

  Last night, when they made love (she opens to him only in darkness, only in sex), she let him hold her afterward, whispering against his shoulder: “You haven’t been very friendly, lately.”

  “Friendly?” he said. “I’m always friendly.”

  “Please.” A silky rush of breath against his face. “I need you to love me, Call Please promise!”

  “I love you, Beth. God, you know that.” But he could not hold her tightly enough; she clung to him urgently as he stroked her hair, and he was obscurely frightened, because it was not like her, and because he felt beneath them a fault, imperceptibly widening, threatening.

  Drifting into sleep, he lost his balance, tipping backward again into memory. A Saturday morning in October, when Jordan was thirteen. Michigan playing Northwestern. They had planned to go to the game with Nancy and Ray, and Jordan had broken his arm playing football on the front lawn. In the back seat of the car, on the way to the hospital, the two brothers had sat, side by side, and he had turned around to scold them. He had been annoyed at having to miss the game, at the prospect of spending his whole afternoon at the hospital while Buck got X-rays and a cast, and he had said, “I’m beginning to think you’re accident-prone, you know it?” Beth had leveled a look at him: Not now, you idiot! Buck, his arm held awkwardly in front of him, asked, “How was I supposed to know the kid would fall on me?” “That’s what tackle is, isn’t it? I’ve told you kids a hundred times, that game’s too rough without equipment! Touch, okay; but not tackle!” “Dad, we promise, we don’t do it again.” But it had been Conrad, shaken and scared who answered him, not Buck. Buck had never worried about anything.

  “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He crosses his legs; uncrosses them, tries to relax. God, he has never been so nervous. He surveys the room: its windows are oil-streaked; cloudy with dirt. An overpowering air of disorder dominates, weighs him down. The bookcases are tightly packed with dark, musty-looking volumes.

  The man sitting across from him has a wild look: Primitive Man. His hair is a dark and fuzzy halo about his head; his eyes, a sharp, stinging blue. All the jokes, the stereotypes of psychiatrists flood his mind: they are mad, their children are mad. He knew a boy at Michigan, studying
psychiatry, who had gone berserk in the dorm one night and cut up all of his clothes, stabbed his mattress, screaming that Eisenhower had called him person-to-person from Washington, telling him to do it. An absurd memory. It has nothing to do with this man. Yet all of his reactors are at work—summing up, evaluating, rejecting. He shifts uneasily in the chair. “I don’t really believe in psychiatrists,” he says.

  Berger laughs. “Okay. What do I do now? Disappear in a puff of smoke?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant that I don’t believe in psychiatry. As a blanket. A panacea for everybody, you know?”

  “Okay,” Berger says. “Me neither.”

  Helpful. Trying to be friendly. Only, he is too strange, too alien. Cal stares at the overcrowded, sloping bookshelves, reminded suddenly of a professor that he had in law school, whose briefcase bulged with books, scraps of notes, impedimenta that spewed forth whenever he opened it in class. That first year, the briefcase haunted him; reminded him of the inner caverns of his own mind, adrift in terrible disorganization. “I’m not putting you down,” he says. “Or what you’ve done for him. He’s better, I can see that.”

  “Well, he’s working at it, now.”

  He feels trapped and hot. “I knew something was wrong,” he says. “Even before. But I always thought—

  I mean, he’s very smart. He’s been an all-A student since he started school. I just always thought that intelligent people could work out their own problems....” He fixes the bookshelves with a stern look. ”These books,” he says, “are they all about treating people?”