Solitaire and Brahms

by Sarah Dreher

  Whatever it was, she had to stop letting it show. She could do that. Pay more attention to her make-up. Focus on her work more. Concentrate. Like right now. Start acting like a woman with a career.

  By quitting time, she had actually read and critiqued four stories—rather brilliantly, she thought—and met with three readers who'd been trying to get an appointment with her all week. She called an author whose work she had rejected with great reluctance, and encouraged her to submit again. They discussed The Magazine's editorial needs and standards. The author was flattered and grateful. It made Shelby feel a little more like a card-carrying member of the human race. As she cleared the worst of the clutter from the top of her desk, she thought about the evening ahead. Maybe she'd go to a movie, but there really wasn't anything she wanted to see, or anyone she wanted to see it with. So it was go alone, or sit in her apartment listening to Fran's damn stereo down the hall.

  Maybe she should stop by the Army Surplus store and pick up a machete, kick her way into Fran's room and threaten to decapitate her if she didn't open up.

  God, she was sick of this. She had to do something to get her mind off it. She felt stuck, as if she were trapped in a deep pit, in mud up to her knees. She had to climb, but she couldn't stop looking down, peering into the sludge as if she could find a key that would get her out.

  OK, she told herself, time to put the present behind you and think about the future. She reached for the phone and dialed Ray's apartment.

  He was delighted to come, glad she'd called him, pleased she thought of him as a cure for "the blues." He'd be there by seven. If there was a concert at the University, they could eat before or after. He loved her.

  She showered and slipped into an off-the-shoulder, off-the-back, nearly off-the-front item her mother had brought her from Guadeloupe. This was what women did. wasn't it? If you're depressed, go shopping, dress up, take in a musical, have fun. In other words, do exactly what you don't feel like doing. The effort will perk you right up. Well, it was better than spending another evening brooding. And it certainly made Ray happy. That ought to help, making the man she loved happy. That was what was important. Not the strange and bewildering behavior of a neighbor she'd only known for four and a half months and would probably never see again.

  When Ray picked her up, she ran to greet him in the hall, loudly. If Fran were home, she couldn't help but hear. It was tacky of her. She didn't care. She was sick of caring.

  There were no concerts of interest. They went to dinner, then to a student bar where some local folksingers were performing. It was dark and not too noisy, a good place to relax and talk. The incense of marijuana hung in the air.

  Ray wrinkled his nose. "Jesus, I hate that stuff."

  "I kind of like the smell," Shelby said. "Have you ever tried it?"

  “Once. It made me feel like mashed potatoes.”

  Shelby thought it might be pleasant, to feel like mashed potatoes. It would be warm and relaxing. Mashed potatoes probably slept very well. Mashed potatoes probably weren't torn apart by baked potatoes' peculiar behaviors.

  Ray was looking at her with a puzzled expression. "Would you rather go somewhere else?"

  "Not at all. This is fine." He held her chair for her. "I was just wool-gathering."

  "It's much too hot," he said as he took off his madras jacket, "to have anything to do with wool."

  Shelby envied him. In his short-sleeved white shirt and chinos, he looked cool, comfortable, and at peace with the world. She told him so.

  Ray laughed. "Cool, no. Comfortable, yes. At peace with the world?" He shrugged. "What's not to be at peace?"

  She found that amazing. "Nothing, I guess."

  He signaled the waitress and ordered himself a bourbon-and-water. Shelby considered having a glass of wine. But she felt like drinking. Serious drinking. "Scotch and soda," she said.

  When they had their drinks, Ray leaned toward her over the table. "You've seemed kind of strung out lately, Shel. Want to tell me about it?"

  "It's nothing. I'm just not sleeping well."

  "You didn't tell me that."

  She laughed it off. "So what else is new? Same old stuff."

  "Look," he said, and took her hand. "It may be old news to you, but you're the woman I love. Are you going to keep things from me after we're married, just because it's nothing new?"

  He was right. In another ten months, Ray would be her husband, her lover, her best friend.

  "To tell you the truth," she said, "I'm pretty upset about Fran. She's been acting strangely."

  Ray smiled. “She's one of the strangest people I've ever met."

  She looked at him. "What makes you say that?"

  "I don't know, just strange."

  Shelby waited him out.

  "All right, intense, I guess. Really intense."

  "How can you tell that?"

  "It's a feeling, a hunch. Hey, don't glare at me. I'm not the only one who thinks that."

  ''I'm not glaring," Shelby said, and tried not to glare. She made her voice calm. "Who else thinks it?"

  He stared down at the table and looked guilty. "Well... Connie, for one, and your mother..."

  "You were discussing Fran with my mother?"

  His ears reddened. "I wasn't discussing her. It was a quick, casual conversation. Connie said, 'She's intense, isn't she?,’ and I said 'Yes,' and Libby said, 'She certainly is.' And that was it. End of conversation."

  Shelby shook her head. "I hate that, Ray."

  "What?"

  "Talking about me behind my back."

  “I wasn't talking about you, and it wasn't behind your back. I'd have said the same thing to you. In fact, I just did. Look where it got me." He forced a smile. "I can't say I'll never do it again, but I sure as hell won't tell you about it."

  “Well, that's great," Shelby said. «That's just great."

  "I was making a joke."

  "It wasn't funny." She downed her drink and caught the waitress's eye and ordered another.

  Ray pretended to mop his brow. "My God, it's prickly in here. Is it the heat, or that time of month?"

  She gripped the empty glass in her hand and wanted to throw it at him. "Men," she muttered. "You're all stuffed with righteous indignation for yourselves, but let a woman complain, and it's 'that time of month.'"

  "Shel..."

  "Well, it isn't 'that time of month,' and this happens to be something that really matters to me, and I resent that condescending tone."

  "I'm not condescending."

  "Yes, you are." The waitress arrived with her drink. She waited until she'd left. "You are," she repeated.

  "For God's sake," Ray said, annoyed, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

  "Fran is wrong with me. She's… was... my friend, and she's treating me like a stranger, and that makes me very, very unhappy."

  He shook his head. "Shel, you've only known her a few months."

  "So what? I probably know her better than I know you. I certainly know her better than you know me."

  "If that's the case," Ray snapped, "maybe you should marry her."

  "That's really cute," she said.

  He held out his hands. "Look, I'm sorry. I know you're strung out. I don't want us to fight. I'm sorry your friend hurt your feelings. I'm sorry I put my foot in it. If you want to talk about it..."

  "I don't want to talk about it." She looked toward the tiny, makeshift stage where a young man with a blonde crew cut was tuning his guitar. With his button-down collared, vertical-striped-short-sleeved shirt, he reminded her of one of the Chad Mitchell Trio.

  “Then we'll talk about something else.”

  "I don't want to talk."

  "Fine," Ray said stiffly. "We'll just sit here quietly until you get over your fit of pique."

  She didn't let herself respond to him. She couldn't. The way her mind was spinning, there was no telling what would come out. She ordered another drink, stared at the singer, and learned more than she'd ever wanted to know about g
uitar tuning.

  "Has it ever occurred to you," she said, calmer and wanting to make up but still feeling fragile, "that there are an awful lot of really boring jobs in the world?"

  "I guess there are," he said. He nodded toward the stage. "Like his?"

  "Like his. And like waitressing. Even tending bar must be boring most of the time."

  "Probably not as bad as driving a bus."

  "Especially a school bus," she said.

  Ray laughed. "Please, not a school bus."

  "Is your job boring?"

  "When it's not terrifying. How about yours?"

  "Not usually." She thought about it. "Sometimes, when we get a run on truly terrible stories, but mostly they're filtered out before they get to me."

  He tapped his fingers on the table top as if he were playing bongo drums. "Will you miss it?"

  Shelby felt herself go cold. "Miss my job?"

  Ray nodded.

  "I haven't decided what to do about it."

  He took a swallow of his drink. "Maybe you'll find another magazine to work for, wherever we end up."

  "Maybe."

  "Not for a while, of course. I'm going to need all your help building my practice." He grinned. "You'll be great at playing Doctor's Wife."

  She wasn't sure what to say. so she said, "Thank you."

  "And then there'll be kids. But in a bunch of years..."

  In a bunch of years, I'll have forgotten everything I ever knew. The language will have changed. I'll have the vocabulary of a kindergartner. I'll be unemployable. We'll live in the suburbs and entertain on our patio, and I'll drink too much, and Ray will start coming home later and later, which will cause me to drink more. When the kids have finally gone off to college, I won't have anything to do except drink. I'll have a sordid affair with the Electrolux man, or the Fuller Brush man, or the college student who sells encyclopedias. This'll go on until one day Ray comes home and catches us and someone puts a bullet in someone's head. If it's not my head, I'll live out my declining years in a state of shame and disgrace, and die of a painful and terrible disease which causes me to lose my mind and control of all my bodily functions. In other words, I'll have a perfectly normal life.

  Ten and a half months.

  Ray was looking at her quizzically: "Hey, where'd you go?"

  Shelby forced a laugh. "I was just contemplating married life in the sixties."

  "Yeah? What do you think of it?"

  "I don't know what to think. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen in the future. Everything could change overnight."

  He squeezed her hand. "Sure. You're going to drop out of society and go on the road with the Beatniks."

  "I might. You shouldn't take me for granted."

  "Babe, I'll never take you for granted." He leaned across the table and kissed her. "Let's bust out of here," he whispered in her ear.

  She knew what that meant, and felt herself pull around herself until she was nothing but a hard knot. But she couldn't let him know...

  She looked at him in what she hoped was a thrilled—or at least pleased—way. “Lets.”

  Ray went in search of the waitress and the check.

  When she was a child they'd had her tested for allergies. Every week they drove into Boston, and the doctor stuck needles under the skin of her back and the soft parts of her arms. Every week she was paralyzed with fear, watching the scenery go by out the car window, knowing she was going to be hurt, no matter how much the doctor smiled and twinkled at her and called the needles "the kitty-cat." There was nothing she could do to stop it, no way to turn the car around, no one who'd take her in their arms and stand between them and her, demand that they stop this cruelty immediately. She wanted to cry, but she knew they'd make fun of her and maybe punish her, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference, the needles would happen anyway. So she watched the scenery and turned her fears and tears to ice, and kept them deep inside where no one would ever know.

  Sometimes she felt like that now. But now it wasn't doctors and needles that terrified her, but Life. There was no one to stand between her and Life.

  Wasn't that what the husband-wife thing was supposed to be about? The two of them, hand in hand, beating the dragon from the door, standing side by side against the winds of adversity or some damn thing? A shared solitude.

  She liked that one, the shared solitude. It was so wonderfully depressing. So existential. So filled with angst and futility. Two solitudes in their own separate plastic bubbles, engaging in parallel play.

  It was probably a good thing they were leaving. She'd had more than enough to drink. Her mind was surging and plummeting like ocean waves in a storm. It seemed that Ray had been gone forever. Or was her sense of time distorted? Warped, like wet paper. Like tell-tale white rings left on the coffee table where the drinking glass used to be. White rings making holes in time.

  Maybe she was mistaken, wanting someone to stand between her and Life. Maybe what she really needed was someone to stand between her and time. Time with its white rings. Saturn time.

  Shelby rubbed her forehead. God, she thought, I'm really snockered. She glanced up and saw Ray coming from the men's room. That explained it. It wasn't that time was distorted. Ray had been in there a long time, "climbing into his diving suit," as he called it.

  He had sex on his mind. Oh, please, not that. Not tonight.

  Not that she had anything against sex, or even sex before marriage. Lots of people were having sex before marriage these days. At least, they said they were. She'd already had sex before marriage herself. On more than one occasion. She ought to be getting used to it. Maybe someday she'd really enjoy it. Maybe someday she wouldn't be aware of the roughness of his five o'clock shadow, or the sweat-dewed hairs on his arms, or how hard and heavy his body was pressed against hers. How he seemed to forget who she was once he was into the rhythm of his love-making. How she felt like furniture beneath him. Maybe someday she'd know he was making love to her, not just enjoying himself.

  Maybe someday she'd be able to make love to him without having her mind go somewhere else.

  He was grinning at her across the room, standing by the door. His little-boy, puppy-dog grin.

  Shelby got up and started toward him.

  I'm too young for this, she thought.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was a knock on the apartment door. Shelby put down the story she was evaluating and went to open it. Fran looked as if she'd ironed everything she was wearing, right down to her underwear. Military.

  Except for her eyes. Her eyes were uneasy.

  "May I talk to you?" Fran asked softly.

  "Of course." She forced a smile. "Come on in. I won't bite.”

  Fran sat on the edge of the couch, stiff and uncomfortable.

  "Want something to drink? Coffee? Anything?"

  "No, thanks. I just have to tell you…" She shrugged in that endearingly helpless way of hers.

  They were finally getting to it. Shelby pushed aside some papers and sat beside her, feeling her own excitement—and apprehension—rise. "Talk."

  "I wanted to tell you... I didn't want you to hear..." Fran took a deep breath. In the yellow light from the reading lamp there were purple shadows on her eyes. "I'm moving."

  The blood drained from her face. "What?"

  "I have to move. I need to find a place before the students come back. Before the end of the summer. I wanted you to know..."

  "I don't understand."

  Fran glanced at her quickly. "I need to live closer to work..."

  She's lying, Shelby thought. "It's a ten minute drive." Her voice slipped to a higher, tighter range. "You have a car."

  “Yeah, but in the winter…"

  "Plenty of people make it through winter here. This is New England. We make it through winter." She told herself this wasn't happening. It was all a joke. Any minute now, Fran would look at her with those cornflower eyes, and laugh, and run a hand through her wavy bangs, and say, "I'm a jerk." An
d tell her what was really going on, and they'd sit down together over coffee at the kitchen table and fix it, and...

  Fran stood up. "I'm sorry. I have to go."

  Close to panic, Shelby caught her by the shoulder. "Fran..."

  "I have to go," Fran said again.

  "This doesn't make sense."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Something really strange is..."

  Fran turned to her. "I have to move. That's it."

  "Please, what's it all about?"

  "Nothing."

  "I can't accept that," Shelby said, shaking her head vehemently. "We were friends. We understood each other, we had great times together."

  "Shelby..."

  She was beginning to feel desperate. "Now all of a sudden we're not friends any more, and you're leaving, and I don't know what I did…"

  "You didn't do anything. It's my stuff."

  Shelby looked at Fran and felt the now-familiar yearning. She wanted to tell her about the hurt she felt. About the confusion. About the fear. Something in her reached out to Fran and wanted to touch her and be held by her, and comforted by her...

  Fran stood stiffly at attention and said in a formal voice, "I didn't mean it to affect you. I'm sorry."

  "That's it? You're sorry?"

  "Yes, I'm sorry."

  Shelby swallowed. Anger replaced yearning. "That's not good enough," she said coldly. "I want to know what's going on."

  Fran turned away from her. "What's going on is that I have to move. You can accept my reasons or not, I can't help that."

  "I think your reasons are bogus."

  "Thank you." She stepped toward the door.

  Shelby stopped her. “Fran…" She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "We're not doing this right." Fran was staring at the floor. Shelby touched her. "Look at me. Please."

  Fran shook her head. Shelby put her hand under Fran's chin and tilted her face upward. Tears were quivering in her eyes. One spilled over and cut a silvery trail down her cheek. Shelby melted. "Fran," she said gently.