Stepping

by Nancy Thayer

  “Hello,” I said, and entered the room.

  Stephen was wearing a soft blue cotton oxford shirt, and the collar was open, and the sleeves were rolled up. He had apparently just washed and shaved; he looked and smelled clean. He was, there was no denying it, a marvelously handsome man, and I am susceptible to handsome things.

  So, of course, after we smiled at each other a moment, we kissed. And kissed, and kissed.

  “I need to take my coat and mittens off,” I gasped at last. “I’m getting hot.”

  “Look,” Stephen said as he helped me take off my big fur coat, “I ordered up some champagne. Would you like some?”

  “Champagne at ten o’clock in the morning!” I laughed. “Of course.”

  Stephen crossed the room to the desk, where the ice bucket stood, and it was then, in the way that he lifted the champagne bottle from the bucket and poured it into the glasses, that I knew I still loved Charlie. Charlie is such a big man, but he does small things with a special grace. We have shared many bottles of champagne together, and the image of his large good hands lifting the bottle from its nest is imprinted in my mind. Stephen’s hands were shaking slightly, and they were not as big as Charlie’s; he did not care for the feel of the special bottle or for the sight of the champagne as it bubbled up in the glass. It was something he wanted to get over with, to hurry through, it was not a moment to be graced in itself. I saw in that instant how Stephen would pass over all things, expensive champagne in its rainbow iridescence, his wife, his children, my children, to get to me, to have me; whereas Charlie would not do that, Charlie would slowly treasure and value each thing at its best worth, give his time and attention to each thing, and then come at last to me, having chosen me as the best of all the good things in his life. Charlie is a Methodist from Kansas, too; he feels an obligation to give all things their due, to handle all things with appropriate seriousness. I could see that pouring a glass of champagne on our fourteenth anniversary would be a more significant act to Charlie than pouring a glass of champagne before making love to me for the first time would be to Stephen. Stephen was aimed for the act, the accomplishment; he was first of all an ambitious man.

  “Stephen,” I said as I took the glass of champagne, “I want to talk about all this before I get snockered and do something I might regret. I think it’s wildly romantic of you to come to Helsinki to see me, but it’s just not right. It won’t work out. It’s the wrong thing to do.”

  “Well, sit down,” Stephen said. “At least sit down for a while.” He smiled at me. He had a gorgeous smile.

  I sat down, on the edge of the bed. Stephen pulled a chair from the desk and turned it so that he sat facing me. Our knees did not quite touch.

  “Zelda,” he said, “I’m not trying to get you to do anything wrong. I want to marry you, you know, not just have a quick affair. Though God knows I’d love that, too.”

  “Oh, Stephen. I can’t have an affair with you or marry you. I just can’t. You’ve come all this way, clear across the Atlantic Ocean—”

  “—and the Baltic Sea,” Stephen said, smiling, being charming.

  “—and it makes me feel I’m obligated to have an affair with you. And you are the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life, and you know, you can tell how I feel when I’m near you, in a way I do want you—”

  Stephen’s eyes grew serious as I spoke, and when I said that I did want him he put down his champagne glass and took mine from my hand, and I was so startled by that that I sloshed champagne over both of us, and that didn’t matter; Stephen was next to me, on top of me, and pushing me back down on the bed.

  Oh, how pleasurable it was. Everything seemed so mysteriously attractive hidden behind the layers of clothing, and as we rolled and kissed and fondled and pressed against each other I had the same frightened, exhilarating feelings I had had when I was in high school and going steady with my first real boyfriend. We spent so many hours of our lives, Dave and I, in the front seat of his ’56 Chevrolet, kissing, touching, pressing, moaning, longing, and never quite completing the act. We were both Methodists from Kansas. Perhaps it is because of that that I have always found temptation much more exciting than completion. My mother had told me that if I had sex before I married I would go to hell. When I finally did sleep with Charlie, before marriage, it was the most exotic and grandiose gesture of my life, I felt I was giving up all the world, and more than that, all my hope of afterlife. How splendid it was! How doomed I felt, and how proud I was of my love, my love that meant more to me than heaven or eternal damnation. Strange, funny, that I didn’t believe in hell anymore. Or even in the integrity of marriage. Surely, surely, I thought, I have gone this far in deceiving Charlie, surely the act itself does not matter, is not a way of deceiving him more. And yet, of course, to me, the act itself, the completion, did matter, did mean something.

  I pushed Stephen away. In doing so I half slid, half fell off the bed. I scrambled to my feet, panting heavily, and backed up against the wall.

  “Stephen, please,” I said. “Please let me talk to you. Let me say what I have to say. Just give me a few minutes to talk. Then, I promise, if you still want to sleep with me, I will. But I need to settle some things first.”

  Stephen twisted away from me and sat on the edge of the bed, hiding his face in his hands, propping his elbows on his knees. His back was beautiful, heaving still as he tried to control his breath.

  “Talk,” he said to me, still not looking at me, still hiding his head in his hands.

  “Stephen,” I said, and thought, What am I going to say? What is it that is so important that I have to say? “Stephen, I’m all confused. I’m sorry. I want you physically; God, who wouldn’t want you physically? But all that means something to me, it means more than just screwing around—”

  “It means more than that to me, too.”

  “Let me finish. Please. Look, maybe I’ve been giving off some signals I wasn’t aware of. Or maybe I was aware of them but didn’t know what they’d lead to. Or whatever. Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I want to say exactly. Look, I’m over thirty. I have two little children whom I love but who bore me to tears sometimes. I want to teach and I can’t, and that frustrates me unbelievably. I love Charlie and I love our marriage and I want to stay married to Charlie, and I want to do right by him. If I were in my own home, working somewhere, teaching, I wouldn’t even be interested in you at all. Oh, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that my life has gotten so far out of control, and things mean so much to me, and if I sleep with you, then I’ll have all that burden of meaning to deal with. And then there’s Ellen. She’s my friend. She’s beautiful. I know you love her, I know you love your children. It’s been fun flirting, I love flirting, but I don’t want to do anything more than that. I’m so flattered that you came all the way to Helsinki, I’m so absolutely delighted that you want me. It’s wonderful, it’s a fantastic ego trip. I’ll live off of it for years and years. But I’m greedy and selfish and bad; I just want the good part, the fun of flirting and the sweet knowledge that you want me. I don’t want the rest of it, the guilt and the hurting of others and the mess. Oh, I don’t know. I can’t even think straight. Am I making any sense to you at all?”

  “Zelda,” Stephen said, and turned and stood and looked at me across the bed, “if you could wish for anything right now in your life, what would you wish for?”

  “A job,” I said. I smiled. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  Stephen looked at me a moment. “I have a job for you,” he said.

  “You what? You have a job for me?”

  “Not in my department. Not at the university. A local community college is looking for a full-time English instructor. Freshman English and some basic literature courses. I’ve already told them about you. If you finished your PhD, and if they liked you, you could get tenure and teach the upper-level courses. It’s made for you. It’s perfect. The only problem is that they need someone starting in January and you an
d Charlie are supposed to be here till May. Also, the college is located a good thirty-minute drive from your farm.”

  “Oh, Stephen,” I said. “Oh, Stephen. Oh, oh, I can’t believe it. You talked to them about me?”

  “I gave them a copy of your résumé. I recommended you highly.”

  “Maybe they’ve hired someone else by now.”

  “No. I know Jim Steele, who’s the chairman there. He’s waiting to hear from me. I told them I’d contact you about the job. I know how much you’ve been wanting one.”

  “Well, well, what can we do? I mean, I’ll take the job. I will. Oh, God, it’s like a miracle. Can we call them now and tell them I’ll take the job?”

  “Don’t you want to talk it over with Charlie first? Don’t you want to know what the salary is?”

  I thought for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I do want to know what the salary is, but that won’t make any difference. And no, no, I don’t want to talk it over with Charlie. I want the job. I’ve followed him around long enough; it’s time I went someplace myself.”

  “Then we’ll send them a cable. And as soon as I return to the States I’ll call Jim Steele and reaffirm the cable. And you can do the rest yourself.”

  “Can we send the cable now?”

  We went to the telephone and sent the cable. Stephen pulled the desk chair out and sat at the desk while he talked on the phone. I paced the room, making plans. I would have to make plane reservations, I would have to pack, I would have to make preschool arrangements for the children, I would have to— Oh, God, I would have to tell Charlie.

  When the cable was sent, Stephen turned back to me and looked at me awhile, smiling. Then he said, “You’re really a crazy lady, Zelda, do you know that?”

  “But I’m a hell of an English teacher,” I said. I felt high. I hadn’t even finished my glass of champagne, and I felt high, drunk, euphoric.

  “That’s what I told the people in Jim Steele’s department,” Stephen said.

  “Now I really should sleep with you,” I said, suddenly sobered. “Out of gratitude, if nothing else.”

  Stephen stood up, and crossed the room, and took me in his arms. He looked at me for a long time, and then he kissed me and held me against him. “Zelda,” he said, “I don’t want you to sleep with me out of gratitude. Or out of boredom, or out of confusion, or out of anything else than love. I want you to sleep with me because you love me. That’s the only way it will be good for you, so it’s the only way it will be good for me. Listen: I love you. So I’m going to go back home. I’m going to leave you alone. If you want me, you’ll know where to find me.”

  “But Stephen,” I said, “you’ve come all the way across the Atlantic Ocean!”

  “And the Baltic Sea,” Stephen smiled. “But it was worth it just to see the look on your face when I told you about the job.”

  I looked up at Stephen and saw that there were tears in his eyes, and I looked away quickly, but not before the tears came into my eyes.

  “Stephen,” I said, speaking into his cotton shirt, “you’re a good person.”

  “I know,” Stephen said. “Isn’t it a shame?”

  “You’ve changed my life, you know,” I said. “You’ve given me the two things I’ve needed most: a job and the knowledge that someone as great as you are could love me. I can’t ever repay you. How can I ever repay you?”

  “Fall in love with me,” Stephen said, and smiled to show he was saying it pleasantly.

  “What will you do now?” I asked.

  “Me? I’ll go back home and run my department and live with Ellen and the children.”

  “Ellen is wonderful. Joe and Carrie are beautiful. Your department has fantastic potential. You could have it worse.”

  “I know, I know all that. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. Oh, Zelda, you’re so funny. You’re so happy over a stupid, low-paying, demanding job. Look at you. You’re all wrapped up in it already. You think you’re the luckiest person in the world.”

  “I AM the luckiest person in the world. I have everything I’ve always wanted, children, Charlie, and now a job—”

  “—and a friend on the side.”

  “A friend. Oh, Stephen, oh, Stephen, I do love you.”

  We hugged again, and kissed again, and it happened again, the chemistry, the explosion, the desire. I was tormented. I wanted to sleep with Stephen, now for every reason in the world, except for one: my bonds to Charlie. And, having finally made a decision, I felt bound to keep it. I pushed away from Stephen, put on my coat, and went out of his room.

  I stood outside Room 561 for a few minutes, simply staring at the walls and the light blue rug. I felt as though I had just stepped off a spaceship. Things had gone too fast for me. Too much had happened, and the meaning was still light-years behind. I was happy, but not satisfied. Something more was needed to confirm and enrich what had just happened.

  I turned and knocked on the door again. When Stephen opened it, I said, “Stephen, look, I’ve hired a babysitter for the whole day. You said you were my friend, and you are, you are my friend. Let’s do things that friends do. Let me show you Helsinki. It’s an interesting city, the Ateneum has an exhibit of Russian art, the Café Manta has exquisite pastries. You’ve come all this way, you should at least see the city.”

  “What if people see us together?”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I’ll say you’re a friend. And it will be the truth.”

  So Stephen washed his face and put on his coat and hat and gloves, and we went out together to spend the day walking around Helsinki. We went to galleries and museums, we walked up and down the beautiful Esplanade, looking in at shopwindows, we sat on the steps of the harbor, leading down to the ocean, and looked at the boats and the ships and the gulls and the curving line of land meeting sea. It was a cold day; we held hands when we walked, and I was amazed that chemistry could be so strong as to zing itself right through his leather gloves and my wool mittens. We ate a late delicious lunch at the Café Manta, and drank beer and then tea, and talked about ourselves. We talked about our pasts, and our hopes, and our problems, and our desires. It was certainly one of the most wonderful afternoons of my life, being with this handsome strange male friend in a handsome strange city, feeling free for a moment of the responsibilities of husband, children, and job, yet knowing that they were all there for me to return to.

  Finally I had to go home; I had promised the babysitter I would be there at four. Stephen waited with me for the bus, then stood smiling and waving goodbye as I rode off. I sat on the blue plastic seat of Bus 16 as if I were in a chariot made of pink clouds pulled by blue dragons. I felt as though I were the luckiest woman in the world.

  Adam and Lucy were clingy and whiny when I came in the door; the apartment was a mess. I didn’t care. I paid the babysitter and sat down on the floor in my good clothes to hold my children. I let them jump on me, roll on me, fall against me. I kissed them and hugged them and held them and bounced them. I was an angel of patience and good humor. Finally I fed them and bathed them and read them stories and cajoled them into helping me pick up the apartment, and one hour later than their usual bedtime I got them into bed. Then I put on my nightgown and robe, and fixed myself some Maalva rose hip tea, and turned off all the lights but the one here in the kitchen, and sat down at the window to write in this little motorcycle-man book, to think. As I look out the window, I see that it has begun to rain.

  And thank you, Helsinki, and thank you, funny little notebook; you’ve given me my metaphor, you’ve made it all come clear. Though it is trite, corny, overused, still I’ve thought of a metaphor for my life. Let’s say, as I sit here, solid and warm and comfortable, still resonating from the pushes and sounds and hugs of my children, let’s say that I am, hilly, solid thing that I am, the earth. Well, we are all that, aren’t we, each person a separate, complete, fascinating sphere, a world composed of inner unfathomed activity and outer layers of beauty or ugliness. We sleep and wake like the earth, we exp
erience seasons of warmth or cold, we revolve through time, we burst forth from our mothers, we grow and erupt, and finally die and dissolve, spinning off into space. The earth metaphor is just fine; it will do. And if I am the earth, then my love for my children is the ocean, deep and wide and endlessly profound. My love for my children washes over me, it composes the greater part of me, it tugs and drags at me, it lifts up gifts to me, it storms and shines at me, it is truly the other half of myself. It is inseparable, undeniable; it has formed me. My love for my children is the ocean, vast, as eternal as any earthly thing can be eternal, beautiful; making me complete.

  My love for Charlie then is a river, perhaps all rivers, because my love for him is such a varied thing. My love for my husband is a river, flowing from the heart of me, entering into and sustaining the ocean, a part of me and the ocean. My love for Charlie is a river, a river that has cut itself deep into me, a river that is calm and broad and good. And probably necessary, if I am to grow as well as I can.

  And my work is then the rain. My work, teaching English to young college students, is the rain of my life: it is necessary for my existence. It nurtures me, fills me, replenishes me, cleanses me, makes me grow, causes me to remain open and receiving, helps me to give.

  That is all true. True, but not perfect. No, it’s not perfect. It won’t work. It won’t hold. It’s a lousy metaphor. I’ve had too much scotch again and am not thinking straight. When I first knew and married Charlie, of course he was the ocean to my earth, and all the rivers and all the rain. It’s not fair to relegate him to one place; he’ll keep changing, and I’ll keep changing, and our relationship will not remain the same. No, it will certainly not remain the same, not after I tell him about my job. My job. Charlie, please understand.

  The metaphor breaks down in other places, too: what, if I continue it, are my friends? What are Alice, Linda, Ellen, Rija, Gunnel—Stephen—what are my friends? Perhaps they are the fountains of my life: dazzling, refreshing, delightful, gracing and brightening my life. But then what about Caroline and Cathy? If I cast myself as the earth and everyone else must be some form of water, I guess I can only cast Caroline and Cathy as small lakes in my life, and nothing more. I have supported them, as the earth does support lakes, but I cannot say they are a part of me. I could never say that, and I am sure they would never say that, either. So I’ll have to leave them as lakes, pretty, superficial, sometimes sparkling, sometimes sullied; there.