Lost in the Reflecting Pool

by Diane Pomerantz

  As we got out of the car, Charles was still wearing the red cap with gold horns. Is he actually going to wear that to dinner? I wondered.

  “Oh, I think I’d better take this hat off.” Charles laughed, tossing it back into the car. Relief swept over me, and we then spent our evening at the harbor, discovering that we knew many of the same people and had similar interests, likes, and dislikes.

  Over dinner, I learned that before Charles had gone to medical school, he had been an architect. By the time we left the restaurant, it was late and the waterfront was quiet. “I want to show you something,” he said, as we strolled along the quiet walkways. “When I was an architect, I worked at an office in Boston. Long before Harbor Place was built, when it was only an idea, our firm was asked to render drawings of what the waterfront might look like.”

  We came to a reflecting pool with a marble wall, down which water fell softly. We sat down on the smooth stone of the pool, looking in. “Our firm didn’t actually do the work on Harbor Place, but back then everyone in the office had to do drawings for it. My drawings were almost identical to this pool.”

  He told me all about his design of the pool; he had it in his drawings and promised to show them to me. Charles had so many stories to tell. He seemed to know so much.

  Whether from the light of the moon or from the lamppost above us, as we looked into the water, our images merged. We both noticed it and smiled. So maybe it’s understandable that I ignored a thought I had as Charles was driving me home. We had exited I-83 at Northern Parkway and were winding our way along the darkened, tree-lined streets of Mt. Washington, when I asked him, “So, what’s your relationship with your parents like?”

  In a somewhat detached but clearly disparaging and subtly contemptuous tone, he replied, “I really cannot tolerate being around them for too long. My mother is awful and a flake. I can’t stand hearing her voice; it gives me a headache. And my father is a mean-spirited little man with no backbone at all.”

  I swallowed hard, wondering, Shouldn’t he have worked through those feelings about his parents by now? But the thought passed quickly.

  Later, we sat on my porch swing, glasses of wine in hand. Stars glistened in the blackness through the tall oak trees. A growing intensity punctuated my feeling of a calm space within an old friendship. Our eyes excited, our lips roused, Charles pulled me close and our mouths came together fully, when suddenly the screen door pushed open and Winnie bounded outside and jumped onto the porch swing between us, smashing the wine glasses, his big tongue ruining the mood.

  We both laughed. Laughing at the absurdities of life seemed to be one of the things that drew Charles and me together.

  Chapter Two

  I WATCHED CHARLES DRIVE OFF, TOO EXCITED TO GO TO bed. I made myself a cup of tea, put on a John Coltrane album, and, with his soulful sounds in the background, curled up in my favorite chair, replaying the events of the evening. Then, when I could no longer fight sleep, I climbed into bed. It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when Winnie’s barking startled me awake. He jumped on the bed, with more barking and licking, and then ran to the doorway, indicating I should follow him.

  “What is it, Win? You hear something, or do you just want to go out?” I forced myself from the softness of my comforter and got out of bed.

  I peered out the large glass window beside the door. “There’s no one there, guy,” I said, but then something lying on the porch caught my eye. Against the door frame lay a bouquet of colorful flowers. Their sweet fragrance, mixed with the early-morning air, wafted in as I opened the French door that led to the porch. A note card was attached, written in the most beautiful architectural writing:

  Di, I just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed our evening together so much. I’m hoping that there will be many more. —Charles

  He really is sweet, I thought. As I placed the flowers in a cobalt-blue glass vase, the phone rang. It was Charles.

  “I thought I’d call to say good morning. I just got to the hospital.”

  “Good morning to you, too. I just found the flowers; they’re beautiful. Thank you. It was such a nice way to wake up. I had a wonderful time last night, too.”

  “Well, I’m glad about that. I’m wondering if you’d like to come out to my place Friday after work. I’ll make dinner. You can bring Winnie so he can run free in the fields. I’m sure he’d enjoy that.”

  Without hesitation, I told him that we would love to come.

  We spoke on the phone for hours each evening that week. I learned more about him and his childhood. As a boy, he spent hours riding his bike and doing daredevil tricks on the dangerous hillsides of Fort Tryon Park, overlooking the Hudson River. He also was very smart.

  “When I was in the first grade,” he told me, “I got a full scholarship to the Little Red Schoolhouse, but my father was too cheap to pay the hundred dollars it would have cost for bus transportation.”

  I just listened, but it was hard not to notice that long-held resentment he still had about that missed opportunity.

  He shared stories about his mother’s depression and the two times when she was hospitalized, once when he was five and then again when he was seven. The first hospitalization was right after his younger brother, Mark, was born.

  I told him my stories, too. The things I didn’t usually talk about.

  My older brother, Paul, teased me mercilessly as a kid. It became more intense, meaner when he was an adolescent who, like many kids of the time, experimented with drugs. For Paul, though, it wasn’t a passing phase. I laughed, as I always did when talking about painful things, and concluded, “I guess that’s why I became a psychologist.”

  FRIDAY came, and Winnie and I headed out of the city to see Charles. I hadn’t been that far north during my first year in Baltimore, and I was surprised at how quickly the landscape changed. The city and soon suburbia gave way to rolling hillsides and spectacular vistas dotted with sparkling ponds and manicured horse farms. The serene views stirred thoughts of the conversations Charles and I had had during the week.

  Despite his mother’s depression, Charles’s family life sounded quiescent compared with the discord of my adolescence. I recalled battles my brother had with my parents: his rages, screaming, kitchenware flying through the air, fruits and vegetables smashed and dripping from the walls. Amid the chaos, my parents tried their best to shield and protect me, and I didn’t feel that I had a damaged childhood. I had protected myself by being an observer. I learned to see without emotion, without judgment. I laughed to myself as I thought, it’s a good quality to have as a therapist, but what about in my personal life?

  Charles, on the other hand, despite having experienced none of the emotional turbulence I had, sounded so disdainful of his parents, mostly his mother. With some discomfort, I registered it and then placed it on a shelf in a far corner of my mind.

  As I drove, the sprawling pastures where the horses and their foals grazed gradually turned to fields high with stands of waving corn. I soon realized I had driven to where Maryland pushed up against the Pennsylvania line. I made my way down the winding road, passing a beagle farm and a small sign marking the entrance to a vineyard.

  A black kitten ran across the road, and I had to make a sudden stop. The kitten sparked a memory of one of the other things that Charles had shared as we’d spoken on the phone earlier in the week.

  “I guess I was a mischievous little kid. When I was about three, I found a little black kitten. I put him down the sewer because I wanted to see if he could get out.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Didn’t he think to get some help? I asked myself, feeling a fleeting twisting in my gut.

  I rounded another bend, passed a red barn, and saw the 1890s fieldstone house that Charles had described. That unpleasant feeling in my gut gave way to excited anticipation and to readjusting my blinders as I saw Charles wave from the porch when I pulled into the drive. Winnie, also exci
ted to see Charles, charged from the car, almost knocking him over once again.

  “While it’s still light, I’ll show you around the farm. I’m renting it, but I feel like a landowner.”

  His eyes and smiling beard twinkled in the sun as he spoke in his resonant, sexy voice. He took my hand and, with Winnie close behind, led me beneath a lush grape arbor and past a hedge of blackberry bushes heavy with fruit. He pointed out the stone marker, just below the roofline of the house, dated 1898. Charming. I loved the exterior shutters that opened and closed, unlike modern constructed shutters, and the working well just outside the front door. Charles told me that when there were power outages, neighbors came by to get water because his was the only well that wasn’t power-operated. There were two large red barns, one that Charles used as a garage and the other as woodworking shop. The sweet smell of hay wafted from the loft up above. We climbed up into it and fell onto the slippery bales, laughing at Winnie, who was climbing and falling from the stacks. Then we left the barn and walked back out into the sunlight, breathing in the soft, sweet summer air. I was enthralled with it all. Charles had a story to go with everything he pointed out.

  We followed Winnie over to a pond, long grasses swaying against the fields of corn behind. Lily pads floated gently on the surface, their reflections glistening through the sun’s rays. Winnie dove in, and the tranquility, and lily pads, splattered, soaking us both.

  We laughed.

  “Di, there’s this great little store down the road where they make their own ice cream. They use fruit they grow on their farm. Why don’t we pick up some for dessert, and then we can come back and have dinner?” He squeezed my hand.

  “That sounds great. I know I’ve already told you how I love ice cream.”

  Charles and I walked to the barn, and Winnie jumped into the back of his old Peugeot. We drove the short distance to the small store in the middle of nowhere.

  “Wow, I can’t believe these flavors.” My eyes widened as I saw the list of homemade ice creams for the day. “It’s not going to be easy to decide on just one.”

  “So let’s get one of each,” Charles suggested.

  “That sounds like fun,” I said, thinking that he would get a small cup of every flavor.

  “Do you know what you want?” the woman behind the counter asked.

  “Yes, yes! We’ll have a quart of peach-raspberry, a quart of peach-cherry, a quart of blueberry-plum, a quart of strawberry-peach, and a quart of cherry-plum.”

  I stood there with my mouth open, thinking, Isn’t that an awful lot of ice cream?

  As if reading my mind, Charles laughed. “We’ll eat all of it eventually.”

  I smiled, and we headed back for dinner.

  I remember that he made scallops with angostura bitters and asparagus, and that the dinner was delicious. “You really are a good cook. Is there anything you can’t do?” I asked teasingly.

  “I’m sure there is,” he teased back.

  The evening was far beyond expectation. Winnie and I didn’t leave until Sunday, and so began our relationship, with belly laughs, long talks into the wee hours of the morning, great sex, and ice cream.

  Immediate, intense comfort—that’s what it was. We could talk for hours when we were together, drinking glasses of wine, sitting on the porch, watching the sunset and sometimes the sunrise. When we weren’t together, we spoke on the phone. I found that between work and my new relationship, I didn’t have time for the rehearsal schedule for my role as Héloïse, and so, without any deliberation, I decided to give it up. Charles in no way encouraged that—at least, I didn’t think he did. But now I can see so much more clearly how willing I was to put Charles and the relationship before anything else, even before myself. Isn’t that what so many women do? I used to think. I got into canoeing and camping: his interests. Acting and psychoanalytic training seemed far less important.

  Summer turned to fall, and winter came early that year. The snow fell steadily in December, and we spent a lot of time cross-country skiing and snuggling in front of the fireplace.

  “Would you like to go to Dominique’s in DC for your birthday?” Charles asked, as he stoked the fire one snowy evening.

  “That would be fantastic. I’ve heard they have all kinds of exotic dishes. I’d love to go.”

  “And I love you.”

  It may or may not have been the first time in our relationship that that phrase was spoken, but in those words, at that moment, with the scent from the steaming mugs of mulled cider with Calvados and cinnamon wafting softly through the air, was the feeling that this was real and this was forever. The luminous glow of the flames danced from the old stone fireplace through the dimpled glass windows, reflecting the white blanket that silently encased us in our warm, private cocoon.

  DESPITE all of the wonderful ways in which Charles and I connected and enjoyed so many things, there were some fundamental differences between us. Charles seemed to be searching in a way that I had done when I was in my late teens and early twenties. He was taken with all of these New Age, quick-fix solutions to life’s problems that seemed to be without depth. At that time, he was participating in a personal-growth training program called Lifespring, which claimed to help people get their lives to work better by casting off old beliefs and creating a new future. He was very excited about it.

  “Di, you really ought to do the training. It’s given me so much; I feel as if I have so much more power and control over my own life and destiny. At least do the basic training, to see what it is. I’ll pay for it. That way, you can know what I got out of it.”

  It didn’t seem as if I had anything to lose, so I registered for the training and Charles kept Winnie for the days I was away. As I drove to Virginia from Baltimore that February, the weather fore-cast was foreboding: a major snowstorm was headed our way. But when I arrived at the motel where I had booked a room, the snowfall hadn’t yet started.

  That first evening, at precisely seven o’clock, we met Andrew, our Lifespring trainer. His Italian suit and shoes and boyishly handsome good looks were clearly part of the sales package.

  Although he looked perfect, we learned that Andrew’s life had not always been so wonderful. He had been depressed and in a rut. Then he found Lifespring and his life changed. Now in his mid-thirties, he was happily married, expecting his first child, and traveling across the country, spreading the good word of Lifespring to others.

  Then the training began. There were lectures, there were group exercises, there were exercises with the person who sat next to you, and there was a lot of sharing. There were some things that were interesting, but for the most part I felt like an observer, most interested in how some of the participants gave up so much personal autonomy to this process. There was something about it that seemed to have the quality of a cult.

  By Friday afternoon, there was no way to leave the hotel where the conference was taking place. Heavy snow was falling and continued to accumulate on Saturday and most of Sunday. I slept in the lobby. When the training ended early Sunday evening, I worried about how I was going to shovel out my car. I walked out of the meeting room into the lobby, and there stood Charles, in winter gear, holding a shovel, and smiling.

  I ran into his arms. “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t know if you had a shovel, so I came and cleaned your car out so you wouldn’t have to do it.”

  “You are too wonderful.” I pressed my mouth fully against his cold, wet lips.

  We stood in the lobby in that embrace for a long time. Then we found a Chinese restaurant, had dinner, including fried ice cream, and, much later, drove back to Baltimore in tandem, arriving in the early hours of the morning. It was beautiful—the echoes that come with the serene soundlessness of the world covered in white. In that moment, everything was wonderful.

  The phone was ringing as we walked through the door of my house. It was two o’clock in the morning. I reached for the phone, but whoever was on the other end hung up.

&nbs
p; “Damn it. It doesn’t stop!” I had been getting these hang-up calls for months, at all times of the day and night. I thought maybe it was a patient, though I had no idea which one. It was now more than just annoying; the harassment had become frightening. I called the phone company and the police and put a tracer on my phone, and I was waiting to hear the results of the investigation.

  Several weeks later, the trace on the phone calls was successful. “Dr. Pomerantz, we have been able to identify the person who has been making the calls to you.” The officer on the other end of the line sounded very matter-of-fact as he gave me this information.

  My heart raced and my throat felt parched as I wondered if I really wanted to know who it was. Finally, I asked, “Can you tell me who it is?”

  “Sure, her name is . . .”

  Her name is? I thought. I hadn’t expected it to be a she.

  “Her name is Mara Winters. Do you know her?”

  “No, I have no idea who she is. Why would she be calling me? It’s clearly not a wrong number, because she’s made hundreds of calls to me at all hours of the day and night.”

  “Well, we’ll be investigating this. We’ll keep you informed of what we discover, and of the court date, and anything you’ll need to know.”

  “But who is this person?” I asked again, feeling even more confused and anxious than before. There was no satisfying answer.

  When Charles came over that evening, the first thing he did, as usual, was transfer his calls from his home number to my number. Then I told him about what I had learned.

  “It’s Mara?” He looked incredulous. “I can’t believe it.”

  “You know her? Who is she?” I was shocked that he knew who she was.