by John Herbert
“But you know…” Nancy said, “the funny thing is, Beth’s right. In a sense, you are making believe nothing has changed. For nine years, you and Peg were a couple, and you did things together, as a couple, with Beth and Dave. Then Peg dies, you meet me, and suddenly you and I are doing things with Beth and Dave. Like nothing happened. Beth resents that, John, and she has every right to. We’re not a couple to her. You’re you and I’m some kind of plug-in module that’s supposed to replace Peg.”
“What are you saying, Nan? We’ll never go out with Beth and Dave again?”
“I’m not saying that, but things aren’t that simple. Because the problem’s not just with Beth and Dave. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“When we were at Amy and Frank Bennett’s house, at their cocktail party just before Christmas, no one, and I mean no one, talked to us. Oh sure, they came up to us and said hello, but more out of obligation than anything else, as far as I could tell. That or curiosity to see what kind of a woman starts dating a guy two weeks after his wife dies. But really, no one talked to us. No one spent any time with us.”
“Except Beth and Dave.”
“Except Beth and Dave. I’ll grant you that. But all Amy Bennett talked about for the few minutes she was with us was what a good friend Peg was. What a wonderful mother Peg was. What a great person Peg was. How smart Peg was. All of which was true, I’m sure. But why tell me? Didn’t she realize how much that hurt me? And what about Bob and Audrey Weber’s party? Do you remember what that was like? Again, all Audrey and the other women could talk about was Peg and how much she loved her children and how good a mother she was and how good at juggling job and family she was and how beautiful her home was. Meanwhile the husbands are looking at me like I’m some kind of slut they’d jump on in a minute if their wives weren’t there. So I’ve been asking myself why they would treat me like that. Know what I came up with?”
“No. What?”
“It’s their way, consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know which, of telling me that I don’t belong with you and of telling you that you’ve behaved badly by going out with me so soon after Peg died. Basically, they’re telling us we broke the rules by becoming involved with one another the way we did. I don’t know what else it could be, John. I think I’m a nice person. Up until now, people have always liked me. Why else would your friends treat me like this?”
An overwhelming sadness started to wash over me. “Maybe you’re right, Nan, and maybe they’re right too. Maybe we have behaved badly, and maybe the time’s come when we have to start paying for how we’ve behaved. I don’t know. The real question is, what do we do?”
“I don’t have the answer to that,” Nancy said, “but I know I don’t like to feel the way I felt with Beth and Dave and at the Bennetts’ and the Webers’. I don’t ever want to feel that way again. I’m me, John. Not Peg’s replacement, but me. Your friends have to know that, and they have to accept me for who I am.”
“I understand, and I agree with you. If they can’t accept you on your own merits, and if they can’t accept us as us, with all that means, well…the hell with them. I don’t want to lose all my friends, Nan, in addition to Peg—make no mistake about that—but I’m not going to let them come between you and me; and I’m not going to let them hurt you. I don’t blame them if they can’t accept what we’ve done, but if they can’t, we go forward alone. That’s all we can do.”
“You know I’m not asking you to turn your back on your friends.”
“I know you’re not, but what choice do I have?”
I stopped, wondering if I should continue; then I knew I had to.
“I love you, Nancy. Hopelessly. And I can’t let anything get in the way of that.”
“You love me?” Nancy asked quietly, incredulously.
“Yes. Very, very much.”
“Wow.”
“Anyway, we’ll be okay,” I assured her, “even if it’s just the two of us. I promise.”
“Are you sure you love me?” Nancy asked, so quietly I could barely hear her.
“I’m sure. Trust me.”
“I’ll try.”
Her response wasn’t at all what I’d expected or hoped for, and several seconds of silence didn’t help.
“Well…I should say good night,” I said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be here,” Nancy replied softly.
I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair. The curled leaves of a rhododendron outside the window rattled in the bitter cold January wind and tapped out a ragged rhythm against one of the window panes.
I was comfortable with everything I had said, and I’d meant every word, but somehow I felt like a swimmer who looks back at the shore he’s left behind and is suddenly surprised and frightened to see how far away it is.
Eighty-One
I sat at my desk and stared at the telephone. “I told her I loved her,” I said out loud, “and all she said was ‘wow’ and ‘are you sure?’ What’s that mean? She doesn’t love me? Or she does and she’s just afraid to tell me?”
Probably means she doesn’t love you, John. Why should she? She’s only known you for a few months, and let’s face it—this hasn’t exactly been a typical courtship.
Nancy sat at her kitchen table, a can of diet soda in front of her, and nibbled on the side of her thumb as she stared at the telephone on the wall.
“John said he loved me,” she said in disbelief. “He said he loved me, and all I said was ‘wow.’ Why didn’t I tell him I love him too? What’s the matter with me? What must he think?”
I continued to stare at the telephone as if it held the answers to my questions. “Why did I tell her I love her? Damn! I shouldn’t have done that. Stupid!” I shook my head several times in anger. “Tonight wasn’t the time for me to say that. I should have waited a few more months. Maybe a year. Who knows? But tonight was too soon.”
Nancy shook her head in amazement, but also in concern.
“Does he really love me?” she asked herself, “or does he just need me and doesn’t know the difference? He said he loved me. Hopelessly. That’s what he said. I didn’t ask him if he did. He said it on his own. He said he had no choice. Because he loved me. Hopelessly. And I just said ‘wow.’ I can’t believe I did that.”
Nancy brushed away a tear and stared at the telephone on the wall.
I leaned forward in my chair.
“Well, what’s done is done,” I said to myself sadly. “I can’t unsay what I’ve said, and I can’t make Nancy love me if she doesn’t. End of discussion, John.”
I looked at the papers strewn across my desk without seeing them.
Nancy’s finger trembled as she pressed the keys of her phone, slowly, deliberately.
The first ring startled me. I looked at my watch. It was nine thirty-five.
The phone rang again. I wondered who could be calling at this hour, and then I realized I didn’t care.
A third ring. “Maybe it’s the folks,” I thought with sudden apprehension. I picked up the receiver. “Hello?” I answered.
“Hi. It’s me,” Nancy said.
“Hi. What’s up?”
“I love you too.”
“You what?”
“I love you.”
“You do?” I asked.
“I do. With all my heart. I have ever since that first night we went out.”
“Thank you,” I stammered. “Thank you for telling me. And thank you for loving me.”
“Loving you is easy,” Nancy replied. “You’re everything I ever wanted.”
I thought I heard a sniffle. “Will you call me tomorrow night?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think yes.”
We said good night, and I was reminded once again of the difference a minute or two can make in one’s life.
Eighty-Two
Nancy’s phone was ringing when she came back into her office after a meeting
with her boss on Monday morning, February 9th. She quickly walked over to her desk, picked up the receiver and punched the flashing button. “National Geographic. Nancy Charlton speaking.”
“Hi, Nan. It’s Mom.”
The way her mother’s voice dropped on the word “Mom” telegraphed concern.
“Hi, Mom,” Nancy replied, grateful for a momentary respite from what had been a very hectic morning. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, but more important, how are you?”
“I’m okay. Shouldn’t I be?” Nancy pulled her chair out from her desk and sat down with a sigh.
“Well, I imagine that would depend on how your dinner went. When I didn’t hear from you over the weekend, I got concerned and thought I’d better call.”
“What dinner are we talking about, Mom?” Nancy knew the answer, but for some reason she felt compelled to ask anyway.
“Your dinner with John’s parents,” her mother replied.
“I don’t have time to get into all the details now, Mom. It’s not even nine-thirty yet, and Brian’s already given me a hundred things to do for an ad directors’ luncheon on Friday. I’m swamped. Can I call you tonight?”
“Sure, but in a word, tell me how it went. Good? Bad? Hard to tell?”
Nancy needed to talk to someone about Friday night, but she knew she shouldn’t take the time now. The steno pad in front of her contained page after page of instructions, with most of the items marked “urgent” or “do today.” Still…she needed to talk, and her mother was prepared to listen. She decided National Geographic could wait for a couple of minutes.
“Bad,” Nancy said. “In a word…bad.”
“Why? Weren’t John’s parents nice?”
“They were nice. They weren’t nasty or rude or anything. They just made me feel really uncomfortable with some of the things they said. And didn’t say.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for starters, they asked me what college I went to, and I told them Lebanon Valley. They said they’d never heard of it. Then Mr. Herbert asked me what major I had gotten my degree in. What could I do? Make believe I’d graduated? So I told them I didn’t graduate. That I left at the end of my sophomore year. When I told them that, they kind of…You know how people sometimes raise their eyebrows a little and raise their chin a little but say nothing? Well, that’s what they did.
“Then they asked me what my father did for a living, and I told them he was a salesman for Vollrath selling restaurant equipment. Mr. Herbert asked me how long Dad had been working for Vollrath, and again I didn’t know what to say. So I told him he had just gone back to Vollrath after leaving to start his own business. Mr. Herbert asked what kind of business, and then he asked why Dad left it to go back to Voll-rath. That led to the whole Swan Lake story and how Dad walked away from the place and lost everything.”
“What did Mr. Herbert say to that?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. He just sat there. They both just sat there. Almost as if what Dad had done was so inconceivable to them—that failure like his was so not part of their experience—that they didn’t know what to say. And the funny thing is, all of this happened before things started to go downhill.”
“It got worse?”
“Oh, yeah, it got worse. Like I said, it was a bad evening. Mrs. Herbert asked me if I liked to read. Again, what am I going to say? That I love to read and then not be able to tell her the name of the last book I read? So I told her I don’t read a lot. That I don’t really have the time, what with work and commuting and all. And that’s when Peggy came up for the first time. When Mrs. Herbert told me that Peggy read all the time. On the train in the morning. On the train at night. Whenever she had the chance. According to her, Peggy read ketchup bottle labels at the dinette table if that’s all there was to read.
“Needless to say, that made me feel less than great, especially after the college discussion. So I decide maybe a little sympathy for Nancy is in order. I tell Mr. and Mrs. Herbert about the parties John and I went to over the holidays and how uncomfortable I was because of everyone telling me what a great person Peggy was and what a great homemaker she was and what a great mother she was and all that. Anyway, want to guess what Mrs. Herbert’s response was? ‘Well, you have to understand, Nancy, how much everyone loved Peggy. She was a wonderful, wonderful person, you know. And of course it is rather soon for my son to be getting involved with someone.’ I felt like she’d thrown a bucket of cold water at me, Mom.”
“Well, I can certainly understand why you’d feel like that,” her mother replied, “but in a way she’s right, isn’t she, Nan? About it being too soon for John to be getting involved with you?”
“Yes, she’s right,” Nancy agreed reluctantly, a painful ache starting to develop in the pit of her stomach. “You know that, and I know that. But she didn’t have to say what she said, did she? She could have tried to understand how difficult things are for John and me. She could have tried to be a little warmer, a little more supportive, a little more encouraging, couldn’t she?”
“Yes, she could have, Nan, but that’s not the way people are. Not with a situation like this.”
Nancy watched one of the sales reps walk past her open office door and wondered if anyone in the outer office was listening to all of this.
“Did John’s father say anything?” her mother asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Did he say anything after Mrs. Herbert’s comment?”
“Yes. About everyone loving Peggy. He said, and I quote, ‘I certainly loved her. Peggy wasn’t just my daughter-in-law. She was my sweetheart…the daughter we never had.’ “
“How sad.”
“Look, Mom, I gotta go. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“What are you going to do?” her mother asked, ignoring Nancy’s attempt to end the conversation.
“About what?”
“About John’s parents. About the way the evening turned out?”
“There’s nothing I can do, Mom. They obviously weren’t impressed with me, but what can I do about that? If they like me, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s not a problem I can solve. I just have to hope they give me a chance and try to see the good in me. What else can I do?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
Nancy waited a moment before trying again to end the conversation. “Well, thanks for calling, Mom. I appreciate your concern. I really do. I’m glad we were able to talk.”
“I wish there were something I could do, Nan.”
“Me too,” Nancy admitted as a tear rolled down her cheek. “But there isn’t anything you or anybody else can do. I have to sort this out on my own as best I can. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later in the week. Good-bye.”
Nancy hung up without waiting for a response.
Eighty-Three
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” a deep male voice intoned. “You have been listening to WPAT, 96.3 FM on your dial, coming to you this Thursday morning, February 12th, from Patterson, New Jersey. The time at the tone is 1:00 A.M.” A soft chime sounded, and the voice returned. “We now return you to another hour of uninterrupted music for your listening pleasure.”
I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling, barely visible in the dim light of Nancy’s living room. Nancy was lying on her side snuggled up tight against me with her head on my chest and an arm draped across my stomach. In the second or two before the music began again, I could hear her breathing softly as she slept beside me in her convertible sofa bed.
God. One o’clock already, I thought. I should go home. I gotta be in the office early tomorrow morning. No, I thought to myself wryly a moment later, you have to be in the office early this morning.
But I didn’t move for fear of disturbing Nancy. Instead I listened to the music and the intermittent creak of the living room’s baseboard heaters as the thermostat called for more hot water to combat the cold of this February night. I was just starting to drift off when the ring of Nancy�
��s telephone shattered the peacefulness of the warm darkness. Between the second and third ring, Nancy began to wake up. Without moving away from me, she stretched, lifted her head slightly and then laid her head back on my chest. “What time is it?” she asked sleepily.
“A little after one.”
The telephone rang again. “Do you want me to answer that?” I asked.
“Who could be calling at this hour?” Nancy mumbled.
Another ring. “I don’t know, but someone is. Do you want me to answer it?”
“Mmmmmmm,” Nancy answered sleepily. “Please.”
I lifted her arm off my stomach, gently lowered her head onto the pillow and rolled back the covers just enough to allow me to get up. I reached the phone on the seventh ring.
“Hello?” I answered, holding the receiver in one hand and rubbing my eyes with the other.
“John, it’s Dave.”
I stifled the beginning of a yawn and tried to shake off the cobwebs in my brain. “Dave. What’s up? It’s late. What are you doing still up?”
“I’m over at your house. With Loretta.”
In an instant the cobwebs disappeared, and I was wide awake. “What’s wrong, Dave? What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Everything’s okay except Jennie has a fever. Loretta thought she looked flushed tonight when she put her to bed, and Jennie woke up a little while ago, crying. Loretta took her temperature, but she couldn’t read the thermometer. So she called me.”
“Dave, I’m sorry.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it. Anyway, Jennie’s temperature is 102.8. She’s got some kind of bug, I guess, and I thought you should know. That’s why I called. I also wanted to know if it was all right for Loretta to give her a couple of baby Tylenol.”
I leaned on Nancy’s kitchen wall for several seconds, my head on my forearm, before I said anything.
“You still there?” Dave asked.
“Yeah,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’m still here.”
“So can Loretta give Jennie the Tylenol?”
“Sure. Tell her it’s okay.”
