Crossing the Bridge

by Michael Baron

  The foot traffic on Russet Avenue was light, as was often the case on midweek mornings in the early spring. The locals were at work or hadn’t gotten around to setting out on their errands yet and the tourists were few, many perhaps returning to their rooms at one of the inns after a multicourse breakfast to prepare for the drive home. There were two people in the store, one intently scanning the relationship cards, the other looking at the magazine rack while sipping at a paper cup from Bean There, Done That, the coffee bar down the street.

  I joined Tyler behind the counter and the two of us stared out at the display of ceramics. A limp instrumental version of The Beatles’s “We Can Work It Out” was just barely audible through the sound system.

  “Radio always on one and always set to the ‘beautiful music’ station,” I said, mimicking my father’s oft-repeated instructions.

  Tyler laughed. “Yeah, Richard likes things a certain way.”

  I nodded. “They were playing the same music on this station when I was in high school. Do they still do that string version of ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’?”

  “At least once a day.”

  I looked over to the shelf behind the counter to see Tyler’s statistics textbook.

  “Business degree?” I asked, gesturing toward the book.

  “Yeah, I graduate from MCS in two months.” MCS was Middle Connecticut State, a modest college that most of us frowned upon because it catered to commuters.

  “Let me guess – just missed at Yale.”

  “Actually, I turned Yale down.”

  I looked at him skeptically.

  “I know,” he said. “I wanted to stay home, if you can believe it, and no one commutes to Yale.”

  When I didn’t comment on this, he added, “It had to do with a girl.”

  I nodded. “An explanation that works for just about anything.”

  “My parents would have had a hard time affording it anyway.” He moved over toward his textbook, as though he needed the contact. “As you might have guessed, it didn’t work out with the girl. I could have tried to matriculate at Yale in my sophomore year, but I found I actually kinda liked MCS.”

  “Hey, it’s a good school,” I said, gesturing with my hands. “So what are you going to do with your degree?”

  “I’ll probably ultimately get my MBA, but I’d really like to try to hit Manhattan for a while. I’ve started talking to some recruiters. I’d love to hook up with one of the major marketing firms.”

  “Better not tell them that you’ve skipped out on class today, then, huh?”

  Tyler smiled. “Yeah, I guess not.”

  I nodded toward the book. “Listen, if you want to go in the back to study for a while, I’m pretty sure I can hold down the fort over here.”

  “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “Richard doesn’t pay me to do my homework in the back office.”

  “He doesn’t pay me at all. The way I look at it, it balances out.”

  Tyler ran his hand over the book. “Maybe I’ll just stand over here and read. This way, I can jump in if you have any questions or if things back up.”

  For the first few hours, it didn’t seem that I was going to need any help. In fact, I probably could have left the store unattended and my father would have made nearly as much via the honor system. But then there was a flurry of activity around lunchtime and the afternoon was relatively busy. Some guy came in and bought a $200 pewter dish, which might have been the most expensive item in the store and had quite possibly been there for several years. Around 3:00 Mrs. Deltoff, the mother of one of my best friends in high school, bought some wrapping paper. She didn’t seem to recognize me and I decided not to say anything to her.

  In spite of the increase in action, there were rarely more than a few dozen customers in any given hour. Standing by myself while Tyler went for coffee, I tried to think of what could possibly have held my father’s imagination for more than three decades. For thirty-four years, six days a week, eight to ten hours a day, he stood someplace near where I was standing now, ringing up a newspaper, dusting a shelf, placing an order. Did the ceramic figurines come to life in his mind, regaling him with clever verbal exchanges? Did the Charleston Chews do the Charleston with Baby Ruth when no one else was looking? If not, I could-n’t imagine anything about this store keeping my interest for thirty-four days, let alone thirty-four years.

  Of course, I did have something nearly as fanciful as dancing candy bars to keep me entertained through the late afternoon. Seeing Iris after all of this time was an utterly unexpected – though certainly not unimagined – surprise. A day later, it seemed funny to me that I wasn’t certain it was her when I first saw her on the street. Iris’ image was entirely distinctive to me. I couldn’t possibly confuse her with anyone else and I certainly would never have forgotten what she looked like. I’d even done a somewhat effective job of aging her in my mind.

  From the point at which I watched Iris walk away from Chase’s gravesite, I believed that we were meant to have more time together. I’d had unresolved relationships before and I’d certainly had well beyond my quota of them since. But unlike the others, it simply seemed wrong that this one would go so completely unresolved. We had so much to deal with. Our shared and separate experiences with Chase. The friendship that had emerged between us during the time the two of them were together. The abandon of those seconds when we were kissing. While I lay in my room those weeks after Chase died, listening more to his CDs than my own, I thought often about calling Iris, meeting her in the park, crying with her, slowly facing our own relationship, whatever it might be, and staying in each other’s lives. But whenever I did so, I would think about Iris and Chase together. I’d think about how they were always touching, always feeling each other, and I’d shrink back into the music. I’m sure that Iris was the only woman that Chase had ever loved and the memory of that was both sad and intimidating.

  And a day after seeing her on the street, I began to feel some of the same trepidation again. I even thought about calling and saying that all of my evenings in Amber had suddenly booked up. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a certain hopeful expectation at being with Iris again. I imparted great meaning to our brief encounter the day before. I found it encouraging that she tried so hard to assure me that she needed to get back to her mother’s house. I read much into her glance back toward the store when she left the bakery. I even wondered about her choice of the Cornwall as our meeting place. Surely, she remembered the dinner we had there with my family. Chase got sick and I wound up driving her home. We spent twenty minutes on her driveway debating the upcoming presidential election and another couple jokingly castigating each other over our opinions. It was the first time I’d had the chance to speak to Iris without Chase’s unremitting energy serving as counterpoint and I remember driving back home that night convinced that my brother had happened on someone who would turn into a woman of genuine power. Of course, I had no idea what Iris remembered of that night or if she even remembered it at all, but I couldn’t help but think that her selection of that particular restaurant was portentous.

  At the same time, as was the case in those months before we kissed, I had no clear idea of what I was expecting from our drinks date. Back then, while my feelings for Iris were undeniably romantic, there was no way to imagine doing anything with those feelings because she was involved with my brother. Now, while it was impossible to know what kind of transformation those feelings had taken, there was the very real fact that, though Chase had been dead for nearly ten years, she was still involved with him, would be eternally involved with him as far as I was concerned. Certainly, nothing momentous was on the horizon, but it was entertaining to consider the possibility that there might be some kind of charge between us, something to give us some brief hesitation before we headed back to our lives.

  All of which was considerably more interesting to think about than straightening the greeting cards or restocking the magazines. Though I eventual
ly did these tasks because I needed to do something to make the time go faster.

  I truly had no idea how my father managed to get out of bed for this.

  When I visited my father at the hospital that afternoon, there was more color in his complexion. He cheered noticeably when I told him that Tyler was doing a good job. I spent an hour or so with him and my mother after I left the store, but we didn’t talk very much beyond that debriefing. I was preoccupied with thinking about Iris and I’m sure they were preoccupied with thinking about what the doctor was going to say when he finally got around to saying it. I couldn’t convince my mother to leave my father’s bedside to go to a restaurant with me, so I had a tuna melt at a local diner before heading off to meet Iris.

  The Cornwall had been at the same location for more than fifty years, which meant that it had been around for a long time before Amber evolved from a fishing village to a tourist destination. When it opened, it was the only available option for a nice meal within fifteen miles and families from all over Middlesex County frequented it. While the three generations of owners made little attempt to change with the town, its popularity was a constant. Somehow the tacky nautical motif, laminated wine lists, and a menu filled with outmoded “classics” like Lobster Newburg and Seafood au Gratin worked when you were aware of the restaurant’s origins.

  I think the owners always meant the bar to be comical and, at this point, it was just downright silly. A huge pirate head, complete with a dagger in his teeth, dominated one wall. Sprinkled throughout were fiberglass reproductions of various ship paraphernalia. And one could choose from a special drink list that included such original creations as The Matey (three kinds of rum and ginger ale), The Plankwalker (151 rum, Drambuie, and grapefruit juice) and the ever-popular Landlubber (rum, Coke, and maraschino cherry juice). Fortunately they also had a huge list of bottled beers (and did even in the ’50s), which made the place very popular among my friends when we reached fake ID age.

  The restaurant was relatively busy, but there were only two occupied tables in the bar when I arrived. Iris wasn’t there yet and I ordered a Belgian beer while I waited. I found that I was in no hurry for her to arrive. I considered the possibility that we might not have much to say to each other or that the conversation might go badly and started to feel that it wouldn’t disturb me terribly much if she didn’t show up at all. It was the same push and pull I felt nearly every time I knew I was going to see her in the months after the kiss.

  She arrived at the bar about ten minutes later. I was facing away from the door at that point, listening in on a conversation between the bartender and a patron, and didn’t see her until she pecked me on the cheek.

  “Reconnecting with the locals?” she asked as she sat down across from me.

  “They were talking about swordfishing,” I said, nodding toward the bar. “It could be 1958.”

  “I love that about this place. Do you ever come here when you’re visiting?”

  “I haven’t been in here since – ” I realized I was about to say “since Chase died” and thought better of it. “I have no idea when the last time was that I was here.”

  “So then it really is old home week for you, isn’t it?”

  I chuckled and repeated, “Old home week.”

  A waiter came over and took Iris’ drink order.

  “How’s your dad?” Iris said after the waiter left.

  “He looked better today than he did yesterday. The doctor still hasn’t told him what the long-term deal is going to be, which I know has him a little worried. I think he’s out of immediate danger, though.”

  “When my dad died, it happened all at once,” she said wistfully. Then she looked up at me with a mildly startled expression. “I didn’t mean to suggest that I thought your father was dying. This kind of thing just makes me think of my father, that’s all.”

  I held up my hand. “I get it. It’s not as though the thought hasn’t come to mind. I think he’s going to be okay, though.”

  Iris’ beer came and she took a moment to sip it. It hadn’t dawned on me that she might be nervous to see me, but she seemed to be at least a little anxious. I looked over toward the pirate head and let the moment settle.

  “My friends and I had developed an entire personal profile for that guy,” I said, pointing to the pirate. “His name was Phil; he had a wife and three kids at home and a real affection for macramé. He did the pirate thing to pay the bills, but what he really wanted to be was an ice dancer.”

  “Ice dancer?”

  “It was around the time of the Olympics. And did you ever see some of the outfits those guys wear? Phil would fit right in.”

  “You have a rich fantasy life.”

  I laughed. “Actually, that’s about as rich as it gets.”

  “What about ‘moving from suburb to suburb in search of thrills?’”

  It tickled me that she quoted a line back at me.

  “It might have been more exciting if I had a better imagination.”

  We spent most of the next hour catching each other up in a top-line kind of way. Iris had put in four years at Mount Holyoke College and spent a lot of time around theater and dance groups, though she didn’t have much talent at either discipline. What she did have, she realized, was a real love of these fields, a sharp organizational mind, and an interest in helping these operations succeed. When she’d graduated, she’d handled a variety of back-office duties for local arts organizations and finally settled in the Berkshires, where she had been for the last three years. She had a dog who made all of the trips back to Amber with her and a surprising affinity for potted plants, of which she had “dozens, I don’t know, probably thirty or so.”

  Not wanting to bore her with my entire travel itinerary over the past ten years, I told Iris only about the longer stops. She listened to my stories with a combination of amusement and disbelief. I could tell that she was having some trouble synching these details with the person I was back when she knew me, but she was too polite to acknowledge this.

  Once we had boiled the last ten years of our lives down to fifty minutes, we came to the point in the conversation where we were going to have to move on to other things. The first attempts at getting something started fizzled. Three sentences on how Amber had changed in the last decade. A few exchanges on her mother’s failed attempt at a spot on the City Council. She said something about the new IMAX theater that opened just across the bridge and I cringed internally. Was this really everything we had left between us?

  A sudden memory caused me to laugh and to abandon caution. “I remember when I was fifteen my parents took us to a 3-D IMAX theater to see a movie about dinosaurs. At one point, a T. rex reared up on the screen and Chase was so startled that he spilled his entire soda onto his lap.”

  It was the first time that either of us had invoked Chase’s name – although it was ludicrous to think that either of us hadn’t been thinking of him nonstop since meeting on the street. I tried to gauge Iris’ reaction, wondering if this was only going to make things more awkward. I saw just the briefest hesitation on her face and then she started laughing.

  “The poor thing,” she said. “Was he humiliated?”

  “For all I know, he might have been, but of course he kept his cool. He jumped out of his seat when it happened, but then he just brushed off the ice cubes and went back to watching the movie. When we left, he kept pointing to his pants and telling the people waiting in line for the next show that the movie was really exciting.”

  Iris laughed again and nodded her head. Neither of us said anything for a minute or two, but the silence wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as the small talk had been a short time before.

  “I had my first interview with the director of that dance troupe in Lexington after getting caught in a downpour,” Iris said. It was hard for me to imagine that what I’d just said had caused her to think about times when she had been very wet, but I let it go. Chase’s name didn’t come up again for the rest of the night, b
ut unlike the first hour, it no longer seemed to be because both of us were avoiding it. We’d both nodded toward his memory and silently acknowledged that, if we were going to get to that subject, it would be at some later point. Even the small talk seemed easier to handle after that, and when I walked Iris to her car a couple of hours later, we made plans to see each other again the next night.

  “This has definitely been the highlight of ‘Old Home Week’ for me,” I said.

  “I’d take that as a compliment if I didn’t know what else you’d been doing since you got here.”

  “Take it as a compliment anyway.”

  She smiled, but her eyes darted downward for an instant. Then she looked back up at me and nodded before kissing me on the cheek and getting in her car.

  The bar of choice the next night was a place that Tyler had recommended. It was just over the bridge and had been open for only a few months. Given that Tyler had just turned 22, I’d half expected it to be stripped-down concrete with blaring rap metal and indifferent waiters. Instead, it was an oversized and eclectically decorated living room, filled with large couches, original art, and muted lighting. I again arrived a few minutes ahead of Iris. Shortly after she got there, a trio of acoustic musicians began playing their own earnest compositions.

  “Do you think they’re any good?” Iris said when she saw my attention flit to the stage.

  “Not really. It sounds like the guitarist can play, though. They’d probably be better off doing other people’s stuff, but you have to give them credit for trying their own.”

  This seemed to make Iris think, though what I’d said was hardly profound. She leaned forward and rested her chin on an up-propped hand.