by Nancy Thayer
Jack was so young. His body, she had noticed—she had thought of it often—was firm, from youth and from his running. His thighs were long and hard and hairy, bestial. His black hair, still thick, and his skin, still firm and taut, made Daphne remember young Joe, potent with youth. Even at his best, David had not come more than once a night, but when he had been in his twenties and early thirties, Joe had been able to rest and rise over and over again. Jack would be able to too. Daphne wondered about things: was Jack’s pubic hair wiry or straight and lank? His hair was dark, would his penis be purple or pink in tone? Men’s penises were different in spite of what magazines said, or so Daphne had found in her brief experience. Jack was fairly short. Would his penis be?
“Would you like some music?” Jack asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“That would be nice,” Daphne said, feeling her face go hot with guilt. How long had she been sitting there in silence, thinking of penises? Frantically she searched her mind for some topic of conversation that wouldn’t seem artificial at this moment, but she could think of nothing. She felt like a teenager on a date, as paralyzed by sex as a cobra by a flute, waiting, waiting, hanging in the air.
The car lights flashed on the road signs welcoming them to the state of Vermont.
“I find I like living in Plover,” Jack said. “I like leaving the college behind so completely, going into a different state in more meanings than one. Then, going up into a mountain, too, the wilderness, after all that civility, provides a great relief.”
“I know,” Daphne said, grateful for his easy tone. “You really feel that you’re getting away from it all, going into another world.”
And as they drove, the wilderness did enfold them, the wooden bridge thumping responsively under the car’s wheels, the road becoming dirt, the trees and bushes closing in above and next to them, narrowing the road, stretching out to scrape the sides of the car, nature closing in.
Daphne had left a light burning in her cottage. Jack stopped the car next to her old Jeep, turned off the engine, and looked at her expectantly. She knew he wanted her to invite him in for a drink. She wanted to invite him in for a drink, and more.
“Thank you,” she said politely. “For driving.”
“Daphne,” Jack said. His voice was hoarse. He reached his hand out and pulled her to him and kissed her on the lips. One hand he kept on the back of her head, holding her to him, the other hand he put on her neck, running his thumb under her chin.
Daphne shivered under his touch. He smelled new and clean, as fresh as washed cotton drying in the sun, and his kiss filled her body with light. She pushed him away.
“No.”
“Let me come in. Let me spend the night with you.”
“No. It would be wrong. You know it would be wrong.”
“Please.”
It was growing cold in the car. They could scarcely see each other. But they could smell and hear each other, and it was like being drugged by the gods. Daphne’s body turned toward Jack’s as if he were the sun.
“Just come in for coffee, then.”
“All right.”
But once they were inside the house, enclosed in its warmth, Jack took Daphne in his arms and pulled her to him. He put his hands on her buttocks and pressed her hips against his. They were the same height and matched nicely all up and down. Jack was kissing Daphne, her mouth and eyes and neck, and nudging into her, and never in the world had she wanted anything more.
No. Several things in the world she had wanted more. Long ago, for example, she had wanted her husband not to be sleeping with her best friend.
“Jack,” she said suddenly, shoving him away, backing off, closing her coat over her breasts and holding it there. “Stop a minute. Listen to me. We can’t do this. We mustn’t do this. You love Carey Ann. You can’t do this to her. You can’t do this to your marriage.”
“I want you. I’ve wanted you for months.”
“I want you too. But human beings can’t go around just taking what they want. Listen, Jack, I’ve seen this movie before. I’ve been in this spot before—but on the other side, looking in. I’ve been where Carey Ann is, I’ve been a new wife with a little child, and my husband had an affair, and it ended our marriage, and it was awful, Jack. Jack, it was evil. And I can’t be a person who does the same thing.”
“Carey Ann wouldn’t know. She probably wouldn’t even care. She’s so preoccupied with everything else. Everything else matters but me.”
“Oh, I know that’s what you think!” Daphne began to move across the room, further away from the pull of Jack’s power. “But I know it’s not true. You do matter to her. She would die if you had an affair. She’s just so young, Jack, she’s got to get herself organized, she’s working on that. You have to stand by her. You can’t go off screwing around whenever you feel ignored.”
“I don’t go off screwing around. I’ve never screwed around on her. Why are we talking about Carey Ann? I want you. I want to go to bed with you.”
Oh, he does know how to say the right things, Daphne thought. How nice it was to hear that: Jack wanted to go to bed with her. She had imagined this, lying in her lonely bed on winter nights. She had imagined how it would be to have Jack, small, dark, intense, young, firm Jack lying on top of her, skin against skin, the feel of his muscles, and how he would sound, needing, and then being satisfied. She had imagined it all, and now she could have him, and she wanted him. Who, after all, would know? Who would care? No one at the college would suspect this—Daphne was so old, and a secretary. Gorgeous young Carey Ann would never think to wonder about her husband with Daphne—Daphne knew this, knew it every time she saw Carey Ann look her way. So it would be only she herself who would know, and couldn’t she finally devise her own consequences?
Jack was walking closer to her now. He had unzipped his parka and she could see the hollow of his neck, she could almost feel the sexual burn of his late-night whiskers against her throat.
She moved back, away from his pull. She shook her head. She was afraid she was going to cry. Oh, God, she thought, don’t let me be maudlin. If I’m not going to have any pleasure, let me at least have some dignity about this.
“Jack,” she said again, holding both hands out as if warding off a monster. “Please don’t come any closer. I want you to leave now. You know I’m attracted to you, but I just can’t go to bed with you. You’re married, and I can’t go to bed with you. I can’t do that to you.”
“But what do you care about my marriage?” Jack said. He looked so puzzled. “You’re not even Carey Ann’s friend!”
“No. I’m not. But I’m your friend, Jack. I’m your good friend.”
“I don’t need you as a friend,” Jack said angrily.
“Please. Go.”
He stared at her. Then, looking bitter, he turned and stalked across the living room and went out the door, shutting it so hard it shook the little cottage. Daphne stood paralyzed, her back nearly against the wall, listening to the sounds of his car starting up and murmuring away through the snow-covered bushes.
Victory, said her mind, but her body said, Defeat. And her body would make her pay. She would not sleep tonight. Her house was as quiet and now seemed as cold as a block of ice. Nothing moved, no sounds, only her body desiring, and all that heated sunrise in her loins and limbs had vanished with Jack, leaving in its stead the touch of the grave, moonshadows, cemetery streaks slipping against her skin. Sex was life and heat; loneliness was this: invisible sleet sliding just under her clothes, chilling her to the bone.
Daphne sank down onto the floor and cried, doubled over, cramps in her abdomen, pain like thirst in her mouth and breasts. It had been two years since she had been with a man. Why was she doing this to herself? Where was the sense of it all?
Dickens, who had been watching quietly from in front of the cold fireplace, waddled over now and stood next to her, staring intently at her, slowly wagging his tail. He seemed to think that Daphne, bent over on the floor as she wa
s, was playing some kind of game.
“Oh, Dickens!” Daphne wailed, and looked up at him with tears streaking down her face.
Dickens pushed his head forward to smell her breath, then sneezed, and went back to lie down in front of the fireplace. He was getting old, after all, and besides, he had seen this before. Not exactly this, but this much agony.
All the times Hudson had driven Daphne home, or stopped by for a drink, or come to help with something heavy, and stood talking in his gentle blink-eyed giraffe way, his need for Daphne steaming from him like a scent, filling her with equal need … and then Hudson would leave, and Daphne would sit on the sofa, clutching herself, like a diver who has started down into great depths, then been forced to surface too fast.
Yes. She had been here before. At least one gained this much with age and experience, one gained the memory of coping and thus knew the first steps to take in going on.
She would not sleep tonight, or not easily. She would be restless and unable to read, and—Daphne looked at her watch; it was only a little before midnight!—it was too late to call Pauline for a helpful talk. Not too late to call Jack, though, who, Daphne imagined, was at this moment fixing himself a strong drink. She would have to wrestle with herself as with a devil to keep from calling him or going there; he was so close, and no one would see.
A drink. A strong drink to numb. Music? No. Too sensual. TV? No, it would not be powerful enough tonight. Action: build a fire, find some mending, get out some knitting—now Daphne knew why women all over the world knit away like psychotics. If she had knit every time she yearned for a particular or general man’s body, she could have knit a house by now. “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.” Did she have that right? It sounded vaguely obscene.
Daphne went through the kitchen and shed and out the back door to the cold night to get some wood she had piled against the wall. She left the door open as she carried in three loads. The hell with her oil bill, she was such a wild and reckless thing. Finally slamming the door against the bitter night, she knelt at her fireplace and built an extravaganza of a blaze. Dickens jumped up at the “whoosh!” the fire made as it caught, then turned around several times and lay back down to sleep. Daphne made herself a big Scotch with ice and dug out her knitting—she was working on an afghan for the sofa. She’d be through with it in no time at all.
What if the phone rang? What if Jack came back and knocked on the door? As she settled down with her feet up on the sofa and the fire blazing, her imagination tugged at her senses. But she would resist even that, in case she weakened. Oh, how would she fight this desire?
Well, there was always memory.
Joe had thought Daphne was unreasonable to be so furious because he was leaving her for Laura. He had to do it—why wouldn’t she understand? Laura had been hurt that Daphne was so upset.
She had come over to Daphne’s that first day, her eyes swollen with tears. Daphne didn’t want to let her in the house, but Laura had Hanno by the hand, and Daphne had Cynthia on her shoulder and was afraid of frightening the children.
So the two mothers of small children, the two women Joe Miller was sleeping with, put Hanno in front of the TV and Cynthia in her playpen. Then they went into the dining room and shut the door. This final deed they did with accord.
“What are you doing?” Laura had sobbed. “Joe came to my house last night. He says you are violently angry. I don’t understand. How can you do this to me?”
“What am I doing?” Daphne had asked. She had had no love left in her for Laura. She wanted to kick her friend.
“You’re ruining everything!” Laura had said. “How can you be so selfish? You of all people should understand. I am so lonely! You are my friend, you love me. Don’t you want me to be happy? Why can’t you let go of Joe nicely? You have Cynthia. You have your teaching. You love your teaching! You don’t need Joe, and I do.”
“You’re crazy,” Daphne had said. “You’re a crazy, selfish bitch!”
“No, I’m not!” Laura had said. “I’m your friend—”
“Laura! You betrayed me. You manipulated me. You are taking my husband, my daughter’s father. Don’t you know I hate you? I hate you. I’ll never forgive you!”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this things!” Laura had said, her English giving way under her emotion. “Why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t you understand?”
“Laura, just get out. Get out or … I’ll hit you. I swear to God I will.”
“You’ll calm down,” Laura had said. “You will get over your anger. I know you will.”
What still made Daphne angry, and always would, was how Laura saw herself as the injured party, because Daphne had not loved her enough to want her to have happiness with Joe. Even after all these years it was painful for Daphne to remember that spring, when she and Joe had met only for legal purposes, to sign divorce papers, to sign at the closing of the sale of their house. Joe married Laura as soon as the divorce was final, and they moved to California, where Joe took a job with a university. Daphne told the community college she wanted to teach full-time there, but their enrollment dropped that year and they said regretfully that they didn’t know if they could offer her even a part-time job. When Fred Van Lieu offered her the job as secretary in the history department, she had taken it, glad for some way to make money, for some way to order her jagged life.
Her life was still jagged. She was still jagged, and torn.
What could make her whole? Could anything make her whole?
Not an affair with a young married man, that much was certain.
In the middle of the night, in the midst of sipping Scotch and knitting, Daphne fell asleep. She awoke in the morning, her entire body aching from its cramped bed, and from cold, for the fire had gone out in the night and the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the ashy-gray hearth. The afghan she had been working on had slipped to the floor. Besides, it was far too small to cover her yet. She would need many more nights to knit. And she knew she would have them, these long nights alone.
Jack had been awakened this morning by a call from Carey Ann. The weather in Kansas City had taken an unseasonably mild turn, as it sometimes did in the Midwest, and today and tomorrow would be warm and sunny. She was going to leave Alexandra with her parents and Beulah and spend a few days at Christie’s farm just outside Kansas City, riding her old horse, Jelly Roll, which she had sold to Christie when she married Jack. In order not to upset her parents, she had promised to extend her stay in Missouri by several days. Jack understood, didn’t he? Oh, Carey Ann said, she was so happy to be back home.
“Home,” Jack had said. Just that one word.
“What?” Carey Ann asked. She waited, letting the space between them flutter. Then, “Oh, Jack, come on, you’re not sulking again, are you? Jack, look. Why do you get so upset when I say I love it here, around my friends and family and the places I’m familiar with? I love you too. I love you best. I’m coming back to you soon.”
The same old argument. The same old thing. Jack was so angry at Daphne for not sleeping with him and so angry at himself for trying to get Daphne to sleep with him that he couldn’t be very civil to Carey Ann. Which did make a kind of sense: if she hadn’t left him, he wouldn’t be wanting to sleep with Daphne. Here he was, teaching a specialty he didn’t like in a department with a chairman he didn’t like, and where was his loving supportive wife? Halfway across the continent.
Still, he didn’t really want to be unfaithful to Carey Ann. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted … What? Some affection he wasn’t getting. That was all. Something warm and embracing in this hard world.
“Have a good time, Carey Ann,” he said, defeated, and hung up.
It was too cold to run outside today, and the dirt road was rutted and slick with ice. He’d run in the gym track, and then work like a fiend on his lesson plans for next semester’s courses. Jack pulled on his jeans and a wool sweater, stuffed his running gear into a canvas bag a
nd his papers into his briefcase, and headed his car away from Plover. He felt both regret and relief as he drove down the mountain, farther and farther away from Daphne’s home, as if he were leaving the scene of an almost-committed crime.
On his way to the college he stopped in the local bookstore to check on his textbook orders. He decided to buy himself a thick new novel to read that night, a treat for himself, whatever he wanted, but as he looked through the fiction section, he found himself growing crankier and sadder, as if the books exuded a poisonous gas. All these damned writers writing! Where did they get the time to write, the money to survive and support their families while they wrote? Half of them no doubt were gorgeous young women who slept with their writing instructors or editors or both, who had fathers or boyfriends to support them. But the other half, the men, how did they do it? There weren’t enough hours in the day for Jack to do his courses well and spend some time with his family and still have the mental stamina to write a novel. Would there ever be a time when he could write? Standing in the sunny bookstore, Jack felt Time touch its icy skeletal finger to the back of his neck, a kind of gleeful poke. And he knew that years would go by, years and years and years, and he would be gray and withered and his thoughts would be gray and withered, before he would have time to write his novel.
He left the bookstore without buying anything. Cold air whacked him in the face and lungs; it was a hostile day, and he leaned forward against the wind, holding his muffler over his mouth, thinking of Carey Ann wearing a sweatshirt, riding her horse over the rolling Missouri hills.
Peabody Hall was warm and well-lit, and as he climbed the stairs to his cell, laughter and voices and the hum of machines drifted out to him. Once settled at his desk, he leafed through his books, comparing approaches for next semester. He stopped a while to take an ironic and sly pleasure from Lord Chesterfield’s famous letter to his illegitimate son, Philip:
