by Nancy Thayer
“I don’t feel very hungry right now,” Peter said, and it was true. Every time someone in his congregation died, Peter lost his appetite, but although he fought a weight problem every day of his life, he never did appreciate this way of shedding pounds.
“Peter,” Patricia said.
“All right.” Peter smiled. He put his arm around her and pulled her to him. “I like your red sweater,” he told her. “You cheer me up.” They walked into the house together and Peter went to the phone, to talk with Reynolds Houston, whom he had missed talking with after church because of the confusion during Wilbur’s heart attack.
Mandy and Michael were down by the river.
They had been there for almost two hours. After Wilbur Wilson’s heart attack and the ensuing commotion, Mandy had pushed her way through the crowd and out the high front doors of the church, meaning to chase after Liza Howard to return to her the leather gloves she had dropped and forgotten. But there was something about the sight of Liza’s statuesque figure, wrapped and protected by her thick mink coat and John Bennett’s embracing arm, which made Mandy walk less quickly after her, then stop altogether. How beautiful they were together, those two tall blond figures, and when they stopped by the long black Cadillac, they looked too good to be true, like an advertisement for champagne—or Cadillacs. Mandy bit her lip, pondering. She could envision herself, gawkily running down the walk, waving the gloves, intruding on the gorgeous intimacy of those two shining people—she couldn’t do it. She’d give the gloves to the church secretary. Mrs. Howard could stop by the church and pick them up herself when she remembered them. John Bennett got into the Cadillac and the car pulled off; Mandy went back into the church.
She stood for a few minutes just inside, taking in the scene, searching the crowd to see if Michael was there. She couldn’t find him; had he somehow already left? She panicked to think she might have missed him, and panicked again to realize how much it meant to her to see him. She moved then, heading for the door to the basement and Friendship Hall.
“Oh, hi, darling, here you are,” Leigh Findly said, coming out of the door just as Mandy was about to enter. “I’ve been looking for you. Are you all right? You look pale.”
“Oh, listen, Mom, I found these gloves Mrs. Howard dropped. I ran after her to give them to her, but she’d already left. I’ve got to give them to the church secretary.”
“I think she’s downstairs. Reverend Taylor’s going right on over to the hospital now, and so are a few others. There’s not going to be a regular coffee hour today, now, of course. Why don’t you go on down and give the gloves to Mrs. Allen, and I’ll wait for you here. It’s terrible to admit, after poor Mr. Wilson and all, but I’m starving for lunch. It’s such a treat to have you home, I thought I’d take you to the Long House for lunch.”
“Oh, Mom. That’s so sweet of you—but, well—Mom, there’s someone I’ve got to see. I mean there’s someone I’ve got to find and talk to. I mean, well, could we have dinner at the Long House? I was thinking maybe you could just go on home and I’ll walk home—pretty soon.”
Mandy looked at her mother, loving her for her love, and at the same time wishing she would disappear right now into thin air so that she could get on with her search for Michael.
Leigh looked at her daughter. “The color’s returning to your face,” she said, and smiled. “All right, dear,” she said. “I’ll go on home. Of course we can go to the Long House later. And we’ve got food at home if we want to be lazy. Call me if you want a ride. It’s colder out than you’d think.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek and left.
Mandy scouted through the basement, but found no sign of Michael. She did manage to get the gloves to Mrs. Allen, who was so glad to see Mandy again, and who wanted to know all about how she was liking college, and how did she like her courses, and did she feel homesick. Mandy wanted to scream, “I’ve got to go!” Instead she answered the older woman’s questions politely, and when she finally escaped, she was nearly in tears. The church was almost empty of people upstairs and down. There was no sign of Michael.
“Goddammit,” Mandy said under her breath. She wondered if she would have the courage to call Michael at his home. She went out the front doors, nearly ill with disappointment.
And there was Michael leaning against one of the high white columns, waiting for her.
“Hi,” he said. “I was looking for you.”
“I was looking for you,” she said, and she just stopped dead in her tracks, smiling, weak with relief at the sight of him. One last departing couple came out of the church just then and accidentally hit her in the back as they opened the door on her dumbfounded figure.
“Oh, excuse me,” Mandy said, and came alive again, moving a few steps toward Michael, gingerly, as if there were something between them that might break.
“Want to go for a walk?” he asked—and then something did break: the tension between them, the invisible wall of their mutual apprehension.
“Oh, yes,” Mandy said.
“Let’s go down by the river, then,” Michael said.
They walked side by side, not holding hands or touching.
“I didn’t know you were going to be home this weekend,” Michael said. “You should have let me know.”
“Well, I didn’t know myself that I was coming home until Friday afternoon,” Mandy said. “I just had to get away for a while.”
“So what did you do all day yesterday?”
“Just hung around with Mom. Talked and stuff.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“Well, I—I didn’t know if I should call. I mean, when I left for school, we agreed to keep in touch, but I didn’t know if you’d want me to call.”
“I want you to call,” Michael said. “That’s about all I do want.”
Mandy went light-headed, breathless with pleasure.
They walked in silence then until they came to the bridge where they had met that first time, and all the other times in the summer. The grass around it was now brown and brittle, but still high, and it made a rustling noise as they half walked, half slid down the embankment. Mandy’s coat caught on a high, prickly brown weed, and she stopped to tug her coat away, then turned back and, slipping on a muddy spot, she skated down the final few feet to the bottom of the hill, where Michael caught her in his arms.
She grinned up at him. “These are not the best shoes for this kind of walking.”
“It’s fine with me,” he said, and smiled back down at her, and they stood there, holding each other, looking at each other, inhaling the other’s presence like a long-desired, exotic drug.
And here they were again, next to the river, which ran bright and rapid over the pebbled bed. They were away from the town now. They were in their place. Michael kissed Mandy, and kept kissing her until a car passed over the bridge above them and a kid yelled out the window: “Whoowhee!”
“Come on,” Michael said. He hugged Mandy to his side, and she hugged him back as they walked along the rocks and sand of the river’s edge toward the countryside.
“I found out something,” Michael said. “I found out that I’m not happy when you’re not around. I’ve been miserable since you left.”
“Oh,” Mandy said. “Oh, Michael. That’s wonderful.”
“Thanks a lot.”
They smiled. “I haven’t been exactly happy myself,” Mandy said, and her heart raced.
It was difficult walking along the river’s edge. The sand was mucky and wet and Mandy’s shoes kept getting sucked down. The sky was still overcast, and a chilly wind swept by, but did not sweep any of the thick puffy clouds away. The world around them was cold and muted, as if all the heat, light, and grace in the world had been concentrated somehow into their bodies. Finally they came to a bend in the river where an arrangement of sloping bank and boulders made a kind of shelter, and they slipped inside the little roofless cave and settled themselves on the sand.
“Will you ruin your coat?” Michael ask
ed.
“Oh, Michael, I don’t care about my coat,” Mandy said, and reached her arms up to him, and pulled him to her.
They kissed again, with the confident delight of children on Easter morning: searching, finding, searching, finding, here and here and here, treasures, surprises, sweet candy, joy, more and more and more of it. Mandy nudged her head into the navy wool blazer covering Michael’s chest and hugged Michael and felt her body hum with pleasure as he ran his hands over her, rediscovering all its swells and hollows.
They could not touch each other enough. They could not hold each other close enough. The wind blew above them, making the limbs of trees click and sway, sending occasional flame-colored leaves swirling down onto Michael’s hair, Mandy’s legs. The river poured by, silver, hurried, and now and then the wind caught in the rocks and buffeted and called out softly. There was no way they could make love, not in this cramped space on the cold sand, but there was an erotic novelty even in the impediments of sand, coats, sweaters, hose, wind, and cold.
“Oh, God,” Mandy cried out all of a sudden, without thinking, “Michael, I love you!”
Michael raised his head and looked at Mandy. They were both shocked by her words.
“Mandy,” Michael said, “I love you, too.”
Then they were embarrassed, and sat up, straightening their clothes. For a few moments they were very busy not looking at each other, as if they were both guilty of some inexcusable blunder. Mandy recovered first, and looking at Michael’s face, which was turned away from her so that she could see it only in profile, she saw, or thought she saw if her perceptions were right, signs of real conflict. He looked so troubled.
“Michael,” she said, gently putting her hand on his arm, “it’s all right. We can love each other. That doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it.”
“But I want to do something about it,” Michael said, and he turned and looked at Mandy with such love that that moment, that expression, was one she would remember all of her life.
They leaned back together against the rocks then, and looked out at the rushing river, and talked about the things that they could do about their love. There were so many possibilities. They could do nothing, or they could start writing to each other, and seeing each other on weekends, or they could get married.
All this talking made them shiver, or perhaps it was simply the October chill. But finally Mandy said, “Oh, let’s go home and get warm and have something to eat. Aren’t you hungry?”
So they walked back along the river and scrambled up the bank to the bridge and made their way to Mandy’s house along the familiar streets and sidewalks. This time they held hands all the way, past the houses, shops, the church, for anyone to see, and they were very aware that they were doing this, as if they were committing some loud, attention-getting deed, like blowing bugles or beating drums.
“Mandy?” Leigh called, hearing her daughter come in the door. “Where have you—Oh, hello!”
Leigh stopped and smiled at the sight of Mandy and the boy she had at her side, both of whom were wearing about the same amount of Mandy’s lipstick and mascara on not entirely appropriate spots of their faces. So this is what Mandy was doing all summer, Leigh thought. “Come in and have lunch,” she said.
She heated up homemade vegetable soup and brought out some rye bread, and chatted casually with Michael and Mandy, or rather at them. Mandy dropped the napkins, forgot where they kept the butter, and set four places. Michael just sat, such a huge man in this kitchen that was so accustomed to only one or two women. He cleared his throat often and answered Leigh’s friendly chatter with monosyllables that seemed to have been tortured out from his depths. Oh, God, Leigh thought, they really are in love. Eating with them was almost painful; each slurp and clink of soup or silverware seemed to reverberate. Leigh had been in love like this, more than once, so when lunch was finally over, she said cheerfully, lying, “Mandy, Michael, I hope you don’t mind, but I was planning to drive down to the Southmark hospital to see how Wilbur is doing. I’ll be gone about three hours. I’ve got some errands to do, too.”
“Oh, that’s fine, Mom,” Mandy said, not stopping to wonder what possible errands her mother could have on a Sunday afternoon.
“Well, I don’t want you to feel hurt, I mean since you’re only home for the weekend,” Leigh offered.
“Oh, nonsense, Mom, go on,” Mandy said. “It’s fine. Michael can keep me company.” She was trying to be pert, but at her last sentence she couldn’t help the smile that lit up her face, the silly grin.
Leigh turned away, pretending to look in her purse for her keys, in order to hide the tears that had ambushed her. That child is lost, she thought; and she was sad that Mandy was so grown up, and glad that she was so happy, and envious all at the same time.
“Well,” Michael said, the moment Leigh had gone out the front door. “Now what shall we do?”
They didn’t even stop to kiss first; they just raced, like children, to Mandy’s bed.
My God, I’m in a spaceship, Wilbur thought when he opened his eyes. They’ve gone and made me an astronaut; here I am all wired up to beeping machines, uniformed and strapped in and monitored and prone in my own little solitary capsule. I only wish I knew where they were sending me.
There were four wires attached to what looked like little suction cups stuck to his abdomen, and an IV stuck into his right hand, which was tied, as was his left hand, to the bars of the bed. There were tubes up his nose, and he knew without seeing that there was a catheter in his penis. There was a curtain pulled around his bed and various machines hung and stood and clicked and dripped all around him.
I’m not very happy about all this, Wilbur thought. But thank God, I’m not dead yet.
“Oh, good for you, Mr. Wilson,” someone said, coming into his view. “You’re awake.” It was a tall, skinny, gray-haired nurse. She touched his arm gently, an introductory gesture. “I’m Selma. You’re in the hospital, you know, and I’m going to be your nurse for a while. How do you feel?”
“Ready to go home,” Wilbur said.
“Ha-ha,” Selma replied. “Listen, hang on, I’ll get your wife for you. I know she’d like to come see you. Just for a minute or two.”
“All right,” Wilbur said. “You go get her. I’ll just wait right here.”
He wished someone would cover his chest; it looked so scrawny from his vantage point, so bony, so goddamned pitifully frail. But he supposed that any covering would disturb all those wires. What few chest hairs he had curled around his nipples, gray and lank. He wished now that at least he’d been a hairier man, had a chest with hair so thick and matted that it would cover his vulnerability. He just looked too bare.
“Wilbur,” Norma said, and bent down to kiss his forehead. She had such a strange expression on her face—as if she were proud.
“Can you tell me what time it is?” Wilbur asked.
“Honey, it’s just about three o’clock.”
“And still Sunday?”
“Still Sunday.”
“Well, that’s all right, then,” Wilbur said.
“Yes, you’re going to be fine. Probably the worst you can expect for the next few days is a good long spell of boredom. But you should see the people in the waiting room. Everyone’s out there, and they all want me to give you their love. They’re all pulling for you.”
Wilbur could see them there, a crowd of people, really pulling for him, tugging on the lifeline that would bring him back down from this eerie outer space where he floated, back to the solid earth. “Well,” he said, confused for a moment.
“Wilbur, do you remember anything that happened? Do you know that it was Liza Howard who gave you CPR?”
Those words yanked Wilbur right back to reality. “Liza Howard?”
“She got right down on top of you in her fur coat and silk dress and gave you mouth-to-mouth and pushed on your chest.”
“Well, hell,” Wilbur said. “Mouth to mouth with Liza Howard and I didn
’t even know it. I wouldn’t call that fair.” But he grinned, just to think of it. “Would you thank her for me?”
“Yes, I’ll call her when I can. Stop grinning like that, you old reprobate. Stop thinking that way, you’ll get your heart all to racing.”
“It was my heart, then.”
“Yes, it was. I thought the doctors had told you—”
“Maybe they have. I’m not too clear about the past few hours.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Wilson, but your time’s up,” Selma said.
“Selma,” Wilbur said, when he was sure Norma was gone. The nurse was busy checking something at the foot of his bed. There was something about the way she wore her gray hair that reminded him of his grandmother, and so he didn’t feel too humiliated to ask his question. “Can you tell me how I am? I’m not going to die right away, am I?” Selma looked startled, as if his question had no relevance to his situation. “Why, no, Mr. Wilson, you’re not going to die right away,” she said, coming up closer to his face and smiling. “You’re going to be fine. You just need to rest.”
“I’m afraid to close my eyes,” he admitted. “It’s like when I was a little boy. Sometimes at night I couldn’t go to sleep. I was afraid that once I closed my eyes and—let go—I wouldn’t ever wake up again.”
“I promise you you’ll wake up again,” Selma said. “It’s been a very minor attack, Mr. Wilson. The more rest you get, the faster you’ll recover.”
Oh, I do love women who take care, Wilbur thought. I do love women who know answers and make things safe. It’s possible that he said aloud, “Selma, I love you,” or he might have just thought he said those words as he closed his eyes and fell away from his poor puny body into a generous sleep.
Priscilla and Seth had been invited by another family to go to Southmark Plaza to see Walt Disney’s Cinderella and then to eat at the new Pizza Palace, so Suzanna had dressed them up, tucked money in their pockets, and waved them off to their afternoon’s delights, smiling all the while at the thought of what delights her afternoon would hold. She could not remember when she and Madeline had been able to make love in the daylight—either they were always teaching or the children were around. At night, by the time the children were in bed and really asleep, Suzanna was so tired. But now it was Sunday afternoon, and a good four hours of freedom and light stretched out in front of her.
