by Dana Canedy
The night of our party, as Charles waited in the kitchen for my answer, I thought back to the incident and what it said about us. Then I looked at him, the actual man in my life, and I realized that in the ways that truly mattered, he could be my ideal. He did not wear fancy clothes or have a lot of money, but what he had he happily shared with me. He was not the sort of man to make his views known during a dinner party, but his art spoke loudly about the way he viewed the world. Through his drawings it was obvious that he loved God and children and history and rainstorms and me.
“Charles,” I said softly, when I went back into the kitchen. “Yes, it would be my honor to be your girlfriend.”
He grinned and hugged me.
“Let’s not pretend this is always going to be easy,” I said. “Our lives are very different, and I don’t want to give up my career to follow you around military bases. Can you handle that?”
“Dana, I’d never ask you to give up your career,” he said. “We’ll work it out.”
We kissed, breathlessly, until the doorbell announced the arrival of our first guests.
That weekend was a turning point. The last of our guests lingered until after midnight, as Charles sat patiently on the couch stroking my hair. When we finally closed the door behind them, he pulled me into his arms and said that he loved me. He had been patient, but I knew he wanted to show me.
I was suddenly nervous and pulled away from him to change out of my low-cut blouse and black slacks. I returned wearing an oversize sweat suit and socks but was getting so worked up that I had begun to perspire. So I did an about-face and changed into a peach nightgown that fell below the knee but had spaghetti straps and a touch of lace at the décolletage. I walked back into the living room and asked Charles if he would like a beer. He did not have time to answer before I raced back into the bedroom and changed a third time, into my favorite nightshirt—a white oversize T-shirt with a picture of Mr. Potato Head that said: “The Perfect Boyfriend: He’s cute, he’s a good listener, and if he looks at another girl you can rearrange his face.” The shirt fell just above my knees but it was not, unlike the nightgown, a neon sign flashing “Sexy.”
Charles burst out laughing. “What are you trying to tell me?”
I was not sure whether he was talking about the message on my shirt or all the times I had changed, but I did not think it was the least bit funny. I paced the room, willing him not to notice my curves. I talked but do not remember what on earth about. Charles simply followed my movements with his eyes, clearly waiting for me to decide what would come next.
Then he stood up and walked slowly toward me. I was not used to seeing him so sure of himself, and it only increased my anxiety.
“What do you want?” he calmly asked, turning me to face him.
I was at once frightened and exhilarated. What if he hated my body? What if we made love and I lost control? Did this mean that I loved him?
No, he had not read his way through the New York Times bestseller list, but he could make me blush just by looking at me, and I could no longer fight my attraction. I had spent my life trying to control my emotions, but I had been hurt anyway. I was not nearly as tough as I pretended to be. I wanted somebody to hold, somebody who would stay. Perhaps I had found him in this gentle soul now gazing at me and waiting for my answer.
I put my hands on his chest and looked up at him.
“I want you,” I said, and he gave me all of himself.
Five
Dear Jordan,
By the time your father came into my life, I had been dating long enough to know how to flirt and to put together a sexy outfit (usually black) to attract a man. What I still had not learned was how to fully love a man—or to let him love me. So when Charles turned to me a year into our relationship and said that he could see me being his wife someday, I panicked. We had settled into a rhythm that I was comfortable with and suddenly he wanted to change the tempo. I had given him space in my closet—no small thing in a city where every centimeter is precious. The doorman no longer stopped him on his way up to my apartment. Charles and I spent vacations together and most holidays. Our parents and siblings knew one another. Wasn’t that commitment enough?
I loved Charles deeply and did not want to lose him, but I was still cynical about men and love and marriage. Perhaps it was because, when it came to understanding relationships, the only example I had was my parents’, if that even counted.
Then, too, the question of our differentness had never gone away. Charles was a proud, traditional man. Although he expected his partner to contribute substantially he had always envisioned himself as the primary breadwinner.
I wondered if Charles could truly be happy married to a willful woman who earned considerably more than he did. I also wondered whether our marriage would survive if we lived in separate cities until he retired from the military. Charles was forty-one and intended to remain in the military at least another ten years. His goal was to attain the rank of sergeant major before retiring with a full pension and joining me in New York. Since I was seven years younger, he understood that I would be working long after he retired. But he worried that his pension would not go far in such an expensive city, and that he would not be able to contribute much toward a mortgage or other shared expenses. I pointed out that in New York he could pursue an art career, and he mentioned the possibility of working as a corporate security consultant or possibly a teacher.
I thought about all the changes Charles was willing to make to be with me and realized I had not even considered what sacrifices I would make for him. What if his daughter wanted to live with us? I had not seriously thought about what it meant to be a wife, let alone a stepmother. And what about children of our own? Charles had always wanted more kids, but I was still not sure I wanted any. I liked my independence too much—and my sleep.
Then I took stock of all that was good between me and Charles. We had reached a point in our courtship where we knew things about each other that only come with time: shoe sizes, savings account balances, food allergies. I knew how to touch him when I was tired and wanted to quicken our lovemaking. He knew how to make me relax and get lost in the moment. I depended on him.
The trouble was, it was becoming difficult to make time for each other. We still talked on the phone every evening when neither of us was traveling, and we looked for ways to keep our passion from fading. Once he gave me an erotic drawing he had created of the two of us; I sent him cards with lipstick-stain kisses. But our jobs were increasingly demanding, and, between holidays, we spent months apart. Charles had been promoted again and was often out of contact during training exercises, which could be dangerous.
Charles told me about this incident not long after it happened, explaining that if a tank rolled over, the occupants were often crushed. But I somehow knew there were other incidents I never heard about.
My job was not dangerous but, like Charles, I was intensely focused on my work. The Times’s top editors had chosen me in the summer of 1999 to participate in an ambitious project: a series of articles about race relations in America. I would be writing one of the stories as well as serving as one of the editors of the overall project. We would have a year to work exclusively on the series, and only the best stories would make it into the paper. I knew there was no way my career would survive if I spent a year writing one story and it was rejected for publication. The challenge consumed me.
I asked Charles to be patient until I finished the race project, as I was too distracted to make any life-altering decisions. He was supportive, but I was not sure he completely understood why I was still so driven after already having made it to the Times. He did not realize that I was still trying to demonstrate that I belonged, especially to those colleagues who considered the trainee program an affirmative-action scheme. Also, because of the high cost of living in New York, I had practically no money in the bank. If I could not succeed on my own, I had no one to fall back on financially.
The story I was writ
ing was about two columnists for the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio who had been major contributors to that newspaper’s own series on race relations five years earlier. The series had won a Pulitzer, but, ironically, the paper had been beset by racial tension ever since. The columnists—one black, one white—had wrangled in print over the use of the word niggardly, and the debate had polarized the newsroom along racial lines. I was to spend that year following the men and interviewing their colleagues, bosses, and families to understand and chronicle what had been stirred up. That meant spending part of the week in Akron, then returning to New York to be part of the editing team.
By the fall, I was several months into the project and was overwhelmed and exhausted. I was living on airport and hotel food, had developed a persistent cough, and rarely got out of bed on the weekends. Charles tried to keep me focused. “I’m proud of you, girl!” he would say. “Keep doing your thing.”
But we had not seen each other in a month, and I missed his touch.
“Charles, I need to be with you,” I told him one bleak night, calling from yet another hotel room. He said he missed me, too, and that he would request a four-day pass as soon as possible. We agreed that we would stay in Akron and drive to Cleveland to surprise his parents, who hadn’t seen him in months.
On a gray Friday afternoon, I was conducting interviews in the Beacon Journal newsroom, but my mind was on my man. He would be arriving in Akron that evening and taking a cab to my hotel. I could not wait to feel his breath on my neck and explore the ripples of muscle on his stomach.
By the time I got back to the hotel that October evening, the sky was overcast and the temperature had dropped precipitously. I opened a bottle of wine and poured myself a glass. Charles would be arriving in an hour, plenty of time to take a long shower, slather myself with scented lotion, and put on the black silk nightgown I had packed. But two and a half hours later, I had still not heard from Charles.
I tried his cell phone. No answer. I tried his parents and one of his friends. Again, no answer. I began to pace, feeling sick to my stomach. I turned on CNN to see whether there was news of a plane crash. I drank another glass of wine. Finally, I called the airline and confirmed that his plane had arrived safely, and on time.
At that point I knew Charles must have missed his flight. He had cut it close so many times before by staying at work too long. I also knew that rather than call and tell me the news, he might not phone at all. The thought infuriated me. I wanted to hear from him why he had been delayed. He could not possibly think I would have stayed the weekend in dreary, industrial Akron if I were not waiting for him. I wanted an explanation, and his silence struck me as monumentally selfish.
By midnight I had drunk most of the bottle of wine. I fell into an anxious sleep.
The ringing phone woke me in the middle of the night.
“Charles?” I said.
“Yeah.” He sounded weary.
“Where are you?”
“Kansas,” he said. “One of my soldiers’ wives was having a baby and I had to go to the hospital to help him out.”
“Help him do what?”
“Dana, he’sjustakid. He was scared. Can we talk in the morning?” he pleaded.
“Are you kidding me?” I said, my voice rising. “First of all, it is nearly morning! Second, I’m stuck in Akron, Ohio, waiting for you, and you didn’t even have the decency to call to let me know you weren’t coming. I thought you were in a plane crash. Hell no, we’re not waiting until the morning. I want to talk now.”
The conversation deteriorated from there.
“Dana, you don’t understand. I have to be there for my soldiers,” Charles insisted.
Oh, I had heard all this before and had tried so hard to understand. I knew that he needed to be needed, to be a giver. He thrived on his paternalism. Care taking—of me and his men—gave him a sense of purpose. But at that moment the balance seemed way off.
“Charles, I respect your dedication to your soldiers, I really do,” I told him. “But I don’t always agree with your priorities. It’s one thing to be there to bail a guy out of jail or to help with a family emergency. It’s another to give up what little time off you have to sit in a hospital holding a grown man’s hand while his wife gives birth. That is not your job. We haven’t spent any time together in almost six weeks, and then you don’t show up over something like this.”
There was a pause. Neither of us knew what to say.
“Are you coming tomorrow?” I finally asked.
He sighed. “No. I can’t change my ticket, and I wouldn’t be able to get there until late tomorrow afternoon anyway.”
“Charles, I don’t think you understand how hurt I am. We needed this time together, but if that wasn’t going to happen you could have at least let me know. I could have taken a flight to come see you or gone home.”
He was silent.
“Well, say something, Charles. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough,” I insisted. “Are you seeing another woman? Is that really why you missed your flight?” I knew it was a mistake to say it, but I was frustrated—and I had grown up with a father who always had flimsy excuses for his absences.
“Dana, of course not. You can talk to my soldier if you want to.”
“I’m sure you could get any one of your soldiers to say anything you wanted.”
“Dana, if you don’t trust me by now, I don’t know what to tell you. Have I given you any reason to think I’m cheating on you? You know where I am twenty-four hours a day.”
“I didn’t know where you were tonight,” I shot back. “Then you have the nerve to call after midnight and expect me to accept your excuse. You let me sit here knowing I was going to be worried.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Dana.”
“Damn it, Charles, stop saying that. If we can’t communicate any better than this and protect what little time we have together, then maybe this won’t work.” I paused, then said in anger, “I think maybe we should see other people.”
Silence again.
“Fine, Dana, if that’s what you want.”
We said good-bye and hung up.
I sat on the edge of the bed, shaking and crying. I could not stop thinking about everything that had ever frustrated me about Charles: his passivity, his occasional jealousy, the way he sulked or shut down when he was upset. Even though I had gotten pretty good at it, I was tired of trying to read his mind.
I cried myself to sleep and awoke a few hours later to arrange a flight home. I sat by a window in my hotel room, watching the rain, and it was all I could do to choke down breakfast. I had to be back in Akron on Monday, but I needed to go home and tend to my wounds, if only for one night. I packed my bags in slow motion, hoping Charles would call, but the phone did not ring.
When the plane touched down at LaGuardia, the sky was overcast, but at least it was not raining. I sat in the cab with my head tilted back and my eyes closed, trying not to cry. I was still angry, but I missed Charles and did not know what to do.
The ache in my stomach returned when I got home and saw that he had not left a message. I took a shower, got into bed, and pulled the covers over my head.
The weekend went by and Charles still had not called. Then another week came and went with no word from him. I knew I had been wrong to suggest ending our relationship, but he was just as wrong for not arguing back—for giving up on us. And so easily. Charles knew the things I feared most were infidelity and rejection, and his leaving me in that hotel alone had fed my insecurities. I realized that he must be hurting, too, and that it was his dislike of conflict that made him clam up, but I still could not bring myself to call him.
We were at an impasse.
The week of silence turned into two and then three. This was the first real test of our relationship and we were failing. I gathered Charles’s clothes, drawing pad, protein powder, and other belongings and put them in a box at t
he back of my closet. But I could not bring myself to send them to him. I could not believe that after all we had said that we meant to each other, we had not fought to hold on to what we had. I guess distance had made it too easy for us to avoid dealing with our differences.
Perhaps he was feeling sentimental as the holidays approached, because Charles finally called one evening in early November and said he missed me. He asked how the race project was going. I told him that we were making good progress but that I would be glad when it was over and I could take some time off. The conversation was polite but strained. There was so much I wanted to know. Why hadn’t he called before now? Had he been dating? Did he still love me? I suspected that Charles had questions for me, too.
“Listen, Charles. I’m sorry about what happened. I know this is not the time, but I’d like to talk about it.”
“Me, too,” he said, and then surprised me. “Can I come see you.’
Surprising myself I said yes.
Charles arrived on a Friday evening a couple of weeks later. When I opened the door and saw him standing there, I put my arms around him and held on. He was bashful when I finally let go and he chuckled nervously. He took a seat on my chaise lounge and I asked if he was hungry. He said he was not and then stared at my apartment, as though seeking clues to my life without him. I sat next to him sipping a cup of tea. The awkwardness was painful. I decided to try to break through it.
“Charles, do you still care about me?”
He looked aghast.
“Of course, girl. Why do you think I’m here?”
I smiled and squeezed his arm.
“You know we have to talk about what happened, why our relationship was so fragile,” I said.
He said he knew, but that we had all weekend. It did not take that long.
He followed me to the bedroom and I laid my head on his chest and fell asleep. Charles was staring at me when I awoke later that evening. He stroked my face and smiled.
