by C. S. Lakin
“My roommate’s gone home for the holidays. Left me her Mazda. I’ve got the best idea.” She pulled on his arm; Jake let her lead him.
“Where are we going?” he asked, laughing. She was dragging him as if hauling a sack of potatoes behind her.
“First to my place, then to yours. Then . . . to Las Vegas!”
Jake dug in his heels halfway across the lawn. “Vegas? What—you want to go gamble?” She’d just turned twenty-one. He could picture her shouting at the clanging of a slot jackpot. How many times had he heard her complain how boring LA was? Not enough glamour and excitement.
She stopped and turned to him. “I don’t need to gamble. I’ve already won my jackpot.”
Jake waited for an explanation. He was missing something, with her words falling in the cracks between them.
“Come. I’m parked over there.” She pointed at a speedy-looking orange Mazda convertible coupe. Her eyes grew wide as an idea struck home. “We can ride all through the night with the top down.” She ran her finger down from his throat to the waistband of his jeans. “And if you ask nicely, I might even ride with my top down . . .”
She laughed and fiddled with his zipper. There, on the curb, under the streetlamps.
“Hey, what are you doing!”
She threw back her head and laughed. “I just love that about you—how self-conscious you are. Maybe you need another drink . . .”
“That’s the last thing I need.” He worked at zipping his pants back up, his fingers mostly uncooperative.
“Jake.” She moved in slowly and kissed him, her lips lingering on his. “Tell me you love me,” she said, unmoving, her mouth tickling him.
Her lips resting there, waiting, and her fingers playing under his shirt, fingers of fire scribbling promises on his skin, did him in. He knew he was trapped, cornered. But it was comfortable, enticing. He gave up; there was no escape. He knew he was about to fall off that cliff, and once taking the step, there’d be no way back up to that ledge where he once stood so securely, a million years ago.
“I do love you, Leah. With all my heart.” He didn’t realize how much he meant it until the words fell out of his mouth. He said them again, just to be sure. Evaluate their weight in the night air. See if they crashed hard to the ground, shattered. They didn’t. They took wing and soared through the sky.
Leah let out a long breath and sucked in another. Just like that moment when she’d dragged him into the ocean and jutted beneath the waves, watched him with glassy eyes as the shock of cold salty water stung his face and they spoke without speaking, hidden from the world above, the surge bumping him against her like two docked boats at the mercy of the tide. He recalled emerging from that tenebrous dream, his head breaking the surface into warm air and sunlight, feeling newly birthed into the world.
She stopped at the car and turned. “Let’s elope. Get married,” she whispered.
His head broke the skin of another dream, but this new terrain felt foreign, unfamiliar. He gazed around him, down the street, across the lawn back to the dorm spilling out light and indecipherable noise. He had landed somewhere strange, his footing unsure. His head fuzzed in its alcoholic haze, his skin numb. The air lacked temperature; the only heat radiating in the universe came from the body pressed up against him. Warm, so warm.
He nuzzled into Leah, burrowing into a sheltered winter den. “Yes?” she asked, her question swelling with such emotion and anticipation he thought it would burst.
Jake looked for the exit sign, finding only Leah’s emerald eyes, eyes that had trapped him the instant he stepped off that bus. No way out, only in. A one-way ticket from his heart to hers. No other stops on this freeway of life. No detours. He didn’t need any. He realized he had arrived at his destination.
Jake let his surefooted gaze wander loose into her eyes. She let him in, a wide swung-open door. He nodded.
She hugged him and squealed and in the midst of her laughter he heard his mother’s distress, saw his father’s stern disapproval. Ethan wagged his head slowly in disgust. He held Leah tightly to dispel the invading army of dissent, relishing the giddy freedom his reckless act engendered. Before his family could breech the fortress and remand him back to the land of sanity, he opened the car door for her, then went around and got into the passenger’s side.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Leah turned the key in the ignition and tore away into the night, ripping any remaining hesitancy he held into shreds, pieces that flew with abandon out the window and into the irretrievable past
.
1972
It’s Too Late to Turn Back Now
Getting in deep, losing my sleep
Thinking of you all the time
I feel I’m falling under your spell
About to lose my mind
But it’s too late to turn back now
It’s too late now
Too late to turn back now
You got me now
Feel the danger in your touch
Haunts me night and day
You know I want you way too much
But I can’t walk away
Cause it’s too late to turn back now
It’s too late now
Too late to turn back now
You got me now
—Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose
“Rub my feet, Jake sweetie. They ache so much.”
Jake felt Leah’s bulging belly push against the back of his chair as he bent over his typewriter. He didn’t dare let out an audible sigh. He knew his arguments would fall like rotten fruit to the floor, with Leah scowling in disappointment if he gave her one more excuse. She just wouldn’t take a backseat to his studies. Sure, he understood the pregnancy made her irritable, gave her erratic mood swings. He encouraged her to quit her part-time job at the club but she wouldn’t, even though she didn’t need the money; the allowance her rich parents sent her each month more than covered her expenses. “I’d go stir-crazy, sitting at home, counting the days,” she’d told him. Although, he couldn’t figure how she justified exposing the baby to roomfuls of smoke and blaring music when she gasped in horror at the offer of sugar or caffeine. Wouldn’t even eat a Milky Way—her favorite. No wonder after hours on her feet, waitressing long into the night, her ankles would swell unbearably.
He pushed back his chair and gestured to the couch. “Over here. Sit and I’ll take care of you.”
Leah smiled and rested her hands on her baby, so big in there he looked ready to be born, though she still had another two months. She’d been so insistent. The baby had to be a boy, the way she was carrying him so low and forward. She wouldn’t even consider girls’ names. His name would be Reuben. Something about The Stones’ song “Ruby Tuesday.” He hoped she didn’t plan to call the boy Ruby. Wasn’t that a girl’s name?
He hummed the tune in his head and the lyrics seeped in. He could see why she dug that song. “Don’t question why she needs to be so free. She’ll tell you it’s the only way to be. And she just can’t be chained . . . to a life where nothing’s gained and nothing’s lost . . . at such a cost . . .”
Jake looked her over as she settled back on the couch with a sigh, closing her eyes and waiting for Jake’s touch. He glanced back over at his stack of notes that barely held together as a final draft for his English paper. He’d trod water this semester, what with Leah’s mood swings and increasing demands. Her tossing in the bed all night, searching for a comfortable position that never was forthcoming, stole all his sleep away. It took herculean effort to stay awake during class lectures, and his note-taking often resembled bird scratches that were indecipherable upon review.
They hadn’t planned on the pregnancy; that was the last thing Jake needed in his life at the moment. Leah had been taking the pill—or so she said. Maybe she’d forgotten to take a few. She did have a hard time focusing on things that required allotted times and days. Her spontaneity rammed into a structured life. It was all Jake could do to keep her on track with bas
ic things like locking the door when she went out and writing expenditures in the checkbook register.
He sidled up beside her and put her feet in his lap. When he began rubbing her heels in small circles she moaned in delight. “Oh, you’re good. What would I do without you?”
With her eyes closed he felt free to study her more closely. Her face, dotted with freckles, was angelic. And as much as she complained about her excess weight and her dry skin and hair, he’d never seen her so beatific. He never imagined a woman could so love being pregnant, but Leah carried herself in a continual state of bliss, loving the power of her body growing another, always marveling at the miracle of this mysterious child connected to her and lodged deep in a secret place, whereas Jake felt a certain disconnect. He knew in his head the child was his, that he’d shared in bringing this new life into existence. But try as hard as he could to fathom the reality of his circumstance, he couldn’t stir up any excitement, only an abiding trepidation, a warning that he’d stepped over some line, that it was too late to turn back now, should he hope to.
Leah had read him a poem she’d written last night as they got ready for bed. Something about her baby floating in a vast sea, a lifeline tethering him to her dock, about to emerge from one warm dark sea into a chaotic cold and turbulent ocean that would set him adrift. The tone of the poem was disturbingly somber. Was she worrying about the delivery? If the baby would be okay? Which brought him around to the topic she’d been avoiding.
“You can’t keep this back from your parents much longer. They deserve to know—”
Leah squirmed and sat up straighter. “We’ve been over this, Jake. My parents are the establishment. I don’t want them anywhere near our kids. They’ll brainwash them with their capitalistic, conservative views. They voted for Nixon, for God’s sake!”
“Okay, I understand, but you know my mother can’t come out to help once the baby’s born; my dad’s cataracts are bad and they’re not even sure the surgery will help—”
“And I told you I can manage just fine on my own. Lucy will be here for the birth. She’s a nursing major, and you’ve met Noreen. She’s the best midwife around. I’m in good hands, Jake. Stop worrying so much.”
She reached over and stroked his cheek. “Our baby’s gonna be so beautiful. I know once you hold him, all your concerns will just melt away. You’ll be a great father. And we don’t need much to get by; we live frugally. You just keep up with school and soon you’ll be able to open that wood shop. Who said you have to get straight A’s anyway?”
“That’s not the point. I’m trying to learn how to start up and run a successful business. You can’t just rent some space and cross your fingers, hoping you’ll make some money.”
“Silly, if you create beautiful things, people will buy them. They’ll sell themselves.”
Jake shook his head. Like that really worked in the real world. Maybe Leah would manage just fine once the baby arrived. And it probably was a good thing his mother couldn’t come out right away. The tension in their last phone conversation had been so palpable he could feel her searing judgment come through the receiver in waves. Not that she said much outright, but she’d hardly masked her disappointment. He supposed she had just cause to be angry. He’d gone off and married without any thought of her, without bringing Leah home for them to meet and approve of—which they wouldn’t have done, but he didn’t voice those thoughts. And then, Leah getting pregnant so unexpectedly, before they’d even had time to settle into their relationship, the baby already an intrusion in their lives, disrupting more than just Jake’s sleep.
This baby like a boulder in his path, a rock to trip over, a roadblock to get around. He didn’t want to feel that way, but there it was.
He looked back at Leah, her head sunk into the pillow, her eyes closed in dreamy fashion. If he pushed hard, he could complete college in his planned four-year track. Leah told him school was a waste of money and time. If he wanted to master wood crafting, why not apprentice with someone? Save the tuition and school fees. All those useless, unrelated courses they made you take—and to what end? So you could hang a piece of paper on the wall, frame it even. Something to point to with pride. Anyone could get a piece of paper; what made you an artist was talent, craft, practice. How did he expect to express his talent sitting in a classroom working math equations?
He knew she had a point. But that college degree dangled before him, a cherished prize, the golden ring. No one in his family had ever completed college; he wanted to be the first. It was an accomplishment in itself. A dream he had latched onto some while back that had never left him. Was he just being impractical? He looked back at his desk, piled with books and papers that stared at him expectantly. He rubbed his tired eyes and suppressed a yawn. His small apartment felt claustrophobic, with Leah’s furnishings and macramé and plants hanging from hooks, blocking the windows. Indian tapestries slung over the thresholds of doors and fat pillows lay scattered across the floor like stepping-stones. The scent of patchouli and jasmine incense cloyed the air, made him light-headed and nauseated. He felt his life slipping from his grasp, miring in the complexity of his days and the muddling of his priorities. Another verse of “Ruby Tuesday” ran through his mind.
“There’s no time to lose, I heard her say. Go catch your dreams before they slip away. And dying all the time . . . Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind. Ain’t life unkind?”
Leah’s deep measured breathing told him she’d fallen asleep. He glanced into the small kitchen nook. Dishes from the last few meals lay piled on the counters, stacked haphazardly in the sink. The trash can looked about to overflow onto the linoleum floor. Leah’s clothing draped chairs and dotted the dull carpeting like a sprinkling of colorful flowers. Underwear, tie-dyed blouses, stretchy green tights. His mother had kept her house spotless, dusted, picked up. If you used a spoon, she expected it washed and put back in the drawer as soon as you were done with it. Efficient and proficient, she had ordered her world and kept the Abrams men fed, clothed, clean, and presentable. Living like this, with Leah spread over the small apartment, stretching more as her own belly stretched, taking up more space and filling more corners of his life and routine, upset Jake’s sense of equilibrium. The room rocked and swayed like a boat on rough seas, a visible extension of his life. Would he figure out a way to navigate before he ran into hidden shoals that would break him apart?
He wished he knew the answer to that.
I was . . . immersed in a pool of memory / drifting, moaning in silence.
Leah put down her pen and looked over at Reuben, fussing in his crib, resisting the surrender of sleep the way babies tended to do. He lay so far away, detached. She rested her hand on her now-flat stomach, feeling empty, deprived. Even when she held him close to her heart, nursed him, he still drifted from her, no longer tethered.
Tears streamed down her face. The sound was turned low on the TV and she knew she was only torturing herself, watching the massacre in Munich over and over. Young, vibrant lives snuffed out, gunned down. Senseless—a microcosm of the entire world gone mad. Which she already knew but somehow this reminder pained her deeply. And the September heat wave only exacerbated her fatigue. Did she dare hope Nixon would really bring home the troops, that US involvement in the war would really end? She snorted. No wonder he was landsliding the polls, with promises like that. Even with the Watergate scandal. Were people really that blind? She couldn’t help but defer to hopelessness.
She tore her gaze from the news broadcast and resumed writing.
I saw . . . the sky ripped in two and undulations of water lapped the shores. / Pain escaped through the crack made in the world, / the same fissure that sucked out my spirit the day my heart imploded.
The front door swung open. Leah wiped away tears as Jake stomped into the apartment, watched the way he took in the disarray that pooled around her. Only now she noticed the sour smell: breast milk drying on her blouse, diapers, baby. Even with the windows open. A breezele
ss day, stifling.
“Hey,” he said, coming over to her, dropping his backpack to the floor. His face reflected the somber concern that seemed pasted on, that was starting to irritate her more each day. What happened to the joyful spark that used to light up his eyes, the smile that once set her heart racing?
“You’ve been crying. What’s wrong, Leah? I don’t get it.”
She didn’t need him to explain what “it” was. It was everything, every day, the oppression of small spaces, small minds, corrupt governments, heartless politicians. Her list could wrap the globe countless times and still she could come up with more travesties. Why had she brought a child into this world, when she knew she would be helpless to protect him?
He sat beside her on the couch, glanced over at the crib. “Is the baby okay? Eating well?”
She nodded. Her attention drifted back to the TV and Jake watched a moment in silence.
“Maybe you shouldn’t watch this stuff,” he said. “The news always upsets you.”
More tears leaked out. She didn’t want him to see her cry again. He put an arm around her, drew her close. “It’s okay. You’re exhausted, hot. Why don’t we take a walk to the beach? You could wade through the water; that would help, wouldn’t it?”
Oh Jake, sweet, naive Jake. Thinking these emotions could be so easily cooled, rinsed off like a thin film of scum. “Sure,” she said with a sigh. She lifted herself up from the couch, exerting against gravity, not just the pull of the earth but a weighed-down heart. As Jake went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, she picked up her sheet of paper, flimsy in her hands, but the words felt heavy. As he fixed himself a sandwich, she wrote the lines as they seared her mind.
