What Nora Knew

by Yellin, Linda

  Maybe Russell would deliver a woe-filled eulogy on how he tried to put my bones back together but they were in too much disarray. As an apology, he’d hand out business cards offering one free neck crack per mourner. Deirdre, dressed in black with inappropriate cleavage, would be unable to speak through her tears of regret, having come up with the assignment in the first place. “I was about to offer her a column!” she’d blubber through her sobs.

  The entire EyeSpy staff would attend—publication suspended in my memory—the employees all thrilled to have a free day off; Emily Lawler in the front row snickering, and Kristine and Angela in the back row making out with their boyfriends. And afterward my father would grill burgers for all the guests, and my mother would distribute memorial plaques with my decoupaged face. The thing is, throughout my entire imaginary circus, I could picture Cameron Duncan standing off in a corner, sad, alone, making a rose out of a paper napkin and crying genuine tears.

  When I arrived at what looked like the middle of a mowed-down cornfield, I walked into the aluminum-sided Manhattan Skydive office that looked a whole lot bigger in the website photo than in real life. Damn fish-eye lenses. The first thing I did was fill out paperwork, most of which boiled down to “I won’t sue you, I won’t sue you, I won’t sue you.” On the last page was the line Skydiving can kill you. But on the bright side, that’s rare.

  Way to go, optimists!

  My class was small, only six of us, so already I was nervous. Why weren’t there more people here? Where did the smart skydivers go? We sat on a bench in the back of a hangar, one plane in the hangar, two others parked out on the runway. We watched a video for all first-time jumpers. It was like a Disney cartoon, except instead of singing chipmunks and birds we got happy people flying through the air. Our instructor, an upbeat young man named Haywood with reassuring broad shoulders and a jutting jaw, informed us that he’d personally logged over four thousand jumps. He asked us to go around and introduce ourselves, say what brought us to Manhattan Skydive. The woman next to me was celebrating her thirty-fifth birthday along with her fidgety friend, who was celebrating her thirty-eighth birthday. Dickie and Patty were celebrating their engagement, and a gung ho sort who introduced himself as Denby was celebrating his divorce. I felt bad not having anything to celebrate, so I said I was celebrating my rich aunt’s dying and leaving me money in her will with the one condition that I try her lifelong passion, skydiving.

  Haywood ran us through twenty minutes of ground training before suiting us up and assigning us to our planes and our jump buddies. Denby’s jump buddy was a statuesque young woman with a sexy mole above the corner of her top lip. He was pleased, but not as thrilled as I was to be paired with Haywood and his four thousand jumps. The birthday girls were assigned to the first plane on the runway, the engaged couple to the second plane on the runway. I was happy. It could take hours to pull my plane out of the hangar. Then Haywood and I were assigned to a new contender, a plane that appeared out of nowhere—well, out of the sky—and swept in on the short runway, landing amid a flurry of noise. I worried it was low on gas.

  I boarded last, stepping up onto the strut and ducking into the low doorway. “What? No stewardess?” I said. The pilot directed me to strap in. He wasn’t wearing a parachute, a good sign. He turned a key to start the plane. A key? Even the engine sounded picayune. I gripped the sides of my seat until we were airborne. By then I had to holler to be heard over the noise. “Has anyone ever chickened out!” The plane was so cramped my knees were bumping against all the other knees, Denby’s knees and mine shaking in unison. Haywood shouted for us to remember to hold the straps, bend our feet back, keep our eyes open, and look at the canopy.

  All I cared about was remembering to pull the rip cord. Haywood and I were jumping first. He opened the door to a blast of thundering noise and cold air in my face, checked my harness, and hooked his front to my back. Having to choose between the fear of jumping and the indignity of riding back down in that tiny plane, stepping off onto the runway with my parachute and Haywood still attached to me, was reason enough to plummet forward.

  I jumped. We plunged. I don’t remember much between that point and the ground. I was floating in a wind tunnel, almost unaware that Haywood was lashed behind me. It was beautiful. Then scary. I pulled the cord. Felt the lurch and jolt of the chute’s opening and tugging us upward, until we glided earthbound and free. I loved it. I fell in love with it. If only falling in real life love were this easy. Take a big breath and open your eyes.

  17

  Russell showed up after a day of Saturday appointments, sniffling and blowing his nose, unable to get through half a sentence without a ker-chew! “Why’s the TV so loud?” he asked.

  “Kevin and Lacey.” I pointed to the wall. I listened. “I think they’re done.” I turned off the television.

  Russell sneezed. “Damn ragweed,” he said.

  “Ragweed season’s not until August.”

  “That’s in two days.” He sat on the sofa, loosened his tie, and complained about his watery nose, his scratchy eyes, and his enlarged tonsils.

  “You still have tonsils?” I sat next to him, held his hand, then remembered he’d sneezed into it. “What did your patients say while you were sneezing all over them?”

  “They have allergies, too.”

  “All of them?”

  “One out of five Americans do.”

  “And four out of five of us don’t. Did you take an antihistamine?”

  He nodded yes. “You know, mosquitoes breed dengue fever.”

  “And you should worry about that why?” My solid, dependable, more-or-less-member-of-the-medical-community boyfriend was not demonstrating impressive behavior. Evan was the same way. Toss him into court with a jury for an audience, a demanding client, and a hanging judge to boot, and he’d manage to rip the opposition’s net worth and self-worth to shreds. But at the first hint of a head cold, the man crumbled. I suppose I should muster up more sympathy for the ailing man-babies in my life, at least offer to fulfill a sexy nurse fantasy or two, but my mother never fussed when any of her daughters claimed poor health. She’d hold palm to forehead and say, “Yep, a little warm. Now throw some clothes on and don’t be late for school.” She seemed to honestly believe that looking illness straight in the red, itchy eye built character. Even if you did stay home, there was no upside. We’d have to help vacuum and dust, iron our sheets. My sisters and I developed strong immune systems early in life. There was no point not to.

  Russell sneezed.

  I handed him a fresh Kleenex. “We better not go to the movies,” I said.

  “But I want to see Cowboys and Aliens.”

  “How do you think the other patrons will feel after they’ve forked over thirteen bucks for a ticket and you’re sitting next to them spewing mold spores?” I maintained that common courtesy required sneezing people to sacrifice their own pleasure for the good of the majority. Russell pointed out the extenuating circumstances; it was opening weekend.

  “What if you take a nap, a short one?” I said. “Not one of those naps where you wake up two days later and say, ‘I can’t believe I slept so long,’ but just long enough to make sure you feel okay and then we’ll go. The nine o’clock show instead of the seven? You can wait that long, can’t you? While you rest, I’ll go online and order tickets in advance.” That was a lie. It galls me to pay an extra $1.75 handling fee on ticket prices that are already offensive. We’d buy them at the theater at the regular offensive price, instead of the really offensive price. “A power nap,” I said. “You’ll take a power nap.”

  Russell agreed to my plan as soon as I said the word power. I followed him into my bedroom. He removed his loafers, lining them neatly at the foot of my bed, unbuttoned his shirt, and draped it on the back of the upholstered chair. He took off his watch and set it on the nightstand next to the clock radio, a copy of The House of Mirth, and the paper-napkin rose that Cameron had made. “Are you sure we don’t have to set the al
arm?” Russell asked.

  “I’m your human alarm. Do you need your sleep mask?”

  “Not for a power nap,” he said.

  I pulled back the covers and he climbed in, sneezing twice before drifting off. I curled up on my chair and watched him sleep. Some men look sweet and innocent when they rest; sleeping brings out a tender boyishness in them. I once dated a man for months longer than I should have because I confused his sleep face with his awake personality. But Russell’s jaw hangs loose, his face goes slack, and his tongue hangs out; it’s not what you’d call his most attractive time of day. He wheezed, grunted, and rolled over. You have many fine qualities, Dr. Russell Edley, I thought. You really do. And you deserve to be loved for them, not just appreciated; adored, not just accepted. In the back of my closet a pair of brown leather boots had been taking up residence for years. They were never quite right. Not from day one. While shopping, I tried them half a size larger, half a size smaller; something about the cut was off. But they’re lovely to look at with many attributes—water-resistant, midheel, rubber-soled bottoms—so I ignored the way they pinched and bought them anyway, hoping that one day I’d slip them on and discover they magically fit.

  I woke Russell at 8:15, asked if he felt well enough for the movie. He insisted he was fine. He coughed. Then sneezed. He picked up the paper flower on my nightstand and used it to blow his nose.

  * * *

  The movie theater was at Eighty-Sixth and Third, an easy walk if you don’t count the time navigating sidewalk vendors, garbage cans, bus-stop lines, newsstands, baby strollers, dogs, chaos, tree guards, and pedestrians. Russell was upset with me because I forgot to buy the tickets. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” I said. “The reviews were terrible. There’ll be plenty of seats.”

  As we came around the corner, we could see a line formed outside the theater.

  Russell walked up to a woman wearing one of those wide headbands like Hillary Clinton wore in the nineties. “Is this the line for buying tickets or the line for people who already have tickets?” he asked.

  “The buying line,” the woman said.

  We took our places at the end of the line. It was still light out. A man was selling sunhats and sunglasses on a table a few feet away. Ahead of us, two people up, another woman was shouting into her cell phone, “You’re never on time! You’re late on purpose so I get stuck buying the tickets!” The decibel level of her voice was an assault on the city’s usual noise assault. I couldn’t imagine being so angry that I’d scream in public. I’d be too embarrassed to scream in public.

  Russell seemed to relax a bit when other people lined up behind us and we were no longer last, but he kept leaving to peek inside at the movie-times board. He was waiting for the words sold out to appear so he could march back to me and say I told you so.

  “Still good,” he said after returning from his second reconnaissance.

  “Good,” I said. “But what’s your alternate choice?”

  “There’s nothing else I want to see.”

  He was silent.

  I was silent.

  He sneezed.

  I said gesundheit and went back to being silent.

  A guy behind us was saying, “I hear that alien/cowboy movie really sucks.”

  We inched forward through the theater doors. Inside, in line, Russell kept his eyes peeled to the digital board above the cashiers. “There’s an eleven-thirty show. We can go to that if the nine’s sold-out, but it’ll be your fault we have to wait.”

  It seemed like a good time to talk about something else, anything else. I asked, “Russell, what did you do with that poetry book you bought?”

  He raised his brow the way baffled English detectives do on PBS. “How do you know I bought a poetry book?”

  “Is it for me?”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me.”

  “No, it’s for me.”

  “You?” I must have sounded incredulous. I could see I’d hurt his feelings. The line moved forward.

  “You really don’t know me, do you?” he said, keeping his voice low as if he didn’t want anyone to know him. “I like poetry. Walt Whitman. Billy Collins. Robert Frost.”

  “You read Robert Frost? Why would you not mention that to me? Where along the lines of communication when you were telling me you hate Cobb salads and you were two badges short of Eagle Scout, and you once almost choked to death on a fish bone at your grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday, did you fail to bring up poetry?”

  “I thought you’d laugh at me,” he said.

  The woman up ahead barked into her phone, “Asshole!” and stomped out of line.

  “Why would you think I’d laugh at you?”

  “C’mon, Molly, you’re not what I’d call a poetry kind of woman.” I had no idea what a poetry kind of woman was like, but I was pretty certain she was someone Russell saw as softer, more sensitive, more Elizabeth Barrett Browning, than me. He said, “You read literature to make fun of it.”

  “You watch the same crappy DVDs over and over again.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing.”

  Russell sneezed. He searched in his pockets. I searched in my handbag and handed him a tissue.

  When Evan and I uncoupled, it was a dramatic, name-calling, accusation-hurling parting of ways. For Russell and me it was a fizzle, a lazy animal that stopped plodding down the road and died. I prefer nasty split-ups. They’re more clear-cut; you aren’t left with any internal wavering.

  “The simplest normal conversations with you turn into verbal banter,” Russell said.

  “Is that bad?”

  He exhaled a long, rueful sigh. “I feel like a trained bear running to keep up. Can you top this? Snappy dialogue’s for characters in movies. You want someone who doesn’t exist.” It was our turn at the ticket counter. “Maybe some people enjoy sparring,” he said to me. “I don’t.” He asked the cashier for two tickets for Cowboys & Aliens.

  “Only one,” I said. Then I bought a ticket for Crazy, Stupid, Love.

  * * *

  It was a mature breakup. We agreed I’d keep the coffee-bean grinder he gave me for Valentine’s Day; he’d keep the Waterpik I gave him for his birthday. In the popcorn line, Russell asked if he should stop over after his movie to pick up his belongings—his movie would run longer than mine. I had his shaving cream, sleep mask, some boxer briefs, socks, a razor, a shirt, and his Morton salt. No, I said, because we both knew we’d end up sleeping together, and farewell sex muddies the waters. He sneezed, I said God bless you; he said good luck with my writing; we’d drop off personal belongings with each other’s doormen. After our purchases at the snack counter, I asked him to say good-bye to Joyce and Irwin; we wished each other a happy life. Popcorn in hand, he headed off to his movie, followed by two women.

  I woke up the next morning thinking, What if I’ve made a huge mistake? What if Russell is the best I can do? Isn’t somebody better than nobody? What if no matter how hard I tried, how many times I pulled a Sisyphus and pushed the boulder back up the mountain, I’d never get it right—this romance thing, this choosing-the-right-mate thing, this thing where you’re supposed to connect on a soul level, an emotional level, instead of what I’d been doing, connecting on a levelheaded, this-ain’t-bad level. I pictured myself living alone with a houseful of cats. Then told myself to buck up. I could probably have a short-term affair with Cameron Duncan. That might be good for a night or two. Before he moved on. I could sign up for Match.com and fill my evenings with go-nowhere coffee dates. I might not end up with a boyfriend, but I could always end up with a caffeine addiction. Or I could stop trying altogether. I could just lean over and pull out my Rabbit.

  * * *

  “You decided you weren’t compatible over a cowboy/space-monster movie?” Angela said. Angela and Kristine and I were getting pedicures at Sheila’s Nails on Lexington. I’m no expert on other cities, but New York’s a town where you can get your toes done on a Sunday afternoon. I was
in the middle chair soaking my feet, while on my right Kristine was getting her calluses buffed, and on my left Angela’s toenails were being subjected to an emery board. Our pedicurists, three pint-size, diligent women in pink smocks, were chatting in Korean while we pedicurees discussed my less-than-twenty-four-hours breakup. You know your girlfriends really love you when they’re willing to crawl out of their own boyfriends’ beds to offer moral support for your now no-boyfriend bed.

  “We sort of split up at the cashier’s window, but officially broke up while waiting in line for popcorn,” I said.

  “Who paid for the popcorn?” Angela asked.

  I was turning my head like I was watching a tennis match. “He did. But I got Jujubes.”

  “Nobody eats Jujubes,” Kristine said.

  “Who paid for the Jujubes?” Angela asked.

  “He did.”

  “Classy,” she said.

  “I really decided to break up before we got to the theater, while we were still at home and I was watching him nap.”

  “He naps?” Kristine said.

  “Not classy,” Angela said. “Good thing you dumped him. My policy is, if there’s no buzz with a man, tell him to buzz off.”

  “I never realized you had an official policy,” I said.

  “I made it up just now.”

  “It takes courage to end a long relationship,” Kristine said. “It’s like the MTA. You wait for the bus and you wait for the bus and you can’t give up on waiting for the bus, by hailing a taxi or something, because by then, you’ve already invested so much time waiting for the bus.”

  “Clip short or long?” my lady asked in her musical voice, the pitch rising and falling.

  “Short,” I said. She focused on clipping while I continued my story. “These two women were standing behind us, and as soon as Russell and I agreed it was over, one of them hit on him. She went all sexy-voiced on him and asked what movie he was seeing.”