Casual Choices

by Tom Corbett

  “What was his name?” And Rachel then wondered if she had said the words aloud. For a moment, she blanked on the name of the boy to whom she lost her virginity. She was tired of fabricating the existence of a distant boyfriend who never appeared in her life. That tattered flag could no longer fly, and now she needed someone in the flesh so to speak to show her doubting sisters. Otherwise, the growing suspicion that she was gay would become a full-fledged rumor. She remembered the day a female classmate asked her for coffee. Rachel was prepared for a heart-to-heart about some intellectual topic or even of a personal issue. But the words exchanged initially were innocuous and the girl, clearly nervous, suddenly reached out and took Rachel’s hand. Stunned, she looked blankly at the face opposite her. Eventually, words like “I find you attractive” and “I think we are so alike” broke through the shield she had immediately erected. Without a word, she drew her hand back and fled the table.

  Josh was sitting in his departmental committee meeting. They were dealing with end-of-semester administrative matters. Someday, he thought, he would have to calculate the number of such meetings he had endured. Surely, there were few activities conceived in the mind of man that were so tedious and utterly devoid of merit as a typical faculty meeting. Josh had never been shy about sharing his opinions. He often opined that it was a tragedy to bring very smart people together to consider rather trivial matters. Too much posturing, too many words to cover small issues, and surely too much preening among spoiled divas. Not only would everyone get their say, but they would also get to comment on what everyone else had to say. The most benign questions could be drawn out indefinitely. Too often, Josh would pass the time contemplating different ways to commit suicide. Hanging? Only if it broke his neck. A gun! Kind of messy, and he would probably only wound himself, never having fired one before. Poison? That had real possibility. He wondered if the Nazis had kept any of those capsules that Himmler and Goering had used at the end. Hmm, maybe Rachel could help him out there. Today, his mind wandered in a different direction, back to the conversation of last night. He thought about Kit and the day he caved to her advances in a frenzy of loneliness and lust. The days and weeks after that had become unbearable for him. Kit was so vulnerable, innocent, needy. Couldn’t she see that he was not hers? How could she love him so? He knew that there was nothing in his emotional tank that had been depleted in all the angst and drama that drove him north. Besides, who could possibly want such a wrecked version of a human being? But she would look at him with such adoration. Each time he tried to draw back, she came on stronger. Each time he tried to find words to express what he felt, his courage failed him, the actual sounds trapped in the back of his larynx. He was, in the end, a prisoner of his own sensitivities, a people pleaser who could not hurt this innocent who would fall asleep in his arms every night. Then during the day, she would frantically try to please him with food or errands designed to ease his day.

  Josh realized that few know the depths of Irish guilt. He often joked that his first words in the morning are mea culpa for transgressions that he surely was bound to commit and omissions that others could not possibly notice but he could not ignore. He had the full ethnic curse, that dark cloud hovering over every true Irishman. It would inform and color every dimension of his life. Two aspects of the Irish curse were particularly devastating. First, happiness had a temporal bound; any such feeling approximating this desired state would soon end. His God would not permit any joy to continue for long. Second, the magnitude of any ecstasy experienced must be paid in an equal amount of pain and sadness. These were part of a universal natural law like gravity, the speed of light, or Newton’s laws of motion. Josh recalled how David Powers, President Kennedy’s adviser, had reacted to his boss’s assassination, not the precise words but the general sentiment. Powers said something to the effect that he knew that Camelot must end, but he thought that it would not end quite so soon. Every morning that Kit was with him, Josh woke up racked with guilt. What was he doing? He would push the guilt into his gut to survive another day. Aside from not getting close to anyone, his next abiding fear was hurting another person. Wasn’t that precisely the reason he remained so detached.

  Then one evening, Kit slid next to him on the couch as he poured through a reference book for a class. He gave her an annoyed look. “Not now, Kit, I have to look over this stuff.”

  She pouted for a few moments before melting into a softer pose. “You know, I can’t really help myself.” A deep sigh emanated from inside her, accompanied by an indecipherable sound. And then, “I love you…I am in love with you.” He said nothing, staring intently into his book. “Josh, did you hear me? I said—”

  “Damn it, Kit, I heard you. I’m not fucking deaf,” he exploded. “Don’t you think I know? I would have to be a goddamn blind deaf-mute not to know, an idiot who could not guess the weather even if it had been raining so hard the water was up to his nuts would know. For years, I’ve been looking into your moony expressions and ignoring your obvious ploys. Its driven me crazy, in fact, bat-shit crazy. You can bet your damn ass I know!” Her face was melting into a frame of frozen horror edging on despair.

  “I…I…” but nothing more came from her.

  He softened a bit. “Kit, sorry. I am so weak, I never should have made love to you. If I could take that moment back, I would—in a nanosecond.”

  “Why did you then?” Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes.

  Josh wavered for a moment but knew the moment of truth was at hand. “Because men are pigs, Kit. Lesson number one that every young girl should learn. Really, before potty training, they should run all of you through a drill—repeat one hundred times, all men are pigs. Sex doesn’t mean anything to a guy. Someone should have taught you. Damn, how did you grow up so naïve?”

  “Well, excuse me for not growing up as depraved as you.” She stood up.

  “Listen, Kit, there is nothing I would like better than to have that night back. There is no horror worse than feeling someone’s total love and having nothing inside to give back. I have felt like a total shit every second since. You cannot give to others what God never gave you in the first place. Don’t you see? It’s me, not you. I don’t feel…complete any longer. Forgive me.”

  “Nice try, asshole, you’re always so goddamn glib.” He had never heard her use strong language before. She was the last of the good Catholic girls. She was gone the next morning. It was over, except for the guilt…that would never end.

  Rachel eventually pulled the box of photos toward her. She would have time now, so she sat at the dining room table where there would be plenty of room to work. She pulled each picture out, looked at it, and intuitively put it into one or another pile. She was looking for patterns in the random chaos of her brother’s life. There were many pictures of places and people she did not recognize. Occasionally, one would catch her up short. There was a picture of her and Evan, taken apparently in the one time she had brought her husband to Canada to finally meet her brother.

  She was smiling, but there was something forced in her expression. What was she thinking at that moment? Frankly, her thoughts were not all that hard to infer. She was a prisoner in the proverbial gilded cage. Dr. Evan Ballentine III had been a catch—handsome, from a good family, and obviously headed for success in life. Everything had been meticulously planned for him: private grammar and prep schools, then the Ivy League, the best professional training. He had toyed with business—that was where the real money was—but decided on medicine, his father’s line. Besides, a smart doctor would always find ways to capture some real coin.

  They met in medical school at Johns Hopkins. He floated in like an Adonis anointed by the Gods. She had been a scholarship gal, graduating from the exclusive Smith College with honors despite working to make ends meet. Smith was impressed with her academics along with her ethnic and working-class background. They wanted nontraditional students, not just the issue from the well-to-do. In any case, she had little time for sociali
zing or embracing the privileged airs sported by most of her peers. Rachel noticed that women behaved around Evan as most men behave around beautiful women—like total idiots. She would have none of it. She did not care that he was handsome, or rich, or connected. She had that working-class sense of inferiority—you had to work harder and longer than those from the elite. Who cared about those entitled snobs, anyway?

  Then one day she heard a smooth voice. “Excuse me, you are Rachel Connelly, are you not?” And there he was at her shoulder as she hovered over a lab specimen. When the shock subsided, she mumbled ‘yes’ while thinking, but you know that already, nimrod. She instinctively had reservations about him, his presumed sense of privilege with an assured notion of his superior place in the universe. Rachel was at a total loss to explain why he would deign to speak to a plebian like her.

  Without a beat, he satisfied her curiosity. “This may seem presumptuous, perhaps even a bit impertinent, but I would like to invite you to a social event at my parent’s place in Washington.” Rachel blushed despite herself, a faint cloud of confusion spreading over her face. “Before you decline, this is not a date, I would never be so forward. I’m inviting several classmates. It merely is a way to get to know each other better. This process is such a grind we hardly ever socialize. I’m arranging everything, will have a car pick up everyone on Friday.”

  “Why me?” she protested, bewildered. “We hardly know each other.”

  Evan flashed his broad smile, “Fair question. I know your lab partner in anatomy. She likes you a lot but describes you as a bit of a hermit. Let us say I am moved to do missionary work among the shy of the world. Just a chance to spread your wings, that’s all.”

  Despite every instinct telling her to say no, she heard herself saying, “Okay.” His thousand-watt smile flashed again.

  For some reason beyond understanding, Evan Ballentine III had selected her to be his wife, and this was his first move, like advancing a pawn in a chess match. He spent that first occasion at his parent’s soiree mostly talking with her, even as a couple of the other females tried out their best feminine wiles to lure him in their direction. In the background, she could see his parents eyeing her with great suspicion and what looked like disapproval. Before they even got back to Baltimore, he had asked her out on a real date. She did not need this complication. Her mouth opened to say no, but the word yes came out.

  As Rachel stared at the picture at Josh’s dining room table, she still struggled to interpret Evan’s reasoning after all this time. She was attractive enough, but there were prettier girls. She was smart as a whip, but that seemed unlikely to be an attractive quality to someone like him. Worse, she was not only independent but bordered on the sassy, perhaps being described as obnoxious by some. How could she possibly fit into a wealthy and established family? As Evan’s intentions became apparent, her insides told her to run away, escape, get back to her world and her tribe. But she didn’t. Was she flattered? Did she just assume that he would come to his senses before anything final occurred?

  Sometimes, Rachel mused, the big choices are the ones that we make with the least consideration. One day, Evan proposed at a fine restaurant, slipping a sparkling ring into her glass of expensive champagne. She almost laughed out loud but managed to stammer, “Are you kidding me? Evan, your mother thinks I am one rung above a street walker. I am Irish trash to her and a Vatican worshipper to boot.” He was, as the saying goes, a charmer and not one to be denied what he wanted. A month after graduation, they were married in a big DC ceremony. A number of Washington power figures were in attendance. Jim cried and Ora beamed with pride. Rachel was achieving everything she never could. Later that evening, while changing out of her wedding dress, Rachel also shed a few tears for a reason she could not quite yet define.

  Rachel snapped out of her reverie; there were things to do. There were calls from Madison and other colleagues, some work on her paper, walks in the neighborhood with Mo who was quickly coming around to accept her presence. She had discovered his weak spot—scratching his tummy. Between the distractions, there was time to develop a crude organizational scheme. There were pictures of the family. There were photos of Josh’s early days in Canada and a few more recent pics. But what really captured her attention were the people who kept popping up in his life.

  From each pile, she selected a few to create a collage of Josh’s life.

  There was Morris, of course, the skinny and intense Jewish kid who became a constant presence in the house and Josh’s best friend. She banged her head. Of course, that’s the origin of the dog’s name.

  Here was a picture of Kit Obrien and a man she concluded was her older brother. They looked like they could be fraternal twins, but clearly, a decade separated them in age. Both were exceedingly attractive with blond hair and bluish eyes.

  There were more shots of Carla Shapiro, thin and dark haired. She always had an intense, focused expression. Rachel had met her during campus visits with her brother and wondered if she ever laughed or even enjoyed a light moment. Rachel had always felt invisible in Carla’s presence.

  Next to Carla, Rachel positioned a couple of pictures of Sarah Kaplan. At first glance, Rachel sometimes confused the two in her mind. They both were Jewish and had dark hair. Now, comparing the two, they were quite different physically. Carla was sinewy and thin while Sarah was bigger boned with a more sensuous body. While Carla had an incisive, inflexible intellect, Sarah had a more nuanced, flexible approach to issues and questions. Carla had answers while Sarah had questions. Rachel pondered the fact that Josh seemed to prefer the super bright gals, but of course, she knew why. That did not prevent him from bedding a few gals early-on, but those ventures were always disastrous. He could never be satisfied with just sex. What would you talk about when the lust was sated? The one mystery was the third dark- haired beauty. She had never met her. Could she be a secret love? She would have to explore this mystery.

  Then there were Jim and Bob and a host of other young faces who looked so familiar but whose names escaped her at that moment. Some dated back to high school, others college. But they were the gang, the posse. They were the template that filled out Josh’s simple childhood before things became totally complicated and irreversible.

  Rachel jumped at the noise behind her. Wow, the day had passed; where had it gone?

  “Going to dinner in your sweats?” Josh smiled at her. “Now that I look more closely, this ensemble brings out your best side, kind of an early house frau.”

  “This comment on sartorial splendor comes from the man whose idea of style is to wear outfits colored with several shades of orange,” she retorted. “You want me to clean up the mess on the table?”

  He paused for several moments. Obviously, he was torn. “Noooo, I haven’t looked over this stuff in ages. I guess retirement is a good occasion to dig up the past.” After a short interval, Rachel emerged from her room wearing a stylish dress and a touch of makeup. “Damn,” Josh exclaimed. “You do clean up well. Not bad for an old broad, not bad at all.” He was being sincere. A touch south of sixty, and she remained slim and attractive without trying very hard. “And it only took you two minutes. At your advanced age, I’m stunned it did not take longer.” He did not quite make out the nature of the missile that barely grazed his head.

  At the restaurant, there was some easy banter as they all sought out their seats. Rachel relaxed as she heard how easy and jocular the interchange was. This could be a fun evening. What did catch her up is that the cuisine was Indian, Josh’s favorite. This was not Rachel’s venue, and she looked around at the décor. There were paintings of various Hindu Gods like Krishna and Shiva, along with many depicting Indian matrons painted in vivid colors, each inevitably attempting to seduce some moonstruck male by employing seductive poses borrowed from the Kama Sutra. She leaned over to whisper to her brother, “You didn’t mention Indian. You better help me order.”

  “Not a problem,” he whispered back. “It will be good for you, will
clear out your intestinal tract.” Josh hit his glass with a spoon. “Rach, let me quickly go around the table. Connie you know. Next to her, we have her significant other, Harold. He is a physicist so none of us can understand him. Then we have Ellison who is my department chair, a leader of men for sure. Next is Irv, an economist who studied at Michigan—why I mention that befuddles me—along with Helen, his spouse, who is in the history department. Next, we have Timothy, Fine Arts department, and his partner Walter, who runs a gallery you must see.” Josh continued, there was a sociologist, two political scientists, and a historian along with a couple of nonacademic significant others. Rachel decided that remembering names was not essential and merely nodded. At the end, she returned her gaze toward Connie and Harold. She was quite disappointed that they were a couple and tried to shake off her matchmaking instinct. Perhaps her brother was right, women hate to see a happy and unattached man.

  Then Josh set about introducing his sister. “Some of you have already met her, but this is my sister who, by the way, hung on my every word when we were young. She owes all her considerable success to my mentorship.” He then started to describe her professional successes.

  “Wait,” interrupted Rachel, who would be embarrassed by her brother’s coming praise. “There is another sister, one that actually listened to you? Where do you keep her locked up?”

  “Hah,” Irv chortled. “None of us have listened to him either though getting him to shut up can be a challenge.” Rachel knew it would be a fun evening.

  “Everyone is a comedian,” Josh responded, “In any case, Rachel is now a distinguished medical researcher and clinician at the University of Wisconsin, focusing mostly on pediatric cancer. And to think, she started out as an obnoxious brat who knew nothing, but modesty prevents me from taking too much credit for her success.”

  “True,” Rachel interjected. “I did embrace every utterance from his lips as gospel…then I reached the age of reason.”