Who Will Hear Your Secrets?

by Robley Wilson

  “Why don’t you bring me a martini as well,” he heard his friend Trevor saying. “Or no, strike that; make it a Gibson.”

  Trevor clapped his hands and settled back in his chair. “Never mind the ulcer,” he said. “This is an occasion. How long has it been?”

  “The last time I visited the city was eight or nine years ago, with Jolene.”

  Trevor smiled at him. “No, dear boy, I meant how long since you’ve visited me. Nine years ago you neglected looking me up, if I recall.”

  “God,” Andrew said, “it’s been—what? Twenty years?” Tenth reunion, he thought. That was my last encounter with Trevor, and we scarcely spoke. “Twenty-two years?”

  “Twenty-two precisely. Number ten reunion.” Trevor lighted a cigarette and blew smoke in Andrew’s direction. “How the years whisk by.”

  “You’re looking fine, Trev.”

  “Surfaces, dear boy.”

  The two men surveyed each other. Andrew imagined Trevor was being truthful; something about him—a plumpness that was not honest weight, a pinkness to his flesh that was hardly worthy to be called ruddiness—suggested an inner self less substantial than met the eye.

  It was one thing to say the man looked “fine”—he did, he carried himself comfortably, he dressed in the fashion. But Andrew could never have said Trevor hadn’t changed, over all the years since that class reunion and, earlier, since their college days behind the ivy of a New England alma mater.

  “Have you actually got an ulcer?” Andrew said.

  “It’s how one pays one’s dues in the industry—or so I was advised in the beginning.” He flourished the cigarette. “But actually? I’m not sure; no one’s sure, if the truth were known. My doctor’s had me drink the most ghastly stuff—radioactive—so he can snap my duodenum and colon. Lovely couple, glowing for the camera.”

  “In other words …”

  “In other words: Who knows? I don’t let it slow me down, Andy. One can’t let oneself be slowed down.”

  Andrew nodded as the martinis arrived.

  “We’ll order shortly,” Trevor told the waiter. He raised his glass. “Old times,” he said.

  “Old times,” Andrew echoed. He sipped. The glass was cold against his fingertips, cold on his lips. The rim was fragrant with citrus. “This appears to be a double,” he said.

  “Double the pleasure.” Trevor set down his glass and pondered it. “Do you know,” he said, “when I was a child I used to think cocktail onions were made from full-sized onions—that somewhere there existed a factory where Mexican immigrant laborers spent their lives peeling Bermudas, layer by layer, down to marble size.”

  Andrew smiled.

  “What a weeping was in that factory, in my small imagination.” He picked up the glass and took a long swallow. “Only way to deal with a suspected ulcer,” he said. “Periodic bludgeonings.”

  Andrew turned his own glass slowly between a thumb and forefinger. “But you enjoy the work?” he said.

  “Enjoy? I love it. Couldn’t imagine doing anything different. The excitement. Glamour. Rubbing shoulders with the celebrity crowd. If rubbing shoulders is your kink.”

  “I read about you every now and then. There was a thing in People magazine—”

  “‘Steering the Movie Machine.’ Oh, yes, that was nice. And the fey little picture on the cover?”

  “I don’t remember the cover.”

  “Ah, but there I was, a tiny little creature in the lower left corner—ascot, cigarette holder. A genuine cover boy. Though I don’t recall ever using a cigarette holder.” He drained the martini glass. “You know who wrote that piece, of course.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “Fred Merriman. Remember Fred? He was a couple of years behind us; we used to poke fun at him—big, awkward boy with enormous ears, very slow-spoken. You once said to me: ‘Poor Fred. He’s so dull he probably thinks an aesthete is someone who doesn’t believe in God.’ You don’t remember?”

  “No,” Andrew said. “I’m afraid I don’t.” Though in fact he did— remembered with embarrassment his wisecracks not only about Fred Merriman, but about other fraternity brothers whose tastes he had judged inferior to his own and Trevor’s. Merry Andrew, Trevor called him then, always applauding his wit, his affectations. Trevor of Acadia, born and raised in Maine. “I do remember Fred was the one who had all that money stolen from his locker during swim class. What a mess that was.”

  Trevor reddened. His face changed and his eyes went blank: it was as if someone had struck him and all his muscles had gone slack. Andrew realized instantly what he had done, but it was too late to call back the words. Damn it, damn it, damn it. All those years—he had simply forgotten that Trevor was the thief.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Trevor hissed. “‘The evil men do.’ Bravo, Shakespeare.”

  “Damn it, Trev, I’m sorry. Truly. I’d forgot the details. I’d forgot the whole thing until you mentioned Fred Merriman.” Should he grasp Trevor’s hand, let the physical contact underscore his contrition? Instead he folded his hands together, lacing the fingers. “Forgive me,” he said.

  Trevor leaned back into his chair. He said nothing; slowly the high color faded from his face and his features resumed a shape.

  “What about another round?” he said at last. He waved at the waiter. “Plenty of time,” he said. “My shuttle to L.A.’s an evening thing.”

  Andrew finished off his drink. He would have preferred to skip a second martini, and resolved not to touch it. Trevor was quiet again, his gaze somewhere beyond Andrew.

  The city went on revolving below them; the mists were thicker, the vistas more restricted.

  “You must do most of your work in Los Angeles,” Andrew said.

  “Yes, that’s so.” Trevor’s eyes focused on him, saw him. “I think sometimes of moving there, staying there. I have a little house in Long Beach. But San Francisco …”

  “San Francisco seems changed,” Andrew said, as if Trevor needed priming on the subject. “Though of course I’ve never spent much time here.”

  “Yes,” Trevor said, “I suppose it has.”

  The waiter brought the drinks.

  “Perhaps we should order,” Andrew said. But Trevor seemed not to hear—only lifted his glass and studied the tiny onion—and after a moment or two the waiter departed.

  “A number of people have moved out,” Trevor said. “Walnut Creek. Stockton. One begins to hear flattering things about San Diego.” He raised his eyes to Andrew’s. “Imagine,” he said.

  “Jolene loved this city,” Andrew said. It was true; she loved its clichés: cable cars, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park. She made lists beforehand. He remembered her happy fright when a friend drove them down from the summit of Lombard Street. “In a particular way.”

  “You miss her.”

  Andrew felt sheepish. “I seem to,” he said. He picked up the martini and drank from it before he remembered he had resolved not to.

  “You never had children?”

  “No. No hostages. And no legacies.”

  Trevor smiled. “Very fastidious of you,” he said. “I’ve noticed that it’s my friends with offspring who seem most queasy about staying here, as if the city had become a corrupter of youth.” He sipped. “I’m inclined to disagree,” he said. “As an instance: a close acquaintance of mine is involved with the ballet school here. Sometimes he lets me drop in, watch. Quite a talented group—no corruption there, dear boy. Those bright faces, those supple limbs…. Though it makes one feel rather over the hill.”

  “We’ve reached an age,” Andrew said.

  “Yes. When nearly everything underscores one’s advancing years.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m sorry about your divorce,” Trevor said. “I genuinely am.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How close we were once, you and I. Back in the halcyon times of Sunday morning punch at the Beta house, and the girls of Smith and Holyoke, and dreary chape
l services three mornings a week.”

  “We were,” Andrew said. “Yes.”

  He waited, dreading it, to be punished for his earlier inadvertence, for recalling a time so un-halcyon. Instead, Trevor consulted his wristwatch and made a show—it was the only exact word—of being startled by the time.

  “Dear boy,” he said. “I wonder if you’ll forgive my finessing lunch after all. Put it down to eccentricity, if you please—and a faulty memory. You do have plans of your own?”

  “I’m going up the coast with friends. They live near Occidental.”

  “Perfect. Then you won’t miss me in the least, and I can arrange an earlier shuttle. Here.” He put two twenty-dollar bills on the table. “Let me be a proper host.”

  “If you insist,” Andrew said.

  Trevor leaned forward, preparing to leave. “I’ll tell you what’s interesting,” he said. “When I met Fred Merriman again after all that water under the bridge, I discovered he’d completely forgotten the locker room episode. It was absolutely expunged from his consciousness. I felt—rehabilitated.”

  “Trev, truly—I feel rotten.” And he did. He felt himself carried back across age and distance to the dormitory, rain drumming at the windows, laughter echoing in the shower room down the hallway, a counterpoint of jazz music filling the stairwell from the floor below. The theft, the whispered suspicions, the confession—here they were in Trevor’s earnest face as he stood and laid his hand on Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew felt them conveyed through himself, palpably, as if thirty-odd years had never gone by. It was like being waked from a dream of falling.

  “Forgiven and forgotten,” Trevor said. He squeezed Andrew’s shoulder. “Merry Andrew. Now you really have to do something to reclaim the epithet.”

  Andrew covered Trevor’s hand with his own—an impulse—and as quickly took it away; the hand was cool and damp.

  “I recommend you revisit the Brundage,” Trevor said calmly. “All those jade dogs and dragons and Chinese cats. There’s so much beauty in the city, you mustn’t avoid it.” He dropped his hand to his side. “And don’t be such a stranger, dear boy.”

  Then he was gone. For several minutes Andrew watched him in front of the elevator—patient, manicured hands clasped behind his back—then the slow travel of the restaurant hid him from sight. He continued feeling the pressure of Trevor’s hand until he turned in his chair to summon the waiter.

  Period Piece

  When I came into the lounge she was sitting at the far end of the bar, looking straight ahead, not seeming to notice me. It was day nine of the crossing. The evening before, the ship had left Ponta Delgada, and now we were on our way to Ireland. We would dock in Cobh early in the morning of day eleven. Two days after that, the ship would arrive in Southampton, but I was leaving it at Cobh.

  I sat nearby, one barstool between us, and ordered a Scotch. She waited until I’d signed the tab. The clock over the bar read 1433.

  “I wondered if you’d recognize me,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

  “I didn’t at first,” I said. “I had a funny feeling I must have seen you somewhere before—some show in New York or Chicago—but it wasn’t until your solo number in the second act that I realized.”

  “And?”

  She was fishing—I supposed for a compliment, or possibly a criticism. In our day we’d both gone in heavily for criticism.

  “I was surprised you were still dancing,” I said. “And then, when you took your bows, I was pleased you were still dancing.”

  She smiled—not at me, but at the mirror behind the bar and its reflected array of bottles. “I once danced for you. A private performance.”

  “I remember.” My dormitory room, senior year, the last week of spring-semester exams. My roommate had already gone home to Indiana; a lot of people were on the lawn under my windows, drinking and laughing. Someone had a guitar, so there was accompaniment.

  In those days you had to sneak the girlfriends in—in through the back entrance and up the service stairs—and it was just as risky getting them out as getting them in. It went on your record if you got caught, and they put you on probation, which meant no class cuts and compulsory chapel for six weeks.

  She’d danced barefoot in a pale blue slip, lace swirling at her knees, and improvised steps around whatever rhythms the guitar floated through my windows. She stayed the night; it was the last time we slept together.

  “It hadn’t occurred to me that when college was finished, we’d be finished too,” she said. “Had it occurred to you?”

  “I guess I’d never thought about it.”

  “Just took life as it came,” she said. She made a wry face. “I’d somehow thought I could steer it.”

  She was quiet then, looking down into a glass I noticed was empty. “What are you drinking?” I said. I was reaching for my keycard, but she raised a hand to stop me.

  “It’s only Perrier,” she said. “It isn’t wise to drink on the job. Anyway, I don’t enjoy it.”

  I was studying her, I imagine a little too obviously. You know how when you haven’t seen a person in a long time—years, decades— you have to fit your last view of them into time’s latest disguise.

  “What is it?” she said. “Trying to read my mind?”

  “Where was it—the last place I saw you? Was that Toronto?”

  “You chose the right city,” she said. “I’d have been crushed if you hadn’t.”

  “The rehearsal hall at the O’Keefe.” It came back to me with unexpected force: a mirror wall, voices and the scuffle of feet, a repetitive piano tune—all of those sounds echoing in the huge room.

  “Right again,” she said. “The theater was trying to impress an Ontario lumber baron out of some endowment money. We were cobbling together an arty and artful pitch.”

  “You were terrific the next night.”

  “What was it?” She was frowning at her memory. “Was it ‘Sweet Charity’? Yes, it was. How appropriate.”

  “I lost track of you after that,” I said. “You seemed to disappear.”

  “Ah, yes.” She hugged herself, rocked toward me and rocked away. “Totally a bolt from the blue. One minute I was sane, the next I was a basket case and people in white coats were standing around pulling their beards.”

  “But you came out of it.”

  “After almost two years. Drugs. Hours of wise talk. They wanted to do electroshock—speaking of bolts—but my mother wouldn’t allow it.”

  “How did you end up on a cruise ship?”

  She fairly bristled. “Agents find the jobs,” she said. “And I haven’t ‘ended up’ here, as you put it.”

  “I didn’t mean it to come out that way,” I said. “Forgive me.”

  “I forgive you. I always did forgive you.”

  * * *

  WE SAT IN THE MIDST of what a script might have described as “an extended pause,” after which we both tried to undo whatever offense she thought me guilty of.

  “What are you doing to pass the time?” she offered.

  “Not much,” I said. “Reading. Having a drink here and there. Watching a TV movie if a decent one appears.”

  “The crossing must be boring you, if you’re reduced to television.” She gave me the teasing smile that had been her trademark in earlier times—an expression that condescended without being unkind.

  “They were playing ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in the wee hours,” I said. “I’d forgotten how William Holden first stumbled on the decaying mansion.”

  “The car chase.” I raised an eyebrow. “I confess,” she said. “I watched it too—after the show, to unwind.”

  I sipped my drink, looking at her, still coaxing the girl I remembered from the woman in front of me.

  “It’s only in the movies that the pursuers never see a car that’s just off the road,” I said. “They always race right by. It’s as if they’re wearing blinders.”

  “They’re predators,” she said. “They have eyes that look straight a
head and focus on motion. The skip tracers were falcons; Holden was a bunny.”

  “A dead bunny.”

  “Yes. A dead bunny.”

  I looked past her to the outward-slanted windows of the lounge. The pattern of sunlight on the ocean, shimmers of whitecaps on the dark water, reminded me at that moment of scattered leaves on the autumnal New England campus where we had first met.

  “I’d forgotten we shared a zoology class,” I said.

  “And American Lit. You sat directly behind me in both. You kept blowing on the back of my neck.”

  “I was always trying to excite you.”

  “And you did. Though you also made me furious. It seemed so public, and so—so proprietary.”

  “I meant it that way.”

  She shook her head, as if I were not to be believed.

  “You know I did,” I insisted.

  “Though you were often distracted,” she said. “Even when we were alone—remember? In that far corner of the Union?—your eyes were all over every coed in the room.”

  “They’re probably not called ‘coeds’ anymore.”

  She shrugged and looked away. “Who knows how a college changes after twenty years?”

  And then she said, “I remember once you got into this long argument with Professor Hall—a boring one, I thought—about The Great Gatsby. You said it was a lazy novel. You said Fitzgerald used his characters like a dragonfly skimming a pond, touching the water here and there, sending out a lot of interesting ripples but never dipping below the surface.”

  “I was pretty full of myself in those days.” It was a long time since I’d thought of Hall, who had probably done more to persuade me to writing than anyone else in my life.

  “I used to think you wanted to be Gatsby.”

  “No. I wanted to be Dick Diver.” I reached out then and put my hand over hers. Don’t ask me why; I knew it was proprietary. “And you did your best to be Nicole.”

  She slipped her hand out from under mine. “Didn’t I ever,” she said.