by Lynne Hugo
“Do they fight much?”
“Oh, God, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s just funny when they do. I mean it’s over stuff like having ham and whether kosher pickles taste better.” He put his hands palms up as if making a balance scale to weigh this important matter. “None of it is in the least bit serious, except every once in a while I think maybe it’s just a little bit what they really mean. You know? Just enough real difference to make it interesting and drive each other up the wall. Dad owns a dry-cleaning business. I can’t tell you how much he wants me to come in with him and how much I don’t want to. It’s okay, though. Even though he can’t understand why I’d want to teach business instead of run one, he accepts it. That’s what I mean about them.”
This view into the inner workings of a normal family drew me right in. “What about your mom?”
“See, she’s the one who can understand wanting to teach. She was a first-grade teacher until she started having babies. Now she works in the business doing the accounts.”
“I guess I can see where you get your head for business, with both of them in it.”
“Actually, Mom pretty much hates it, even though she’s sharp with numbers. She started doing it so they could put her on the payroll for work she could do whenever she could fit it in. I think she went in for being a professional mother. She’s not much of a cook, though. Did Mark ever tell you about her matzo balls?”
“No.” I was smiling already, watching Evan’s eyes look into the distance as though he were watching a movie of his family. He’d taken off his glasses as if to see better.
“Dad would want matzo ball soup at Passover and, you know, some other times. His mother had always made it, sort of like other people have turkey at Christmas. Mom’s were so bad that my brothers and I would fish them out and wrap them in our napkins, which got pretty soggy and disgusting, but we were boys, we were stupid, what did we care? After dinner, we’d go outside and go two on two with her matzo balls as weapons. They were small, but deadly. You’d think they’d get soft in soup, wouldn’t you? Nope. Not Mom’s. I think maybe a little cement was her secret ingredient. You know, if they were bad enough, Dad would quit asking for them. Only he never did. Still hasn’t.” He started laughing again, ahead of himself in the story. I loved how alive his eyes were, loved listening to him. I wasn’t just deflecting the possibility of questions about my own past. “Anyway, one year genius Jon got the idea of having the fight on bikes, but Doug got Jon with one of Mom’s masterpieces and Jon fell off the bike and broke his arm. Naturally we all told different stories about how it happened. I don’t think Mom knows to this day what did.” As Evan spoke, he’d now and then lapse into a particular rhythm of speech and I could hear his boyhood, vibrant and happy.
“Tell me more.”
I’d done this before, peeped into people’s lives like a voyeur, marveling and self-indulgently sad at once. Evan went on talking as I fed him questions and measured the windows. “Blinds,” I said.
“Huh?”
“I think you’ll want blinds on this window. Curtains, too, if you want, but right here in the front…”
“Yeah. You’re right, good idea,” he said.
“So go on. What did you do after Doug went to college?”
It was midafternoon when I looked at my watch. “Oh, my Lord. Evan, I’ve got to get up to school and try to see my advisor. He’s probably already left for the day, his course is over at one.” We were in the kitchen then, and I was arranging the cupboards.
“Good. Then you’ll have to come back next week. How about we go get some curtains, or drapes or blinds or whatever you said I needed?”
“My mother will have a fit,” I said, sticking the last two glasses onto the shelf we’d just lined.
He was startled. “Why? Why would she care? Ruthie?”
Good question. “Oh. It’s hard to explain. She’s just…” I’d noticed he’d called me Ruthie, his tone affectionate, and it distracted me from the thought of Mother’s anger, just as Mother’s anger distracted me from soaking in Evan’s warmth. “She’s a wonderful person, she’s been through a lot and she depends on me. She…expects me to be there.”
He seemed to accept that. “Well, look. Let’s grab the subway up to Columbia, see if you can catch him in. Better yet, we’ll call. There’s a phone at the deli—mine isn’t installed yet. We’ll worry later about getting you back here.”
I was relieved and grateful for how he’d eased it for me, yet knit into that blanket draped like his arm around me was a black thread. I was resenting my mother, her claim on me utterly indisputable and utterly disputable at the same time.
I’LL HAVE TO GO BACK, MOTHER, either next week or the week after. Dr. Santivica wasn’t available. It’s my own fault. I should have called instead of assuming I could just see him after his class.” I’d rehearsed the lines on the train home. It was just as well that I had had some transition time for pulling my thoughts from the day with Evan, turning them back to Mother, bracing myself for the storm that would surely break over my head.
She was lying on her bed in the dark, a heating pad on her abdomen, a washcloth on her forehead. She’d barely acknowledged my return and not commented on the late hour, only said her time of the month was starting and she didn’t feel well.
“You know, I could still have another child,” she said in non-response to my explanation. “I think about that, and then I look at my body and think no, it’s too late. But I’ve gotten to almost like my time of the month, like one part that hasn’t betrayed me yet. Look, Ruthie. Look at this. Turn on the light.” She removed the washcloth from her forehead and propped herself on an elbow. With her other hand, she ran her fingers through her hair, lifting it from the roots like a fierce wind. The gesture contained anger and despair. “Look at the gray. I can’t even cover it up with that stuff anymore.” I’d had no idea she used anything on her hair. “Look at these circles under my eyes, bags like an old lady. My legs look like cottage cheese” She accompanied each outburst with a separate gesture, insisting I look. “In the mornings I hurt all over, like an old lady. Old. Old. Old. All wrinkles. My hands look old. See? I don’t know what it means, what God wants of me. I look like everyone else. He doesn’t tell me anymore.” The overhead light I’d reached to switch on at her direction was garish. She looked much older than I’d seen before, the puffy flesh beneath her eyes cast into bas-relief by deep purplish curves beneath them. Tears had gathered as she spoke and when she lowered her head to study her hand a second time, they began running from each corner.
I was prepared for almost anything else. Sitting on the bed, I took her head against my chest and held her, rocking her slightly. “Mother. Mother. Everything will be all right. I promise you. Everything will be all right. You’re beautiful and you have me. Nothing bad is going to happen. You’ll know what God wants you to do. You always do. Just be patient.”
17
THE NEXT MORNING AT WORK, I used my break to write Evan a note. I wrote,
I had a wonderful time. Please understand that I really can’t come back; my mother is having a hard time and needs me here. I’m sorry about not helping to put the blinds and curtains up, but I’m sure they’ll look great. I hope you have a good summer, and that the job goes well. Fondly, Ruth.
I took an envelope from the receptionist’s drawer, left her change for the stamp I took and dropped it in her outgoing mail basket. That was Thursday. The next Tuesday afternoon, Susan tracked me down in the activity room. “Ah ha! Even though it meant leaving the front desk uncovered and I’ll probably get fired, it’s all in the name of true love.” She shook her long brown hair, ironed-straight down from its center part. “You have a letter and the return address seems to suggest a person of the masculine persuasion. Open it so I can hurry up and spread gossip.” She laughed, extended a long envelope addressed to me in care of the nursing home, and headed for the swinging doors that put me so in mind of the ones at Grandmother’s nursing home. I tried to
blot out the memory, but the whoosh and thud of them was a daily echo of the last time we’d left her, still alive.
“It’s not what you think, but thanks so much,” I called after her.
“Anytime. I’m a sucker for romance,” she called back. I knew she was; a movie magazine blaring about Luke and Laura—whoever they were—on some soap opera had been in the top desk drawer with the stamps.
I stuffed the letter in my uniform pocket and returned to the leather work group. Mrs. Hodgkins ducked her head and smiled at me, only her upper plate in today. “Oh, dearie, you go ahead and read the letter from your young man.”
“Oh, Mrs. H, he’s not my young man, he’s just a friend.”
“Well, you should have a young man, pretty as you are.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, embarrassed. Mrs. Hodgkins was one of the patients who regularly reached to touch my hair, fascinated by the color, or the thickness or both. I’d let it grow much longer than I’d worn it in high school, but fastened it in a ponytail or up with barrettes to keep it out of my way at work. When it fell over my shoulder, Mrs. Hodgkins and Mrs. Smith and sometimes old Mr. Angus would want to feel it and tell me whose hair it reminded them of, someone long lost to their touch.
“I bet he loves your hair and those pretty eyes. Green eyes. A little hazel. My Dennis had eyes almost that color,” she said.
“Honestly, Mrs. Hodgkins. He’s just a friend. I don’t know if I’ll even see him again.”
“Tsk. Tsk.” She shook her head. “A pretty girl like you.”
“Let’s see if we can get this wallet stitched up. Is it hurting your hands? We want to keep them moving.” Just keep moving, I thought to myself. That’s the key. Keep yourself moving.
BUT, OF COURSE, I DIDN’T. If I hadn’t stopped and read the letter, if I hadn’t sat in the car for a good twenty minutes, reading the letter, and smoothing it into the creases his big hands had made and then opening it and reading it yet again, what would have happened? So many turning points.
Love, Evan, he’d signed it. He knew it was quick, but he’d not felt this before and thought we might grow into something special. Wouldn’t I reconsider? He didn’t think he’d been wrong that I enjoyed being with him. He understood about my mother, we could work around that situation. He’d help me. “I’m not a complete novice at not doing what my parents wanted me to,” he wrote. “The important thing is what you want.” His underlinings were emphatic.
Writing back to him wasn’t an unconsidered act. I thought I’d given up on old hopes, that I’d learned from my experience with Josh. How did I jump from that first distant note of refusal I’d sent Evan to almost immediately agreeing to go back? My only way of understanding it is that I had been drawn to the idea of Josh, not the man, while the pull I felt to Evan was visceral, beyond reason. His letter, with its appeal and its Love, Evan, was undeniable.
I intended a long letter of explanation about Mother, about Roger and the complex tapestry of us, and let it scare him off if it was going to, but after several tries while Mother slept that night, I gave up. It was too convoluted, too laden with the inexplicable. And, probably, too crazy. It would be easier to talk face-to-face, when I could see his eyes and sense his reactions. Finally, all I wrote was,
I know you’re only off on weekends now that your job has started. I’m not scheduled for a Saturday off until July 23, but even so, I think it’s best to tell my mother that I have a meeting with my advisor and because of that, it would have to be on a weekday, anyway. I’ll come in to see you, if you still want me to, a week from Thursday. (I’m off Monday, too, but I’m not sure this will reach you in time for that.) I’ll go ahead to school while you’re at work and then come to your apartment at 5:00. If this isn’t all right, could you call the nursing home? I can’t get personal calls, but the receptionist will take a message.
Love, Ruth.
The closing said much more than the letter.
I’d not expected a response, but Evan had paid for special delivery. Susan waved the envelope triumphantly when I came in the door Tuesday afternoon for the second shift. “I had to sign for this one! I know, I know. He’s just a friend. I believe you, really I do.” Her nails were long and shapely, painted a dramatic red. She was loving this.
Can you make the same train as last time? I’ll meet the 9:50 arrival from New Haven. I’m taking the day off. Thanks for the chance. Love, Evan. P.S. Don’t worry if you miss a train. I’ll wait.
It seemed we’d crossed some bridge. Evan hugged me on the platform at Grand Central, then kept an arm around me as we headed for the exit. “I’m just so glad you came,” he said. His khaki pants had neat creases, his loafers were shined, his short-sleeved red polo shirt looked new. He’d gone to trouble to look nice, and I knew it was for me. And it was for him that I’d taken much more care than I would have if I were merely going to see my advisor. A Kelly-green sleeveless A-line dress Sandy had insisted I keep, perfectly simple, but it gave me a bustline with well-placed darts and the skirt widened just where it needed to, filling out my too-narrow hips. I knew my eyes looked wholly green when I wore it, not just vaguely so. I’d applied more makeup on the train, concealing freckles—Sandy’s trick—and adding mascara, a smudge of shadow, more lipstick.
“Me, too,” I answered. “You didn’t need to take the day off work. I really do need to go up to school.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m going with you.” He pulled away enough to look me up and down. “You look gorgeous. Gorgeous.”
Right then and there, I wanted to say, “Wait, there’s too much you don’t know about me.” But suddenly, as much as I thought I had to tell him, that much I didn’t want to. I wanted to be just a normal woman with a normal man, a young woman who didn’t carry contingencies and worries stuffed in a purse she couldn’t put down. It was 1976, for God’s sake. Women were supposed to be able to make decisions.
“Can we just pick up the subway and get up there now? Then we’d have the rest of the day clear.”
“Dr. Santivica’s in class until one o’clock. And I probably should get a late afternoon train back, the 3:44, or I could stretch it to the 4:03.”
“Stretch it.” He grinned. “Let’s go over to my place then. No sense hanging around outside his office when we can be comfortable.” We went out onto Lexington where the wind, already hot, assailed our faces.
“How’s the job?” I asked.
“So far so good, I guess. Hard to tell. I keep getting introduced as Dr. Mairson to the administrative assistants and secretaries and they look at me like I have some fungus growing on my face. The senior staff seems to want to demonstrate how much more they know…oh, who cares? I’m glad you’re here.”
“I care. Tell me about it.” We sounded like a couple, an intimacy in our tone, new and thrilling to me.
Evan squeezed me against him briefly and was silent a moment, considering his answer. “I really don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I have to win people over, like I’m not starting out on an even playing field. I think they resent my degree, you know. They assume I think I know everything about marketing. Which I don’t, think I know everything, I mean.” He shook his head and shrugged. “What’s a body to do?” he said, mimicking an accent. “To quote my father, oy vey.”
We talked continuously as we walked toward Murray Hill. The neighborhood felt familiar, welcome to my eyes, as though it were mine. The geraniums on Evan’s building were fuller, and some ageratum among them that I hadn’t noticed the last time was now in bloom, blue as Mother’s eyes, but I didn’t think of her just then. Or I pushed the thought of her from my mind.
“Oh, Evan! I can’t believe this! How did you get so much done?” The main room of his apartment was cleared of boxes and paint accoutrements; an oriental-looking area rug was in place. The Wedgwood-blue sofa I’d previously seen, and a new, cream-colored easy chair were arranged on two sides of a coffee table, a floor lamp arching its neck over the chair and a matching ottoman off to
one side. The philodendron poured its heart out over the windowsill and other house plants were interspersed with books, brass candlesticks and several mugs, paperweights and the like. Evan had put a Monet print, a Venetian water scene, on one wall. Light blue and green water glistened beneath pink windows shadowed in burgundy, perfectly braiding all the creamy hues of the room’s rug and furniture. I felt foolish, believing he’d needed my help.
“I wanted to get the damn blinds up before you came,” he said. “But you like the rest of it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Perfect.”
“Maybe you could advise me on more stuff for the walls. They look bare to me. We could go to the Met and check out the prints.”
“You definitely don’t need my advice. You’re much better at this than I am. I’ve never lived in a place this nice.”
Evan looked at me intently. “I’d like your advice. I’d like to put up something you choose,” he said. “And I haven’t even started on the other rooms. Everything I know about setting up a kitchen could be scratched on the head of a pin and still leave room for an encyclopedia. If you hadn’t put the dishes and glasses away, I’d probably have stashed them under the sink.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you can do anything.” And I believed that. Then and there, I was seeing his capability and feeling very unsophisticated in comparison.
“For you I’d try,” he said lightly. “I’d sure try.”
We didn’t talk about anything too serious that day. He had powdered sugar doughnuts for us and I made coffee. Later, he rode with me to Columbia, waited while I met with Dr. Santivica and then we took a bus to the Met where Evan insisted I pick out a print.
“You show me three or four that you like, and I’ll tell you which of them I like best. That’s all you’re getting out of me,” I answered. In the end, I chose another Monet, “Pourville,” a deserted beach and water scene, edged by rough-enough land. “My favorite place in the world is the Cape,” I told him, “and this one looks just a little like Truro. I have a good memory of it. Have you ever been there?”
