Beyond Nostalgia

by Winton, Tom

  She nodded slowly, wistfully, several times in succession and dropped her eyes to the gold rings on her wrist. She toyed with them for a moment before raising her exotic doe's eyes to mine. "Where do we start, Dean? Should we begin with who we are now or where we left off?"

  "How about who we are now, then we can go back from there. Margaret Mitchell wrote 'Gone With The Wind' that way, from the end back to the beginning, and it turned out to be one hell of a story, didn't it?"

  "It sure did, Dean, the best story ever."

  At that moment we both fell silently into the warmth of each other's eyes. Together we went back twenty-five years to the balcony at the Keith's RKO theater. Theresa's lower lip began to quiver. Then the waitress came to our table. We straightened up like two school kids caught cheating on a test. The bottle-blond had obviously approached Theresa before I had gotten there.

  "Are you ready to order now?" she asked in a syrupy, Southern accent. Theresa ordered some kind of fancy sounding red wine and I a bottle of Miller Lite.

  The waitress left and I carefully punched out my cigarette so it wouldn't smolder annoyingly. I put my elbows back on the tabletop, my chin on folded hands and studied her for a few seconds. She did the same. Self-conscious of my own voice, I asked her a question I'd pondered for years, "How's life been to you, Theresa? From the looks of you I'd say pretty darn good. You still look magnificent."

  "Yeah, Dean, magnificent," she said as she began twirling my cigarette pack on the table cloth. Then she looked at my face which must have been shimmering red from the candle like hers was. She picked up the cigarettes and slipped one from the pack.

  "Do you mind?" she asked.

  "Course not. Go ahead."

  Holding it to her lips with one hand, she lightly laid her other on mine as I held a lit match. I wondered did she do it to steady me or did she just want to touch me. I didn't want her to take her hand away. If she hadn't, I would have kept my hands cupped there even after the flame burned into them.

  She took a drag, exhaled slow and long at the ceiling. Christ, she was sexy! Looking at the cigarette, assessing it, she said, "I haven't had one of these since … since a few months after I last saw you." She studied me fondly, sniffled once and said in a somber tone, "Let me ask you a question, Dean. Do you think it's possible that life can be both wonderful and tragic?"

  "Sure it's possible. Substitute the wonderful part with just OK, and I couldn't describe my own life any better."

  The waitress came back with our drinks now. I leaned back in my seat and then forward again after she set them down. When she walked away, I said, "Tell me about the terrific part first." The time wasn't right to talk about us yet.

  She took a dainty sip of wine, while carefully gathering her thoughts. "Remember how even in high school I was so hung up on the future, how getting an education and ahead financially meant everything to me."

  "I don't know that I'd call it being hung up but, yes, I know those things were important to you."

  "You sure know how to phrase things. No wonder you're a writer. Anyway, yes … financially I`ve done better than I ever could have hoped. I … I mean we have … my husband … Lauren … and I, have everything you could want, two nice cars, a beautiful home and no mortgage! We've even got a terrific chalet, up in the Smokies, in Highlands. Do you know where that is, Dean?"

  Son of a bitch! I thought. She-is-married! Sure, I'd noticed she was wearing rings, but I'm a guy, I didn't know if they were just for decoration or what. Hell, half her fingers had rings on them. I hadn't had time to study them.

  "Yeah," I said, getting back to her question. "I've heard of the place, of course. I used to work for the post office, and some of the guys had places up there, Maggie Valley, Murphy, Highlands. A lot of people in South Florida go up there for the summer."

  "It's unbelievable, Dean. Eleven acres on a mountain top with a view that would make an atheist believe."

  I smiled at that. "Maybe you should try a little writing."

  She laughed, a small girlish giggle, and playfully waved me off with her hand. I took another swallow of beer while she continued.

  "I've even got a place in Florida, in the Keys, a stilt house on big Pine, on the bay side."

  "Are you kidding? I'd kill for something like that. I love it down in the Keys." I was about to say 'We love it down there', that Maddy Frances and I had gotten married there, but not wanting to screw up our conversation's continuity, I withheld those truths and plenty more--for the time being anyway. It was just a temporary sin of omission, if you will, but it brought on another guilt pang. Again, I'd betrayed Maddy who was at home with my children, waiting for her husband. Again I took a swallow of beer, a much bigger one this time.

  "I've also got a very lucrative stock portfolio," Theresa continued, "an IRA and full ownership of four Century 21 agencies here in Atlanta."

  I let all this get to me. Theresa's success made me feel small. All I had to show for all the years that passed between us was two jalopies and a partnership with First Federal on a salt box house in dire need of new roof. And some partnership that was, eleven years in that house and we didn't even have 25% equity yet.

  But, forget that. The inadequacy I felt now transcended mere finances. I had let this get to me. I'd let this news of Theresa's wealth reduce my own self-image, and that is the most important thing a person has to hold onto. I felt like slapping myself in the head but I caught myself. .

  Nevertheless, it was a colossal understatement when I said, "Sounds like you've done OK."

  "Yeah, I've done OK, alright, so OK that I'm on my third marriage. Dean … I've failed horribly at what's most important. I've been so caught up with making money, I never had time for any of my husbands. And now … this time … I'm married four years and it's not working out. He … my husband, Lauren, is senior vice- president of a large plastic manufacturer here in Atlanta. His job takes him away a lot, probably like seventy percent of the time. And me, I'm always on the go. You can't imagine what running four very busy C-21 agencies is like. We're talking twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Lauren and I spend less time together than people in commuter marriages do. Dean, every time our paths cross, I feel further estranged from him. I don't love him, Dean. I don't think I ever did. I know I didn't. I didn't love the two before him either."

  She leaned over the table. Her deep brown eyes had moistened and now I could see the candle's red reflection shimmering in them. Somehow, even though I hadn't been with her, it hurt deep inside knowing she had been so miserable all those years.

  "I was hesitant all three times, Dean. It just never felt like … like I guess what you might call fairytale love. I began to question my feelings, my emotions, my expectations. Maybe love just couldn't be like I thought it should be. Maybe I was looking for an emotion too profound. Maybe I was too idealistic. I don't know. Anyway, I went ahead and made three drastic mistakes."

  The waitress brought over fresh drinks. Theresa dropped her eyes to the designer purse on her lap, began fumbling with it so the waitress wouldn't notice her eyes all welled up. After the waitress cleared away our empties and went about her business, Theresa dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex.

  "What about you, Dean?" She sniffled. "Tell me where you are, where you've been.”

  I lit another Carlton and searched my mind a few seconds. I wanted to get the chronology right. How do I start? Where do I start? Hell, I figured, I'll begin with now too.

  "Like I said, Theresa, I've been married nineteen years, to a good woman … no, an exceptional woman. It's the first time around for both of us. We have a seventeen-year-old son and a daughter who's fifteen. Good kids, both of them." I took a swallow of beer and then a hit off my smoke. "I can't get next to my daughter, she won't let me. She's moody … and snippy. But still, like I said, she's a good kid and my wife insists she'll grow out of it." After saying that, I felt another well-deserved guilt-jolt, this time for intentionally avoiding Maddy France's name.

 
Some guy was on the bandstand now testing the sound equipment, a high pitched nails-to-the-chalkboard squeal, then, "testing, testing, testing."

  "You know how it is," I continued, "you always expect your relationship with your kids to be better than it was with your own parents. When it doesn't quite turn out that way, you feel like you've failed. I could have … should have put in more time with my kids when they were small, given them more time and attention. But I was always caught up in my own problems. Don't get me wrong, the kids love me and all, but it's nothing like I thought it would be." I paused, looked down at my fingers, then my wedding band. "How about you Theresa, any kids?"

  This question struck some kind of chord.

  Her eyes saddened even more. Her chest rose as she filled it with a long breath, then, along with her words, she released it ever so slowly. "No … " she wavered her head, looking through my eyes into my mind, " … I don't have any children, Dean. And I feel so incomplete because of that. I would have loved to have children but there are two reasons why I didn't. Number one is because my career consumed most of my waking hours. And number two, the biggest reason, the real reason, is because I could never have a child with a man I didn't love."

  Those last words hung in the air, suspended like promising white clouds. Sitting in silence beneath them, I wondered, What did she mean by that last sentence? I squirmed in my seat a little before breaking the uneasy quiet.

  I went on to confess what a financial struggle my life had been. The unending string of nothing jobs, the constant stress of never having enough money even with two incomes. At first, Theresa listened intently, she was so interested in what had become of me. But about halfway through this second half of my life story, I began to feel as if I were talking to myself. Yeah, those beautiful eyes were still caressing me but her mind was somewhere else.

  So, mid-spiel, I stopped short my biography. With a hint of agitation rising in my tone, I asked her, "Theresa, have I lost you? Have you been listening to what I've been saying the last few minutes?"

  "Yes … " she said as if I'd awakened her from a funereal dream, as if she had been thinking of something far more important than what I was telling. " … I mean, no, Dean. I'm sorry. I was drifting off, thinking of something, something I've been carrying for a long, long time."

  I was stunned at how somber she'd become, just like that. It was as if someone had thrown an emotional switch inside her. The only times I'd ever seen her look and sound even close to this sad were the night she introduced me to her mother, during the camera fiasco on prom night, and that night I broke her heart in an ice cream parlor. Sure we'd had a few drinks by this time, but only a few, it wasn't the wine that had made her eyes so watery and her heart so heavy. It was a force much stronger than that. Something deeply rooted in Theresa Wayman's psyche, something that had been forged into it over time. It was obvious she was about to unload something very heavy when she next said, "We need to back this conversation up a few minutes, Dean, to when I told you I didn't have any children."

  "OKKK. Yeahhh?"

  "Well … " she said, clearing her throat, straightening up in her chair, " … this isn't easy for me to say and it won't be any easier for you to hear either … but here goes. Dean … I was pregnant once … back in 1968."

  "Ohhh, Jeeesus, Theresa." My heart bottomed out. I was absolutely blown away.

  "Yes, Dean … the baby was yours. But relax … don't get yourself all upset … you don't have a child walking around somewhere that you've never seen, your life isn't about to become any more complicated than it already is."

  Mechanically, without dropping my line of sight from her, I felt around the table for my cigarette pack.

  "Talk to me, Theresa! What happened? What happened to the baby? You had an abortion, didn't you? Your mother forced you into it, didn't she?"

  "No, no," she moaned wearily, dropping her head, shaking it. "I didn't have an abortion." She paused, gripped my hand tight as if she was trying to transmit the rest of her story without having to tell it. Her other hand was still wrapped around her wine glass and she began making pensive little circles with it on the tabletop. She watched the burgundy liquid oscillate beneath the glass's rim, but all she saw were visions of 1968. At the end of this short silence she started caressing my hand and she raised her eyes back to mine. They were so sad, so teary, all pink and glassy. When she finally spoke, she did it slowly, pacing herself, wanting to get it all just right. "It was born premature, Dean … He was, I should say. He was such a tiny little boy, just under two pounds. He never had a chance. It happened … the miscarriage … in Raleigh, North Carolina. That's where my mother had moved us to. God, I was so screwed up! It was just too much for me to handle at eighteen. And, Dean, all the while I was crazy from missing you. When we split up, my whole life stopped, no, it ended. I've never gotten over you since, and I never will."

  There it was. She'd said it!

  She had missed me as much as I'd missed her. I hadn't been living some foolish fantasy after all. Elbows to the table, we embraced each other's loving gaze, basked in it. Like I said before, neither of us were real high from the drinks, just relaxed, the slightest buzz, that heightened sense of awareness that so many writers strive for before sitting down to ply their trade. Once again, like so many years before, we were at the very center of this whole crazy universe. No, beyond that now! After travelling another twenty-odd years by ourselves to get here, this was even sweeter, deeper. Our own heavenly private cosmos and we were about to take refuge in it. We were Adam and Eve with the apple. Forbidden as it was, we were both thrilled to have it.

  Our faces gravitated toward each other until our lips met over the candle. We could feel its warmth on our faces but it was nothing compared to the heat in our lips. She tasted delicious. I couldn't believe this was happening. We were home again. Finally! I smelled the lovely familiar scent of her flesh, of my youth. It wasn't a long kiss, just a brief meeting of lips, but it was drenched with passion and longing, passion and longing that had been pent up inside us both for more than half our lives, oh so powerful emotions that I can't here, with paper and ink, possibly describe.

  When our lips parted, our eyes fondled each other’s tenderly as Theresa went on with her story.

  "My being pregnant was why we left College Point so suddenly. I made the mistake of telling my mother and she went absolutely ballistic. I was so messed up emotionally I didn't know which end was up. I was broken-hearted about you … the affair you had. Dean, we were sooo close. We had something special. We were very fortunate. We shared something most people in their entire lives never experience. And then … that night in Jahn's … poof, just like that, it all ended. I lost my soul that night. It left my body and never returned. "

  "Theresa, that was one irresponsible, disastrous mistake, I have no excuse, other than I was a kid and…"

  She waved me off. "I know that now. I've known that for a long time. But then I was mad. I wanted to punish you, just for awhile, not talk to you, not see you, but I truly planned to go back to you. But, when I found out I was pregnant, well, then I couldn't even think straight. The weight became too much for me to carry. I had to unload some of my fear. That's why I told my mother. But then she started laying all these guilt trips on me and I became even more confused, no, worse than that, I became unsure. Unsure about you, about us. I started doubting the legitimacy of what I thought we'd had together."

  She reached across the table and once again laid her fine, delicate hand over mine. It no longer mattered that her rock and wedding band were in full view. They meant nothing at this precious moment. We felt like we had never been apart, like the past twenty-four years never happened. The two of us were together again, at long last, like we were always meant to be. All the old karma was still there, and then some. Her touch--that kiss--had set off an exchange of emotions, an energy so powerful that I'm sure we literally glowed inside that dusky bar.

  I know it sounds cold, but to this point in the eve
ning I'd only thought about Maddy Frances a couple of times. And they'd been just transient thoughts at that, brief concerns of her at home waiting for me and my crossing forbidden lines. But, as I said, both these considerations had been fleeting at best, both of them quickly, easily, and totally eclipsed by Theresa's intoxicating presence. As I looked deeply into the haven of her oh-so-familiar intriguing eyes, all I saw were the irreplaceable wonderful times we'd shared at a time when the task of living was much simpler.

  I wanted to take Theresa in my arms, carry her away, off to a mountain, her mountain, any mountain, to the woods, a warm uninhabited island, her place in the keys, anywhere. I wanted to stay with her, never leave. Never go home.

  Now knowing that I had impregnated her, that there had been a child, a love child, only fortified our already rock-solid communion of our souls. This revelation, in my eyes, legitimized our reunion, made it OK, appropriate, necessary. Our intimate connection felt so right it was like I was married to Theresa, not Maddy Frances. Knowing now that Theresa had once carried my child, our child, made anything destined to happen between us this night just that, destiny. Anything we might do would be natural and, in our hearts, justifiable.