Years later, I saw her again and asked if she was "still married." An obnoxious question, even if it proved prescient. Cut to five years ago. She and her husband were renting a house a few doors down from my mother in Toronto. I was home from New York for a visit and Julia drove by. We chatted. She was all smug about being married, having kids, living in Rosedale-it"s a fancy neighborhood-while I was still futzing around with a live-in girlfriend (albeit one on the verge of becoming my wife and, later, mother of my children).
When the tabloid news broke that a Canadian B-actor had left his wife for the TV mogul"s daughter after a torrid on-set affair, I felt sympathy for Julia-they"d just adopted a second child. And yet some part of me felt vindicated. A little petty rejected voice wanted to say, "You dumped the wrong guy." Which meant deep down I knew all along she"d done it to me. Because if she hadn"t, why would I have cared?
When she sent that e-mail, I was certain she she was the one rewriting history. Then I delved into those musty shoe boxes and found her side of the story. If she has a corresponding archive of my letters, I don"t think it would help my cause. was the one rewriting history. Then I delved into those musty shoe boxes and found her side of the story. If she has a corresponding archive of my letters, I don"t think it would help my cause.
I"ve always had so much invested in being a dumper, never a dumpee. The motto on the crest of my dating life was, "It"s not me, it"s you." And usually it was. But there was something liberating about the idea that Julia had dumped me. I lost the urge to gloat. I felt her pain, not the one I"d swept under the rug so many years ago.
"You can be very cruel, like ice, but please not to me, over something so small," said one of those love notes from when we were living together. My friends used to pull her aside to tell her how "good" she was for me, like I was some kind of superd.i.n.k until she came along. I would normally discount this as a wildly unfair a.s.sessment of my personality except my wife says they"ve told her the same thing.
I hope she doesn"t dump me, too.
Lesson #46
She Wasn"t the One by Bruce Jay Friedman
Dear Harry [ Dear Harry [the letter began] "You probably won"t remember me, but I thought I"d take a chance and write-in the hope that you would. We knew each other in the Long Ago and dated for several months. (My name was Sybil Barnard at the time.) Then we drifted apart. Since that time, I"ve been married, had two sets of twins, and have recently gotten divorced. :( I have followed your career with a great deal of interest-and I thought it might be fun to get together and catch up on old times. I"ll be at the Plaza Hotel Nov. 7, 8, visiting my sister, and wonder if you would consider meeting me for a drink. I certainly hope so. If not-I wish you continued good luck-and just write this off as the idle fantasy of an (ex) suburban housewife. I have followed your career with a great deal of interest-and I thought it might be fun to get together and catch up on old times. I"ll be at the Plaza Hotel Nov. 7, 8, visiting my sister, and wonder if you would consider meeting me for a drink. I certainly hope so. If not-I wish you continued good luck-and just write this off as the idle fantasy of an (ex) suburban housewife. Fondly, Fondly, Sybil Barnard Micheals Harry remembered her, of course. How could he not remember her? He had thought of her for the last twenty-five years, if not every day, then at least once a week for sure. She was The One Who Got Away, or, more correctly, The One Who Broke His Heart and Got Away. She had been a drama student at the University of Colorado. Harry reviewed the plays she was in for the local newspaper. He had dated her during his senior year. She was tall and blonde and beautiful in a quiet regal way, and though Harry was in love with her they had never slept together, which may have been why she broke off their romance so suddenly, and in Harry"s view, with such brutality.
Their dates consisted for the most part of the two of them dancing together, along with other couples, in the parlor room of Harry"s boardinghouse. At some point in the evening, her skin would become damp and she would start to quiver and say, "Take me home when I feel like this, Harry." And Harry would dutifully and gallantly whip her right back to her sorority house. Whenever they pa.s.sed the wooded area, where couples slipped off to be together in total privacy, she would say, "Whatever you do, Harry, don"t take me in there." And Harry would a.s.sure her he had no intention of doing so. They continued along this way, taking walks, seeing an occasional movie together and dancing-less and less dreamily as time went by-in the parlor of Harry"s boardinghouse. One night her hand brushed against his erection. She jumped and Harry apologized and told her not to worry, it would never happen again.
In some section of himself, Harry had the sense that all they were doing was treading water. He liked being with Sybil, liked the idea idea of her, but he didn"t really know what he was supposed to do next. One night, she asked: "You wouldn"t ever consider meeting me in Denver and taking a hotel room, would you?" Harry said of course he wouldn"t. This time even Harry knew what she was driving at-but he was twenty years old and had never rented a hotel room before. The thought of walking through the lobby with Sybil and dealing with the desk clerk was more than he could handle. Maybe if she had phrased it differently-or if of her, but he didn"t really know what he was supposed to do next. One night, she asked: "You wouldn"t ever consider meeting me in Denver and taking a hotel room, would you?" Harry said of course he wouldn"t. This time even Harry knew what she was driving at-but he was twenty years old and had never rented a hotel room before. The thought of walking through the lobby with Sybil and dealing with the desk clerk was more than he could handle. Maybe if she had phrased it differently-or if she she had arranged for the room. had arranged for the room.
One night, Harry returned to the boardinghouse after a film course in which the cla.s.s had dissected The Loves of Gosta Berling The Loves of Gosta Berling. Waiting for him at the top of the stairs was his roommate Travis, who was smiling broadly.
"You have a call," said Travis, who must have known what was in store for Harry and was enjoying the moment immensely. He accompanied Harry to the wall booth, as if he were a maitre d", and stood by smartly as Harry picked up the receiver. Sybil was at the other end and wasted no time in telling him that she didn"t want to see him anymore.
"I didn"t come all the way out here to date just one person, Harry."
He pleaded with her to give him another chance, but she wouldn"t budge.
"Maybe after we graduate . . . if you"re ever in Charlotte," she said. "But not now."
Harry was sick to his stomach when he hung up, which did not deter Travis from telling him-with enormous pleasure-that Sybil had been dating an agriculture major on the nights she wasn"t seeing Harry. Oddly enough, Harry did not hold any of this against Travis. His friend, who was the school"s only male cheerleader, had suffered a series of romantic setbacks of his own, all with girls named Mary, and obviously took comfort in having some company.
Harry didn"t give up. The next night, he caught up with Sybil, who was on her way to rehearsals for The Seagull, The Seagull, and begged her to go out with him one more time. and begged her to go out with him one more time.
"I have something to show you," he said suggestively, "that I"ve never shown you before."
She reacted to this with a little smile, indicating to Harry that the agriculture major had shown her all she needed to see. He trailed her across the campus, asking her if he could at least have a picture of her for his wallet, but she said she didn"t think it would be a good idea.
"Not even a picture picture?" he said, as she disappeared into the rehearsal hall. That seemed awfully cruel to him; spitefully, he made no mention of her in his favorable review of The Seagull The Seagull.
He didn"t eat or sleep much in the weeks that followed. To Travis"s great delight, he could not even get fried chicken past his throat-the ultimate test of romantic misery. The other fellows in the rooming house gave him lots of room and lowered their voices sympathetically whenever he walked by. One night Harry ran into Sybil"s roommate, who looked him over quizzically and said, "You"re such a nice man," which really p.i.s.sed him off.
Soon afterward, Harry recovered slightly and took up with another drama student-from Wisconsin-who slapped her hips against his on their first date and led him into the woods. They made love virtually around the clock, in deserted cla.s.srooms, in the library, in the open fields. One result was that Harry came up with the worst case of poison ivy in the history of the school. He had to just lie there in the hospital under a sheet for days at a time. But none of this erased the memory of Sybil.
He saw her only one more time, dancing with the agriculture major at the senior prom, her face close to his, and her fingers on his neck. He was with the Wisconsin drama student, who looked great and was extremely jolly-but it didn"t help and he spent the evening with his heart in his shoes.
After he graduated, and in the years that followed, Harry continued to nurse the memory of his loss, like an old football injury. It"s entirely possible he got married because of Sally"s fairly close resemblance to his first love. Maybe there was more to it, but Harry didn"t think so. Thus, you could argue that Harry had had to endure an entire unnecessary marriage and have a child and then get a divorce-all because of Sybil. And she wanted to know if he remembered her.
Strangely enough-and call it ego if you will-Harry had always known that he would hear from Sybil. And maybe even get a letter from her, similar to the one he held in his hand. Each time Harry received a credit on a movie, or even a partial, he wondered if she had noticed his name on the screen. She was out there somewhere; surely she went to the movies. He didn"t see how she could possibly have missed his name entirely, particularly in the case of his two big pictures. The letter proved that she hadn"t. When she saw his name up there, Harry wondered if she had ever regretted her decision to dump him unceremoniously without so much as a farewell photograph.
Now that he had the letter, he could hardly wait for Julie to get back from the construction site so he could tell her about it. The great thing about Julie is that he could fill her in on an episode like this with no fear of criticism. And he could count on her to enjoy it along with him. They had been living together at the beach for two years now, a couple of hours" drive from the city. Julie was working for the post office when they met and had made a recent switch over to carpentry, which she enjoyed more than delivering mail. Each morning she went off to join her construction crew-a great bunch of guys from Greenport-while Harry stayed behind and worked on the screenplay he was doing for a little Czech company that paid him in cash. He was enormously proud of Julie for going into carpentry. And the look of her in work clothes was a tremendous turn-on. One day he ran into her accidentally at the deli, reading off a sandwich order for the crew from a two-by-four. He had wanted to pull off her bluejeans right on the spot.
When Julie got home around five, Harry said he had something to tell her and she said great, but could he hold on for a minute while she settled in. He said fine and did his best to bide his time while she went to the john, checked the mail, and popped open an Amstel Light. Then she lit a Nat Sherman cigarello and plopped down in a living room chair, with one leg slung over the armrest, and told him to fire away. She did not like to listen to Harry"s stories on the fly. Or at least his old ones.
Harry told her about Sybil and the letter and didn"t she think he ought to meet her at the Plaza and play it out. Julie didn"t agree wholeheartedly, but she did agree a little bit and said that if Harry wanted to meet her he should go ahead and do so. Instead of letting it rest, Harry said it would give the experience some closure, a new term he had picked up from the psychiatrist he had been seeing on and off for several years. Julie said she understood the concept and could see that it would be important for him to have some closure.
"But what if she"s gorgeous?" she asked.
Harry had never seen anyone with eyes like Julie"s. They could be warm and playful and kind, all at the same time. That and the work boots and the carpentry. Sometimes it was too much for him.
"It"s beside the point," said Harry. "That was twenty-five years ago."
"I don"t care," said Julie. "And what if she sees your shoulders and tush?"
Harry said she had already seen them, and decided he had to have Julie.
"Now?" she said, in mock panic. "When I haven"t even read the Post Post? And I haven"t come down from my carpentry?"
"Right now," said Harry.
"Okay," she said with a sigh, and took off her sweatshirt. "But let"s not get into a whole big thing."
Harry was understandably jumpy on the day he was scheduled to meet Sybil. Normally, on his trips to the city, he stayed over at a hotel, since he didn"t relish the idea of driving back and forth in one day. But on this occasion, he made sure not to book a room, probably as a safeguard against things getting out of hand. Another reason Harry was edgy was that he feared he would see a record of his own aging in Sybil"s face. That had happened to a character in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story, who had run into a childhood friend in a railway station, and Harry did not need it happening to him.
As he walked through the lobby, Harry wondered if he would be able to recognize Sybil. He had reserved a table in a dark corner of Trader Vic"s, just in case she had gotten fat. Call him a swine if you like, but he was not anxious to be caught having lunch with a fat, older woman. There were several middle-aged women in the lobby who were clearly not her. After fifteen minutes of looking around, Harry started to get irritated and wondered if she had changed her mind and decided not to show up at all. That would put him in the position of having to think about her for another twenty-five years. With no closure. And then she walked up to him-or marched up to him, more accurately-and Harry literally received the shock of his life. She was all furs and pearls and white skin and fragrance and she was far more beautiful than Julie-or Harry, for that matter-had feared.
"Hi, Harry," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "Sorry I"m late."
"That"s perfectly all right," said Harry, who was every bit as unsettled as he had been the first time he met her at the sorority house and helped her on with her coat. His choice of Trader Vic"s had been a good one, but for another reason. He wanted to be alone with her in the dark setting.
He led her off to the restaurant and after they had settled into the corner booth and ordered Mai Tais, she said he looked exactly the same.
"Maybe a little less hair," she said, after another quick study.
Harry raised one hand to his forehead and felt it was a fair appraisal. Actually, he felt he had gotten off easy.
"And you look fabulous," he said, deciding in his new maturity not to add that she hadn"t aged a day. He decided to leave age out altogether.
"I couldn"t figure out what to wear," she said. "I thought maybe kneesocks."
"Kneesocks," he said reverentially. The thought of her long slender legs in kneesocks made him dizzy. He wanted to run right off with her and have her put some on for him.
He said it again.
"Kneesocks."
She brought him up to date on her life-her marriage to a developer, the divorce, the twins, the humdrum suburban life, which was obviously no match for what she perceived as Harry"s exciting one-and said that one reason she had come to the city was to see if she could find work in the theatre.
"I thought possibly you could help me."
"What kinds of parts would you play?" he asked.
Her face fell and Harry saw that she had taken it the wrong way-or maybe the right way-and he wished he could have taken back the question. As it was, he made a limp effort to paper it over.
"Now that I think about it," he said, "there are all kinds kinds of roles you could handle." of roles you could handle."
She took a little time to recover, but once they were back on track he quickly worked Julie into the conversation, saying they were great friends and had been living together for two years at the beach.
"She"s a carpenter," said Harry.
The fact that she and Harry were great friends and that she was a carpenter didn"t seem to make much of an impression on Sybil.
"I"m so delighted you remembered me," she said.
Harry was happy to admit that not only did he remember her but that she had rarely been out of his thoughts. And then he couldn"t resist reminding her of the sudden and seemingly cruel way in which she had dropped him, without so much as a farewell photograph.
"I hated hated my photograph, Harry," she said. "Surely you didn"t expect me to give you a photograph I hated." my photograph, Harry," she said. "Surely you didn"t expect me to give you a photograph I hated."
Then she lowered her eyes.
"And I was afraid of you then. You were so sophisticated."
All of this was news to Harry. The photograph explanation made sense, but the thought of Harry being sophisticated at twenty-and of someone being afraid of him-was laughable. He wasn"t sure how sophisticated he was right that minute.
"I wasn"t ready for you then," she added, leaving the impression-unless Harry was way off the mark again-that she just might be ready for him now.
To sh.o.r.e up his man-of-the-world credentials, Harry stretched back and said he had done just about everything. She matched him in the erotic department by saying she had done just about everything herself. Then she c.o.c.ked her head and thought for a second, as if to set the record straight.
"Except two things."
Harry didn"t inquire as to what they were. Why take the risk of having the reunion come to a crashing halt. But he certainly did wonder what the two things were. He guessed that one of them had to do with the backdoor route. As to the second, he didn"t have a clue.
"I guess I"ve been waiting for the right time to do them."
Harry couldn"t handle that one at all, so he let it sit for a while. Then she asked him if he was free for dinner. She was meeting her sister and brother-in-law, who was a psychiatrist. The plan was for them to attend a party on Riverside Drive for a woman who was dying. Friends and relatives had been invited to sit around with her, in a party atmosphere, with incense burning, while she continued to die.
"It"s a kind of die-in, I suppose," she said. "Would you like to come along? Afterward, we have a reservation at a Thai restaurant."
Harry said that under normal circ.u.mstances, he would love to join her, but he had promised Julie he would be home in time for dinner.
She pressed him on it, but he held his ground. And then he paid the check and walked her to the elevator, which took a long time to get there. While they were waiting, she tilted her head up to be kissed, in the sorority style, and Harry took her up on it, not quite getting all of her mouth, no doubt because he was torn twenty different ways. But he felt the length of her, the long legs and the spare chest. Then his hands dropped to the substantial, maybe oversubstantial bottom that didn"t quite go with the rest of it-and Harry saw for the first time that it wasn"t his youth and inexperience and fear that had kept him from taking her into the woods many years back. The fit wasn"t quite right, and it wasn"t quite right now. He had probably known it then too, but had preferred to blank it out so that he could hold on to his sweet agony in the years that followed. Still, he enjoyed her fragrance, the freshness of her mouth, the rich feel of her fur coat against his cheek. Harry had been leading a quiet, pleasant life, but there had been something missing, and now he thought he knew what it was.
"Would you like to come up for a drink?" she asked.
He looked at his watch and said he"d love to, but that he had better not.
"I have to get moving if I want to miss the rush hour."
"Well," she said, clearly disappointed, "if you ever get to Charlotte . . . "
He thought about her house and the twins and the way she lived, but he knew he was never going to see any of it. All the same, he told her that if he was ever in the area of Charlotte he would be sure to look her up.
They shook hands, and with her fragrance still trailing after him, Harry headed straight for the gift shop. Because of the kiss he felt he had better pick up something for Julie. He had been struggling with a project that had to do with wood nymphs and, as luck would have it, he found a vanity table mirror that had a wood nymph for a handle. Harry picked it up and was about to bring it over to the sales clerk when he spotted a gossip columnist he knew at the magazine rack. He was all filled up with his recent experience and decided to tell the gossip columnist about it, even though he didn"t know her very well.
"You"ll never guess what just happened," he said. And then it all came pouring out in a rush, starting with the college romance and his broken heart, the pa.s.sage of time and then, years later, the letter, all of it culminating in the lunch he"d just had at Trader Vic"s. She listened without comment and when he had finished, she pointed to the mirror and said, "That is the tackiest piece of s.h.i.t I have ever seen."
There was still some daylight remaining when he got home. He went straight up to the bedroom and found Julie curled up on the bed, with a lapful of mysteries, puffing on a Nat Sherman cigarello and working her way through a six-pack of Amstel Lights. In other words, all of her favorite things to do. He wondered how one person could read so many mysteries until one day he caught her skipping ahead and unconscionably peeking at the last page of one.
"So how"d it go, stud?" she asked, not quite taking her eyes off the book she was working on.
"Just fine," he said.
The casual tone made her look up.
"What do you mean by that?"
"What I said," he answered, slinging his coat on top of the jumble of clothing piled up on a chair. "It went just fine."
Harry gave her the gift and when she had unwrapped it she said it was very nice. The lack of enthusiasm didn"t bother Harry. It took her a while to warm up to gifts. In another month or so, she would go around saying it was one of the best things she had ever owned.
"Was she gorgeous?"
"In a way," said Harry, popping open one of her precious Amstels.
"In what way was that?" she asked, her interest picking up. And then, with a playful kind of panic, she said, "Harry, you didn"t you didn"t do do anything, did you?" anything, did you?"
"How can you ask a question like that?" he said, continuing the game.
And then, before she could get out another one of her queries, with her eyes dancing, he sunk down beside her in the unmade bed in the tangle of beers and mysteries and laundry and cigarettes and bluejeans that was his life whether he liked it or not and hugged her so hard he almost broke her bones. He knew then that he loved her upside down and inside out, fat or skinny, rich or poor, sick, healthy, the whole list. He loved her wet green eyes, the chuckle, her rough hands, the right one extended, palm up, when she wanted to make a serious point. He loved her whiskey voice, her teenage b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her crazy hair after a shampoo, and before one, too, and if she didn"t want to be buried right next to him, he"d be disappointed, but that would be all right, too, as long as she gave it some serious thought. He wanted her, and if he didn"t know it the instant he met her, he knew it ten minutes later. Her Her. The very word made him weak.
He just wished she"d wear a skirt once in a while.
Notes Towards a Unified Theory of Dumping by Sam Lipsyte