CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE

Interlude.  Her two are in college, one planning to go to law school afterward, the other intent on a research career in biochemistry, working as an intern during the summer at Rockefeller University.   They’ve had their problems with money, with lying, with recreational drugs; and she has rescued them when they needed rescue.  They are not paragons but they won’t get into big trouble, she reflects.  All she has to do is support them till they are ready to go out into the world; and then, if they want advice, and ask for it, she’ll give it.  She has done as much as she could to help them grow into responsible, warm adults, despite the influences of corrupt and attractive peers, and a father who does not understand the role of role model.

Now Ruth has concluded that it is time she and Peter separate.   It is not an easy decision.  They’ve had some good times together, but not lately.  He has become a sullen stranger, and she is in a state of despair, feeling hopeless and trapped. There was hope for a while – perhaps the therapist would help him to change, even just a beginning, a recognition that there was something wrong…  but no.  Her mother is upset; she did not grow up in a period of broken marriages.  “We’re both unhappy, Mom.  Peter is always depressed; he doesn’t know where his time has gone; he is not interested in the kids and he is constantly attacking me and them.  I’m grown up and I know where my strength is, but they’re still vulnerable.  It’s not good for them.  It’s even bad for me.   I can’t take it any more.  I don’t need to.  And besides he’s completely irresponsible about money.  I can’t save a dime.  I put money into our joint accounts, and he takes it out, always for the best of reasons, but I can’t live this way.  He has some kind of time hang-up.  It’s always today for him; there’s no tomorrow.”

Her mother says, “He does things for you, and he loves you.”

Her friends worry.  Some of their marriages ended early and they remarried comfortably.  Others never married.  But most are still married, have had three or four children, then gone back to college for masters’ degree.  They are teaching or researching now that their kids are grown, and are still getting along well with their spouses.  Is she more demanding, more discontented than the others?  She doesn’t know.  A clue might be that some of them lately voice criticism of Peter, “I don’t know why you married him – you were the smartest of all of us, and one of the prettiest….   You could have waited.”

Waited?  For what?  Who would there be to replace Michael?  She was brought up to expect to be someone’s wife, someone’s mother.  How long can you wait when there is nothing to wait for?   She has never mentioned seeing Michael again, that he sought her out.  They will remember too much and feel sorry for her again.  

“What will you do?” they ask.  “Will you marry someone else?” 

“Never.  I don’t think I’m suited to marriage.”  She has tried, and found herself wanting.  Most women need financial support, need emotional support.  She has been making her own living, and putting the kids through school without help.   She is strong and tough and expects nothing.  What else is there to say?  She is doing everything she can to protect and nurture the kids, Peter, her employees, her business, the society.  Works hard.  Is middle-aged, and….  Wants no more obligations to cook and plan, to fund Peter’s fantasies, to explain to his mother….    She wants to be alone.  And after a few months of looking for a place near where he works, Peter moves, complaining and grieving, but taking no responsibility.    

She still likes men.  Sometimes a personal ad in The New York Review seems promising and she replies.  But most of these men have nothing for her, and they do not last long.  One inadvertently introduces her to her own awfully belated emotional needs.   He is a professor at a midwestern college in an “inadequate marriage,” his ad says.  At first, it is all on the telephone, a completely new experience for her.  He is so warm, so affectionate, so paternal that she realizes she is looking for a father/lover, someone who can take care of her.  Nobody ever has.  Her mother is her friend, but they are equals.  “It is embarrassing and crazy for me to need a father, someone to take care of me now, when I have grown children,” she says to herself.  But this man’s warm, affectionate words on the phone, his fatherly style awaken a deep yearning.  She weeps with relief at the prospect of being taken care of. 

Her father had been sick and died early.  She was her own father, helping her mother, doing the chores, sharing the expenses.  And then she married a man who took care of nobody, nothing; and she is still the grown-up, the one who runs the show, taking care of everyone – him, children, employees, clients, and other women who come to her for advice.

She picks the professor up at LaGuardia Airport, a slim, well-dressed, but very middle-aged man.  “Darling,” he says, (he, too!) “You’re more than I dared to hope.  We will have a wonderful night, and I want us to be everything to each other.”  Such a warm, cozy voice, so much care and attention, fussing about her in her car, offering to drive, smiling and patting her hand, every word and gesture solicitous.   

They set off for dinner at a restaurant along the way while he keeps looking at her as if this is going to be the biggest treat of his life.  Wrong.  She has been seduced by her own fantasy of someone to take care of her.  Her body shrinks from the prospect of being naked and dealing with this man’s nakedness and passion.   She has no physical feeling for him at all, but he is eyeing her as if he can hardly wait.  Her heart sinks.  They are eating dinner when she finally says,  “I can’t go through with it.  I don’t have any desire for you.”

He is a gentleman, much too nice for what she has done.  “I’ll go back, then, Ruth.  I think you’re lovely.  I wish you would change your mind.  Do you think you might?”

“No, please.  I’m so sorry.”  One apology is hardly enough.  She is unable to say how horribly sorry she is, lashing herself with guilt for her stupidity in creating such a disappointment for a person who certainly does not deserve it.    The last plane to his city has left by the time they return to the airport.  He has to find a motel for the night, another expense.  His adventure is a financial as well as a romantic disaster.   That cures her.  Only locals, if any.  And not many.  She is bored with them almost immediately.  They do not understand why she gives up so quickly, unwilling to let a relationship grow.   If only Michael…

Her consultancy has outgrown her apartment.  She finds an office space in a nearby commercial building, and at last she has some peace at home; nobody working late, no phone calls there about emergencies and meetings.  Quiet.  And despite the new expense, she has finally started saving money in a Keogh, and later, in a corporate pension fund.   Working so hard is beginning to show some results in her retirement plans. 

“Is it ok, if we go back to your apartment?  I’ve waited so long for this.”  Michael is so happy at the prospect after lunch, and she, too…  What happened to the diet lady and her restaurant franchise?  “She started hating me,” he says, smiling, as always modest and simple in his response.  (How could anyone hate him?  Why is his work so marginal, his employment so iffy?  She will never know.) 

Michael is in New York now working with a friend who has an ad agency, able to take an afternoon away without any questions.   It would be the first time ever.  How strange.  She has loved him all her life.  But has something been lost in the years between that first love and this day?  Is rapture possible?  Or is he operating on autopilot with “Darling, I love you?”  He has some kind of feeling, but what?  There are guys who say, “I love you” right after a nice encounter in bed.  And forget it when it is time to.

“I have to warn you.  I’m not very good.”  She is shocked.  No man ever says such a thing.   They always go right to it, and if they are merely ok, they are satisfied.  If it is a mess, they have an excuse – nerves, fatigue, long abstinence -- and try again.  How could Michael not be good or at least ok?   He has a long, lean, lovely body, a beautiful smile, nice hands.  He is so acute about everything else, why should he not be a fine lover?  Especially when he loves her?

It is a feverish moment for which they have waited so long.  They are kissing tenderly, savoring this moment of sitting on the edge of the king size bed, still half-dressed.  Ah, love.  It is a gloomy winter afternoon after a late lunch.  She is trembling.  He, too.  

She hates sex right after eating.  There are always digestive discomforts and noisy gurgles.   She is the self-conscious one, she thinks, distracted by body imperfections.  This will be a consummation of long desire, beautiful and perfect.

Now horizontal, stretched side by side, touching tentatively and then caressing.  He is lying there, at ease, and she gets on top, kissing him, holding his precious face between her hands.  Then her hands and lips on his neck and shoulders, and her hands feeling the curve of his flanks, stroking his belly and hips.  He smells lovely, too, not of some familiar thing but of himself.  They smile at each other warmly, even giggle.   

Hugging and kissing, she is shaking with nerves.  He fumbles with her bra, an unfamiliar “French back,” and baffled, just pulls it up and leaves it across her upper chest, inside-out and with the wire upended in a way that makes her feel awkward and unattractive.   She undoes it herself.   Then off comes the rest.  Now they are side by side, but he is still stretched out, not reaching or touching or moving closer.   She kisses him and snuggles closer, wanting to feel his body’s length along hers.  But after a perfunctory caress or two, he is pushing her head down.  She is puzzled.  What is his hurry?  She is more than willing, but she wants to be careful not to take him past the point of no return.  He is apparently quite comfortable, smiling, stretched out, touching her head.  He groans, and groans again, moans.  She stops, intending that he cool off a bit, and do something to get her ready.  He might have understood:  offered a bit of handwork, but he does not really seem to have his heart in it or to understand what he is doing…   And then he is in and finished way before she is ready.   He is quite right:  not very good.  But why?  He is so smart, so eager, so loving, how come so lousy?  It is a question she has often asked herself.  There is no real answer, except that these men are mama’s boys; mama loves them, and they have learned from her that it is ok to be self-centered.  There are a few men who know a lot about turning women on, who are devoted to doing it.  They read, think, experiment, and delay their own orgasms.  They make sex worthwhile, wonderful.  The rest?  You have to love them to consort with them more than once.  She loves Michael, and maybe this is just first-time awkwardness and it will get better when they are together more often.   She knows better, even while she is saying that to herself.   Men who are lousy in bed repeat their lousy routines, never buy a book, and hardly ever “get it” when she tries to prompt more successful activity.  

She is reminded of a long airplane ride with a client, the marketing vice-president for a large corporation.  “What’s the matter, Al, you seem depressed?” she asked after a while.  He was usually businesslike and easy in his trivial conversation.

“I am,” he replied.  “I’m miserable.  My wife wants a divorce.  She says I’m lousy in bed.  I don’t want a divorce.  I love her; I can’t talk about this with anyone else, but you seem to know things without having to talk about them…” 

How painful for him; what an awful confession for a grown man to have to make.  She feels for him, but too much sympathy would be wrong.   “Some people are born with talent for sex, as others have for athletic activity, music, painting, whatever.  The rest of us have to learn what we need to know and keep trying and practicing to improve.  Anyone can achieve acceptable mediocrity at anything, anything including sex if he or she works at it. 

“Listen.  I don’t want to pontificate but I started life like everyone in my family, really clumsy, badly coordinated.  I took modern dance and ballet for twenty years, almost every day, scared to death because I was so bad at it.  But gradually, new pathways were built in my brain, and after years of working at it, I became pretty good.  Not talented.  But ok.  You can do it.”  She wants him to know that he can; not to give up.  “Just read, learn and practice.  Ask questions, even if you feel like a jerk.  Any woman will respect that.   Women have different turn-ons; they’re not all the same.  Use your head and your body together.”  No one has given so many guys, including Michael, that message.   Should she now?  It would hurt him, and maybe it does not matter enough.  She is still uncertain, not privileged to tell him something like that.

Meantime, he is finished and does not start again, despite her twisting, kissing, and caressing, trying to stimulate a new beginning, slower and more considerate.  Well, they have an hour more together, alone, touching and kissing and with a little small talk.  But it is a disappointing experience for one so long awaited.   Not like her girlish hopes and expectations of so many years before.   Is he her bliss even so?  She does not ask herself the question.  The answer has always been self-evident.  She loves him.  

“This is wonderful.   I’ve been dreaming about it for years.  I have to take a shower, of course.”  He runs the shower for a while and Ruthie is thinking about what it all means.  Is this what being “special” means?  He gets a blow job and finishes almost instantly?  Is his wife used to that?  And thinks it’s ok?  Who – some casual affair of many years ago?  – told him he is not very good?    A blow job and in he goes, and has no responsibility or interest in how she is?  Then it is time for him to clean up, and make sure there are no stray smells for the possibly sensitive nose at home.   Michael is out of the shower, still a little damp, kissing her.   He stands up, picking up his discarded clothes and reassembling them on himself for the long trip home on the subway.   And the bathroom, a mess.  The towel is skewed on the shower curtain rail, hanging there for the hotel maid to pick up, the bath mat curled and crumpled, soap dissolving on the floor of the tub, next to a sopping washcloth.  What does she expect?                 

“The doctor says I can’t stay in New York in winter any more.  I must go to a warm climate; it’s too risky for me here.  We’ll probably rent an apartment till we find something we can afford to buy.”   

It is a few weeks later.  She has missed the best part of his life, loving him, and not having him.  She still does not have him, and now he is a little frail.  Maybe not a little frail; a lot frail.  They are close, love each other, but have lived a long time without being closer.  She – still reticent – never thinks of asking what he means:  what does “Darling I love you; you’re special” mean?   It does not mean that they should be together; it does not say, “I made a terrible mistake;” it does not push for more than a little “hello” now and then.  His kids are grown; he can do it.  No.  Why should he?  There is nothing to be gained now.  The game has been played, he has chosen his wife and his life -- and lives with both.  And she, too, with a leftover life, but active and successful, is not sure she would want to start over – if he asked her to.  She would think about it – if he asked.   She is free, and he knows it.  But no, he never says a word, does not encourage any possibility in her.  And to be honest, she knows somewhere that they do not have the same ideas about love, and that the meaning of the word shifts and vaporizes.  They will never talk about it.  It is such a puzzle, this affair.  Loving and going nowhere, both of them conventional and restrained, talking animatedly about art and books, and not much else.    She, addressed as “Darling,” and told “You know I love you,” and no more sure now than during the War-- when he was overseas -- of what he really means; and she, never using endearments because she has said it all with her “follow your bliss” revelation and he has said nothing meaningful in response.   “Special,” indeed.        

“What about your work?”   

“It’s a sales association with my friend in the agency; I get commissions for selling his work to new clients, and a portion of the fees they pay.  And I work with him on the writing and the art if I can make a contribution.   I can do some work with him in Florida.  And I’ve been developing a system for making money in the market.”

“System?”  It is the downfall of every man who thinks he can outsmart the stock market.  Nobody can, consistently, she thinks. 

“It’s a foolproof way of buying and selling options.”

“Foolproof?”  Well, it does not matter.

“I take out of play some of the money I win.  That gives me a hundred or two every week, and limits my losses.

“You know we’ve been helping my mother-in-law – she moved into an apartment next door to ours to be near us in Queens.”

“No.  I didn’t know.”  What irony.  Her mother lived alone in her own apartment in the West Bronx, and worked until she died.   Her mother had maintained her independence financially and emotionally to the end. 

“Well, she’s aging, and Jennifer helps to take care of her, because she’s in her eighties now.   It’s ok; she’s in her own place.  When we rent an apartment in Florida for the winter, she’ll come along, and we’ll take a separate…”

He does not mention this strange turnabout, his involvement with a helpless mother-in-law, a fate that his mother had feared so much for her darling boy as to threaten suicide and thereby damage several lives.  How can he say anything about it?  It is a horrible prophecy come true with the wrong woman.  Or has it not even occurred to him that he is acting out his mother’s fears?   But there is a difference – he does not have the financial responsibility his mother dreaded.  He is getting, not giving.   Caring for a mother-in-law so late has not stymied his potential; he compromised that long ago, chasing meaningless jobs to make money for meaningless purchases.     

She does not ask who is paying for his mother-in-law.  She knows.  Jennifer’s older brother, a garment industry Croesus, the supplier of slightly used Cadillacs, is paying them – Michael and Jennifer -- to assume the responsibility, in Queens and in Florida while he lives far away in a New Jersey villa.   They – Michael and Jennifer—are dependent on the old lady.  What irony, she thinks again.      

“I’ll be back in spring, and then we’ll have the whole spring and summer and fall, darling.  And in the meantime – we’ll write.  You’ll tell me everything you’re doing and thinking and I’ll tell you…”             

That is how it begins.  At first, during his half year away, she mails frequent letters – several a month -- to a post office box in Florida.  The letters are full of news about New York, about her new projects and clients, occasionally troublesome employees, politics and her pro bono work, parties and friends, books, theater, concerts, anything that might be interesting. 

And he, he has little jobs here and there that he writes about – working with store chains on their advertising and signage, preparing booklets for a local library’s concert series, often in exchange for the use of free space where he can work on his market “system” or write to her or do “little things” privately.  That means he has no privacy at home.  She understands.  Perhaps during the War, the need for secrecy about his Navy work and whereabouts has taught him to take precautions for the rest of his life.  He has never gotten over his need for secrecy.  He cannot say, “I need privacy, a little space for my personal projects – and respect for that.”  No, he has to assume constant snooping and keep some tiny space for himself in another place.  She is a little disgusted with his inability to assert himself and yet admires how well he protects Jennifer from any knowledge that he is again in touch with Ruthie. 

“My sister, Jean, and her husband are renting a condo near ours in Florida for a month’s vacation.  It’ll be so nice to have them here,” he writes.  “You’re having a high school reunion soon, before Jean and her husband get here.  Nobody knows we’ve been in touch.  I never even told Stewart, and he never asked.  Anyway, he’s gone now.  It wouldn’t be right for you to say anything to Jean.  Please be careful.”   Pretty casual announcement of his brother’s death.  Nothing about his widow, his children, or about how painful it is to lose a brother you love.   Just keep the secret. 

Why is it so hard for him to say he and Ruthie have lunch together sometimes to his sister?  Where is the harm in their having lunch together, in Jean’s knowing that?  But of course, it was his wartime training.  Don’t say anything to anyone, and the secret is kept.  Would Jennifer have a fit?  And would he be unable to cope with her jealousy?  There is nothing to be jealous of.  Lunches, one “matinee” in bed, nothing.   

The high school reunion is scheduled to be a long one.  There is an early reception for people who have not seen each other in years.  The “girls” are dressed up and coiffed professionally, awaiting the screams of recognition and crows of approval and affection, a bit of envy here and a calculating eye there.  After the reception there will be lunch, and speeches, and then more chattering before reluctant goodbyes and promises (soon to be broken) to stay in touch.     

(The high school has reconstructed its alumnae(i) list from people who still know each other.  The pity is, no one still knows any of the girls who did not go to college.  They have disappeared, probably married and with invisible new names, never to be heard from again.  Ruthie especially misses the girl who taught her to Lindy Hop, whose father raised canaries.  She was as smart as anyone  -- why had they not stayed in touch?)

Ruthie arrives at the new school building on Park Avenue and finds the lounge area of the lunchroom half-filled.  There is Jean talking with Lucy, still her best friend, at the far end of the room.  She is ultra-fashionable in a linen suit and silk blouse, gold earrings, strapped high-heeled shoes.  And the real surprise:  Her formerly dark brown hair has been transformed into a thick mane of expertly coiffed platinum blond. 

Ruth starts over to her to say, “Hello, how are you?” and stops, shocked.  Jean’s face, catching sight of her, is crumpling, and tears are running down her cheeks.  Her lips are parted in a tragic grimace.   “What is it?” Ruth asks, puzzled.  “Are you all right?”

“I can’t help it.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, and we were such good friends,” Jean sobs.  “I’ve missed you so.”  Then she turns.  “You remember Lucy, don’t you Ruth?”  Of course she remembers Lucy. 

“I think you look gorgeous with the platinum hair, Jean,” she says generously, changing the subject.  “Just great.   But why are you crying?”

“I can’t talk about it,” Jean says.

Ah.  The security syndrome, here too.  She will push for a truthful answer, and knows she is being spiteful.  They chat about work, what they are doing, about family, husbands and children.  Jean is appalled to hear that she and Peter are separated.  But why?  She has never even met him.  Their kids – Jean has a son who is gay; who has tried to hide it, but his mother and father both understand.  Ruth thinks that her very conventional friend Jean has grown, at least in some respects.  Of course, when they were young, even in college, they had no concept of  “gay”….  

“Tell me now.  Why did we lose touch with each other?  What happened?”  Ruthie knows she is nagging, deliberately harassing Jean. 

Jean shrugs, showing a pretty dimple so like Michael’s, and the same beautiful smile.   “I don’t know…”   She is not going to answer.

Ruth does not mind Jean’s discomfort.  She style=' >wants style=' >her to deny over and over that she understands what has happened to their friendship.   “Don’t you know?”  Ruth asks, again.    Jean shakes her head.   Her tears are gone.  Her mother cried easily, too, Ruthie remembers. 

Ruth wanders away to another classmate, a thin woman whose husband has come with her.  He confides to Ruth that she has cancer.  Then she says “hello” to a distinguished woman who has become dean of one of the city’s colleges; she has always been serious, has a doctorate in political science, and Ruth and she talk comfortably. 

“What do you think about our putting issues on the ballot in November – not just candidates.  Then people can express real choices, don’t you think?” she asks.  “That would be real democracy.” 

Ruthie agrees.  “Just voting for candidates is the last step, and almost the least important of political acts.  You have to be involved in the process – in how candidates are chosen by the clubs, in how the issues are presented – then you have a real democracy.  Voting for candidates is symbolic, but really not much.”   Later she realizes that issues votes are easily manipulated, too.  

Most of the women of her class have worked all their lives, unlike those of the next decade; the war gave them enormous impetus.  The black women, with fewer options, have done marvelously.  Some of them have gone to law school, others have become principals of schools and college presidents.  They have taken their educations and run with them, despite poverty and prejudice.  One she was close to (another last initial contiguity that made for a friendship) is an administrator in the city housing authority, as well as a published poet.  Ruth knows how hard it has been and is proud of them.    

She goes back to Jean, knowing she is behaving badly.  “Why did we lose touch?  What was it?  Don’t you know?”   This time Jean says,  “I remember.”

“Well, then, what?”

Jean is determined.  “I can’t talk about it.” 

“Even now?  It’s such a long time and it was so hard to understand.”  She still cannot say how hurt she was – and is.  

Jean shakes her head.  They have eaten lunch; this is the windup.  Jean has not mentioned Michael or Jennifer, or even Stewart.  Ruth does.  “I heard Stewart died of a heart attack.  Too young.  How’s his wife doing?”

“I don’t know.  We seem to have lost touch with her.”  Why was that?   Where was the family intimacy and easy back and forth of constant visits with their mother’s sisters, and their cousins, and other relatives?  They all still live on the same subway line.  Stewart and his wife had been dumped, too.  

“Do you want to stay in touch now?”  Ruthie asks, but she knows the answer. 

“We’ll be in touch from time to time, ” Jean says.  Ruth knows how empty that is.              

“Jean and her husband are in Florida this winter – he’s on the verge of retirement and they are trying to decide if they want to live here,” he writes. “We love it.  But Jean thinks they can retire just as well in New York.  Her husband is witty and she enjoys his company, but it’s strange:  she and I have almost nothing to say to each other.   We used to be so close.”

Ruthie writes back, “Maybe you’d have more to say to each other as a twosome, just you and she.  With your spouses, there’s an obligation to make the conversation something they can participate in, too.” 

He agrees.  Jean, he writes later, will not move to Florida – her best friend, Lucy, is in New York, and there’s nothing in Florida better than that, certainly not Michael and Jennifer.

Interlude.  The New York Times sends a photographer to take pictures of Ruth at her desk – they want a variety of pictures because she is a leader, appointed to some national boards, has become an organizer of women, a public speaker.  It is not very important to her.  Her real work is consulting for pay, that’s what pays the bills, keeps the kids in school.  The other stuff is something she does on the side because it is the right thing to do, not her career.  One Sunday, the phone rings.  “Is that you on the front page of “The Week in Review?”  She has not yet got to that section.  There is a montage of sixteen photos of men and women at the top of the page, and yes, there she is, with no name.  They are all anonymous.  Under the headline, “Last hired, first fired.”  She is outraged.

She phones the Times legal department the next day.  “What right have you to take my picture on the ground that you need it for the future, and then print it under a stupid headline like the one you used yesterday?  I have been running my own firm successfully for many years, so I am neither hired nor fired.”

The lawyer does not see any reason for apology.  “It was in our photo file, and we let editors use any pictures that they think illustrate the story.  We don’t bind them by forcing privacy information…”

“What?  You took my picture because I’m a public person and then you use my face for something completely irrelevant?  What nerve!  Why don’t you train your editors to know the difference between an anonymous person and people in your files for a reason?  In fact, now that I think of it, there is no such thing as an anonymous person.  When my firm takes pictures for any purpose, we get a signed release from the subject.”  The lawyer refuses to discuss it, as if she were some cranky nuisance.  “ Okay, you’ll hear from my lawyer,” Ruth says.

Her (male) lawyer friend writes them a letter, telling the Times how wrong they are.   She receives a call from the same indifferent staff attorney.  “What do you want?” 

“A correction.”

“Well then, write it yourself, and we’ll print it.”

She does, referring to herself at Ms, the women’s movement’s new honorific for women that makes their marital status as irrelevant as that of any “mister.”.  

There is an uproar at the Times, according to the lawyer.  It goes all the way up to the owners, the top editors, everyone.  He says, “We cannot print your correction as it stands.  Please,” begs the previously indifferent legal counsel. “Call yourself Miss or Mrs.  I’ll be fired if you insist on Ms.  The Wall Street Journal has the same rule,” he says.   She knows that.  It’s run by men, too.  

“Okay. I don’t want you to be fired.   Refer to me by my last name only as if I were a criminal or a sports hero.”

That’s what they do.   It is less dishonorable to them, a new lesson in etiquette.  She likes embarrassing the New York Times.   

She writes about it in a letter to Michael far away in Florida.

“I thought I saw you there but I only get the Sunday paper so I did not see the correction.  Good for you,” he writes back.  “But I haven’t had a real picture from you in years.  Why don’t you send me one?”  Her first thought is that he has no place to keep it.   But that is his problem.

Ruth thinks she is not the girl she once was.  Does he have a fantasy image of the girl he knew?  How could any new picture match it?   Searching, she finds a frontal snapshot taken by a guest on the porch of her country house on a cold day.  She is wearing a dark Italian turtleneck sweater that makes it easy to imagine a still-svelte figure, and, with the big smile and pretty hair, she looks quite girlish.  She wants to be the same pretty thing she once was, for him, because she loves him, and for herself, too, so he will love her, too.  She mails it.      

The answer is more enthusiastic than she expects.   “There you are, my darling girl, looking a little chilled – and I can see the frozen lake through the porch windows behind you, so I know you were cold.  Dear girl, you are feeding my dreams and memories with this picture.  Thank you.”  

“I’m really not the girl I was.  The number of people flirting with me in the street is dwindling,” she writes back.  Yes, she thinks, there are a few, but for reasons she cannot fathom, the age markers so clear to middle-class white men in the street are invisible to Hispanic and black men.  Or do they flirt as eagerly with middle-aged women as with young women?  Is it a cultural thing?  (She is reminded of a French movie in which a Don Juan says the best new girlfriends are middle-aged women:  they are so grateful.)   She continues, “except for minority men – black or Hispanic.  I look good to them.”

“How come?” he writes back, alarmed.  “Where are they, where are you that these guys are after you?” 

Life in his Florida condo must be isolating indeed.  But he writes that he gets the Sunday Times every week.  How can he not have noticed?   Don’t they cover the census figures, the immigration of West Indians, the higher birth rates, the political organizations that have started mobilizing minorities?   Don’t his cable channels offer programming for Spanish-speaking and black families?  Where is he?   She cannot ask these questions. 

“You know, the city is changing.  There has been a considerable out-migration of white people to the suburbs, and a lot of black and Hispanic people have arrived from the south and from the islands.  I think the city is almost half minority now – blacks and Hispanics and a substantial percentage of Asians, Chinese, Koreans, Indians and Pakistanis.

“Where I walk every day, to and from my office and my health club, I pass a lot of black and Hispanic men who are maintenance workers for Con Ed and for the phone company, they work in the apartment houses or for the sanitation department; they’re policemen and tradesmen, plumbers, electricians, painters.  They are the people who work with their hands or in uniform. 

“Even newer, a lot of the bus drivers, mail delivery people, cops and even a doorperson or two are female (but they’re not flirting with me.)  I’m glad to see women taking the better-paying jobs.

“It’s interesting that practically all the cab drivers and news stand operators in the city are Asians.  Upstate all the gas station operators are from India and Pakistan.  They learn from each other how to make a living in the strange new place.  New York is not what it was even a few years ago.”   He left New York only a short time ago; how could he have missed the changes—on the subways and busses, in the streets…?  Is he so insulated from the news in the papers, on TV, in the magazines?  Where is he?  What does he talk about with his neighbors, his wife? 

“We’ve found just the right condo – it has been in an estate limbo for twelve years – brand new and never lived in, but a bargain now, and we’ve bought the adjacent one-bedroom apartment for my mother in law.   We’re near the inland waterway, and it’s a nice place we’ll be able to rent when we visit the city for the summer.”  There is a lot about a sea wall, about boaters…   About how he’s been elected to the condo board.  Well, of course.  He is still a beauty (he sends a picture, too), and his charm and brains inspire confidence everywhere. 

Interlude.  She is content with her life.  An occasional affair – almost always with a married man who is happy to fool around and for whom she is one in a long series of much-loved women (until the next one.)   Some of these last several years, pleasant, although unsought, alliances.  A man spots her at a meeting of a volunteer organization or a scientific committee and asks if he can drive her home.  “I live only a few blocks away.  I walk here,” is Ruth’s innocent reply.

“I could drive you anyway.” 

She shrugs.  “Okay.”  And then he comes up in the elevator, looks around and says, “How does it feel to live in a museum?”  But respectfully.  They chat about the organization whose meeting they just attended, or whatever he wants to bring up.  Then he says, “Would you have dinner with me?” 

“Dinner?”  She still doesn’t get it. 

“Chinese food or curry or … whatever you like.” 

“Okay.”  They have dinner once a week for three or four weeks, modestly-priced meals that he pays for, since he is also asking her advice about his work and she can give good advice.  And each time, he takes her back to her apartment and sits near her on an extended sofa for more conversation.   She has not given any thought to where this is going.   

“Why are you sitting there like a virgin?” he complains. 

“What?” she is puzzled.      

“You know what I mean.”   Yes, finally she does, although it has not really occurred to her earlier.  He is a nice man, smart enough, ordinary-looking, with a strong healthy body, and beautiful clothes who wears a portentously serious air for his professional work.  She has no image of him as a lover.    

“Oh.  Well, I don’t know.  If you want to hang around a little longer till I think of you as a possible lover… that’s okay.  But I’m not sure I will.  It may be a bit of a risk…”

It is his turn to shrug.  “I’ll hang around a few more weeks.”  He does, and his confidence is rewarded. 

She tells one of her friends after a while – a few months.  “This man, who is about fifteen years younger than I, very nice, very good in bed…”

“Oh, Ruthie, you’re so lucky…” the friend, single, and without a lover, knows many single women who are without lovers.  The demographic problems of unmarried women who outnumber available men get a lot of media attention.  

The next time she and the new man are in bed, she recounts the conversation.  “She says I’m so lucky.”

He is gallant.  “I’m the lucky one,” he exults.  “I love you.”  But she knows this is not love, although he often says, “I love you.”  In fact, he is not even slightly shy about saying of a troublesome woman executive with whom he must deal that if he could get his face under her skirt, she’d be much more agreeable.  Would he tell her he loves her, too?  Why not?  Bonobo chimpanzees lubricate their social frictions with comforting sex. 

Theirs is a real friendship along with its primary goals.  He gets career advice (when he asks), talks about his children, his aspirations, his father’s increasingly perilous diabetes, a second house on a Florida island.  He is interested when she tells him about her children’s affairs, and her own plans.

She sometimes takes him along to early-evening cultural events – Jacques Derrida, talking at Columbia (unexpectedly in French which she speaks and understands) about Kant’s “ betrayal of the clerics” is one in a packed Low Library.  She is amazed at how good-naturedly he sits in a fog during the talk, without fidgeting or grimacing although he does not understand French.  She is very apologetic.  “I’m so sorry.  I did not know he’d be talking French at Columbia.  You were so kind to sit still and not complain.”  Peter would have squirmed and moaned; he’d have tormented her during the talk and for days after for dragging him to such an event.  This new man is amazingly sweet and calm, good-natured, like Michael, she marvels.  But he does not have Michael’s charm and physical beauty.  Even so, she is lucky.  He imposes nothing on her – they eat dinner, chat, spend a couple of hours in bed, very warmly, and then he showers and goes home.  She does not even have to face him in the morning.  .

Then, he tells her something surprising and delicious the following week.  He was interviewed by a headhunter for a desirable job the day after the Derrida talk.   “What did you do last night?” the headhunter asked.   (She grimaces.  Headhunters and executives ask stupid, irrelevant questions as if they will gain instant insight into how an applicant will perform.)   

“I told him I went to hear Jacques Derrida discussing Kant’s Le trahison des clercs at Columbia.  I even said it in French.”  He grins.  “He almost fell off his chair in appreciation of my cultural breadth.   So thank you for that.  It may mean my getting this terrific job.”  (In fact, it does.)

Michael comes back to New York on April 1, and they resume the lunches and phone calls and conversations for a few weeks.  But then there is a cold snap and a snow flurry or two, and his doctor ships him back to Florida.   He writes, “We have to sell the apartments in New York.  The doctor says I must stay here all year, because there is less risk of lung problems.  Flushing is a hard sell now.  The only buyers are Indians and Chinese… ”  

There is a hiatus of weeks.  No letter.  She writes worried letters to the post office box.  No answer.  For the first time in a long time, she asks herself:  what is this about?   Does she still love him?  Oh, yes.  He is lovely in so many ways; she has never gotten over the romantic attachment.  And he, why does he write so often and so lovingly?  Does he love her as she loves him, or is he avoiding problems at home?  Another unanswered question.  But is he all right?

No, as it turns out.  “I’ve been in the hospital with a collapsed lung.  They rushed me here when I was close to death.  It’s been repaired, and I’m okay now.  I look all right, haven’t lost any real weight.  In fact, I have this nineteen-year-old girl, the receptionist for the doctor, driving me crazy.   She thinks I’m the love of her life, and I have to dissuade her – my children are older than she is…”   He has enclosed a photo of an unquestionably very young, pudgy girl, not bad-looking, sitting at her reception desk and smiling lovingly.  She must have given it to him to express her devotion.  In fact, he admits that’s the case.  

She writes back.  “Are you fooling around with her?   You might as well make her happy.” 

“No.   She’s too young, and I do not want to disappoint her.  She’ll find a suitable guy soon enough.”   He is a good guy:  honorable and scrupulous. 

Interlude. The Metropolitan Museum has a lecture about the multiplicity of parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia and the Old Testament, a subject of endless interest to Ruth (along with cosmology, the human brain, various periods of art and literature, the dynamics of political economy and …)     

She’s read some of this before, but this lecturer is dramatizing the differences as well.  There is no parallel to Enkidu in the Old Testament.  The heroes and prophets and ancestors in the Bible never have a close friend who presents to them the mystery of death that must be solved.  Sitting in the museum auditorium next to a girl who confesses that she is a religious Christian, for whom the literal truth of the Bible is unquestioned, Ruth realizes that she must be very careful in what she says. “He’s right, you know.  Stories about virgin births, resurrections from the dead, all that, were part of the mythology of Egypt and the rest of the near east.  The timing of birth and death in these stories has to do with the seasons – the birth at the point of the winter solstice means hope at the darkest part of the year; death and resurrection always come in time for the spring equinox when things start growing again.  So people would not be frightened by the darkness and would recognize the beginning of the planting season.” 

The girl, wide-eyed and curious, says, “I was brought up on the Bible…” 

“I can recommend a book you might enjoy.”  Yes, the girl wants to read it.  “Homer Smith.   Man and His Gods.  It’s not a new book, but the library will have it if you ask.”

She writes to Michael about this.  It is just one letter, on one subject.

“Tell me the name of the book.  I’ll get it, too.  I never heard of it.”  Weeks later he has read it, and says a lot of the argument is very interesting, and that he knew none of it before.   

That is it, she thinks to herself.  He says, “Darling” but really I am rare entertainment in his dull world.  I provide something for him to think about in a boring life.  All he needs is the postage, and time, wherever he is, to write to me and he can count on …  What?  Love, consideration, stimulation.  .  

But now he does not want to write.  It takes him too long.  He is not as easy a writer as she.   “I’ve been borrowing tapes – book tapes – at the library, and that’s what I want us to do.  I can tape my voice speaking to you while I’m doing other things – drawing or painting or printing my photographs – or doing some kind of hand work or even while I’m in the car driving to shop, or see the doctor.” 

She prefers writing, but it’s all right.  She buys a box of new tapes, and finds a tape recorder that she uses professionally for seminars and speeches.   This is the beginning of a new era of correspondence.  Why are they doing this?  They talk now on tape, mailing the cassettes back and forth, sometimes erasing old tapes to reuse them.  On one tape, he says, “Jean and her husband are here now, and we, the four of us, meet for dinner.  I don’t understand it.  We used to be so close, and now we have nothing to say to each other.  We talk and it’s empty, there’s no warmth.”  He has said that before.

She tapes back, “It’s because your spouses are there.   You can’t be intimate and confide in Jean, and she in you when these other people, who do not have your memories, your shared years and confidences, are there.   So it’s all small talk.  Why don’t you and Jean go somewhere for a day together, just the two of you…” 

But she is thinking something else.   They are out of the habit of intimacy, of sharing feelings; their feelings have been reduced, dissipated to the conventional, smiling interchanges of strangers, buried where they could not be reached.   

“Ruthie, it’s ridiculous for you to still be in New York.  It’s the wrong place for you, a hardship place with so much crime and so many strange people, the subways, the horrible weather.  You should move to Florida.”   It is a new tape.   “There are plenty of new condos here, and you can buy something very nice.  The weather is fine; there are plenty of people from New York and there is even work, if you want it.    You’ll make new friends, even maybe find a new husband with money.  You should not be living alone up there.  This is a better place for you.”

She listens to the tape, astonished.  There is nothing for her in Florida except beaches, which she admits she loves.  Sarasota has some cultural activities.  But Disneyland, Miami, the emptiness of resort life?  She has no interest in moving.  She is sturdy and deals well enough with the weather and the subways.  “Kiddo,” she replies, “It’s nice of you to think about my safety and comfort, but really I love it here, and don’t want to move.  I can slosh around for walks even in mid-winter, and I have no interest in a new husband.”   He tries again from time to time – is it because then he can see her occasionally – but no, it would be no safer to have clandestine meetings in Florida than it was in New York, when he could have.  She thinks, it’s to tell her what to do.  That’s what men do:  Tell women what to do.

“The old lady is still flourishing.  She’s in her late eighties.   And I have a new Cadillac from my brother-in-law…   The new thing is that I’m taking local photographs and selling them as post cards and greeting cards in sets.  The library gets half the profit so they’re very happy to sell them for me, and I’m offering them at local flea markets and community events, and making quite a bit of money.”  

He sends her sets of the greeting cards.  Beautiful work; no wonder it is popular, and she uses them for special correspondence to friends and family who collect and keep them. 

Here’s a bit of news: they will meet for the first time in how long?  It is summer and he is going to visit the feckless son upstate, staying in a motel only about forty-five minutes from her country house.  Of course, they will spend the evening together, and then she can drive home before morning.  (He is not sure when his son will pick him up, he says.) 

She finds the motel, not far from the Kingston Bridge – taking only one wrong turn in the late September darkness.                   

“Oh, love, it’s so good to see you.” He is hugging and kissing her, as eloquently as any lover.  How nice.  She too, she is grinning with pleasure at the sight of him, still the same lovely Michael, dressed in a turtleneck sweater and pleated slacks, stylish moccasins.  His hair is still thick, graying yes.  Hers, too, but Clairol helps to keep it dark.  She has been complaining about her figure, but in fact, her waist has gone from twenty-four inches to twenty-six, still acceptable. 

“We can go out to eat first and then spend the rest of the evening in this room.  I asked especially for a king-size bed so…  Where do you think we should eat?  I don’t know anything about the restaurants here.” 

She does.  There’s an old-fashioned Italian restaurant up the road, very popular; there’s a Chinese restaurant in Woodstock that everyone likes, and there’s Christie’s in Woodstock, too, run by ladies, serving Chilean wine and very nice homemade American food in a late 18^th century roadside inn. 

“The closest, the closest,” he crows.  “Then we have the rest of the evening here.” 

“I don’t know the other places, nearer.  They may be terrible.”

“We’ll find something; it’ll be ok, and no wine anyway if you’re driving.”

Salad, pasta with clam sauce made of canned clams, packaged spumoni.  He keeps smiling, and his hands are shaking all during dinner, holding hers, kissing her palm (she still finds that sexy), rubbing the back of her neck while they wait for the next course.   This place, with its neon “Italia” over a small wooden building near a gas station, is only a quarter of a mile away from the motel.

“Darling, darling.  I’ve been dreaming of this for so long.”  They are back in the rented room, kissing and hugging.   “I have something for you.”   A framed enlargement of one of his new pictures, taken in the Everglades – nature untouched by the Army engineers.  It is beautifully composed, with a fine wide gold-leafed frame.

“Lovely,” she says.  “Thank you.  Do you have more of these?   You may have a career ahead of you for Natural History or …  the Nature Conservancy.   Send them some.”   She realizes she is distracting him from their mutual purpose.  It’s nerves. 

He nods.   “No.  Just for you.   Let’s just get undressed.  I want to remember this evening, and how you look; I want to touch everywhere…”                       

“Mmmm,” she hums.   “Okay.”   He is stretched out on the bed, on the bias, for all six-feet something of him, with the same flush she remembers, the droopy eyelids, and ready to go.  She, too.  This will be great.

But, he has pulled her down over him, and they are giggling with glee between kisses.  His hands are running up and down her back, feeling the contours above the middle curve and below.  “You’re still beautiful,” he marvels, kissing again, cupping her now drooping breasts (but he can’t tell in this position.)   And she is relishing his still gawky long body.  But then, there is that emphatic hand, pushing her head down so she can slide the rest of her body far from his.  No hint of reciprocation – even when she makes a move to turn the other way.   He simply turns to counter her turn.  Well, that’s the way it is.

There’s nothing the matter with any part of a clean body for making love.  Foreplay is delightful for everyone.  He is moaning and she thinks, “This is going too fast.”  “Should I stop?” she asks.

“No, no,” Michael mutters.  “This is wonderful,” and before she can think what else to do, he has an orgasm, not even withdrawing.  She grabs a tissue and spits into it.   Now what?  Again, as a few years before – not much:  A little perfunctory hand and tonguing, and no interest in ascertaining where she is in terms of satisfaction.  In fact, while her tension has increased without any release, and she is still wriggling next to him, he pulls away, relaxing on the big bed, ready now for a little conversation and more desultory kissing.   In fact, he is so relaxed, that she realizes from his breathing that he has dozed off.  Well, he has had a rough day, traveling from Florida, getting a limo to the motel, chatting with his son about the next day…   She can wait.

She does, and pretty soon, looking at her watch, she realizes it is ten-thirty.

“Hey.   You can sleep later.   I want to leave before midnight.  The drunks come out after then and I have a thirty-mile drive on twisty roads.”

“Sorry, darling.  I was tired.  Where were we?”  He is back to hugging and kissing, but there is no sign of anything more. 

“Want to go again?” 

“I can’t do that any more.  Not so soon.  I’m not as young as I was.”  He grins affectionately.  “Age hasn’t withered your charms or vitality…   Ah, this is so good.  I wish I could go back with you on your twisty roads, and stay the night.  But that’s silly.  I’m meeting my son here tomorrow.  And maybe I’ll find out what he does here.  Whatever it is, if he isn’t asking me for money, and isn’t in jail, it’s ok.”     

“How come you’re visiting him now?” 

“I haven’t seen him in years, and he wanted a visit, just me.  Beats me.  But I’ll be here for a couple of days, and we’ll get to talk then.”

She never does find out what the visit is about.

CONTINUED IN NEXT ISSUE

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