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Interlude. Peter visits at odd intervals, without advance notice because she and her mother are still on a waiting list for a telephone. He rides over on his bike, and carries it up five flights of stairs to their apartment. By this time, she has paid to have her mother’s secondhand furniture reupholstered, and their apartment is beginning to look acceptable. She buys prints at the Metropolitan Museum shop -- Winslow Homer watercolors -- and has them framed to hang on the walls. She buys an unpainted pine bookcase called a “credenza” and refinishes it herself in mahogany stain and varnish. Ruthie even installs new electrical outlets in the living room, stapling the wire to the baseboard molding and mounting the outlets just above it. She and her mother now have a bronze floor lamp with a reflector bowl, plus a bridge lamp to read by. They can sit in comfortable chairs and read with good light, and she can listen to their new radio-phonograph. Ruthie has spent hundreds of dollars on it, a big, squared-off piece of furniture covered in a figured mahogany veneer. It has a pull-out record player and big speaker so she can indulge her new taste for classical music. She now owns boxes of Beethoven’s symphonies, some of the piano sonatas, Schubert and Mozart on 78 rpm shellac records and is able to stack them so that they fall in sequence onto the turntable, and play almost an hour without interruption. Every Friday night she buys a dollar box of chocolates at Barricini so that at last she can entertain the way other people do. She even keeps a bottle of domestic Port on top of the finished bookcase, along with a few small glasses. She is learning to live graciously. Or is Mrs. Osofsky still her model so many years later? She does not think about it, but maybe she is. Peter’s visits are months apart at first. He arrives and departs without commitment, a free spirit who expects nothing of her. They talk about their friends, music, movies and science and science fiction. He joins a discussion group she has inadvertently started about political economy. (She has been studying various schools of political economy, and is most attracted to – of course – outsider, Henry George. The others find an almost mathematical precision in his ideas, and hope to be able to translate them into easy-to-understand equations: idealizing the role of math in real life.) That summer Peter goes to Mexico on a bicycle trip. Suddenly, he is back, too soon and in the hospital. He has infectious hepatitis, the product of trusting, careless touristic eating, and is in a north Bronx hospital for three weeks. She visits once, accompanied by a girlfriend, to bring him a couple of science fiction anthologies to read. “I’m thinner and yellow, even the whites of my eyes,” he notes, “and my bowel movements have turned white, very upsetting the first time you see that.” Boys never mention bowel movements to girls. She is surprised and modestly pleased that he takes her into his confidence, and is not embarrassed with her friend. “They tell me that the liver regenerates, and I’ll be ok in a few months. But I can’t drink for years.” He shrugs. “I don’t drink, anyway. Maybe beer once in a while.” He seems to be putting up with the hospital’s constant testing with placid good nature. She likes that. She does not think she, herself, is good-natured. She needs someone placid, she thinks. Some very early tantrum has inspired her family to tell her she has a bad temper. No one would say that if it were not true, and she believes it still, even though she’s forgotten the tantrum. She takes seriously everything anyone tells her, so she is sure she has a bad temper, even though she cannot remember a time when she has not been a nice girl, helpful, studious and hardworking. Her girlfriend comments on the way home from the hospital, “He’ll make someone a good husband.” Later that fall, Peter and another friend ride their bikes all the way to Bear Mountain and back in one day. A hundred miles. Peter is strong. He is shy but smart. They read the same science fiction magazine and love it, even the editor’s speculative discussions about future science. The following summer, when she and a group of girls at work rent a summer place in a little colony not far from Peekskill, Peter comes to visit one weekend. It is not unusual – all the girls have weekend visitors. She might even have invited him, explaining that he must bring a sleeping bag, and there are no beds for visitors. He has with him for her, a silver bracelet he picked up in a Mexican workshop in Taxco before he fell ill. It is a simple cottage. The girls carry provisions on the train Friday night, only enough for each weekend. Then Ruthie does the cooking, sometimes pot roast, sometimes shrimp curry, chicken cacciatore, spaghetti with meatballs, enough for everyone. There is no electricity, therefore no refrigerator, only an icebox and a single ice delivery Saturday morning. Light comes from a gas line—the coating on the gas mantles burns brightly when the gas is lit. Bread, eggs, salami, tomatoes, cookies, and fruit last all weekend without ice. Plus there is canned fish and hard cheese, plenty to eat. They swim in a local pond on Friday night before eating, attacked before they jump in by swarms of mosquitoes. There is a rowboat on the adjacent Hudson, and huge brambles of wild raspberries to pick and deposit in pails for delicious breakfasts and desserts. In fact, it is a privilege to have wild food for the picking. The cottage is small; only one room, and most meals are eaten at a picnic table in the back yard. The cottage colony’s flush toilet is a block away. This simplicity is wonderfully affordable for four girls – one hundred dollars each for the summer. “This is terrific food,” Peter says. “I have to take you to a great pizzeria on Southern Boulevard.” “What’s a pizzeria?” Ruthie asks. “It’s where they serve pizza.” “I don’t know what that is.” It dawns on her that it is the same as “ahbeets” a word her newly married young uncle uses to describe something he and his bride eat in restaurants instead of dinner. It is months before she understands that her uncle is using the Sicilian pronunciation of the word. And it is years before pizza by the slice is an ordinary snack. She and Peter go to the Southern Boulevard establishment, and there it is: A huge round flatbread made to order with much flipping into the air to develop the gluten, baked with a topping of cheese and tomato sauce. Served hot enough to burn your mouth and leave a string of blistered mucosa hanging off your upper palate. Delicious. And delicious also the lasagna the same restaurant produces, layers of thick noodles with meat and cheese and tomato sauce. They are so happy consuming these delicacies together that it is easy to fancy getting married. They’ll be ok together. So, several years after Ruth knows Michael is lost, she, too, marries, expecting a stable, warm partnership. But they are not happy together; there are facets of Peter’s character that are totally unexpected. She cannot deal with them, no matter how hard she tries. But many marriages are miserable; why should hers be any different? Peter is moody, often sullen and quirky. He comes along to museums and art galleries, enjoys the theater, except wordy plays by T.S. Eliot; even accompanies her to an occasional opera where he invariably falls asleep. (Why is that? He loves music.) But he is not a good partner. He is self-centered and extravagant, has fantasies of making a fortune in the stock market and buys on margin. She is constantly scrambling to pay back his borrowings – but then he goes out on another limb and she scrambles again. He is inconsiderate and sloppy, leaving messes for her to clean up because he “does not feel like it.” “You can’t wait till you feel like it,” she argues, uselessly. He finds it easy to bad-mouth her to other people. Peter is able to mope for days without speaking to her. If she tries to talk to him, he turns on the TV. After years of unhappiness, she considers divorce – but she is now in her thirties, and who else is there? She wants children, and it’s now – or when? Peter has a strong body, is bright, has all the right genes for babies. She decides babies first, maybe divorce later. Full of bookish notions, and a willingness to work hard, she starts a business consultancy when she is pregnant, working from home to be with her baby. Even that goes well. Her clients admire her strength and make jokes about how she is like a woman playing golf who excuses herself at the ninth hole to have a baby and comes back to finish the round. Her baby is beautiful, strong and good-natured. For years, she deals with a succession of nanny/housekeepers -- highly variable “help” from the Caribbean islands or the U.K., come to New York for money or marriage. She tutors and counsels them, even researches and finances an occasional abortion. Peter goes his own way, oblivious. Pretty soon, she has employees, larger client firms, a brochure, business cards, and a public reputation. And she and Peter and the desks, files and employees, and later a second child are comfortable in a spacious, professional apartment. The whole arrangement has been planned so that she’d be there most of the time for the children. In the past, writers, artists and retailers managed to combine home and work, but no high-powered (especially female) consultant has done it before – now that she has, plenty of her friends see that it can be done. Ruthie’s mother visits after work at least once a week. She plays with her grandchildren, eats dinner and takes the subway home. Her mother marvels at what a good cook she is, “Everything you make is delicious. Better than any restaurant.” High praise. At dinner one such night when Peter is out of town, Ruth’s mother says casually, “I met Michael on a bus a few weeks ago. He begged me for your new name and address because he wants to get in touch with you. I said ‘no.’” Her mother shakes her head angrily. “He kept begging… and I said ‘no’ over and over. I knew you’d be wrecked if you saw him again. I could not let him start all over now; do you more damage. He looks the same, still handsome… Anyway, I refused to tell him anything and did not tell him why.” “Thanks, Mom. You did the right thing; I don’t know how I would deal with it if I saw him again.” Just the calm, matter of fact voice, saying the sensible thing, masking her pain. How could she bear to see Michael again, hear his voice, feel again what she has lost? It would break her in two. She is a married woman, a professional with a reputation, with employees, with two beautiful children. She would never hurt them. How could she go back to being the helpless, nice girl who was dumped and left in a garbage pit by a man who disappeared without an explanation? A man who did not have enough feeling for her to communicate his reasons? And why should he be looking for her now? Does he regret marrying Jennifer? Does he still love her? And then, would they still love each other? Was there any hope? She is back to being crazy, back to unanswered, unanswerable questions. There is no end. Oddly enough, it takes Stewart to bring them together, a few years later. “Stewart Osofsky, Ruthie! Do you remember me?” “Of course. It’s so nice to hear from you. How did you…?” “There’s a picture of you in one of the business journals… I thought I’d call and congratulate… “ “Oh, Stewart. How nice of you… How are you, how are your wife, kids? Where do you live now?” He still lives in Queens. The desperate pause. Can she ask about his family? No. Not even about Jean. She and Stewart get through the conversation quickly. After learning her new name, he looked her up in the phone book. They never talk again. It is sixteen years after Michael married Jennifer -- and the day after Stewart’s call. Her secretary says “There’s a Michael Osofsky…” “Hello,” she says, with a nice, steady voice. “When can I see you? When? Can we have lunch tomorrow?” “No.” She needs to compose herself. “Would you like to come here for a quick lunch Monday? I’m taking off for Chicago later that day and I’ll be gone for a week…” “Great. Where?” She gives him the address, the best avenue on the west side and one of the finest buildings on it. Lunch would be easy, a cold platter of salads and meats and cheese, fruit and coffee, served in the beautiful dining room that doubles as a conference room for meetings with clients. There he is, exactly as she remembers him: tall and lanky, with an easy manner, a beautiful smile, a business suit. Perfect, again … still. “How did you…?” “Stewart, of course. He knew I’d been looking for you for years…” “Why?” “I had to see you. Didn’t your mother tell you we met on a bus…?” “Yes, she did.” They are sitting at the table opposite each other, eating carefully, he looking around. “You have some beautiful art…” “Yes.” “This is altogether beautiful. What do you do now?” “We counsel some very large organizations. What are you doing these days? What happened to your fellowship? I thought you’d go into teaching at the university…” “I did for a while, but then I had to make more money. My wife and three kids… Jennifer likes to eat out in fine restaurants, she wears good clothes. Her brother is very rich; I get his two-year-old Cadillacs.” He laughs ruefully, “So I drive a big, expensive car. I loved what I was doing at the university, but I’m adaptable. It was easy to become publisher of a string of construction magazines in Westchester….” “Publisher?” “Mainly selling advertising. That’s what magazine publishers do.” “I know,” she nods. “I was an editor at McGraw-Hill and Harcourt, Brace, and I still consult for Harbrace. Mainly on new magazines…” He shakes his head admiringly. “You’re a huge success. It shows in everything here.” She smiles sadly, not sure if she is embarrassed that he is so conventional or glad that he is doing the right thing. They are getting the preliminaries over, and she is pleased to have set a limit on the time they have. Suddenly he stops. “You know what happened to us, don’t you?” “No. I have never known. You just vanished from my life.” “Didn’t Jean tell you?” “Jean and I have not been in touch for many years.” She marvels at her own delicacy and tact. She has grown up. “Why would she have told me? What was there?” “I thought she was your friend, your best friend.” “She was. But why should she? What was there to tell?” “My mother knew I wanted to marry you. She knew your mother was widowed, and she worried your mother would be dependent and slow me down. She threatened to commit suicide if I continued to see you.” Ruth sits as if in a trance. That’s what it was! Something so stupid and far-fetched and unworthy. How could he have gone along with it? And Jean – they are both just like their mother, she thinks bitterly, snobby and upwardly mobile, totally conventional and unfeeling. They are loyal to their mother – she gives them that – but does that mean nobody else matters? Or were they too ashamed to speak to her again? Michael walked away without looking back. He dumped her like trash. And now he says he loved her, planned to marry her? And Jean, her “best friend,” could not speak to her, simply opted out of knowing her. Some friend. It was the time. Families had secrets and kept them. So Michael and Jean had chosen sides: It was their mother versus Ruthie. They had chosen their mother and Ruthie did not exist. But, of course, Mrs. Osofsky was completely wrong. Ruthie’s mother never depended on anyone; always paid her own way, was still working. Ruth can forgive Michael. She has to forgive him, it was so long ago. He is sitting there, right in front of her and she still loves him, would always love him. No one falls out of love quickly. Even so, she agonizes again: both so cowardly, so unfeeling! He is going on: “A year or two later, when I told my mother I was marrying Jennifer… she threatened suicide again. The morning of the wedding, she said, ‘I’m going up to the roof to throw myself off.’ ‘Fine, Mom,’ I said, ‘I’ll ride up in the elevator with you.’” He is smiling at the memory of calling his mother’s bluff. Now, he is serious again. “We only have a few minutes. I’ve thought about you so often. Do you think we’d have been happy together?” He is showing some courage now, and she admires him again, loves his directness. But how can she answer without showing him how devastated she was – still is? It is an unexpectedly horrible moment. How can he ask her such a question? And how can she answer it truthfully without betraying herself? What is the use now? It is too late, too agonizing to say, “Of course. We were meant to be together.” She would break down and cry, lose all dignity and pride. She has to lie. “Who knows? Maybe not.” She forces herself to make something up, something ridiculous. “I’m not like your wife; I might have been harder to get along with, more complicated, more difficult than she is.” Then the culminating self-betrayal: “I think you made the right choice.” Why make this more ghastly than it is by dissolving into tears and regrets, reproaches, and undignified might-have-beens? She loves him enough to want him to go home reassured that he did not make a mistake; she is still the nice girl, protecting him from learning how he hurt her. “We’ll stay in touch,” he says enthusiastically. “This has been so good.” She leaves for Chicago an hour later, going over every word on the plane, back and forth, back and forth. She passes an excruciating, horrible week: Daytimes she researches a marketing plan for a major client, doing her work, being charming and knowledgeable. At night, she lets it all go, collapsing in her hotel room. The tears come immediately, and she sobs steadily and uncontrollably, forcing herself to eat the wretched room service dinners she orders. How lucky that she is alone in a hotel room. Where else can you cry non-stop for a week? It is all about dignity, isn’t it? When you’re dying in great pain, if you can keep from screaming, you’ve won. Interlude. Home again on a Saturday. A darling child. “Swing?” Yes. Back and forth, push and grab Zoe in her wooden cage toddler swing. Then a walk high above the river on the concrete and gratings over the railroad track, with children running after their balls, the sun glinting on the river, the flat Holocaust plaque a somber reminder of worse tragedies. She is lucky. She buys a cup of ice cream from a cart for the little one. Finally they are back in the playground, this time the sand box. She says “hello” to familiar faces, watching while the dumpy little bodies fill and empty plastic pails, pat down their fillings with matching shovels, and smash their sand pies. Then it is time to pick up Doug from his play date… Home, cooking, as always, a three-course dinner: She and Peter, Doug and Zoe eat in the dining room. Rita dines quietly in the kitchen, finishes the dishes and is off till Monday. Peter: “I guess I’ll watch TV.” Ruthie: “What?” Peter: “Whatever’s on. I’ll find something.” Always does. There is nothing to talk about. She is reading “Connecticut Yankee” to Doug who loves the news about technology in the medieval court; she has already read from “Alice in Wonderland” to Zoe whose interest in growing (not shrinking) has been stimulated by contests with her brother. Ruthie has a new book “Dr. Zhivago,” long enough to last the evening, and maybe more. If she sits on the other side of the living room, she will not see the screen, not notice the sound, lose herself in revolutionary Russia, and a great love. After a while, she thinks it is not a very good novel: Ordinary and conventional, hardly worth finishing despite the gush of critical praise, which is at least partly political. “I’ve missed you. When can we have lunch?” It is his dear, familiar, too long unheard voice on the telephone, a week after her return. How can he have missed her when he had so long ago gone in a direction where he could have nothing to do with her? He had missed her by design, by intention, not by recent inability to get in touch. “I always have a lot to clean up when I’ve been away – maybe next week?” She wants to see him, has always wanted to see him, but it is a little frightening, too. She could betray her passion, embarrass herself forever. They would meet in a nearby restaurant that has cozy booths. What is he thinking, hardly talking, his eyelids drooping, his ears red and his body moving uneasily against the plastic upholstery? He is not self-conscious, or maybe he wants her to observe and remember the concupiscent look of their long evenings on the sofa in her mother’s apartment – and respond to it. Too foolish. Better to ignore it. She cannot ask how it is, “So how is it?” …Being married to Jennifer, and having a promising academic career years earlier somehow aborted? It’s only lunch. You meet an acquaintance, eat and run because you’re so busy. He hears the question she cannot voice. (They do have a real connection. Ah, love. ) “I wanted Jennifer to love everything I loved; everything. I spent nights reading Shakespeare to her, one play after another, then the sonnets… you know. She did not go to college… One night, I looked up and asked, ‘Are you enjoying this, isn’t it wonderful?’ I must have wondered because of the expression on her face.” “What did she say?” “’I love the sound of your voice.’ I had spent months reading, and she had not heard a word. I gave up.” He really is answering: His wife made no effort to grow to meet him. But was it not just a little patronizing for him to subject his wife to long evenings of Shakespeare when she longed for something else? She felt herself betraying her love with the thought. She can feel her inner spite: serves him right, marrying an ignoramus who cannot be bothered to improve herself. He has sentenced himself to a lifetime of boredom, and does not seem to know it, or feel it. Or perhaps he is too much a gentleman to acknowledge his disappointment, even to Ruth. He is always good-natured, easy-going, accepting. He is a gentleman and she admires and respects him for that. “What are you doing now?” They are still sitting in the restaurant booth, he with that aroused flush that she can make no use of. “Ah. I want to talk to you about that. I’m starting my own business. I have a new publication for hotels and restaurants – a new concept!” He smiles the dazzling smile she loves. “I’m a terrific space salesman, and New York is a great tourist city. It’s a pocket-size magazine, a monthly, about where to go and what to see in New York, and I’ve designed….” He pulls a dummy out of his portfolio. “Meantime, Jennifer has gone back to work. The kids are all in school so there’s no problem.” Ah. Of course there’s a problem. They need money. “I have to get back; there’s a pile of work waiting for me. Take it a little further, and I’ll see….” She is running away from being used. It happens too often. He bends to kiss her goodbye, a public kiss on the lips, almost a lover’s kiss. How can he do that? He has no consciousness of having wronged her.
Interlude. So, Michael is married to a shallow nothing. Serves him right. But there is no anger in his voice, no grievance, no “my wife doesn’t understand me,” looking for a little solace. He is still her darling, no matter what. And she? Making the best of her life, finding what is good when she can. Peter and she read science fiction, mostly the monthly Analog. They read Asimov, Alfred Bester, Frank Herbert, conceptual and philosophic worlds and remade ecologies like Hal Clement’s marvelous “A Mission of Gravity.” The editor is infatuated with L. Ron Hubbard’s new psychology: Dianetics. “So, do you think all your traumas are traced as engrams in your tissues, and an auditor can erase them?” Peter has an engineer’s practicality. “And now he’s decided if you want the big money, it’s easy and legal to start a religion or a cult.” They laugh together. But science fiction and skepticism make it possible to talk. Otherwise: “Don’t talk to the kids that way. They don’t have the same time perspective you do. You’re the grown-up… “ “They hurt my feelings…” “You can’t let them hurt your feelings. They don’t know any better, they’re small.” He retreats to the TV. They go hiking, in New Jersey, the Catskills, the Shawangunks in nice weather, following the trail markers of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the blazes of the other clubs, uphill and down, past muddy lowlands, over fallen logs, under sunlight glinting through leaves and glistening on wet rocks. Fresh air and relief from tension, a different world for the kids. They carry the little ones in kiddie packs on their backs, Ruth leading. Sunning himself on a trail, not ten feet in front of her in the Ramapos one Saturday, is a snake, complete with rattles. Ruth is transfixed, stock still. She barely breathes, gesturing stiffly with her hands, her arms at her sides, “go back.” They inch backward on the trail, even breathing quietly, but the snake knows. It slithers into the underbrush. (The area is full of rattlesnakes; Sterling Forest has NYU labs outfitted with fume hoods by a client, and one of the intrepid researchers shows her the skin of a rattlesnake he has killed nailed to a piece of plywood, rattles dangling.) Later, when the kids are bigger, they, too, walk. Until the inevitable moment when they pause in front of Peter and Ruth, arms uplifted. “Cawwy me!” So they mount a parent’s shoulders, held in place by their feet, until it is time to dismount. “You can walk for a while. You’re getting heavy.” Those are the nice times, stopping on the trail for a sandwich or fruit, or disappearing into the bushes for a pee. Coming home tired and too relaxed for a quarrel or pointed sulk. But Peter seems to have endless cause for sulks and complaints: his job, his colleagues, the stock market…
“It’s a different world now. When I was making huge amounts of money as the publisher of those magazines, we ate at Steve Wynn’s regularly; everyone knew us. We were invited to those fund-raising parties for the museums…” “Were you such a heavy contributor?” “We could buy a table and take our advertisers to these posh things where they’d meet people whose names they’d only seen in the papers… It was a business expense; you could write it off. The magazines were very profitable…” “So what happened?” “The owner sold the chain and the new owner had a son-in-law… and I was out.” He smiled and shrugged. “You don’t plan for things like that. Jennifer loves going out, the high life. We didn’t have much saved. We had a beautiful home in Scarsdale; we bought our clothes at Saks, why not?” She winces at “home” instead of “house”. Too much exposure to the vulgar woman who sent flowers to win him. But he takes it so good-naturedly. “Then we could not afford the house or the neighborhood. So,” he shrugs again, “we sold the house, and moved into a nice apartment in Queens. Right near the subway, so we sold the car, too. I did not want the insurance expense.” He is talking about family hardship, but still smiling, not grieving, not complaining. It would be so nice to have someone like that at home, who adapts to the world… “But I want to talk to you about the new magazine.” Here it is again, the cover showing his graphics training, a handsome collage of art exhibits at the 57th Street galleries, with the surprinted title in heavy type: “Greetings” and under it in italic “from all of New York.” Very nice. Inside, an annotated calendar of information for visitors to New York with every kind of activity and exhibit, and spaces for the ads that would support it. “We’re giving it away to the hotels to put in their rooms, to the restaurants for the cashier’s area or on a table near the entrance… to the big Fifth Avenue stores … you know.” “How is it going?” “Wonderful.” The salesman’s “wonderful” – not so good. She could organize his business plan, help him to get investors, develop a program for getting to advertisers… but why should she? She is too busy building her own consultancy, writing letters, doing research, making speeches. He wants to work for himself; that’s what everyone wants in the era of “The Lonely Crowd” and C. Wright Mills. She makes suggestions, good ones, she knows. He keeps it going for a few months and gives up. He has no investors, no plan, no funds, just a need to work for himself after a bad experience. “Why don’t you go back to the university?” she asks. “Tenured people are doing well now, and there is so much time for other projects…” She would love some time. But that, too, is foreclosed. “I can’t. It’s tough now, a recession, too many postwar doctorates. Prof. Monti, who took a real interest in me, and was disgusted at my going into ‘trade’, died last year… I’m out of it now.” Why… now that they are seeing each other, meeting, talking, (but not frankly) about the past, does he still phone, want to see her, still say “love?” She knows no more now than during the long silence. What does he want? Maybe nothing, just to keep her on a string where she could (clearly) be helpful. But no, she does not really think that. That is not how he is. He is not a user. And what does she want? Just to see him, to feel him close even if they never touch. It makes her happy just to look at him. Love, love, love. Monologue. We’re movie freaks, Peter and I. He told me once that when he lived alone in Schenectady, he went to two or three movies a day. I never did that. But we look forward to the monthly Sunday mornings at the Beekman sponsored by Cinema 16, great foreign films, French, Italian, British, historic and new. And the offbeat, sometimes offensive, brutal movies that they show at the Needle Trades High School: Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks, Franju’s Blood of the Beasts, and finally too many movies about the Holocaust. The other week, I saw this handsome young man coming up the aisle just before the film started. He had with him an attractive Hispanic girl. He looked familiar so I said “hello,” and he said, “hello” back “Who’s that guy? Did you go to school with him?” I ask. Peter doesn’t know. Hours later, I do. Marlon Brando. How embarrassing. But it’s not our few pleasures together. Peter wants as much space for himself as I and the associates and our files and presentations and desks… He never reminds himself that we’re producing our income. He doesn’t care about the kids – they are only competition to him for my attention. He wants… he wants… he wants. He wants to be rich so he does not have to think, does not have to compete, can spend from our joint accounts on whatever takes his fancy. He jumps into the stock market making investments on margin. I pay off the debt, and away we go again. He is only aggressive in the market, only aggressive in bad-mouthing me to clients when he meets them, only aggressive in saying nasty things to me and about me at parties, to the point where some friends no longer invite us and tell me why. He is constantly putting the kids down, too, so they avoid him. I have finally told him that he must see a therapist. I cannot live this way, with a sullen man who is also a loose cannon in public. Michael will never hear any of this. It is my problem to bear, and whining about it to Michael will not help. It does not occur to me that he, too, may be concealing the truth and preserving his dignity. It has never occurred to me. Is it possible? I will never know. And he will never know about me. He does not ask if I am happy, if I like my life. He is protecting himself from the knowledge of something he can no longer do anything about. I do not ask him either. We are both discreet and loyal. Anything else would be morally wrong. “I have a new job. I am marketing vice-president of a restaurant franchise in Long Island. It’s about healthy food. It was started by this woman who had problems…. She hired me and we’re getting along so well. I like working there very much.” It is amazing; he looks the same to her, almost, as when they first met. She still loves him. But it has been many months, almost a year, since she has heard from him at all. It is just as well; she thinks. It is so painful to see him, to think of what might have been. But now, he’s back. Where has he been? Has she any right to ask? Theirs is what? A casual friendship? But she must ask. “Surgery,” he says briefly. “I smoked too long, and the doctors said….” His voice drifts away. “Then some rehab. I saw a woman in the swimming pool with the same scar I have Hers was caught in time, too.” She is shocked. He is still smiling and unruffled. How could he be? Nothing about how frightening it must have been, how debilitating. He has a heroic good nature, she thinks, unlike any other man she has ever met. His voice is rougher now. Lung cancer? “I prepare the franchise marketing documents, and work with the ad agency and decide on the media. It’s a broad-gauge job.” Not academic, not prestige-y, not what his mother expected of him. “How’s your mother?” “She’s not what she was, especially since my father died. His partner’s children bought us out, and the shop is still there, as good as ever. But my mother is alone; her sister died… It’s hard for her. Jean does what she can…” “Where does Jean live?” “In Queens, not far from us. She lives in Jackson Heights. My mother, too.” Nobody lives in the Bronx any more. Except Riverdale, which built new pastel brick structures with terraces and swimming pools to keep the last of the middle class. The high-rise postwar apartments in Queens are now becoming home to postwar immigrants from Hong Kong and India, many of them workers at the United Nations. The shops in Rego Park and Kew Gardens offer saris and curry powder, Oriental vegetables and rice cookers. Some of the shopkeepers do not open their doors if they see customers from other cultures or ethnic groups. Everyone is uncomfortable in this mixed society, so the next step is “investment” in houses further out on Long Island or up in Westchester, where space and better schools are what everyone wants. Ruth and Michael are eating in a Chinese restaurant in Flushing, a seafood place with its wares swimming in tanks before their last moments. It is a Cantonese restaurant, with strong patronage from local people as well as Chinese engineers and their families who live and work further out on the island. Ruth loves Chinese food, and is happy to take the long subway ride to the end of the line to eat with Michael, anticipating her pleasure in sharing classic dishes with him. “I’m just ordering a bowl of spinach.” “That’s what you’re eating here?” She is incredulous. “There’s so much healthy food – sea food, vegetables, brown rice – you can have it cooked any way you want. Why just a bowl of spinach?” “I’m just eating mostly vegetables now.” “It’s not your weight; you’re not overweight. What is it?” She realizes it is none of her business; maybe the woman he works for has some faddy notion of what to eat; maybe some other health nut has got to him. Does he think vegetables will prevent a recurrence of his cancer? He does not say. Her shrimp and vegetables in a light sauce arrives; she spoons it over brown rice. “Have some.” “I can’t. You have some spinach…” She does. It is delicious with a little garlic and oil… but not a meal. And anyway, she cannot not take too much. It is all he has to eat for lunch, along with a cup of tea. She insists on paying the check – he can pick it up next time. “You see that hospital across the way. It’s where I had my surgery. Very nice.” Very nice to be sliced open and have a lung removed; very nice to have another safety factor taken away. Very nice to be in pain and then rehab for months…
There is no spare time now, any more than before, for activism, for causes, for being the responsible parent. But she finds the time, anyway. The kids are in private school. But there are bullies, fights and stupid teachers in private schools, too, and there is no end to the scrapes that require a visit from a parent to straighten out. She is the visitor to headmasters, teachers, and school conferences. Peter is not interested; it’s her job. In fact, however, Peter is himself back in school, full-time. Other married men manage to take their courses at night. He insists he must go days, full-time: only a PhD can guarantee him the recognition that has eluded him in his jobs, he says. Except that he gets “incompletes” instead of fulfilling the requirements of his courses. She visits his therapist, a “no-no”, except that he was once her therapist and they are friends. “Nothing’s changing,” she complains. “He has been seeing you for years.” “I know. He’s very hard to reach.” Yes, even for a professional. She is now a fixture on the women’s issues scene, writing and conducting workshops. She has become an enemy to Marxists whose agenda is to take over, but that’s an old story. And is credited with professional “firsts” by industry and non-profit organizations. She is respected for integrity and creativity and for the fact that her interest is not in power but in getting the right things done. Still, she is working all the time, days, nights, weekends to earn enough money to support a very expensive family. That’s ok, she has the energy she needs. There is a variable lot of employees, and she is pragmatic enough to hire, train and direct their energies, even fire a few when necessary. Joseph Campbell’s wonderful series on PBS about myths, subject of some of her favorite books since childhood, and his genial style and erudition finally awaken her to what she must do. “Follow your bliss,” he says. She has never “followed her bliss,” never learned that she is entitled to do what her feelings lead her to. Bliss? Ah, of course. Michael works in Long Island, in Hempstead. He is only in Manhattan occasionally for a meeting with the franchise lawyer or with an ad agency, and months go by without her hearing from him. She is not immune to occasional affairs, even with married men. These men make up excuses for not being home at night; they rent hotel rooms and make the evenings romantic encounters. She, too, is discreet, scheduling a rendezvous on the way to a trip out of town, or back early from one. But not Michael. He fabricates no occasions, makes no reservations for consummation of desires he barely manages to conceal. Is it virtue, loyalty, careful secrecy or just that he cannot afford it? It occurs to her from time to time that it may be any of those. Now he has called for lunch. It’s again her turn to pay, part of the new credo of equality and fairness. She suggests one of the new Thai restaurants in the area. It is consonant with myth and what she is mustering her courage to say. It must finally be said. She must deny her denial and tell the truth, now, several years after they started meeting for lunch. “I have to tell you something. I could not say it before. Joseph Campbell in that myth series on TV… have you watched it?” Michael shakes his head. “I thought I might, but not everyone at home has the same taste.” Ah. “He says, ‘follow your bliss.’” “What does that mean?” “At first he seemed to be talking about his marriage. At least I thought so. He was teaching at Sarah Lawrence and one of his students was named Jean Erdman. He was in his thirties, a mature man – and she was an undergraduate. Of course, teachers are not supposed to get involved with their students. It’s always a scandal… Anyway, he fell in love, and of course they were married after a while… He said ‘I was in love. I had to follow my bliss.’” “Jean Erdman?” “A modern dancer. That was years ago; he was trying to say do what your emotions tell you to do… Anyway, he worked with her not so long ago on a dance version of Joyce’s novel, Finnegan’s Wake. I saw it, The Coach with the Six Insides, something like that.” He shakes his head. She has lost him on the way to her revelation. It is pure nerves, she is dithering, digressing, postponing what she wants to say because she has never done this before, creating confusion because she is letting herself feel the depths she always puts off. There is no help for it. Once she has decided she must say something, she always does, afraid that if she lets her fear overcome her resolve she will be running away forever. She is normally so frightened about voicing feelings, that not to do it now is to label herself a coward, and that is even more unbearable. Well, do it. “I thought to myself, it’s time. I have to tell you. I lied when we met again and you asked me if we would have been happy together, and I said you made the right decision in marrying Jennifer. You made the wrong decision. We would have been very happy together. Love does everything it needs to do and if it’s real, it never goes away. You were ‘my bliss’ – I was crazy about you; I was always in love with you. You broke my heart. My mother knew it; nobody else, except maybe your brother Stewart. You ran away without an excuse or an explanation – I still can’t understand how a man who said ‘love’ could have done anything so devastating. But there it is. I would have followed my bliss – you—anywhere, under any circumstances.” She would not weep, would not. And she would not say the corollary, “If we had been together, you wouldn’t be stuck doing stupid jobs to make a living; I could have facilitated your growth; I would have provided the space for you to become your own person.” Michael’s face falls; he is shocked, clearly upset by the depth of her revelation. Had he got it? “Oh, darling. You are always special to me. Really special.” She cringes. She has told him from the depths of her love and disappointment what she feels. To her it is a world-shaking, nerve-shaking revelation -- and all he has to say is that she is “special?” What the hell is that? It is the word of shallow people who are not sure what they want to say. Well, that is his vocabulary: She melts and forgives him. Maybe it does mean something to him, and he is still very dear to her, her “bliss.” But after all her effort, her agonizing over her revelation – she is only “special”? . “Special” like a sign in a store window? “Special” like not regular, not ordinary. Is that all there is? “Special” what? It is the most unconvincing thing he can say. It means she can be (slightly) differentiated (for him) from every other woman on the street. Is that why he tried to find her for so long? Is he looking for his own potential in her rather than in his wife – an alternative life to imagine? That might be it – to find himself reflected in a different mirror. (Is he thinking whom he might have developed into with her? Whom you live with is important. Michael lives with Jennifer and he is a man of unfulfilled promise. Peter lives with her and he has a Master’s degree, has done all the course work to a PhD, on time she has provided by supporting them; he has learned to look at art intelligently, reads books over her shoulder, grabbing them away as soon as she finishes; he has broadened and deepened as a human being (but not enough, she thinks sadly) and can continue doing so because he now understands the machinery. Michael has not grown, not lived up to his potential because there is no stimulus to growth; his wife is preoccupied with the dumb things she is preoccupied with. Ruth is being snobbish and mean, she knows; nobody says things like that. She can never say them; but they are true. And maybe in a real partnership, she could have explored new directions – but that was really a fantasy.) (Thinking these things is wrong. What does any human life amount to except for a rare few who make the world different? She is ashamed of herself: She is thinking like a shallow middle-class woman to whom learning and accomplishment mean everything. Are those real values? Maybe they are, but the most important is fulfilling your potential. She does not know the texture of his life, and she thinks she is being presumptuous – again. Who is she to judge?) He may finally understand how desperately he has hurt her. Now he also knows she is crazy about him – always has been. So, he calls her “darling, ” as if that could heal the wound. And tries to figure out how they can go to bed together. He is not reticent about his desires. But there is no easy way. (And what is it about telling him he was her “bliss” that makes going to bed the only corollary? He has not said anything about her being his bliss. He evades any verbal commitment except “special” -- the meaningless -- and “love”-- as at the end of a fund-raising letter.) But bed is on his mind, and not much else – a consummation of what he thinks of as her bliss. There are logistical problems: her apartment is full of employees, children and Peter; she is beset with responsibilities. He has no money for a hotel, and he cannot in any case, be absent long enough to make it worthwhile. Ah, he takes no risks, keeps his secrets. But still there is lunch and being called “darling.” She loves seeing him, being with him. Where are we now – in the seventies? His children are grown up. None of the three has gone to college – no motivation, he says. One is in real estate, another in administration. The girls have already married and divorced, moved to Florida and Maryland, where they work. His son is in a fading upstate city and Michael does not know what he does. Why does he not know? He seems to be happy not to know, implying when he mentions the young man that it may be something he’d rather not know about. He laughs about that. Is he concerned or indifferent, protecting the boy’s privacy or avoiding something unsavory? Or is it that he does not want her to know? She has not asked; it is he who brings it up and laughs. Why does he seem indifferent to his children, or is that also for her benefit so he will not seem to be tied to a family that she has no part of?
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