Stephen Dixon - Frog

He’s in the cottage typing in their bedroom upstairs, wife out for a run, daughter’s downstairs with the new farm set they got her the other day, when a screen door slams, sounds like the one to the porch and he yells “Olivia, what are you doing?” no response, “Olivia, Olivia, you hear me?” nothing, runs downstairs, she’s not in the living room, looks out the back windows, not on the porch or the path going down to the water, runs out the other living room door to the front of the house, not there or on the road going up to the town road, runs around the side of the house and looks underneath it, runs around the other side, yells “Olivia, where are you, answer Daddy now,” runs up to the porch, looks around from it, runs into the house, upstairs, not there, looks out the windows, yells out one of the bedroom windows “Olivia, Olivia, do you hear Daddy? come right back to the house,” listens, runs downstairs, kitchen, out the back way and down the path to the water, stops in front of the boathouse and yells “Olivia, where are you? it’s Daddy, yell you’re OK,” waits, no response, no sounds, runs through the boathouse, looks on the beach, nobody on it, no boats in the water, shouts “Olivia, it’s Daddy, are you on the beach somewhere? answer me,” runs up the path along the creek to the house, shouts for her, then yells “Denise, where are you? stop your run, come back quick, Olivia’s missing, Olivia’s lost; Denise, it’s Howard, I need you to help me find Olivia,” runs back into the house the back way, upstairs, under the bed, behind the clothes on the clothes line, looks out the windows, under her bed in their room, downstairs, bathroom, shower stall, guest room off the porch, back inside the house, behind the couch, where else hasn’t he looked? outside the front way, up to the woodshed on the left, around it, in the woods all around the house, calling for her, runs up their road to the town road a quarter mile away, from the town road shouts for Denise and then her, runs back, stops to stare at all the trees past the field, the big boulders and uprooted trees in the field, runs the rest of the way to the house, upstairs to look around and out the windows, downstairs, guest room, under the house, down to the water, runs a little way along the beach both ways, back to the house shouting for her and Denise as he runs, inside, outside, woodshed, cups his hands and yells loud as he can “Olivia, Olivia, yell for Daddy, yell the word Daddy , yell for me, sweetheart, yell, yell, yell everything’s OK,” listens, “Denise, come quick, Olivia’s not here, I can’t find her, help me to, help me,” bangs his head with his fists, screams “O-liv-i-a,” runs to the back of the house, that’s where he’s almost sure he first heard her go out, wonders where to look next, what to do next, it’ll start to get dark in a couple of hours, maybe hour and a half, he should call the town clerk, the sheriff’s office, the town fire department, they’ll know what to do, in minutes they could have dozens of searchers here, but one more run, down to the water, stands in front of the boathouse and looks up and down the beach, runs right up to the water and looks back at the beach and bushes and trees, runs up the main path, around the house and little way up the road, stops, shouts her name, yells for her to yell she’s here, if she’s in trouble yell help , “Yell anything you want, Olivia, anything, but yell, yell,” listens, bird sounds, wind in the trees, car from somewhere far off, chain saw even farther away, crickets or some insects, runs farther up the road, sees her walking toward the town road about ten feet from her, he’s about a hundred feet away, should he shout? will she know to stop if he doesn’t shout? should he run up without shouting and grab her? she might step onto the town road before he gets there, shout and he might scare her onto the road when she was going to stop at the edge of it, he shouts “Olivia, stop. Olivia, stop. Don’t move another step.” She stops about a foot from the road, turns around and leans her head and body forward as if trying to make out who it is. “It’s Daddy, my sweetheart, stay right there. Don’t move. Don’t do anything, just stand still. Wait till Daddy gets there. In fact, come to me, my darling. Come to me now.” She stays there, still looking at him. What the hell’s wrong? Why’s she doing that? Car shoots past. She turns to it, watches it heading to the point. “Olivia,” he yells, walking to her. Don’t run or she might get scared she did something wrong and run onto the road. “Olivia, look at Daddy.” She turns to him. “Don’t move, sweetheart, stay right there. Just stay there on that spot and don’t move.” Continues walking to her. Van goes past the other way heading to town. She looks at it, turns to him. He continues walking at a normal pace. “Come to me, sweetheart, Daddy wants to give you something.” She doesn’t move. He’s close enough now to see her face seems scared of him or he doesn’t know what. “Anything wrong, sweetheart? Come to Daddy and tell him,” holding his arms out as he walks. Gets about twenty feet from her, smiling so she thinks he’s in a good mood. She just stares. Rattling sounds coming from the point, which she turns to. Car shoots past pulling an empty boat trailer. He walks fast while she’s looking at it, grabs her hand and pulls her down their road a few feet, puts his arms around her and hugs her, then backs up, holds out her hand with one hand and slaps it hard with the other. She starts bawling. He continues holding her with one hand and says “You scared the hell out of me. I slapped you that hard so you’ll remember never to run away like that again. Do you hear me?” She’s crying. “Do you hear what I’m saying?” Still crying, eyes shut tight. “You hear me. I don’t like hitting you but I did it for your own sake. I thought you were lost, that I’d never find you, do you know what that means?” but she’s still crying and he says “OK, but I’m not going to pamper you, it’s too important that you remember the bad you did,” and starts pulling her down the road by her hand, she falls to the ground, intentionally or because she stumbled, and he says “Come on, get up, get up,” and drags her a couple of feet and then picks her up, she’s still crying and puts her head on his shoulder and he lifts it up so she won’t think she can be comforted now, but has to keep holding it up and then says “Oh screw it, you’re smart, you heard and understood everything I said, just please, sweetheart, never run away like that again,” and lets her rest her head, kisses her cheek several times while she’s sobbing, and walks back to the house.

Summer camp. Her name’s Valerie. She’s going with someone for about six weeks, breaks up, smiles at him a couple of times while they’re in a group and other kids are talking, so he thinks he has a chance. She’s short, blond, pretty, a great all-around athlete, doesn’t talk much, he’s pretty shy himself. He and his bunkmates sneak out of their cabin after taps and go to her cabin. He sits at the end of her bed and looks away to his friends mostly, most sitting on other girls’ beds, she mostly looking at her friends lying in their beds, then when his bunkmates think it’s time to sneak back, he moves a little closer, bends over and kisses her. “Would you like to sit together at the movie tomorrow night?” he says. “If they let us.” Next night when the lights in the social hall go out for the movie, he sneaks over to her, she makes room on the bench and they hold hands and for a while he has his arm around her and she leans her head on his shoulder. They dance at the next social almost only with each other, at the lake when all the seniors have an evening cookout they toast marshmallows and roast franks and potatoes and snuggle under a blanket he brought down and kiss a few times under it, kiss at the farewell social when someone shuts all the lights off for about fifteen seconds and yells “All the couples on the dance floor, kiss,” and last day at camp he goes to her cabin, she’s dressed for the city, has stockings and flat shoes on, the stockings are too big or she’s not wearing them right, so her legs look funny, her dress is heavy and looks as if it’s for the winter, they walk a little ways while holding hands, he looks around, no one’s looking, and he kisses her and asks if he can have her phone number in the city, he’ll call in the next few weeks and come out to Williamsburg where she lives. She says “I’d love for you to, but don’t call on the sabbath; that’s when we don’t answer the phone.” He sees her at the bus station in New York a few hours later; she’s with her parents, he’s with his mother and brother, and he waves to her. “Who’s that?” his mother says. “His girlfriend,” his brother says. “Last two weeks of camp they were always together. His first girlfriend and he’s already getting married.” “That true?” his mother says. “You’re too young. Wait a couple more years.” He worries about calling her. What will they do in Williamsburg? What will they talk about a whole afternoon with none of their friends around? Will he have enough money for a date? Suppose she wants to go to a movie in one of the fancier downtown Brooklyn theaters and maybe take a cab there or back and then sandwiches and sodas after in a place he can’t afford? The cab he’ll say no to because he likes going by subway or trolley or whatever they have out there, but he doubts he can say no to the rest. Was she as pretty as he remembers? She looked silly in her city clothes that last day and she might even be in dressier clothes and high heels when he sees her. And he doesn’t have any good clothes. His brother’s are too big unless he rolls up the sleeves of the shirt and doesn’t button the top button and makes the tie with a fat knot, but the rest he doesn’t have any of his own, not even shoes where the leather isn’t cracked. He gets an after-school job, saves up enough in a month to buy a sport jacket and for a date, tries his brother’s pants on and finds he can wear them if he pulls them up very high and belts it tight but also uses suspenders, calls her, she says she thought he’d call sooner, he says he wanted to but was very busy with school and work. “Oh, I suppose I could have called you, but I was told by everyone not to. If he wants to call, he will, and if he doesn’t, he won’t, they all said.” “Who told you that?” and she says “Friends, one who’s been dating someone for a long time, and my mother.” “You spoke to your mother about me?” “Only that I met this nice Jewish boy at camp, one who wasn’t religious or anything but was smart and polite and he may come see me.” He says that’s what he called about, if it’s still all right, and she says she’d love to and gets her father to give him subway directions. The father gets on and says “So where you live, kid? If it’s all the way out in the Bronx, it’s too far to come here, no matter how wonderful my wonderful daughter is.” When she gets back on he says “I don’t think your father likes me,” and she says “Don’t be silly, he has no opinion of you, see you Sunday.” He worries about it all week. She’s too sweet. She’ll say sweet things all the time and how happy she is he came to see her and like that and it’ll be the dullest afternoon of his life. It might get very warm that day and the clothes he has to wear are flannel and heavy wool and he’ll be burning up all the time. He’ll be too shy to say anything, and she could be too shy also, and he doesn’t want to meet her folks, have to sit with them awhile before he and Valerie can go out. She lives too far away. Maybe that most of all. Suppose he gets to like her, what then? He’ll have to go to Williamsburg every time. In the spring it won’t be so bad, since they can go to Coney Island and Rockaway from there, but now he’ll be missing seeing his friends in the city one day every weekend, and if he has to go back and forth twice in one day if he wants her to be with his friends there, half the time of the date will be spent on the train. He wants to call it off but doesn’t know how to. Maybe he could just not show up, then send a letter as an excuse, that he got sick, too sick to call, with laryngitis and bronchitis plus some other throat and chest problems. But then she’ll think why didn’t he get someone like one of his parents to call for him if he couldn’t talk himself? and if they both go back to the same camp next summer as CITs or camper-waiters, everyone there will think he was a liar and rat. Maybe his brother could call for him and say he’s very sick. But his brother says that wouldn’t be the right thing for either of them to do. “If you want to break the date, call her and say you’re very sorry but you have to work at your job that Sunday and that you’ll call her again soon for another date.” “Suppose she says why don’t we make a date now for the next Sunday?” and his brother says ‘Tell her your job’s the kind where it might make you work every weekend for the next month. If your boss doesn’t ask you to do that, which you’ll know in a few days, you’ll call her, and after that you don’t have to call her and she’ll gradually get the message or just not think of you anymore.” Calls, says what his brother told him to, she says “I was really looking forward to it, I had so many interesting things to tell you, but I can understand. My father makes his workers work hard at their jobs too, and it’s also a long trip out here for you.” “The trip’s not it. And it’s not just the job but a ton of schoolwork to do. Reports, a big quiz at the start of the week, and because I’m working weekends, I have to study and do the reports at night.” “You ought to be an Orthodox Jew. Then you wouldn’t have to work and study for school for a whole day. I also have lots of schoolwork to do, but I was going to get it done tonight and tomorrow afternoon so I could have time with you. Well, call if you want to, and if you don’t call or don’t want to, or something, you won’t, I suppose. I think I got that right. It’s what some people told me to say if this ever happened.” “I know. You told me about it last time I called.” “Did I? Then you must think I’m very stupid. Anyway, if you don’t call, I won’t be calling you,” and she hangs up. He feels lousy. He made her sad, disappointed her, he could tell by her voice at the end; she might even have gone out and got special clothes for the date. And she was so nice about it. Didn’t blame him, just accepted it. Maybe he should call her right back and say he just called his boss and told him he can’t work this weekend, or can, but only Saturday. Even if he did call her right back he doesn’t think she’d see him this Sunday or make a date with him anytime soon. Too sad and disappointed. He doesn’t really know what she’d do if he called now, but it was probably the best thing not going out there, and she’ll get over it soon. At least it was final. He thinks of her a few times after that the next few weeks, and a couple of times that he should call her. He doesn’t know any other girls to go out with and she was so pretty and sweet and nice and, because she said she got such good grades in school, smart too, but doesn’t. Next June he crosses the East River by subway on his way to his aunt and cousins in Coney Island and says to his brother “That’s where Valerie, the girl I met last summer, lives; Williamsburg.” He thinks this is Williamsburg because he sees a lot of religious Jews in long beards and black clothes below the elevated station when they’re pulling in and also when her father gave him directions he said “You ever come out to Brooklyn before? If you did and same way by train, Williamsburg station’s the first one over the bridge.” She’s not at camp that summer and next June when he’s going to his aunt and cousins in Coney Island he looks for her in the street from the train windows, looks in the tenement windows the train passes in case by chance she’s in one. If he does see her in the street he’ll say to his brother “Go on without me; I’ll meet up with you there later,” and get off the train before the doors close and run down to say hello to her. Or if she’s in one of the windows, then off the train at the next stop and run or subway back to find her, or call her from a phone booth in Williamsburg. He remembers her last name and street; he could get her phone number. And the coincidence of seeing her from the train and surprise of just running up to her or calling her from a nearby booth would make up for any bad feelings she still might have for him after almost two years, or could. He thinks of her every time after that when he’s going to Coney Island by subway that way, but for some reason never when he’s coming back. Then when he’s around thirty the woman he’s living with says she heard of a good cheap dermatologist in Williamsburg who could take care of her skin problem for half the cost of her Manhattan doctor. Would he go out there with her, since she doesn’t know what kind of neighborhood it is? He doesn’t think of Valerie then but does when they get off the train and look around for the doctor’s street. “I once knew a girl here when I was fourteen or fifteen. Valerie Bubky. I wonder if she’s still living here.” “Hardly likely,” the woman says. “She’s probably married with children and long moved out, and her folks also, for look at this dump. I think we should forget the doctor, get back on the subway before we’re robbed, and call him when we get home that we’re canceling the appointment and that he should probably move away from here also before he gets killed. Why do people always talk about Williamsburg as if it’s someplace special? It’s a bleak shithole.” They go back to the subway and during the ride home he wonders what would have happened if he’d gone on that date with her. He bets he would have seen her the next Sunday also, that they would have started to talk more, liked each other’s company a lot and without needing other kids their age always around. And that Sunday with her would have been his first date. He forgets who his first date actually was. He might have seen her for a year, maybe years. Though her family was orthodox and she said she was too, he might have got her to let him pet her, in a few years to even make love with her. She could have been the first woman he had sex with, since he doubts he would have gone with his friends to prostitutes if he was dating her. He could have continued to see her in college, maybe even married her, had children with her. He could still be with her. She was so pretty and attentive and sweet, always with a smile when she saw him in camp, always glad to see him, and affectionate, a good kisser, and funny sometimes, he remembers — tickling him, once pushing him off a raft into the lake and trying to pull his trunks down in back as he fell, or maybe with both those she was just being flirtatious. Anyway, she could have been the first girl he really loved and who felt the same about him the same time.