Stephen Dixon: Frog

Gwen. He’s sixteen and they first meet at a dance at her girls’ private school. Wearing the same perfume she wore every time he later saw her. It did what perfumes are supposed to, made him romantic, dizzy, want to kiss her neck, burrow his nose into her chest. She never let him. With another woman later on, Janine, it was carnation soap she bought by the twelve-box at Bloomingdales, which she and her bathroom and her apartment when the bathroom door was open, usually smelled of. Now he thinks Gwen was too young to wear perfume then. He once bought a box of that soap to remind him of Janine, after she broke their engagement. Once went to Bloomingdales to be sprayed with Gwen’s perfume by one of the first-floor perfume ladies. First time in Paris he bought the smallest bottle there was of it, for his mother, so she’d wear it around the house sometimes and he’d be reminded of Gwen. “Mom, you never seem to put on that perfume I got you,” and she would. On subways and buses or the street when he’d smell it he’d look around quickly, thinking it was she; same with the soap. Used to sneak into his parents’ medicine chest and dab a drop of the perfume on his wrist and later in bed smell it. Always right before he went to sleep so no one would know he had it on and it’d be gone by morning. Goes to the dance with his friends. It’s in the gym and one of the girls’ mothers asks them at the door to sign in. All his friends are in private school. He makes up a name, Poly Prep, and says it’s in Connecticut, and no, he left any kind of I.D. in his dorm but his friends will vouch for him. Sees her talking to some girls. He’s immediately attracted, but how’s he approach her? She’s dressed like a rich girl, flouncy skirt, lace blouse, pearls, stylish hair. One of the girls she’s with sees him staring, maybe is attracted to him — he never found out — and comes over and introduces herself, says this is what they’re supposed to do with all the new boys, so don’t think you’re anything special, and asks what school he’s at, then Gwen comes over and her friend introduces them. Two of his friends saw her when she walked over and made with the eyes and smiles to each other, but he caught their attention and pointed to himself and mouthed “Hands off, she’s mine.” “Poly Prep?” Gwen says. “Sounds like poly pulp. Can it be a real school or are you just a big fake — I won’t tell.” “Fake and a fraud, but don’t get me tossed out; at least not yet.” “Fake and a fraud” was what his father often said about various people he’d just met. The smell, was it coming from her? Bright face, inquiring eyes, good speech, dulcet — word he looked up from a book that week and used a lot — voice, long legs out of this stiff thing under her skirt—“What is that coming out, if I can ask?” pointing. “A crinoline. My parents manufacture them so whenever I step out socially like this I like to be a walking ad. Least I can do for all they’re shelling out for me for this Easter society pri-school.” “Easter what? I don’t get it.” “Try.” Shuts his eyes. Get it quick, she’ll admire it. “Something about Jewish and Gentile all in one?” “No, it’s about what part of town this school’s in. You’ll get it in the end.” Swan’s neck, he thought then, or like a ballet dancer’s. “Like to dance?” holding out his arms. Already giddy with her, saying and doing the wrong things, can’t think straight, Easter society pri-school means what other than private? His hand feels hot in the small of her back, her hand hot on the back of his neck, her other hand smooth in his sweaty one. And it’s from her, the smell. Sees himself nuzzling, kissing, their bodies in skimpy bathing suits on a blanket on a beach squeezed tight. Gets an erection and a big one and she must feel it because she backs up a bit. He wants to say excuse me, to show how sophisticated he is, and if she asks, to even say “For that,” looking or pointing down, “and I truly apologize,” but doesn’t. it’s a fox trot, thank God, only dance he really knows — he’s tried to learn all the popular ones but once he gets out there it always ends up where he has to ad-lib — and during it she says “I had a dream last night I’d fall in love with and marry a proletarian, what do you make of that?” and he says, because he can’t think of any way of making her believe he knows what it is and then later tonight looking it up, “What’s a proletarian?” She says “Come on, don’t kid me,” and he says “Really, what, an iconoclast?” and she says “I know what that is and it’s a good one but it’s not that. No, if you don’t know, that means you’re probably one, though you’re not the fellow in my dream, since this happens in college two years from now,” and he thinks “Did I blow it? Of all the words I know, why couldn’t that be one?” After the music stops and they separate he says “Like to do the next one?” and she says, glancing at his crotch — erection’s gone down without him even noticing it—“In the beginning we’re supposed to give each young man a chance — that’s how it was put to us; I’m not quoting from the Bible. Maybe later, when all the young men are used up,” and after she dances with a few other guys — he was lucky; next one was a lindy, which he’s a real clod at — she disappears. He walks past the girls’ bathroom on that floor several times, looks in some classrooms, goes downstairs to the school entrance, and outside. Oh well, he knows her name, thinks he can get her phone number from someone and if not he’ll call up a few Wakesmans on the West Side where she said she lives or send her a letter care of this school, but he sees her in the gym as he’s leaving and says “Sorry we couldn’t dance again, but would it be OK to call you?” “Sure,” and he says “I’ll need your number,” and she has a pen in her purse but nothing to write on but a dollar bill, he only has coins in his pockets but lies and says his paper money’s in his coat downstairs, so she writes it on his palm and in front of the school he writes it in a friend’s matchbook. He calls her that Monday, takes her to Radio City Music Hall by cab, they go to the restrooms downstairs when they get there and then sit in this big sitting room outside the restrooms while waiting for the next show to begin and he says “You know, I’ve had a dream over and over again about—” “A recurring one.” “Yes. When I was a boy, you see, I went here a couple of times and since then have dreamt about the men’s room here but where it has a hundred urinals in a row on both sides of the room. I just saw there weren’t even twenty altogether — I counted them, but that’s not including the stalls. Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up, for that’s not very nice talk,” and she says “No, it’s good; conversation I like. So more like that, more. Tell me your deepest dreams; your darkest worries and thoughts. I hate all small talk; it’s boring,” but how does he produce more, for that urinal one might be all he has? He once had a dog he loved who jumped out of a car window and got permanently lost. Once got his tongue stuck to a popsicle and though a man told him not to he panicked and pulled it off. Once while fooling around he fell down a coal chute of an apartment building on his block and a fireman had to climb down and pull him up. Got lost in Central Park during a blizzard and for a while didn’t think he’d make it out. Got hit by cars twice while playing ball on his sidestreet and both times ran home and into bed saying he thought he just came down with the grippe. His sister who’s been so sick with cancer she almost died in the operating room a couple of times. His father who went to prison and now still can’t get his dental license back. “Well, right now, nothing, but there’s plenty of those in me, believe me,” and she says “Then what do you want to do, even though you’re not in college yet, after you get out?” and he says “Something good for mankind. A doctor, but not for money but for missionary work, though not connected to any religion. Unfortunately, I’m not good in the sciences. But my dad says I don’t have to be and that he’ll get me into dental school if I want, because once there it’s all practical stuff.” “But you don’t want to be a dentist, putting your nose in people’s mouths,” and he says “No, a doctor, but medical school he doesn’t think he can get me into with just a C average, which is all I’ve ever been, and also because he has no connections there, so I don’t know what to do. But when you think of it, people have bad teeth everywhere and it causes so much pain and the relief of it’s just as great as taking out a cancer, and I have to admit my father’s a dentist, but not practicing these days. But just to go to Africa — maybe I’ll learn French better and go to med school in Switzerland or someplace like I heard people do who can’t get in here — and to work with poor starving natives and in the deepest bush.” “That’s nice. Money doesn’t concern you. That’s great, but you have such a long trek ahead. I’d like to be an artist of any sort — but a creator, not an interpreter — and right now I’m going about trying to determine which one. Maybe I’ll be a triple or quadruple threat in several artistic fields, and with a number of hats on my head in each one.” He doesn’t get the hat expression, but nods, says it sound exciting, he once thought of art for himself too. Painting, which he used to do slews of as a kid and some of his school art teachers thought he was pretty good at, and even acting, which he thinks you can be a creator in, though maybe she’s right, but he doesn’t have enough talent for either or not compared to lots of people he’s seen his age. “My feeling,” she says, “and you know, I’m only starting out, but it’s if you don’t believe in yourself completely from the beginning in those fields, it’s best to stay out of them. So you probably made the right decision, early as it was.” The movie’s about young concert performers — the reason he took her to it; classical music, maybe an intelligent story in it — and in the cab home he asks and she says she’s grateful he took her but the plot and music were for the most part for people who only feed on sweets. “You noticed no Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, any of the modernists. You know why? Most people would run out of the theater, or worse, not go in.” Stravinsky he thinks he heard of, but the others? but he says “There’s something to what you say. But a little of it, I have to admit, like that Mendelssohn violin thing running through it, I kind of liked and think I’ll get a recording of it. I got the name of the real player of it from the closing credits, which is why I made you sit through them. Francescatti.” Oh, she says, she knows his Prokofiev and Bach. She lets him kiss her at the door. “Can I call you again?” and she says “Sure, call,” and he says “Maybe we can make a date now — I’ve been invited to what should be a great party next Saturday,” and she says “I don’t have my calendar on me or know what my obligations at home will be next week. Best to call.” He bends down to kiss her but she moves aside and says “One, for now, is enough.” Next two days he thinks he can still smell her perfume on his sport jacket in his closet, but his brother takes a whiff and says he’s imagining it. “Just sweat; you ought to get it dry-cleaned if you want anybody to go out with you.” Calls that Tuesday; Monday would seem he was too much in a hurry. “Hi, I was wondering if you’d like to go to that party I mentioned,” and she says it turns out she’s busy all weekend, and when he asks, the next one too. He says he’ll call again if she doesn’t mind and she says OK. “By the way, how are you, what have you been doing?” and she says “Nothing much, and fine, there’s little that ever gets me down, but you know how I feel about small talk. So I’ll be speaking to you, Howard.” Howard, his name, that she was saying it, he was going crazy for her. Draws her face and figure in that crinoline dozens of times, kisses his pillow several times pretending it’s her. He loves everything about her. Looks, manners, mannerisms, intellect, clothes, tastes, gracefulness, cute younger sister who came out to see him that first date, that she and her sister share their own listed phone, her fancy East Side friends and school, fine old apartment building and apartment with a wide Hudson view, doormen, elevator men, flowers in the lobby, flowers in that little foyer right outside their front door, maid who wore a black and white uniform when there weren’t even guests and called him Mr. Tetch, way the place was furnished and that Gwen brought him into the living room to meet her parents who were having coffee after dinner, father with a tie on and in what looked like a lounge jacket, mother also in elegant stay-at-home clothes and with this aristocratic voice and both getting up to shake his hand, paintings he was shown there, real drawings — with little frame lights above them — by Titian and Rembrandt, books she said she was reading, small poetry book she took to the movie in case, she said, she had a few extra minutes when let’s say he went to look for a cab, thin soft lips and beautiful teeth, that she had a cat. Calls the Tuesday after the next and she says she’s busy the following weekend, “Oh, that’s too bad. Is there any weekend you won’t be busy — in other words, maybe the first Friday or Saturday night where you won’t?” and she says “I never make plans for more than the coming weekend — that last time was an aberration.” “An aberration. OK,” he says angrily, “an aberration,” and hangs up, hoping his anger and hanging up and no good-bye will somehow interest her in him more; that he draws the line, has feelings, takes no crap, is like what she originally liked in him it seems, a strong proletariat. Right after that he gets depressed, doesn’t know how he’ll make it till next Tuesday or Wednesday when he’ll call. Tuesday; Wednesday and she’ll be busy for sure the next weekend or at least will have a good excuse: he called too late. And “aberration,” and he writes it down way he thinks it’s spelled, looks it up, it isn’t in his dictionary, asks his mother what it means since she’s known most of the big words he’s asked her about before. “Why?” she says. “Because I heard someone use it.” “In what capacity?” and he says “That knowing what you’ll be doing two weekends in a row is an aberration.” “That’s not how it’s used,” and tells him what it means and spells it out for him and he finds it this time. He calls the next Tuesday and first thing she says is “Did you hang up on me last week?” and he says “No, I might have just said good-bye very softly, why?” and she says “Because if you did I’d think, hey, this fellow isn’t worth answering the phone for if he’s going to unload all his belligerence on me.” “Not me,” he says and asks her out and she says there would have been a definite possibility if she didn’t have so many extracurricular activities this week like tap dance and singing lessons and an Italian class she’s starting and she also models at the Art Students League one night a week, all of which means she’ll be studying the whole weekend for her midterms.” “You model? Not in the nude.” “Yes, it’s for artists.” “How do your parents let you? You’re so young. Or even the art school?” and she says “I told the League I’m nineteen, since I feel I act it and could look it. As for my parents, they’re both artists in their souls but business people to keep their souls alive and bodies fed, and they trust me. It’s only the top part anyway, not that I wouldn’t model the bottom part if they needed it. I was asked by an instructor there who sat on the stool next to mine at the health food lunch place near the League and thought I’d be perfect for the pose he had in mind.” “Oh yeah, and God knows what he’s going to ask you to do next,” and she says “You really don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You’re absolutely right and I’m sorry,” and asks her out for the weekend after next—“Anyone can repeat an aberration once, I’d think”—and she says “I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” but in a nice voice and when she says good-bye she says “So I suppose I’ll be hearing from you,” which gives him the confidence she’ll say yes the next time. Calls the next Tuesday, she says she’s sorry, she’s busy that weekend, he says “Busy busy bizwax — with what, voice lessons, studying again, cooking school?” and she says “You sure sound cynical today,” and he says “I’m not, or didn’t mean to be; go on, tell me what your plans are, though of course you don’t have to and I don’t know why I asked,” and she says “No, I’ll be honest; I don’t mind. I have appointments Friday and Saturday nights,” and he says “You mean with guys, or just one,” and she says “Yes, with two fellows I know,” and he says “Guys you’ve been going out with, right?” and she says yes and he says “Then I guess I’ll give up then, right?” hoping she’ll say don’t or he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to, and she says “If that’s how you feel; excuse me, but good-bye,” and hangs up. She was mad. That could mean a couple of things, one good, one bad. Somehow in her voice when she seemed mad it also seemed she was saying I’m mad because you made me mad but I’m not that mad where you don’t have to call again. And if she’s seeing two guys, it means she’s not serious with one. No, he’s crazy, what’s he talking about, goddamn stupid idiot, and picks up the receiver and slams it down on its cradle, bangs the night table it’s on with his fist, receiver jumps off and falls to the floor and he wants to grab it and smash it against the table, rip it out of the phone and wrap the wire around his neck and pull it tight till it hurts and cuts and leaves marks; puts the receiver down and grits his teeth and tears come and a sinking empty sickening feeling in his chest and he says “Oh shit, why the hell not, what the hell’s wrong, why’d I even start, who the hell you think you are, you skinny rotten bitch?” and covers his face with his hands and digs his nails into his skin, and then his mother knocks on the door and says through it “May I come in now, Howard? — after all,” since it’s his parents’ bedroom, and he says “Sure, sorry, I’m done here,” and passes her with his head down and she says “Anything the matter, dear?” and he says “Well, you know, but I’ll be all right,” and to get to sleep that night after everyone’s in bed he sneaks open the liquor cabinet in the living room and takes several swigs of Canadian rye and sits there till he starts to yawn. A friend tells him she’s going out with two guys, a junior at Yale and a grad student at NYU. “The Yalie’s very rich, not Jewish, an athlete and a scholar in English lit I think. The other guy’s a poor Brooklyn or Bronx Yid and supposed to be real handsome and smart, always on total scholarship, and on his way to making a million in advertising or TV.” “Him — both of them,” Howard says, “have to be too old for her — I mean, she’s barely sixteen,” and his friend says “She seems to have her parents’ permission, according to this girl who knows, so what can I tell you?” He sends her a letter saying “If you’re interested in going to a movie one of these days, let me know,” and gives his phone number and address. She doesn’t contact him. He thinks of her every day, calls her three months after they last spoke, she says “Hello, how are you, it’s been so long,” and he asks her out to a movie the next Saturday afternoon and she says she’d love to. She takes a tomato from the kitchen as they leave her apartment, offers him the first bite on the street, he says it’d be too sloppy and he doesn’t much like tomatoes, “I adore them,” she says and bites into it without making a mess and eats it as they walk to the theater, holding it in front of his mouth when she’s almost finished with it and says “Sure you don’t want some? It’s going fast,” and he wants to, just to put his mouth where her lips did and to show he’s not obstinate and takes chances, but says no. She smiles and chews the last of it and he thinks he loves everything she does; it’s awful. She leans her head on his shoulder about fifteen minutes into the movie, he thinks should I? and decides to and kisses her hair and then her cheek and then very quickly her lips. She didn’t stop him or look up at him and her eyes were closed when she kissed him so he waits what he thinks is about five minutes and then kisses her hair, cheek and lips and then a long kiss and tries to open her mouth with his tongue, thinking if she lets him do this then he really might be starting something with her, but she pulls away and says “Too fast, too far, let’s just be kids,” and kisses her finger and puts it on his lips and he says “Sure, whatever you like.” Outside the theater he asks how she liked the movie and she says she’s in a hurry to get home, can they get a cab? or just she’ll get one, and he says “But it’s only three blocks, and it’s not raining,” and she says “Don’t worry, I’ll pay.” “That’s not it; I’m working and I’m certainly not cheap,” and hails a cab, tells her in it he had wanted to go for a bite after the movie but OK, maybe the next time, and she says, getting out of the cab, “It’s a date.” He says “Hey, I’m not taking this to my house,” and pays, but she’s already walking into her building, waving at him. He calls her when he gets home for a date next weekend and the housekeeper who answers says “She was only here but gone out.” Calls her the next day and she says “What is it?” and he says “I wanted to take you up on what you said yesterday and make another date, maybe even an evening one, but I guess it’s hopeless — somehow, your voice.” “I think it is,” and he says “I don’t get it. You were so nice at the movie, we had fun, even walking to it—” and she says “Don’t.” “So it doesn’t make a difference what I say or we did?” and she says “Not in the slightest, and please understand I’m not being malicious saying that. I like kissing and you’re a nice fellow but I’m simply not interested in you the way you are in me.” “How are you interested in me then?” and she says “Whatever way it is, it’s not amorous, is that now clear?” and he says “OK, I got it finally,” and slams the receiver down and feels miserable for a week. Calls her a month later and she says “Oh, hello?” and he asks what she’s been up to lately and she talks a little about what she’s been doing and then there’s silence so he starts in about what he’s been doing recently and then she says “That’s nice, great, well, I’ll have to say good-bye now,” and he says “Any chance we can meet?” and she says “Howard, I’m still not interested. If you only wanted to be friends, that’d be a different thing.” “OK, as friends, would you like to go to an art museum today?” and she says “Not this week, I’m busy.” “Next week then?” and she says “I don’t want to make plans so far ahead,” and he says “Then you don’t want to be friends; you don’t want to be anything. All right. So screw you, friend,” and hangs up. Oh God, that’s it, that has to be it, for me, her, definitely for me and I’m sure she’ll never talk to me again, and bangs his parents’ bed with his fists and screams “Goddamn it, shit, shit,” and starts tearing at his hair. His parents think he’s going crazy and have his brother speak to him. It snows that night and the next day he walks in the park and kicks drifts in just a T-shirt and pants and shoes without socks so he can get a cold and pneumonia and die. Sees her on the street several months later and she waves to him and he waves to her as she goes down her block. She smiled when she waved. Maybe she’s changed her opinion about him somewhat, wouldn’t mind him calling her. Calls, says it was nice seeing her on the street and how is she? and she says “Listen, I’m busy this week, if that’s what you were eventually going to ask, but thanks for calling.” “Maybe next week?” and she says she’s going away for the weekend, and for the month after that to Southern France for the Easter break. He’s waiting tables in the neighborhood Schrafft’s a year later when she comes in with two other girls and sits at another station. He pretends not to see her. Sees her in a mirror looking at him. All three have ice cream sodas and one of them has a sandwich. In the kitchen he tells their waiter “I know one of the girls at your four-table. Used to go out with her — the beautiful slim dark-haired one.” “Her, beautiful? Eh, so-so. But put the word in for them to give me a big tip.” “No, it’s all over and I have no influence with her, but she’s got lots of family dough, so I’m sure you’ll do OK.” “Then get tight with her again. She’s a good-looker, they all got juicy nookies, true? and if she’s that rich and you can go into her dad’s business, forget college; you’ve got it made.” He’s passing her table with a tray of dirty dishes, still pretending not to know she’s there, and she says “Howard,” he looks at her, “Oh hi, Gwen, hello,” she introduces him to her friends and says “Since when do you work here?” and he says “It’s a good place, lots of actors and writers working as waiters, so an interesting group, and it’s in walking distance from home,” and she says “I know that, but I meant for how long?” and he says “Few weeks. Look-it, the manager’s a crab when I talk to personal friends who aren’t my customers, so nice to see you,” all in a voice and with an expression that he couldn’t care less that he saw her, and smiles and says “Nice to meet you” to her friends. Watches her through mirrors or the kitchen door window from then on and after she leaves he asks her waiter how he did and he says “You didn’t do your part well — almost a whiff,” and he says “I’m really surprised. The tip must have been left up to one of the other girls, for she was always pretty free with her cash.” Leaving the restaurant he thinks maybe she’ll call him. For the next few weeks he looks at the restaurant door every time someone comes in, hoping it’ll be she, alone or with her sister, parents or friends. If she does come in, he’ll turn away, do his chores, ignore her even through mirrors, and then pass her table with dirty dishes, or with food for customers this time, and be surprised to see her when she speaks to him, or speak to her first this time and later, if she’s alone or with her sister, maybe ask if she’d like to meet him when he gets off. About a half year later he sees her passing the standees’ line he’s on outside the Metropolitan Opera House. “Gwen!” “Howard,” she says, “hi, I’m way in back, only came up to see how long the line is.” “It’s long; I don’t know if you’ll ever get in. You an opera buff? I didn’t know that.” “No, I like it; never saw Faust though and always wanted to.” “Well come on, slip in here.” She starts to, guy behind him says “Wait a minute, that isn’t fair,” and he says “I was expecting her; she didn’t think I’d get here so early to get this far in front,” and pulls her in. She thinks what he did — by her face — bold, and maybe what he said quick and clever. “You’re alone I hope,” he whispers into her ear. “Otherwise, I’m sure Charlie won’t allow anyone else in.” “I’m alone. You know him?” and he says “No, just based on his face and what he said, I was giving him a name. No meaning; just my usual nonsense, I suppose,” and she says “I’m not sure you can gauge much from superficial contact with someone and only one expression on his face. And he’s justified in how he acted, since I did cut in and what if they close him out right after us?” and he thinks Oh shit, here I go blowing it again, acting the snob, which I’m not. Think what you’re going to say; make everything hit; for a few hours she’s all yours and this might be your last chance. He asks and she tells: bit of fashion modeling, been learning Hindi, ice-skating a lot, was in an experimental film that got some attention — a western made in New Jersey if he can believe it — and is preparing to go to college. The line moves. They talk some more in the lobby during intermission. People stare at her she’s so beautiful or maybe they’ve seen her in the movie and fashion ads. After the second act she says her feet are tired, she doesn’t much like the opera and there are two more acts, so she has to go. “I’ll go with you. I’ve seen it several times and I have to be at work early tomorrow. I’m starving besides, since I came straight here from night school. Like to have a bite somewhere nearby?” and she says it’s really getting quite late. He says “Want to go by cab?” and she says she likes subways; so full of characters and life, especially at night. During the ride she says “No need for you to go with me all the way,” and he says he wouldn’t think of letting her walk home alone from the subway stop. She says “I do it all the time. It’s reasonably safe and I can handle myself well. I carry a canister of mace and I’ve developed my diaphragm through voice and acting lessons where my screams would be heard for blocks.” In front of her building she says he can’t come up. Her folks are there and they object these days to midweek dates. “Wouldn’t think of it, my dear, wouldn’t think of it,” and shakes her hand. She leans forward, her lips out, he hopes to kiss his and waits to see, and she pecks his cheek. Maybe if he’d leaned down to her she would have done it, but probably not. “Good night, nice seeing you again,” and swivels around and walks away whistling and looking up at the sky and thinking what should be his strategy now? Don’t call her for weeks; considering his history with her, she’ll be mystified. He calls two days later and she says that was fun that opera night but what she neglected telling him is she’s seriously mixed up with a Dartmouth man and has promised him she wouldn’t see anyone else when they’re apart. “Oh shucks,” he says, “a little movie or something won’t hurt.” “I can’t. I’d have to lie to him — he’s very strict about this dictum, living like a celibate up there, all work and no women. And if I did tell him it’s all innocence and old friendship between us, he’d still get incredibly jealous and mad.” “Oh well,” he says, “maybe some other lifetime. See ya,” and gently hangs up. He cuts his hair short in front of the bathroom mirror, cuts his sideburns off, looking at the mirror over his shoulder, shaves the hair on his neck. He feels the hair on top and the sides, he can still grab some, and cuts it even more. Doesn’t know why, other than it had something to do with her, of course, but he suddenly felt prissy and like some fake artist with all those curls on his head and over his ears, and a little unclean. He asks some people in the film department at his college if they know of an experimental western made recently which which might have got some good reviews, but nobody can think of anything coming close to that other than High Noon and Shane . About a year later someone mentions a film like that and gives the title and he sees it at an art movie house and either she gave a different name for the credits and he didn’t recognize her in it or this one wasn’t it. He next sees her in a photography magazine. A friend shows him the full-page photo. Very high-fashion pose, and she’s holding a smoking cigarette, though she never smoked when he knew her. Buys the magazine at a stand, though it’s very expensive, cuts the page out and puts it in a book he’s reading, and every now and then at school and work, takes it out to look at. Guy sitting next to him in the department store employees’ cafeteria says “Who’s the chick — some new actress? Never saw her before.” “You want to hear something crazy? I used to go out with this piece of ass.” “Yeah, me too, me too, was even married to her once.” “No, it’s the god’s honest truth. Gwendolyn Wakesman. I even know her middle name, which it doesn’t give here: Cora. Year and a half younger than I. When we were in high school, though she went to a fancy private and I to a junky public. And we were in love, or maybe I was more with her than she was with me, and I was the first to ball her also, and her second, third, fourth, all the way to maybe her fiftieth.” “You’re full of it,” the guy says. “Knew you wouldn’t believe it. Only thing wrong with her was that her calves were too fat and she smoked. I can’t stand smoking. I get these physiological reactions to it — sneezing, trouble breathing, besides getting irritated; that’s why I’m sitting in the corner here, away from all those chimneys around us. And she smoked those smelly French cigarettes — she was kind of a phony also but not enough of one for me not to go out with someone so beautiful and to say no to screwing her, and I was sure that part of her personality would go away with age. Anyway, it was because of that smoking that I broke up with her. What a schmuck I was.” “Good story, but I think you’re still full of it.” “What can I say that I haven’t already? Kill me for it.” Next sees her in the Metropolitan Museum. He’s going up the big flight of stairs, she’s coming down. “Gwen?” he says, for a moment, because of her shorter differently styled hair, not sure. “Well, hi, how are you? My, we always seem to meet in the more cultural places. But I have to run. See you at Carnegie Hall next, yes?” Watches her go. Body fuller, face as beautiful, still the same perfume smell and artistic clothes. Maybe if it was just lunch she was going to he should have said “Want to go to the cafeteria here?” Follows her downstairs but at a distance of about a hundred feet. If she turns and sees him he’ll say “Sorry, didn’t want you to think I was following you, which is why I kept at such a distance, but I realized I originally came here to see the Greek collection.” She leaves the museum. He watches her hurry down the steps, hail a cab. Next sees her at Rockefeller Plaza. He’s sitting on one of the long concrete planters, reading, waiting for Janine, when someone says “Howard.” Looks up. “Oh my God. Gwen, Jesus, howaya, what’s going on uh…” “You look great, Howard; different, natty, all the rage, and your face; blooming.” “Not me, but—” “No, life’s got to be going smooth for you. What have you been up to?” and he says “Nothing unusual, as usual. Actually, things are going OK, thank you. Job, personal life.” “You just plunk down here to read on this gorgeous day or are you waiting for someone? For if you’re not doing anything too important, we can talk while you walk me to Fifty-seventh Street where I’ve an appointment.” “I’d love to but I am waiting for someone. My fiancée, as a matter of fact. I’m on my lunch hour. My job starts at noon, so it might sound peculiar saying lunch hour at four or so, but I’m a newsman.” “So. Good luck then, in everything. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again, and my best to your fiancée.” She puts out her cheek and he kisses it. “Before you go,” he says, “and I know it’s almost a mandatory question, or at least from one of the parties, when two people from the past meet after a few years, but you see any of the old people we knew?” “Who might they be? We didn’t know anyone mutually, did we?” “Robin Richards? … The fellow who used to say “The nose knows’? He had an unusually long nose, which now probably people look at as handsome, but he always had lots of gossip and social information to give out, so he made fun of himself with the nose line.” She’s still shaking her head. “I thought he crossed both our crowds. He went to Trinity. Then Ellen Levin? I didn’t know her that well, really not at all, but I certainly remember her.” “Her name’s not familiar either,” and he says “Ellen Levin, or Levine, or Levine,” pronouncing it the other way. She was your best friend at school, I thought. Tall, pretty, bouncy blonde. Father had a hamper factory.” “No,” she says. “Then Helen? Evelyn? I don’t think ‘Eleanor.’ Because I remember first talking to her at your school dance, night I first met you, and then she introduced us, or you just came over and introductions were made all around, because she thought we’d get along or saw I was mainly interested in you and not her.” “Is that where we first met? I thought it was after a movie.” “No. And maybe I got her last name wrong, but I’m sure her first name was something like Helen or Ellen.” “I’ve never known a Helen or Ellen.” “Everyone in New York’s known an Ellen.” “Then in high school or college. And I did always think we met after a movie. I still do. I even know what movie. Modern Times , at the New Yorker. You came up to me after it, in that lobby-entranceway where they have that enormous refreshment stand and long vertical box with movie calendars for the next few months, and asked what I thought of the movie and we had coffee or tea at a coffeehouse nearby, or you asked me.” “I don’t even think the New Yorker was the New Yorker when we first met. It was the Stoddard or something. And the only movie we ever went to — no, there were two, but the first was Rhapsody , with Elizabeth Taylor and Vittorio Gassman — the one about music. They’re music students, concert performers. But young. And some other actor. John someone. A flash in the pan, pretty face, no talent, but the male romantic lead. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was also in it, I think, all over the place, and another schmaltzy piece — Rachmaninoff’s Second or Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. All I know is I loved the music then.” “No, I never saw it.” “At Radio City Music Hall. It was our first date. We sat for a while in the waiting room outside the two big restrooms downstairs.” “I thought our first date was at the Metropolitan Museum. You showed me all the paintings you knew something about, talked nonstop about them, I guess to impress me. I was so young I didn’t mind being impressed by a knowledgeable young man, especially about anything involving art.” “No. We once met there — the last time, in fact — several years ago. We were going in opposite directions on the grand stairway there. It was very brief, hello, not even a how’s-by-you, and then you ran as fast as anybody could run down those steps and I, I’ve got to admit, followed you out of the museum, or at least to the top of the steps, and watched you get into a cab.” “Why’d you do that?” “Because, because, why do you think? A bitten smitten. I mean, maybe not then — at the museum. Then probably I was following you to see what had interested me — maybe even obsessed me — for so long about you.” “You were that way about me?” “Are you crazy? Excuse me, but how could you say that? When I was sixteen, and then seventeen, eighteen and ninteen or so, I would have put my head under a speeding car’s wheel for you. I in fact almost did do something like that for you once. I walked out of my house — no, I should shut up.” “Go on, if you want. It’s long ago — unless it embarrasses you. It doesn’t me.” “With only a shirt on — a short-sleeved — you know, not an undershirt—” “A T-shirt.” “That’s right, and pants and shoes too, of course, but no socks. To get pneumonia. In the freezing cold and snow, that’s what I mean. So you’d hear about it later — from Robin Richards or through him to someone you knew — that I died or at least got very sick. And you’d be worried, concerned, upset, call me, want to see me — in the hospital room where I was recovering, for instance — then out of pity or something bordering on affection, start seeing me again but exclusively.” “We never really saw each other. It wasn’t even close to that.” “I know. But that’s how I felt. But all of that — the movie; movies, actually. I forget what the other one was but it was at Loew’s 83rd or RKO 81st. And bumping into me not only at the Met museum but at the old opera house Met and standing in the orchestra standing room section with me to see Faust , plus my feelings for you then — none of it rings a bell?” “I remember the opera. I met you there by accident, I think, though whether I stood with you inside or sat alone or with someone else — and certainly whether it was upstairs or downstairs where we stood, if we did — I forget.” “We stood alone. I stood behind you. We took the subway back to the West Side together. Before we took the subway I asked if you wanted to have a snack. Asked you outside or in the lobby after you wanted to leave after the second or third act. I stood behind you at the opera so you could see. I mean, that’s not why I told you I was standing behind you, though I might have, but that’s why I did it.” “Well that was very nice of you if that’s what you did. And whether it was Modem Times and at the New Yorker theater where I first met you, I could also be mistaken. My memory’s never been one of the keenest. Though I do feel sure it was at an art movie house where we first met — the Thalia perhaps. And that you struck up a conversation about the movie, to get to meet me I realized and didn’t mind, and we had coffee after or we didn’t. Maybe I’m getting all the art movie houses mixed up with the art coffeehouses — and then you phoned me a few times. Unfortunately, or quite truthfully, I couldn’t go out with you or wasn’t interested. It could have been I was seeing someone at the time. Though I’m almost certain I did go with you once to the Metropolitan Museum. Probably just an innocent Sunday afternoon date. And then for the next few years I kept running into you at various palaces of culture in the city. Carnegie Hall, I believe.” “No. Carnegie Hall is the place you said, when I bumped into you at the museum Met, ‘Well, I suppose we’ll next meet each other there.’ Meaning, at another palace of culture.” “Then the Modern.” “Never the Modern. I would have remembered. Of all places, that’s the one I most wanted to go to with you. And to also have a snack in the garden restaurant there, or if it was too cold, the one inside. Never the Modern. Never Carnegie Hall.” “But places like that. As I said, my memory was never that sharp, but I never thought it was this bad. Anyway, it’s been nice talking with you, Howard. Again, my regards to your fiancée. See? I remember I said that.” “Listen, she’ll be here any second. She’s usually late, but not this much, and I’m sure she’d like meeting you.” “I’m already very late.” “You also might be interested in her. She was an actress, pretty successful at it from the time she was ten, but gave it up. She even did TV soap operas and a couple of drama shows and made Broadway three years ago, in a good play, as far as the critics were concerned, and she’s friends with a couple of women who went to Sarah Lawrence and you went there, didn’t you?” “I graduated last year, but I don’t have the greatest memories of the place or the people in my class, so I’d rather not talk about it. Well, Howard, I’ll see you again I’m sure,” and heads uptown. Years later he’s living with a woman who once took a class at the Sarah Lawrence continuing ed school and for some reason was being sent the alumni magazine. He always reads the alumni news in it for the year Gwen graduated. She’s never listed. Years after that he’s seeing a woman and they’re at the apartment of a friend of hers and he asks where the bathroom is. The friend says “I think the one off the living room’s filled; there’s another in my bedroom.” He goes to it. On the night table is the latest Sarah Lawrence alumni magazine. He takes it to the bathroom, turns to the alumni news for Gwen’s year and looks at it while pissing. Nothing about her. Puts the magazine back on the night table and sees a stack of alumni magazines on the radiator. He goes through about ten of them before finding something about Gwen from two years ago. She’s produced documentaries on nature, done public television writing, “ghostwritten a poetical biography of a dying city,” finished a “mastodonic novel which I decided would never get published and if published, never be received well, so I immediately trunked,” took up residence in five cities in three countries in the last eight years “doing work research on I won’t say what or with whom and I hope the finished results won’t show,” been married and divorced twice, no children and “because of all the undertakings I feel I still have to do and get done, I doubt I’ll have any — my loss, not theirs,” is now living and painting in a “saintly little town in the mountains near Santa Fe, something I’ll most likely be doing for the rest of my life, for I feel I’ve finally found my art form.” “She gives,” the class correspondence secretary says, “no address, and no one should even attempt to reach her through New Mexico phone information, since for the next two years she’s in self-imposed solitary without so much as a flush toilet, running faucet, mailbox or phone, refining her work for a solo showing at what I’m sure will be a prominent NYC gallery. Gwen also writes she’s periodically gloomy because of her solitude but has never been more creative in her life — this from the one who was Ms. Creativity in our class for four straight years, and we had some winners. For companionship she says she has several sheep, horses, innumerable cats and a hundred-ten-pound Great Pyrenees named Fluffy to protect her from real mountain lions, bobcats and bears. Gwen only answered my inquiry — which came via a family member of hers, so don’t think I have her address — to spare me the task of trying to track her down for the next ten years. Her parting words — and I apologize if she didn’t mean for me to print any of them, even if I’m sure she doesn’t get the alumni mag and wouldn’t read anything about herself if she did — were ‘Right now I’m solely and totally involved with my animals, artwork, and putting the finishing touches on my house’ (which she built all by herself, I forgot to say, and without the help of electric screwdrivers and saws) ‘but no people, and if all that sounds phony if not pathalogical, so be it.’ It doesn’t, Gwen. It sounds heavenly. From all of us: Follow your star.” He reads art reviews and announcements of art exhibits in the New York Times for the next few years, but she’s never mentioned, nor have any artists he knows heard of her work. During this time a friend who’s a writer gives him a literary magazine with two of his stories in it. One’s about a woman named Gwen Wakesman. In it the fictional character has a blind date with her when he’s eighteen, French-kisses her on the first date, feels her breasts through her bra on the second, gets his hand in her underpants on the third, makes love with her in her apartment — her parents are in the Caribbean and her sister and the housekeeper went to the circus — on the next date. On the fifth date he teaches her how to go down on him without hurting him — she says it’s her first time — and how to position her body so he can stick it into her behind — and they see each other for a year, having sex almost every time they meet, before he dumps her for her best friend. She becomes very upset over this, gets a room in a cheap hotel and calls him and says she’s going to slit her wrists in the grubby bathtub, and she brought the razor blade to do it with, unless he spends the night with her there. He comes, undresses her, carries her to bed kissing her, then drops her on the floor and beats her up. “Now do you believe we’re finished?” “Finished,” she says. “And you’re not going to do anything stupid again? Because if you are I’m going to really mess up your face” “Nothing. I was wrong to threaten you.” “Good. Now get dressed, clean yourself up and I’ll take you home.” Two days later she commits suicide. He goes to the funeral, gets on his knees in front of the open coffin and screams he’s sorry for his heartlessness and prays for her to be alive again. He has a vision there that she steps out of the coffin and pats his head and says “Don’t fret, my darling; it was more my fault than yours. I depended too much on our love affair going well. I was young and impulsive and ignorant and I forgive you with all my heart.” That night he sleeps with her best friend, who was also at the funeral — they had dinner and saw a movie after — and he says “Don’t ask me why but the sex just now was the best in my life. I thought I saw God. Maybe I did if he looks a lot like what the ancient painters depict him as in so much of their art.” “I almost reached that state also,” she says, “or maybe I did. I know there was a lot of clearing and light.” “No, you’re supposed to know a mystical experience when it happens to you, there is no probably or maybe. But it was good, right? You explain it, because I can’t. And now I’m not only still feeling the buzz from my come but I also feel no remorse over Gwendolyn anymore whatsoever. I truly believe she forgave me today,” and she says she still feels remorse just a little but she thinks she’ll get over it in time, and they go at each other again. Howard calls his friend and says “You knew Gwen Wakesman?” and he says “Yeah, you too? I went out with her when I was around twenty. I changed my age a little for the story.” “You know she’s not dead, of course. She’s living near Santa Fe, or was, up till about three years go.” “She’s still there but on a reservation now, learning how to make indianlike jewelry, silver and rugs. I’m in touch with someone who met her.” “So how much of the rest of the story’s true?” “You ask that of an author? You should be ashamed of yourself. Besides, you haven’t said what you thought of it.” “Some of it though, right?” and his friend says “What do you think? I went out with her for months and my libido hasn’t changed since I was a sex-starved five.” “But you’re such a putz. What the fuck did she ever see in you and why in hell didn’t you at least change her name? You can’t use someone’s real name like that. It’s demoralizing; it’s degrading. You’re a total schmuck as a writer and the biggest shit as a person — no, the reverse. No, both, and I never want to see your scummy face again,” and his friend hangs up. Couple of years later he’s at a dinner party and the woman he sits beside at the table talks about herself, grew up in Lake Forest, boarding school in New Hampshire, summers in coastal Canada or Spain, graduated Sarah Lawrence—“Oh, what year?” “Sixty-two.” “A year after Gwen Wakesman. Did you know her there?” “No I didn’t. There were always two groups, academic-aesthetic and the finishing school types. She must have been in the other.” “Which one were you in?” and she says “Are you belittling me? The academic-aesthetic.” “That would have been the one she was in too.” “If she was I would’ve known her, even if she was a year before me. We all interweaved.” “She’s been in the alumni magazine. I’ve read it. As an artist living outside Santa Fe.” “I don’t read that silly magazine. It’s only published to raise money from the finishing school types in exchange for them telling us the names of their newest horse, boat or island and for the few a-a egotists in every class to talk endlessly about themselves and to promote their book tours and art exhibits and plays they’re in.” “I’m sure she would have been in the artistic group at school.” He next sees her name in the obituary notice for her father. Surviving are his wife Gladys, daughter Gwendolyn Leigh-Balicoff, and two grandchildren, Olympia and Augustine. So she might have got married again and the kids could be hers or her sister’s. She might even have adopted a couple of Indian children. But no mention of her sister. She die? Then it would have said “deceased.” They disown her? Weeks later he looks up her father’s name in the phone book; they’ve moved to Park Avenue, if it’s the same Philip. Calls to find out where she’s living. An older woman answers. If Gwen had he thinks he would have immediately hung up. “Hello, I’m trying to reach Gwendolyn Wakesman, now Leigh-hyphen-Balicoff. I have the right number?” “She’s living in Munich,” the woman says, “and I’m not allowed to furnish her address or phone number.” “Munich. Well, nice city. And she has a phone now? Good. Could you possibly be the woman who worked for them then, Rose or Ruth?” “Ruth, yes.” “You probably don’t remember me, Ruth. My name’s Harold Zeif. I used to date Gwen — just two dates, really — years ago, when we were in our teens.” “I don’t remember you, sir.” “How could you, and there wouldn’t be any need to. And God, you’re still working there, unless you’re only visiting for the day.” “I’m still employed by the Wakesmans, though my chores have been reduced and I no longer live in.” “Also, I was probably one of many young men Gwen knew. She was so pretty and intelligent and mature and charming, she must have had many suitors.” “That she was and did, sir. I remember that.” “How’s Mrs. Wakesman taking the death of her husband? I mean, I didn’t know her well either. I came in, her parents said hello, they were very nice — but it was a matter of seconds, maybe a minute I saw them and just one time. In the living room of the old Riverside Drive apartment, with all the paintings.” “Same paintings are here now. Different furniture though.” “I remember the furniture. Big elegant flowery couch, right?” “Vertical stripes.” “I remember flowers. I’m of course wrong. But the chairs — soft easy ones — were flowered then.” “Plain. A deep rich green one and a deep rich red one, if you’re talking about the armed padded chairs. Both are gone now. They had a decorator in and out everything went. I got the red chair, cigarette burn-holes and all.” “Then I’m thinking of someone else’s apartment. But how’s Mrs. Wakesman doing?” “Not well, as should be expected. They were tightly knit, at work and as parents.” “I remember they were. From Gwen talking, and just for the minute I saw them they seemed like very fine people. Polite, generous, cosmopolitan. And Toby? It is Toby, right — Gwen’s sister?” “Toby then but she changed it back to the original Dorothea when she turned twenty. She died many years ago.” “Ohh, that’s what I was afraid of. When the obiturary didn’t list her name as surviving. But no ‘deceased,’ it said, which puzzled me.” “That was an error of the newspaper. It was asked to say she died and didn’t survive.” “I should have thought of that. I worked on newspapers and so know how they leave things out. But what a nice cute kid she was. Did she get sick?” “It’s a story I don’t want to go into, sir.” “She didn’t kill herself, I hope.” “I shouldn’t be saying anything, sir, and it doesn’t seem you were close to the family.” “Not with her wrists.” “No, something much worse. Complete mutilation. They never got over it ever, neither Gwendolyn either. After all, there was only the two of them for the parents, and as sisters they were always little buddies.” “I’m sure. I didn’t know Dorothea well, but the times I did see her — I think she was there both times I went out with Gwen and then I used to see her walking on Broadway sometimes — she was a wonderful girl. Peppy, lively. Well, they’re the same thing, but that’s what she was. Double lively, chipper, energetic, I think — a real spark with a beautiful face and smile.” “That’s so. All of that. I loved her. Of the two, and I loved them both, she was my special little doll,” and she starts crying. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.” “That’s all right. I like to cry for her.” “I’m really sorry. Gwen, I suppose, was in for her father’s funeral?” “I’d like to stop now, sir; I’ve things to do. May I ask why you called, so I can jot it down here? Is it to pay your condolences?” “In a way, yes. But especially to Gwen. And now for both her sister and father.” “I’ll try to convey it to her. Your name was how spelled?” “Harold. And then Z-e-i-f. It’s been so long, she might not remember who I was.” “I’ll let her know, if she happens to call and I get on or if her mother writes to her.” “Just one more thing, Ruth. Is Gwen now married?” “No.” “So she married only two times?” “Three, but the third was annulled.” “Then the last name Leigh-hyphen-so-on is her third husband’s?” “It’s a combination of her sister’s middle name and her mother’s maiden name which she decided to use when she moved to Europe. I think she said she wanted a new life in every possible way.” “What’s she doing there, working, painting?” “Nobody knows.” “Surely you know but maybe you don’t feel like saying or were instructed not to, which’d be OK.” “No I don’t know, sir, and neither does her mother.” “And the children mentioned in the obituary — are they hers or Dorothea’s or one of each?” “Dorothea’s. They went with the husband after the accident, you can call it.” “It wasn’t over a man she killed herself, pardon me for asking. I shouldn’t have; I’m sorry.” “I don’t like answering that one way or the other, but it wasn’t, and it’s none of your business as you said. If you don’t mind I won’t give Gwendolyn your message. She once told me to screen all the messages too.” “You mean letters, packages, requests from alumni magazines — things like that?” She doesn’t answer. “I suppose you’re right. My condolences all around. That includes you too, of course. I can imagine how you felt then, and now with Mr. Wakesman after so many years, and I’m sorry if I sounded snoopy.” “Thank you,” and she hangs up. He gets to Munich the next year with his wife-to-be and looks up Gwen’s name and then her maiden name in the Munich phone books. She’s unlisted or maybe not living there anymore. His writer friend and he never speak after that last phone call but he expects he’ll bump into him one day and they’ll shake hands and eventually meet for coffee or a beer as they used to about twice a year and he’ll get around to asking him about his relationship with Gwen and if he’s heard anything new about where she is and what she’s doing.