John Irving: In One Person

“And what might you be interested in reading, William?” she asked. “It is William, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I answered her, thrilled. “William” sounded so grown up. I was embarrassed to have developed a crush on my mother’s boyfriend; it seemed much more permissible to be developing an even bigger crush on the statuesque Miss Frost.

Her hands, I had noticed, were both broader in the palms and longer in the fingers than Richard Abbott’s hands, and—standing as they were, beside each other—I saw that Miss Frost’s upper arms were more substantial than Richard’s, and her shoulders were broader; she was taller than Richard, too.

There was one similarity. Richard was so very youthful-looking—he seemed to be almost as young as a Favorite River Academy student; he might have needed to shave only once or twice a week. And Miss Frost, despite the broad shoulders and her strong-looking upper arms, and (I only now noticed) the conspicuous breadth of her chest, had these small breasts. Miss Frost had young, barely emerging breasts—or so they seemed to me, though, at thirteen, I was a relatively recent noticer of breasts.

My cousin Gerry had bigger ones. Even fourteen-year-old Laura Gordon, who was too bosomy to play Hedvig in The Wild Duck, had more “highly visible breasts” (as my breast-conscious aunt Muriel had observed) than the otherwise imposing Miss Frost.

I was too smitten to utter a word—I couldn’t answer her—but Miss Frost (very patiently) asked me her question again. “William? You’re interested in reading, I presume, but could you tell me if you like fiction or nonfiction—and what subject in particular you prefer?” Miss Frost asked. “I’ve seen this boy at our little theater!” she said suddenly to Richard. “I’ve spotted you backstage, William—you seem very observant .”

“Yes, I am,” I scarcely managed to say. Indeed, I’d been so observant of Miss Frost that I could have masturbated on the spot, but instead I summoned the strength to say: “Do you know any novels about young people who have . . . dangerous crushes?”

Miss Frost stared at me unflinchingly. “Dangerous crushes,” she repeated. “Explain what’s dangerous about a crush.”

“A crush on the wrong person,” I told her.

“I said, in effect, there’s no such thing,” Richard Abbott interjected. “There are no ‘wrong’ people; we’re free to have crushes on anyone we want.”

“There are no ‘wrong’ people to have crushes on—are you kidding ?” Miss Frost asked Richard. “On the contrary, William, there is some notable literature on the subject of crushes on the wrong people,” she said to me.

“Well, that’s what Bill is into,” Richard told Miss Frost. “Crushes on the wrong people.”

“That’s quite a category,” Miss Frost said; she was all the while smiling beautifully at me. “I’m going to start you out slowly—trust me on this one, William. You can’t rush into crushes on the wrong people.”

“Just what do you have in mind?” Richard Abbott asked her. “Are we talking Romeo and Juliet here?”

“The problems between the Montagues and the Capulets were not Romeo’s and Juliet’s problems,” Miss Frost said. “Romeo and Juliet were the right people for each other; it was their families that were fucked up.”

“I see,” Richard said—the “fucked up” remark shocked him and me. (It seemed so unlike a librarian.)

“Two sisters come to mind,” Miss Frost said, quickly moving on. Both Richard Abbott and I misunderstood her. We were thinking that she meant to say something clever about my mother and Aunt Muriel.

I’d once imagined that the town of First Sister had been named for Muriel; she exuded sufficient self-importance to have had a whole town (albeit a small one) named for her. But Grandpa Harry had set me straight about the origins of our town’s name.

Favorite River was a tributary of the Connecticut River; when the first woodsmen were logging the Connecticut River Valley, they renamed some of the rivers from which they ran logs into and down the Connecticut—from both the New Hampshire and Vermont sides of the big river. (Maybe they hadn’t liked all the Indian names.) Those early river drivers named Favorite River—what they called a straight shot into the Connecticut, with few bends that could cause log jams. As for naming our town First Sister, that was because of the millpond, which was created by the dam on the Favorite River. With our sawmill and the lumberyard, we became a “first sister” to those other, bigger mill towns on the Connecticut River.

I found Grandpa Harry’s explanation of First Sister’s origins to be less exciting than my earliest assumption that our small town had been named for my mother’s older, bullying sister.

But both Richard Abbott and I were thinking about those two Marshall girls, when Miss Frost made her remark—“Two sisters come to mind.” Miss Frost must have noticed that I appeared puzzled, and Richard had lost his leading-man aura; he seemed confused, even unsure of himself. Miss Frost then said, “I mean the Brontë sisters, obviously.”

“Obviously!” Richard cried; he looked relieved.

“Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights, ” Miss Frost explained to me, “and Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre .”

“Never trust a man with a lunatic wife in an attic,” Richard told me. “And anyone named Heathcliff should make you suspicious.”

“Those are some crushes, ” Miss Frost said meaningfully.

“But aren’t they women’s crushes?” Richard asked the librarian. “Bill might have a young man’s crush, or crushes, more in mind.”

“Crushes are crushes,” Miss Frost said, without hesitation. “It’s the writing that matters; you’re not suggesting that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are novels ‘for women only,’ are you?”

“Certainly not! Of course it’s the writing that matters!” Richard Abbott exclaimed. “I just meant that a more masculine adventure—”

“More masculine !” Miss Frost repeated. “Well, I suppose there’s Fielding,” she added.

“Oh, yes!” Richard cried. “Do you mean Tom Jones ?”

“I do,” Miss Frost replied, with a sigh. “If one can count sexual escapades as one result of crushes —”

“Why not?” Richard Abbott quickly said.

“You’re how old?” Miss Frost asked me. Once again, her long fingers touched my shoulder. I recalled how Aunt Muriel had fainted (twice), and briefly feared I would soon lose consciousness.

“I’m thirteen,” I told her.

“Three novels are enough of a beginning at thirteen,” she said to Richard. “It wouldn’t be wise to overload him with crushes at too young an age. Let’s just see where these three novels lead him, shall we?” Once more Miss Frost smiled at me. “Begin with the Fielding,” she advised me. “It’s arguably the most primitive. You’ll find that the Brontë sisters are more emotional—more psychological. They’re more grown-up novelists.”

“Miss Frost?” Richard Abbott said. “Have you ever been onstage —have you ever acted ?”

“Only in my mind,” she answered him, almost flirtatiously. “When I was younger—all the time.”

Richard gave me a conspiratorial look; I knew perfectly well what the talented young newcomer to the First Sister Players was thinking. A tower of sexual strength stood before us; to Richard and me, Miss Frost was a woman with an untamable freedom—a certain lawlessness definitely accompanied her.