Stephen Dixon - Late Stories

Next day he buys an illustrated book each on Indian and Greek mythology for her daughters. One an expensive hardcover because the store didn’t have the cheaper edition. The salesperson said she could order it but he wanted to mail the books today. Kids love their presents gift-wrapped, and the paper he selected at the store was special for kids. His daughters used to read the same books and also the Nordic and Roman ones, by the same author-illustrator, or he’d read the books to them before they went to sleep. He’d sit in the lit hallway between their bedrooms so they’d both be able to hear, or sometimes would take a chair there. Then he’d shut off their lights and kiss them goodnight. He never read some of the more violent myths if he thought they might have bad dreams from them.

He emails her for her address. “But only if you want to divulge it. I’m serious. You might have reservations about giving it out. This is for some books my daughters loved when they were your daughters’ age, and I think yours would too.” She write back. “Here’s the address of the house I’m renting. Destroy this email after you copy the address down. Just joking. I’ve nothing to be cautious or anxious about. It was Claude who asked for the divorce, and it’s all been sweet, easy and amicable since then. You’re so kind to want to send my darlings something. More later. Ruth.” No x’s, he thinks. Maybe an oversight or she didn’t want him to think they meant something they didn’t. After he mails the books to her daughters — Priority, as he wants them to get there the next day — and is walking back to his car from the post office, he thinks: Did he do the right thing? There’s a strategy to all this. There’s a strategy? Yes. And he doesn’t want her to think he’s trying to worm his way into her life partly through her kids. They have a father, who always seemed like a nice guy. He met him several times, though a while back, at department functions and once for dinner at someone’s house, when Abby was alive. He was quiet and modest and a bit reserved, but from what she told him, is very paternal, and probably still is. “He’s a good father,” she said in his office when she brought her recently born second child for him to see, “just like you.” He wants something to happen with her, that he’s sure of, but he could be killing it by being too obvious. He’s thought this before, but get it ingrained. So that’s the strategy: Don’t scare her away. Do, and she might never come back. In fact, odds are she won’t. But it might be too late. She’ll open the Priority envelope with her kids and say “Oh, what beautiful paper,” and then “What beautiful books,” and think “It was nice of him but it wasn’t necessary and it was maybe a little odd,” and also the gift is too extravagant — with postage, it came to almost fifty dollars — and she knows what he’s getting at, and finally, he’s too old.

He has another dream of her that night. They’re at her rented house. Seems to be a birthday party going on for one of her girls. Lots of kids the same age; balloons are stuck to the walls. She points to a group of well-dressed people talking in the next room and says “See that man there? Know who he is?” “The one with the gray goatee? Very distinguished. I feel like a tramp in comparison. Your husband, I presume.” “That’s right,” she says. “A sweeter man than he has never lived.” Then he’s sitting at a card table with her older girl. The girl holds up several paper dolls to show him. “Did you make them yourself?” he says. “No, I cut them out of a paper doll book,” she says, “but did all the coloring of their clothes. Don’t tell anyone. I want everyone to think I did all of it myself.” “I won’t, my little sweetheart.” “Who are you?” she says. “Philip. An old friend of your mother’s.” “And my father?” “I don’t know him as well, but you can say your father too.” Ruth is standing nearby and seems to be mad at him. “I do something wrong?” his expression says. She signals him to follow her. They go into the bedroom of one of her daughters. The little light in it comes from a slight opening of the door. They stand with their backs pressed up against a wall and their heads turned away from each other. Then her face turns slowly around to his, gets very close, their backs still pressed to the wall. He thinks she’s going to kiss him for the first time. Just as her lips almost touch his and he can feel her breath on his face, she turns away and walks out of the room and shuts the door. “Close,” he says to himself, “but not close enough. She knows I’m dying to kiss her. It’ll never happen. Why am I making such a fool of myself?” and he kicks the wall, feels his way to the door and leaves the room.

Next day, he tells his therapist just about everything that happened with Ruth the past week. Then he reads some of his dreams of her, which he typed up for the session so he could remember them better. She says “What do you think the dreams and the abundance of them mean? To me, right down to the gray goatee, they seem quite clear, except for the paper dolls.” “No, that’s all right,” he says. “Then why did you read them to me?” and he says “I thought you’d be interested in them.” “Would you like me to give my interpretation of what these newest dreams mean? It just came to me what significance the paper dolls might have.” “No, I’m fine,” he says; “really.” “Okay. Let’s go on. Your waking life with Ruth.” “Don’t I wish I had one.” “Yes, yes,” she says. “And this business about making yourself into a fool. You’re not. Never be ashamed of your emotions. But easy does it, I say. Don’t rush into things. You could get hurt. Form a friendship first. It seems that’s what she wants too. Let her get to know and appreciate you even more than it sounds like she does now. You have a great deal to offer. For one thing, and very important, she more than likely looks up to you and your writing and that you’ve stuck it out all these years and written so much and such good work. But don’t scare her off.” “I know,” he says. “Though she’s so lovely and I’m so drawn to her — I mean, I can feel it when I get next to her — that it’s difficult not to pounce on her. Though I know. And by pouncing, I mean affectionately. But hearing you say it is good for me. She’s not giving me any reason to make a move on her, so I won’t. If she never does, I never will. I’ll keep how I feel about her quiet and under control. I don’t want to confuse and scare her, like you say, and send her fleeing.” “Don’t even make a move if you think maybe she’s giving you signs she wants something more from you than simply lunch and your attendance at her reading. No maybes. Let it be absolutely clear she wants to take the relationship to a deeper level. You’re very observant, so you’ll know when it happens.” “I hope so.” “You’ll know. And you’re still a good catch. The two of you have many things in common. You are much older than her and there are your health issues.” “All of what I thought,” he says. “But want to know what I think? That I was misdiagnosed for Parkinson’s. Look at me. It can’t just be the pills, which aren’t that strong to begin with. My hands don’t shake. My balance is good. I can walk as straight as anyone, and now I’m jogging every morning and sometimes I go at a good speed. Also, my vocal cords are back to normal, or the muscles that control them are. And I was so borderline hypertension, that I might not have that too.” “I’m glad, if all that’s so,” she says. “Though don’t take chances, Philip. And I don’t think you’re deluding yourself with Ruth. Look at that famous actor — Jeffrey someone. So famous, I forget his name.” “I don’t know either.” “Married a woman forty years younger than him when he was eighty, I think, and they had twins.” “I don’t want twins,” he says. “Or to be a father again, and I’m sure two kids is enough for her too. But everything you say is something I already thought.” “Then you don’t need me anymore,” she says. “No, I need you. I have to tell someone how I feel about Ruth. It used to be Abby. I’ve told you. In thirty years there was never another woman. Now it’s Ruth. I feel good that I can feel like that again.” “I’m happy for you. You’re a very nice person.” “Thank you,” he says. “One more thing. I had another dream a few days ago that I didn’t even type up for you because I didn’t think I’d tell you it. And if I then thought I’d tell you, it was so vivid and short, I knew I’d remember it. It’s the oddest dream I ever had.” “Then I’d like to hear it.” “It has penises in it. That’d be all right with you?” “Of course,” she says. “Anything.” “Okay. I say to Ruth in the dream, ‘I’m giving myself away.’ Just that opening line is such a giveaway.” “Go on, go on.” “Ruth says to me ‘What do you have to offer?’ I say ‘Two penises. You can have one.’ I pull down my pants. Two semi-erect penises pop out of my boxer shorts. I’m not going too far?” “I told you. No.” “One is pink; the other my normal skin color, kind of beige. I think she’s going to choose the normal-skin-color one. She reaches down, I cringe because I think this is going to hurt, and she painlessly pulls off the pink one. I think ‘Now I’m normal.’ That’s it. Very quick. Whole thing is over in what seemed like half a minute. It’s pretty obvious to me what it means. That I’m revealing my feelings for her too fast and too obviously.” “And the now-you’re-normal part?” “That I now only have one penis,” he says. “If I stayed with two I’d be a freak and she’d never be attracted to me.” “So you’re saying if she’d chosen the normal-colored one to pull off and left the pink one, it would have been the same.” “I guess so,” he says. “What?” “There’s so much to talk about here,” she says. “First of all, why do you think she chose the pink instead of the normal-colored one? And it was a bright painter’s or flower’s pink?” “Very pink,” he says. “Like bubble gum, or what it used to be when I was a kid. But I hadn’t thought of it before. Because it’s a prettier and flashier color than we’ll call beige and she was attracted to it for aesthetic reasons?” “Do you mind if I offer my interpretation as to why she chose it?” she says. “I’ll put it this way. Pink is young, youth, new, fresh, a baby. The reason for her choosing it could be the most important part of your dream. It’s the age difference again. Perhaps the number one stumbling block to a possible serious relationship with Ruth, so you’re worried over it because it isn’t something easy to overcome. Again, it’s wishful thinking. We’ve talked about it. Your kissing and hugging her in your dreams, making love to her, pulling her into your shoulder as you walk, her letting you hold her hand. This is what you want to happen, as they do in your dreams. She acts the way you hope she will. And in this instance: she’s protective, supportive, considerate, accepting. Age turns out not to matter. She chooses the you you are now over the one you can no longer be. The gap between you has been erased with one single gesture. And everything else being relatively equal between you — your interests, intelligence, you say she’s funny, and so forth — it seems you can now get a romance going, which is what you’ve said you’re longing for and want most. It’s a positive dream. No pain; her complete acceptance of what you are. Very positive. It may not work out for you this way in real life, but in your dream world it does. It’s possible I bungled the last part there. It’s all off the top of my head. But did any of the rest of it make any sense to you?” “A lot,” he says. “I don’t know how I missed it.” “It could be other things too,” she says. “There’s hardly ever one single interpretation for any one part of a dream. But this one sticks out.” “No, I like it,” he says. “This one will do. It makes me feel good. At least better than before I told you the dream.” “I’m glad.” “Time’s up, right?” he says. She looks at her watch on the side table next to her. “You still have ten minutes.” “I think I’ll stop now. I got a lot out of it. I want to mull over what you’ve said and I don’t want to get too many things mixed up in it.” “Then I’ll see you next week.” He stands, takes the check out of his wallet and gives it to her. “Off to the Y?” she says. “Your usual schedule?” “Yes. Mind and body. Taking care of both. Thank you for a good session,” and he goes.