Annie DeWitt - White Nights in Split Town City

“Oh,” I said. “Wasn’t he lovely?”

“He was lovely,” she said. “He was quite fine. Went to Harvard or something in the seventies. Now he makes films.”

Mother had a strange attraction for Harvard men despite the fact that the only one she’d met was Floyd Cutler. Floyd Cutler and his young wife, Joy, had built a home two roads over on Merriam. A large single-story bungalow of Floyd’s design built into the side of a hill. It had a short pitch and three walls constructed entirely of glass. The toilets required small amounts of water and the roof was designed to grow seedlings. From the outside, the house looked like a life-sized terrarium.

Joy had invited Mother and Father to one of their parties. The Cutler’s had strung up a line of old bed linens on the side of the yard that faced the neighbors. Everyone had gone swimming naked in the pool that fed off the stream alongside their property.

“At first it was a bit of a shock,” Mother had said after the party. “And then it was fun and then it was a bit of a shock again seeing everyone wandering around in their bare feet by the edge of the pool. The feet on those people. I remember thinking how ugly they were. The pool was just stinking with them.”

“The whole thing was so damn depressing,” Father had said.

“The way those people got on about jazz.”

“I thought you and Floyd talked about movies?” Mother had said. “Joy said you two had a chat.”

“Silent films,” Father had said. “He wanted to make a silent film about a woman giving birth in his pool.”

“Poor thing too,” Mother had said. “His wife was barren.”

“I didn’t know,” Father had said.

“Joy told me herself,” Mother had said. “One afternoon she invited me for cocktails. It was my turn on the carpool. She suggested we sun ourselves on the patio. The boys were adopted, you know. She said they were used to her going topless in the house. After a few drinks, I asked her where she had adopted them. ‘They look so different from one another,’ I said. She agreed. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘They have different fathers.’ ‘Don’t we all,’ I said.”

“I think she’s lonely,” Father had said. “She must be lonely over there without any real neighbors. Most weekends Floyd’s away at a conference. She’s all alone in that house.”

“How do you know how often Floyd’s away or he isn’t?” Mother had said.

“He told me himself,” Father had said. “He pointed at the house and said, ‘It’s funny, Rick. I built this house but whenever I’m here I feel like I’m on vacation. And yet as soon as I leave, I want to come home again.”

“Poor thing,” Mother had said. “I always knew there was something a tad sick about that man. Handsome people too.”

“You know what they say about handsome types,” Father had said. “They all went to Harvard in the seventies.”

“Not everyone worth hating attended Harvard in the late seventies, Rick,” Mother had said.

“No,” Father had said. “Everyone worth hating leaves their wife alone in a house with a glass wall.”

“You think he means for people to watch her?” Mother had said.

“I don’t think he means anything,” Father had said. “It’s all just a bunch of hot air. That’s just it.”

I thought of this story now as I gazed at Mother in her bed. Her head propped up on a pillow. She scratched the inside of her thigh. When she caught me looking at her, she extended her legs and pointed her toes as though to stretch.

“Oh,” I said. “How did you meet this exactly perfect man?”

“I probably shouldn’t say,” she said.

“Probably not,” I said. “Father might not see any fun in it.”

“I agree with him there,” she said. “It might be inappropriate.”

She stared hard at me as though searching for something. I looked at her naked hand. I thought about taking it in mine. I thought about smelling her fingers. I thought they would smell like something but I didn’t know what.

“Although,” she said, stroking the edge of the bed. “It might be instructive.”

“Sure,” I said.

“He lived down the street,” she started. “His father ran the bakery. He was the oldest of the three boys. All handsome too. Or at least that’s how I remembered them. He was my sister’s age then.”

“And now?” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Now I suppose we’re the same age. Maybe he’s a few years older. He had some gray in his hair.”

“What does he do?” I said.

“He writes films,” she said. “Or he wrote one film I remember. It was based on a book of his that was optioned for a movie. The book was called Did I Wake You Up ?”

“What a title,” I said.

“Well,” she said. “We were in college then.”

“What was he like?” I said.

“That’s the thing,” she said. “He wasn’t . We went to a few diners.

He picked me up in his car. I borrowed your Grandmother’s mink. But after a week, I realized he hadn’t changed any since he’d written that book. He hadn’t expanded .”

“Is he married?” I said.

“No,” she said. “He married young and divorced. He was in town for a few weeks visiting his parents.”

“Where does he live?” I said.

“Someplace sunny. Near the beach,” she said.

“Sounds illuminating ,” I said.

“It wasn’t,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I figured if I couldn’t feel anything for a man like that then maybe I couldn’t feel for anything new,” she said.

“We’re not new either,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

Mother got up and walked over toward the mirror over the dresser. She’d hung it there so she could see the length of herself. Father had marked the wall with a ruler while I’d helped her find the correct height. The mirror was part of a set Granny Olga had given her. The wood was fine but the glass was damaged in places. When you looked in it on a cloudy day you lost pieces of yourself, as though bits of your body had drifted away. Mother turned now in front of it, examining herself from both sides.

“I may be old,” she said cupping her breast in her hand for a moment, giving her chest more shape. “But I’m not blind for feeling.”

She looked so young in the light.

Margaret sat on the wooden stool in our kitchen the next morning as Mother brewed her tea. The two women had quickly resumed their habit.

“Friday night this town belongs to the bikers,” Margaret said as I yawned and slipped into the kitchen to poke around for something to eat. “They stop for subs at Harry’s on their way up the interstate.”

Mother laughed. “If I find you sitting out Friday nights on the terrace in the center of town hitting on the musicians and widowers, I’ll be disappointed,” she said.

“Not at all,” Margaret said. “We could use a new scene.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mother said. “I still have my engagements.”

“Bring them along,” Margaret said. “I hear there’s pinball in the back.”

“You’re terrible,” Mother said.

“Sure,” Margaret said. “You depend on me for it.”

“I spent my marriage preparing to be a lover,” Margaret continued.

“By the time I got around to applying myself, the opportunity had disappeared.”

“So find a new opportunity,” Mother said. “It’s all in the description.”

“Sure,” Margaret said. “I’d try on any description which didn’t involve organizing my day around when the plants in the window get thirsty and the bird feeder needs seed. Not that I mind. It’s my thrill really. All that time with no one to bother me. Sometimes I find myself standing in the bathroom wondering what season it is.”