Blues for Beginners: Stories and Obsessions (4 page)

“Jack?” says Gita with a lipstick smile, the
smile before the scream.

“Keep your shirt on,” says Jack as he walks
towards the stairwell. He looks around to wink at the girl in the
baggy clothes, but she’s gone. “On second thought, sweetheart, take
it off.”

He watches Gita work her mouth, unable to
figure out whether Jack is insulting her or flirting with her.

There should be better ways of having
fun.

This has been a lousy year. Smashed up in
that car wreck, six weeks in traction, and when he came out of the
hospital, his good job gone. He used to be chief fund raiser for
the Institute for Strategic Technology, a now defunct think tank,
and before that he had a small consulting business. He lived in a
Watergate sublet overlooking the Potomac and spent evenings on
Embassy Row. Now he spends his time uptown, in chilly basements
full of cast off furniture, the hostage of screaming women.
Nonetheless, the year has not been a total loss.

He has been cast into darkness so he might
better recognize the light.

After the maroon davenport is out on the
loading dock, Jack red tags Mrs. Ratner’s latest choices: planter,
end tables, and horsehair settee. From the back of the basement he
sees his dormouse blonde with the naked face. Surrounded by old
furniture, she looks bewildered. Something bold yet personal is
called for.

“I think you might need me,” he says.

She smiles, embarrassed, as though her secret
desires have been revealed to a stranger. He didn’t know there were
women who still blushed like that.

“Let me guess,” he continues, encouraged.
“You are an international social worker on home leave. The
villagers have come to accept you as one of them. You bind the
wounds of the elders and teach the little ones to read.”

He has tickled her fancy and made her laugh.
She’s the wooden doll released from enchantment under the kindly
touch of the master toymaker.

“I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” she says
finally. “You’re not even close.”

She’s a tech rep for Boeing Computer Services
recently transferred from Seattle. His attention wanders as she
describes her job in some detail. Should he tell her about his CIA
connections? No, she probably couldn’t handle it, not this early in
the relationship.

“I’m a poet,” he says, knowing this will
explain his broken teeth and current menial employment. Women take
chances on poets. “I’m looking for a serious relationship with an
intelligent woman who will torture me and darn my socks.”

“What a great line,” she says. “Have you had
any luck with it?”

Her body language reads guarded but her smile
tells him everything he needs to know. Like him, a believer in love
at first sight. The underground faith, the old religion, the only
one left that feels true. Her name turns out to be Shelly, exactly
the name he would have picked for her. No rings on her fingers, no
salt on her tail.

When it’s meant to be it’s this simple.

“I met my last boyfriend like this, only he
worked in a record store,” Shelly tells him. “I was looking for
John Denver and he made me buy Scarlatti. We were together for
eight years—”

Her voice falls off, and Jack intuits recent
abandonment and betrayal by some aging hippie cad.

“But then he moved into the Ashram?”

“He had cancer and died,” she says in a flat
voice.

She has turned to go, but he can’t let her
get away, not when he needs her so.

“I can’t believe someone as attractive and
intelligent as you isn’t married.”

Another mistake, he realizes too late; Gita
has told him that women find the implications insulting, not that
he can figure out why.

Shelly does not take offence. Instead she
turns his words over like a serious person.

“It’s hard to meet men when everyone’s so
wrapped up in work. It was different back in grad school.”

“There’s a Bergman festival at the Student
Union. We could catch The Seventh Seal tonight at 8. Then I’ll take
you to the Rathskeller. We’ll talk about Existentialism. What do
you say?”

“Right,” says Shelly.

She must think he’s making fun of her, but
he’s never been more sincere in his life.

“OK, forget the existentialism, but I wasn’t
kidding about the Bergman Festival. Be there for me, what do you
say?”

From the abstracted look on her face, a
middle distance stare, she could be weighing his soul according to
some private algorithm, or else thinking about what to make for
dinner.

“Jack!” Gita screams from upstairs. “What’s
taking you so long?”

“I’ll think about it,” says Shelly.

.

Jack waits for Shelly in the lobby of the
Library between a series of posters extolling the virtues of South
Korea. The posters, which have the cheerful dowdiness of in-house
industrial graphics, feature a stubby smiling tiger wearing a hard
hat. Jack feels great fondness for the small but plucky tiger,
official mascot of Korea, with its broad shoulders and positive
mental outlook. Why do liberals hate Koreans? What’s wrong with
industry and simple gratitude? To work hard is good. To smile is
also good, even with broken teeth. A hardworking man is waiting for
his girl to show up so he can take her to the movies. What’s wrong
with that? And here she comes now, here comes little Shelly, all
bundled up in a pinkish down jacket. Waves of happiness hit
him.

“Hi,” she says. “Sorry I’m late.”

But she’s right on time.

“You have this distinctive smell,” she says
as they walk to the movie. “Sort of salty and metallic?”

There is no shower in Jack’s apartment, just
a small claw footed bathtub and never enough hot water.

“It’s sort of like plant food and trail mix,”
Shelly says.

Midway through Seventh Seal Jack leans over
towards Shelly so their shoulders touch. She shifts her weight
towards him, leans into him. When it’s meant to be, it’s easy.

.

The red tile floor of the Rathskeller is
slick with spilled beer and the juke box is pitched too loud for
conversation, but Jack finds a nook in the back. He feels expansive
and favored.

“Do you think it’s merely coincidence that
the first woman in space was named Sally Ride?”he says.

“Now you’re being silly,” she says.

He has begun to sense that Shelly subscribes
to the Things Just Happen theory of the universe. It seems to be an
article of faith among women these days that the chains of cause
and effect are so attenuated as not to be worth thinking about.

“God doesn’t play dice with the Universe,” he
says.

“That’s Einstein, right?”

“Correct that. God doesn’t play dice with the
universe and expect to lose.”

She looks alarmed. He realizes his voice is
too loud.

“Forgive me, Shelly. I’ve been spending too
much time in my own head.”

.

The boarded up drug store they pass on
Wisconsin Avenue is a perfect terrorist stakeout. The van with the
diplomat plates is the tip off. He doesn’t want to alarm her.

“Come on, Shelly” he says “We’re crossing
over.”

“The light’s at Calvert,” she says. “Besides
it’s creepy on the other side. There’s the graveyard.”

“Suppose I told you that we’re about to walk
past a nest of Palestinians with Uzis and I don’t believe in taking
foolish chances?” Jack says.

“You can’t really believe that,” she
says.

“You’re an intelligent woman, Shelly. Quick,
tell me which has greater likelihood of existence: ghosts or
Palestinian guerrillas?”

“Muggers,” she says. “Hiding behind the
tombstones, ready to jump us this very minute.”

There’s a liberal for you, could be raped at
knife point before she’d use the N-word, so he’d better humor
her.

“Muggers never hang out in graveyards,” he
says. “They’re all scared of ghosts.”

Her laugh rewards him, and she lets him take
her hand for the mad dash across Wisconsin Avenue; but the narrow
sidewalk past the graveyard forces them into single file, and she
sprints ahead. He catches up with her at the next corner waiting
for him under the street lamp.

“Do you walk around pretending to be in spy
movies all the time?” she says.

“The Greatest Story Never Told, Part II,”
says Jack. “In the final reel the Children of Light get to match
wits with the Prince of Darkness. If you want to pretend you’re not
in this movie be my guest, but you’ll miss the whole point.”

.

Shelly’s condo is half the size of Jack’s
lost Watergate sublet, but it is two stories up and gets southern
exposure. Cascades of spider plants and swedish ivy hang in the
windows. He could grow his plants here. Shelly’s living room, full
of mismatched furniture and rag rugs, reminds him of his Aunt May’s
summer house, except for the computer off in a corner and the home
entertainment unit that takes up a wall. Top of the line, state of
the art sound system; legacy, no doubt, of the Man from the Record
Store.

“Could you stand it if I put on some
Sinatra?” Shelly says.

Her glance slides away when he tries to meet
her eyes.

“The way I see it,” says Jack, “I have to
make you feel secure, but obliquely, so you don’t see me doing
it.”

“Are you making fun of me?” she says.

“I’m laying out for you a newly virgin heart.
I don’t think you appreciate the significance of what that
means.”

“It’s been a long time without for me too,”
she says.

Her voice is small and bleak and matter of
fact. Winter in Korea. Lonely to the bones. But her lips are still
soft, still responsive.

Love oh love remember me.

.

A sky blue comforter and fresh, clean sheets
welcome him. Naked Shelly, Shelly with her hands on her hips,
stands in her bedroom doorway, hesitant as though waiting for a
cue. He wonders if this is some kind of last minute tease.

“Come here, you,” he says from her bed.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” she says.
“You know, rubbers?”

That forced perkiness, so inappropriate for
the occasion!

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything’s going
to be fine.”

They will move to Pennsylvania and make
babies. She will have a garden and he will raise malamutes.

“I’ve got some in the medicine cabinet if you
didn’t bring any.”

“We’ll get married. If it’s a boy, we’ll name
it for your father.”

“You don’t get it,” she says, earnest and
implacable as a health careprofessional. “You know, AIDS?”

“Trust me a little on this one; do I look
like a fruit?” He means his words to sound gentle, teasing, while
his eyes register hurt, injured pride but no self-pity. “Take a
chance, Shelly. Don’t make me sleep in the cold.”

A grave, almost dutiful look comes over her
face, and she climbs into bed. His needs are stronger than her
resolve.

And later, her naked face under his. Child
still. Peony in the rain. So much he can teach her. That expansive
feeling again, but softer.

“I’m-older-than-you is going to define this
relationship,” he says, drifting towards sleep.

Her laugh sounds wide awake and almost
mirthless.

“What’s so funny, you?” he says.

The appraiser’s look she gives him makes him
catch his breath, makes him wonder for the first time if he’s
reached her at all.

.

In the morning he wakes first. Through
Shelly’s bedroom window he can see the Cathedral.

“Hey,” he whispers in her ear, “I like
you.”

Just in case she’s awake but doesn’t want to
make a commitment. A glance at her book shelves tells him the
dimensions of the problem. All the required reading for the Woman’s
Studies seminar but no Tolkein. He will make her read Chesterton
and D.H. Lawrence. He will feed her vitamins and bring her bottled
water from mountain springs. He will start by fixing her breakfast
in bed.

The pickings in Shelly’s refrigerator are
slim: half a carton of orange juice, some English muffins, and a
small tub of margarine. Browsing through her cupboards he discovers
a small jar of champagne marmalade. What a nice touch, champagne
marmalade for his first breakfast with Shelly.

She stands in the kitchen doorway all dressed
for work, navy blazer jacket over dress and pearls, pumps and red
lipstick.

“Excuse me, but I was saving that for a
special occasion,” she says.

She needs reassurance, that’s all.
Reassurance and a good cup of coffee.

“And what could be more special than our
first breakfast? If you run to the store like a good girl and pick
us up a dozen eggs, some ham, a hunk of Guyere cheese, and some
fresh ground coffee, I’ll fix a breakfast that will knock your
socks off.”

“I get it. You want to move in with me,” she
says.

In this damp gray voice. She knows what she
wants but it scares her. He’s been there before.

“Admit it, little one. You can’t get along
without me. Why fight it?”

He waits for that little topple of laughter
that will turn her back into his Shelly again.

“I’m real late for work, and I still have to
empty the garbage,” she says.

Posters have gone up overnight, he thinks,
and the students take to the streets. Expel the foreign invader,
they chant. Yankee go home.

He blocks the doorway.

“You owe me an explanation, little one,” he
says, not minding the note of menace creeping into his voice.

Her eyes are cool and sad.

“I figured you were a little crazy after you
made me cross Wisconsin Avenue in the middle of the block to avoid
the Palestinian guerrillas, but I felt sorry for you. Only I
shouldn’t have let you stay when you wouldn’t use a condom. That
was me being stupid.”

He’s not buying this, not after last
night.

“You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to
yourself,” he says. “We made love last night.”