!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
Next morning, an hour or so after he had left to drive back home, Mike called. “It’s the car. It just stopped.”
“Where are you?”
“At a gas station, near the Pru.” He sounded resigned, confused.
“What are you going to do? Come back here? How would you get home? Can you get the car fixed?”
“I called my dad. When I told him the mechanic said it would cost a couple thousand to fix, and they offered me $500 for it as is, he said, ‘Just leave it there. Fly home.’ He sounded distracted, like my mother’s thing has taken all his energy, his ability to make plans about anything else. So I’m taking the train to Logan now.”
“You’re just going to leave the car here, abandon it? You love that car, Mike. How can you just let it go like that?”
I heard a deep sigh, and could almost see him with his eyes closed, his mouth screwed up. Finally, “No, I’m sad. Mad. Angry. I don’t know what. I don’t want to leave it behind…but I’ve got to get back, go to Aspen. What am I supposed to do?”
“Are you still planning on coming back in January?”
“For a week or ten days, to hand in papers and take a couple of exams. Hopefully, I’ll get another car, so I can still go out to Snowmass, find a job there, live in the house, figure out how to ski.”
Apparently, nothing was going to deter him from this path he’d charted. A goulash of anger, fear, sadness, and, finally, hope, swept through me. I wondered, would I ever get my heart back? Instead of sharing this, I laughed and said, “Well, see you next year!”
Three weeks later, he returned, all excited about the paper he’d written for his Film Studies class.
“It’s about using the documentary form in otherwise fictional movies. Like Easy Rider, where they show Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper wandering through the the actual Mardi Gras, interacting with strangers.”
I remembered a darker example. “Medium Cool. I hope you used that. I was there, remember. I saw Haskell Wexler on the other side of the fence where they’d trapped us. You may have seen one thing when we saw that last month, but I kept looking for me and Eddie in the background.”
“Yes, I put that in there. Not about you, but the technique, I mean.”
“What about Aspen? Did you find a job there?”
“I’m gonna be a dishwasher! I think I got the job a little bit ‘cause of swimming,” he exclaimed.
“Swimming? What’s that got to do with skiing?” I asked, although in my mind, they were one and the same thing – silly sports which had entrapped an otherwise ambitious man.
“It’s at ‘Guido’s Swiss Inn.’ See, he came over after the war. He has these Old World attitudes, got a sign in his window, ‘Hippies and longhairs not allowed.’ I walk in with my head nearly shaved for swimming, I guess maybe he thinks I’m OK.”
“But you’re not, are you? I mean, we don’t like the war, we want to think for ourselves, not be told how to act, right?”
“Never trust anyone over thirty, yup, that’s me. But dishwashing’s great. Start work after 3 PM, so I can ski most days. I bought a season pass, at the student rate.”
February and March, I gave in to several Harvard boys who wanted the cachet, or maybe the ease, of a date with a ‘Cliffie. I found it was easy to spot someone in class who might have his eye on me, then turn a brief conversation about homework into an offer of a movie, or even dinner. As with Howard, though, I didn’t feel a spark from any of them, no hidden electricity as I had with Michael Harrison.
After another depressing night out I returned to 119 Walker, and found Bev, Jeanne, and Marcia still up, sharing a bottle of wine and stories of their own romantic woes.
Marcia was saying, “…is he the man I want to have a family with? He’s got some growing up to do.”
“They all do,” I found myself saying acerbically.
Bev’s raised eyebrows urged me on. I said, “This guy tonight, he must have thought getting me into bed was the way to a lasting friendship.”
“Did you?” questioned Jeanne, offering, then withdrawing her glass. “Oh, wait, that’s right, you still don’t drink.”
“Sometimes I wish I could, or should, or…I don’t know!” Exasperated, I reached for the Chardonnay. One sip, and I knew why I didn’t like it. I put it down, disgustedly. “Yuck. No, I think I must be a serial monogamist.”
“Meaning?” Bev questioned.
“Meaning, I still love that boy…”
“Mike,” Jeanne added.
“Mike,” I went on. “I’ll always love him, I just don’t know if I’ll love the man he’s becoming. Like you said, ‘He’s got some growing up to do.’ ”
“What, his quitting school?” Marcia chimed in.
“No, that’s actually a sign of maturity to me, wanting to get out into the real world. No, there’s this girl he met last summer, they’ve been writing letters every month or so.”
“So it’s OK for him, but not for you?” Jeanne asked incredulously.
“It’s not like that, really. I think, or at least he says. She’s still in high school. The way he talks about it, she’s got a crush on him, and he enjoys that. Nothing more.”
“And you believe him?” Bev put in.
“One thing I’ve learned about Michael, he’s such a Boy Scout, he can’t help but tell the truth. Yes, I believe him. He’s so juvenile about the whole thing, though.”
Marcia wondered, “What is it about that guy that keeps you coming back to him?”
I tried to explain. “His mind, we have such an…affinity with each other. I love our talks, he makes everything we do an exploration, an entrancing story. I don’t know why, but I want to, I’m always doing little things for him. Like making that sweater, cooking a Boston Cream pie for him, his favorite. And the birthday cards I write for him. Maybe that seems submissive, but it works both ways, he’s always doing stuff for me, writing me poems, getting me presents, keeping me safe. He makes me feel…lovable, I’m somebody who can be loved. I’ve never felt that from anybody else, outside my family. It’s hard, so hard to let that go.” I paused, feeling that strange flush start up my neck.
“And…?” Marcia prodded.
“And…OK, there’s our time in bed. Sex. It’s a mystery to me, so simple, so strong. I want to be a free and independent woman, not depend on any man. But, damn, that feels so good sometimes. To trust somebody that completely, to be loved in return.”
Silence enveloped us.
Mike called the next morning. “I think I’ve finally got it, I’m finally getting somewhere.”
He meant skiing, of course. He gushed over the smell, the feel, the chill, the softness of the snow. How he could now turn with his feet together, down the steepest slopes. I understood his excitement, but had no clue how that actually might feel, inside his body. Maybe that’s why, when he said, “You’ve got to come out here, spring break, see what it’s like in the winter, try skiing. I know you’ll love it!” I agreed.
“That’s great. I’m having fun, but it would be so much better with you.” A brief silence then, “Oh, I almost forgot, I got into another med school!”
“Where?” I asked in a monotone. I almost didn’t want to know. What if it were Boston, or New York?
“LA. USC. California.” He sounded so chipper. “If I end up there, maybe I’ll try and get a job in their psych clinic this summer, no more kids’ swim teams.”