ix
Two weeks later, I joined Mom in the kitchen where she’d begun initial preparations for Seder. She interrupted work on her shopping list, looking up at me over her reading glasses. “Honey, your school ends on May 20, right? Lisa will be home by then, and Henry is having his graduation at Princeton that weekend. Dad thinks we should go back east a little early, for commencement in New Jersey, then all off us go to the house on the island. What do you think?”
I froze, then panicked. I’d been counting on Mike coming home a week later than that, after his finals, and at least spending the weekend with him before I left for the summer. “Uh, I don’t know. Let me think about it, OK?” She went back to her list, and I raced upstairs, hoping to get in a quick phone call to Connecticut before the Sunday night rates went up.
“Hi, Janie,” he answered, “Everything OK?”
I explained the looming predicament, receiving a full five seconds of silence from him on other end. Finally, “OK, try this: I come down there to the Vineyard Friday after my last exam. Should be done by noon, it’s, what, three hours to the ferry? I know it’s a day after your birthday, but at least I can give you a present – presents – in person. And my presence, right?” Here a quiet laugh. “You could meet me at Woods’ Hole, we could hang out a while on the Cape, then go over to island that evening. I don’t have to start work until June 5th, so I could stay with you guys for a few days?”
“Work? You got a job?”
“Yeah, at the hospital, Cincinnati General. The psych ward, as an intern. It’ll look good when I apply to medical school, right?”
So at least he’d be in town all summer. We’d have six weeks together before we left for school. “Um, let me ask my mom, she’s downstairs working on the Seder. Can I call you right back?”
“Make it quick, the rates go up after 6 you know.”
Back in the kitchen, I explained Mike’s idea. “That sounds wonderful, Janie. I’m sure we can find a bed for him.” I waited while she put down her glasses. I knew that meant she had more to say. “I like Mike, and I know how you must feel about him. Believe me, I do. We have had four children, you know. All I want is for you to be happy.” She made a show of drying of her hands. “You’re going to the best school in the country, and I don’t want to see you waste that opportunity. So I worry sometimes, is he going to get in the way of that?”
“He’s a good person, mom, I know he is. And he…he…we like being together.” I thought, funny how I can’t tell my mother, the first person who ever loved me, who loves me still, how I really feel about someone who might love me even more, certainly in a new and different way.
“I know, sweetie. It’s just…boys, and girls.” She paused, opening the oven for a quick brisket check. “Well, sometimes the feelings they have can seem so overpowering, that you forget everything else. I don’t want you to miss your chance, going to Radcliffe, I mean. Go on, go up and call him back, tell him it’s OK.”
A few weeks later, Mike sent a bulging packet, so big it carried several stamps. The letter spoke of eager anticipation to see me, to walk on the beach together. Two poems fell out, each folded over three times to fit in the little envelope. The first was titled ON A VERNAL AFTERNOON:
There’s a distinctive smell
of a storm approaching –
Thunder in summer;
You can always tell,
even if it’s only spring –
the air seems to shimmer,
heavy-laden new formed clouds
come to cleanse.
The other, titled LYING HERE BESIDE ME was three pages, his longest yet. A little note attached read, “What I imagine being at the Vineyard with you will be like.” It started off, “How soft it is to lie here, quiet/backs against the wind-grit sand, grains of time…” Images of waves, seagulls, warm sand and dune grass “engulf us in a fortress …of dreams” asking the sun to “stay the pace, hold back the earth from turning” and ended with that title, Lying here beside me. Even though he’d never been with me on that island, on that beach, I must have described it to him so many times that he could faithfully conjure up not only how it looked, how it sounded, how it felt and smelled, but what it might be like to walk and talk, and lie there together.
Friday, May 26th, Charlie drove me to catch the 3 o’clock Woods’ Hole ferry. I cradled Denise in my lap the whole way. She squirmed and whined, wanting to climb over into the back seat, where she usually rode. I tried playing “Pat-a-Cake” with her, tried to count the other cars we passed, anything to distract her.
“Is she always like this?” I wondered aloud.
Charlie shook with laughter. “Janie, kids are, as you can see, a literal handful. All you can do sometimes is just let them explore what they want, and help them learn along the way.”
“What’s she learning, being cooped up in this little Volkswagen?”
“She’s not learning, you are, little sister. She’s showing you what it’s like to be a mother.”
Charlie pulled into the ferry line, which was starting to crawl towards the white steamer. We eased on, coming to a stop under the passenger deck. Reaching over he said, “Here, let me take her.”
“Can I have her a little while longer? You’re going back to Providence, I won’t get to see her all weekend.” He and Arlene were headed home for the weekend, would come back on Monday. He shrugged, dropped his hands, and said, “Knock yourself out.” Then, “Oh,I just remembered. The Beatles’ new album is coming out today. Gotta be sure I pick that up while I’m over there, we can listen to it when I get back, OK?”
The last two years, the insatiable demand for Beatles’ records meant a new album every three or four months. But nothing new had come out since last August’s Revolver, and they’d announced they’d stop touring as well. So people wondered, is that the end? And now, finally, we’d get more music to swoon over, more songs to analyze.
The afternoon was sunny, almost enough to overcome the chilly Atlantic breeze during the 45 minute trip to the mainland. I looked behind me, at the low-slung island, my summer home for the past five years. The weathered clapboard buildings next to the ferry dock receded quickly, and I put Denise down, holding her hand as she tipsied along the metal walkway. I stared ahead at the Cape Cod coastline, imagining I would come down here, along the Massachusetts coast, in the fall, and winter, and spring to see the Vineyard without the summer tourists. This cradle of our country could become my home.
Denise broke my reverie. “Wanna see! Wanna see!” she whined as she pulled me forward, towards the railing at the front. I picked her up, holding tight, as we stood at the railing over the cars crammed in below. Looking up towards the on-rushing shore, I strained to find a small red car there, with Michael leaning against the driver door.
“I wanna see too, honey,” I softly answered. “Wave”, I said. “Wave, there’s Michael.”
“Micha?” she wondered.
Uncle Michael? I wondered to myself.
Back at Charlie’s VW, I handed Denise over, saying, “I think I want to walk off. I can see his car over there, is that OK?”
“Sure thing. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I’m not much of a runner, and my shoes had those slick leather soles, but run I did up the metal ramp, then over the his car. From behind his back, he pulled out a handful of yellow roses, thorns removed, and stuck one in my hair. The others I gave a quick sniff to, then threw them in the car, while we tried an exploratory hug. Too soon, he gently pushed me back, still holding on at my waist, smiling widely as he looked me over.
“Everything there?” I asked.
“Still the same. I like looking at you.” Somehow that seemed better than “I love you.” I guess the flowers helped a bit.
In the car, we drove for half an hour up 28, then across the Canal, finally over to Scusset Beach, stopping at a sandy parking lot. Grabbing a bag from the trunk, he said, “Come on, I’ve been wanting to do this with you for, I don’t know, since last summer, I guess.” Hand-in-hand, we walked (it felt like skipping to me) down to the sand, where he spread out a blanket and laid down the bag.
“I’ve got some surprises for you here. A couple of birthday presents, I guess.” First was a poem, which he read aloud to me from a green-lined spiral notebook page.
To Janie, On Her Eighteenth Birthday
[He gave me a typed copy, on onion skin, to follow along]
What?
Again?
You don’t mean to tell me
That you’re really that much older,
That you deserve a recognition,
Cognition of the flow of time,
Segmented just for you.
I could write
the trite,
unknowing phrases,
Wishing you much joy
and other
mindless babblings.
You deserve much more
Beyond that imposition.
So here’s a proposition:
I remember another
Marking-day
(A day outside of past or future).
Is there a way I could make yours as you made mine?
So: pick a day (any day)
And for you a genie I will play –
Three free wishes
(And three soft kisses)
Are yours from me
With Love.
Seagulls arced overhead, as if guarding the depths below. Sharp-eyed, one dove seaward, tucking silver wings tight to its body, aiming for supper wriggling beneath the surface. Snagging a struggling fish, it rose with wings furiously flapping, orange feet pedaling madly underneath, then tucked against its breast. Swells crashed against hidden shoals, and small, even waves rolled towards our plot of sand, silky and warm. Overhead, the half-domed sky glowed blue and light, while motionless clouds sent lacy tendrils towards the birds below. The gulls winged on, some in full cry, hugging the shoreline.
The dunes rose high behind us, a shield fortressing our little drama from the world beyond. I looked over at Mike, and back in time, wondering how we could just lie here, staring at the sun. I felt lost in a dream, afraid to wake up, yet wanting more.
“Anything you want, those three wishes. It’s your birthday. Was, I guess, yesterday.”
“Does it have to be now? Can’t we stay here a little bit more? Let’s enjoy the sun.” On the water, rainbow colors filtered through the spray, orange, red, green, now yellow on the blue below.
“You said you had another present for me,” I whispered.
x
On the drive back to Woods’ Hole, Mike turned on his motor-mouth. “That place we were, that’s the bay where the Pilgrims landed, right?”
Not waiting for an answer, he went on. “My mother, she says she’s got an ancestor, Francis Eaton, who came over on the Mayflower. Francis and Sarah Eaton. And they had a little boy with them, too, Samuel. Sarah died right away, but Samuel was rugged, he grew up and had a family. ‘Good stock,’ my mother says. I’ve always felt connected to this place, this coast, from the north shore of Boston on down to Cape Cod. I was born there, remember?’
“In Salem, right?” I quickly interjected, but he gave me no space to go on.
“I get tired of jokes about witches. so I always add we lived in Lynn, right across the street from the ocean. It feels like home here…” He stopped to take a breath.
I wanted to ask if he was thinking of staying in New England after college, but before I could, he blurted, “Oh! That other present! I was driving out of town, there’s a record store on the strip, I saw a big poster on the window – The Beatles! I bought their new album. It’s there in the bag. Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to wrap it or anything, or make a cute little card, like you always do.”
He seemed ready to go on forever, so I reached around and found the album. Pulling it out, I felt almost blinded by the cover, filled with people in so many different costumes. And in the front, four boys from Liverpool, dressed in old-time marching band uniforms, all hair and mustaches, John with his wire-rims.
“…I want to get glasses like that. My lenses are so thick, I bet they’d weigh less, those frames, less pressure here on my nose.” He looked over at me as we pulled into the ferry line-up. “I remember the first time I heard them. It was in a parking lot at the shopping center by our house, Saturday morning. My sister was driving, she must have been almost 17 then, so we had the radio on, and I Want To Hold Your Hand came on. It was so different than anything I’d ever heard before. I was only 14, of course, so what did I know. But those cymbals, the harmony, the chugging guitars. I could get why girls all over Europe and England were screaming and fainting. Not that I ever did myself, but I understood the emotion.” He looked carefully at me again, and asked, “What about you? Were you one of those screamers?”
I screwed up my eyes, trying to remember. The Beatles were another thing which had scared me. Charlie and Lisa were always talking about them, that February of 1964. When I got the chance, the music I liked was softer, folk music, quieter musicals, and Barbra Streisand. Every Jewish girl wanted to be her, I thought. I was a freshman then, still trying to figure out where I fit in school and with all the girls there. They seemed to have lost their minds sometimes, about the Beatles. I felt so anxious around those girls with their unchecked emotions and loss of control.
“I don’t know. It was hard to understand. I mean, I like their music, they’re very melodic, their harmonies are entrancing. You can’t deny the impact they’ve had on how some people view the world. I never felt a crush on any of them, but when there’s a bunch of fourteen year-old girls in a car, and their song comes on, and all the other girls are shrieking, it’s kind of hard not to. So, yeah, I guess I screamed over them, but maybe it was more I was being a part of some other girls’ fantasies. Does that make sense?”
“We’re so much older, now, huh? We’re aristocrats, not peasants, and we don’t let emotion sway us so much anymore, is that it?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, to me a peasant is someone that life happens to. They follow the crowd, and try to sound smart, but really they’re putting on airs. Aristocrats don’t have to show off, they already know who they are.”
The ferry arrived, disgorged its load of vehicles. He eased the Lancer onto the lower car deck. I wasn’t sure I knew what he meant, so I tried, “Maybe it’s in the words they use, that’s the difference? An aristocrat would simply say “sofa’, while a peasant might use “davenport’?”
All the way across the Sound, we tried out various pairs of words, deciding which might be aristocratic. “Car”, I’d say. “Automobile,” he’d counter.
“Refrigerator”
“Icebox”
“Purchase”
“Buy”
“Walk”
“Perambulate,” I tried.
“Wait. Who would ever say perambulate?”
We began laughing, fogging up the windows in that little red car. By the time we got to “bicycle” and “velocipede”, he cried, “I quit, you’re right. It’s stupid, either way. Say what you want to say, the way you want to say it. As long as the word feels right.” He caught his breath, his face slowly falling from near hysteria to a quiet smile. Then, “That reminds me. Did you know I got a bike?”
“A motorbike?”
“No, a regular clunker. I went to the police auction they have every April, and bought a rusty old maroon Schwinn for $20. Now it’s easier getting from my dorm to class to practice and all around than walking everywhere. Once the snow melted, I was itching to try that out when I saw some other guys with them. I’ve got a little basket in front, put my books there, it’s real easy.”
I looked around the car. “Where is it now?”
“We can store our stuff in the basement of the dorm for next year. We all have a little square space, so I don’t have to take everything home.”
I reminisced. “When I was in the sixth grade, my parents gave me a bike, a real bike with big wheels and everything. I rode it to school in the spring and fall that year. But then somebody took it from the front yard that summer, and dad wouldn’t get me another one.”
“Me, too! Kind of, I mean. In fifth grade, my father started giving us $5 a week allowance. Said we had to buy everything we wanted, clothes, snacks, baseball cards. So I saved it all up, didn’t buy anything for three months. I went out and bought a three-speed Raleigh, rode it everyday to school. There was a big swing set there, they’d taken all the seats out, and that’s where we parked our bikes. It feels so free and flowing to go around JCU now, like that again. Reminds me of when I used to ride my bike to swim practice in the summers.”
“We have bikes at our summer house. That used to be fun, riding with Lisa into town, looking at the boats come in.” He just nodded his head, so I went on, “What about swimming? Are you going to be able to do that this summer, with your job?”
“Nah, age-group swimming only goes to 17, so I’m not on a team anymore. What about your birthday wishes, you thought of one yet?”
It didn’t seem like the time to get too deep into anything, so I said, “OK, here’s one. Why don’t we take a bike ride on the island tomorrow. Go into town, then down to the beach, feel like kids again.”
The ferry’s horn blared our arrival at the island, so he simply nodded while starting the engine. He pointed to the seat belt down on the floor. We slowly climbed up the ramp off the boat, and immediately I felt at home. Halyards clanged against sailboats’ metal masts. Water lapped softly under the ferry dock pilings. The grey weathered storefronts lining State Street displayed their crafts and tourist treasures. The evening sun hung low in our eyes as we headed towards Menemsha. I didn’t want my time alone with him to end, so I used another of my wishes. “Let’s not go to the house first thing. Pull off here to the right, we can go down to the beach, talk a walk and watch the sunset, all right?”
As we left the car parked by the fence lining the dune, I had to tease him into taking his shoes off and leave them behind.
“But my feet will get wet! I don’t have a towel. Then what about the sand? It’ll stick between my toes, and get in the sheets all night.”
He was serious, I saw. “Wait a minute. You spend every day, all summer, walking around a swimming pool, no shoes on, and you can’t stand walking on the beach barefoot?” I threw my sandals onto the red leather vinyl seats as he was closing my door, then ran through the gate and down to the water’s edge. I raised my sweater overhead, swinging it like a signal flag. “Come on in, the water’s fine!”
He appeared to sigh, shook his head, removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and slowly walked, head down, until he was two steps away from me. Then, he pounced, secured me in a bear hug, and pulled us onto the sand. We sprawled together, chest-to-chest, and lay there laughing for a bit. Getting up, we walked to the still-wet part of the beach, where the water was gently receding, leave little flecks of foam and bubbles in the sand.
He asked, “Have you got the catalogue yet? Do you know what courses you want to take?”
I had seen the thick soft-covered Harvard course catalogue for the 1967-68 academic year, with that shield and “Veritas” on the cover. Too intimidated to explore it, I day-dreamed about being in Cambridge, in the Radcliffe quad, then going to Widener library to study, or into a class in one of the red brick or sandstone buildings. I wondered what the other girls would be like, if I’d make friends. I wasn’t ready yet to return to student life. I wanted a summer of sun, and sand, and quiet. Mike and I had only a week here, together, before we’d be apart again. I wanted to block that off in time and space, not let the urgent pull of the future intervene.
xi
Two days later, Dad went back to oversee the tobacco business in Cincinnati. Mom and Lisa drove him up to Logan Field in Boston, so they would be gone all day. I don’t know if Lisa had something to do with assuring mom it was all right, leaving us alone, but mom loaded up the car and announced the day-long excursion at breakfast without ever mentioning me. I thought nothing of it at the time. When she asked if it were OK for us to stay there alone – “Honey, there isn’t enough room in the car for five of us and Dad’s luggage” – I explained that Mike and I had planned a short sail in the morning, with a bike ride along the southern coast through Chilmark to Edgartown and back. With a kiss on my cheek, and “OK, sweetie, be careful, you two”, as well as a knowing look from Lisa, they were off.
Mike and I slid the Sunfish into the pond around ten in the morning. Despite the warming sun, I couldn’t find any wind to get us away from the dock.
“Well, Barnacle Bess, the sailing lass, what’s up? I thought you knew how to get us going.”
“If you’ve got so much to do you can’t be a little patient, why don’t you go jump in the lake, swim back home?”
With that he stripped off his shirt, left his sandals behind, and dove in. The twelve-foot hull wobbled suddenly, catching me of guard, and I fell in too. Luckily, it didn’t tip over, and I managed to grab onto the gunwale before it drifted away. “Hey! Mike!” I shouted with more than a little fear. I could swim, sure, and the Pond was protected from the swell in the open Bight to the north, but I did have a cotton blouse and shorts on over my swim suit, and the water was about the same temperature as the air, 64 degrees. “Hey! Come back here and get me!” Luckily he was swimming breaststroke, with his head out of the water. He turned around, saw me hanging on to the boat, and started back.
“What happened? Are you OK?”
“No I’m not! My clothes are all wet, I’m cold, and you knocked me in when you dove off.”
He started to haul himself up, but we were both on the same side, and I hollered, “No! You’ll tip the thing over! There’s no keel.” I wasn’t sure he knew what a keel was, or the risk of tipping the boat without that ballast, but he did fall back into the water.
“You go over to the other side, hang on – pull down if you can – and I’ll climb up here. Then we can figure out how to get back.” The tide was going out, and we’d drifted quite a way from the dock, heading toward the small inlet leading to the Bight, and the Sound beyond. The wind was still calm, but I was getting worried about where we might end up. Not sharing all this with Mike, I managed to struggle into the boat, where I started to shiver from both anxiety and cold. I tried the sail again, but it just luffed without catching wind, no matter where I pulled the boom. I glanced at Mike, who appeared to be having fun drifting in the water.
“Uh, I don’t know if we can get back.” Mike said nothing, bobbing while he looked up at the sail. “Mike?”
“Lemme see if I can push us in. Can you aim us toward the dock?”
I pushed on the tiller while he inched his way to the stern. Once there, he started kicking, that breaststroke whip kick he’d perfected during his years as a swimmer. Amazingly, we began to move. Not very fast, but at least away from open water. After fifteen minutes, we’d covered the two hundred yards back to shore. I jumped out, pulled the Sunfish onto the beach, tied it up, and flopped down, still shivering. Mike wandered over after grabbing his shirt and sandals from under the seat where he’d stashed them. He kneeled down beside me, saying, “Come on. We’ve gotta get back to the house, take a shower, get some dry clothes on.” Always the practical one, Mike. No, “How are you?” or “I’m sorry.”
Once inside, I rushed to the upstairs shower, while he rinsed off with the hose outside. As I pulled open the screen door, he said, “After I dry off, I’m going to go lie down. I’m a little tired.”
I stood under the water for a full ten minutes before I began to warm up. Then of course I had to get my hair dry, always a chore. I wrapped a towel around my waist, another under my shoulders, and used to third to fluff and dry that mess on my head. After snagging a brush through it to gain a fighting chance it might not end up in a permanent rat’s nest, I wrapped our last dry towel like a turban around my hair.
“Mike? Mike, where are you?” Nothing. Then I remembered, he said he was going to lie down. I guessed he was in the boys’ room, the one Charlie and Henry would use when they were both here. I peeked through the half-open door, and saw him lying on his right side, facing away, on the far bed, no covers, wearing a dry lifeguard’s swim suit. “Mike?” I tried again, this time whispering. Still no answer.
Without thinking, I walked over to the bed and lay beside him, facing his back. He felt so warm, I reached my left arm over to his chest, then his stomach. It felt smooth, and a funny combination of soft and firm. He stirred a bit, then mumbled encouragingly, “Mmmm …” Jerking a bit, he then said, “Janie? What are you doing?”
“Your stomach. I like the way it feels.”
He turned over, facing me now, and rested his right hand on my cheek. Without his glasses, I knew he could barely see me. His eyes had that fuzzy, far-away myopic look of near-blindness. We inched closer, and started exploring, his hands underneath the towels, mine along his bronzing skin. Slowly, luxuriantly, as if finding a new feature in every depression, mound, and declivity of the geography of our bodies. In stereo, competing messages clanged inside me, alarm bells and fireworks. Eyes closed, I felt “Yes”; seeing him again, I heard “No”. Somebody had to say something, I knew, and he wasn’t talking, just pulling urgently at my lower back.
“No. We can’t. I’m not ready. Don’t hate me,” all came out at once. We both fell back, my hand still on his soft stomach, his resting on my cheek, a few wet strands of hair caught between his fingers.
He broke the silence. “You never asked for your third wish yesterday…”
“I wish…I wish we could get that right some day, just not now. There’s babies to consider, you know, and meaning, and, oh, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
After getting dressed and eating lunch, we took that bike ride, to Edgartown and back. All week, the weather held, and each day was a fantasy of riding, walking, swimming, sailing, and seeing the Vineyard through a new set of eyes. Not Michael’s, but ours together. Evenings, we’d listen with Charlie, and sometimes Lisa, to Sgt. Pepper’s.
Charlie already had the whole thing figured out. When Mike wondered about Lucy, and her kaleidoscope eyes, those plasticine porters with their looking-glass ties, my older, worldly hippie brother said, “What a protected world you’ve been living in. ‘Lucy. Sky. Diamonds.’ Get it?”
A blank expression on Mike’s face set my mind whirling, trying to solve the riddle before he could.
“LSD!” I shouted. “Timothy Leary. Don’t you see? They’re having, talking about an acid trip.”
Embarrassed, Mike blinked rapidly, as if seeing the world through a kaleidoscope for the first time. “Sheesh. OK. Then, what about A Day In The Life? What’s that about? ‘Holes in Lancashire…going to work’…it sounds like nothing.”
Charlie recited, “I went outside, and had a smoke, somebody spoke, and I went into a dream… Then the music goes swirling off. That’s pretty obvious – his work is so boring, he can only tolerate it with a doobie.”
“A doobie?”
“Marijuana. A hand-rolled cigarette.” Charlie looked at me. “Janie, where’d you get this guy.”
I could see Mike drawing within himself, so I pulled him to me, stroked his face, and said, “He may be out of it, but he’s my guy.”
Fixing A Hole, Mr Kite, Lovely Rita, Within You Without You, Getting Better, When I’m Sixty-Four, we analyzed it all playing them over and over under the stars invading our nighttime reveries. The night before Michael headed back to Cincinnati, I hummed myself to sleep with “Send me a postcard, drop me a line…if you say the word, I could stay with you.’
xii
In his first letter that summer, Mike sent another poem, DREAMS OF A LIFE:
On the moorish banks of a sandy isle,
Flung from the mainland’s breast
Lies a glimmering, grass-covered haven,
Where dreams may come to rest.
Dreams are born of nature’s yearnings,
But birth is never enough
To satisfy the life in you;
Living requires the stuff
Of being, a tangible barrier
Which makes you human,
And time a god,
Begging the present’s promise
Of a dream to create our future.
Set as a jewel, deep in velvet
As red as a storm-day’s morning,
Your secret cove will keep your yearnings
Till the time you’ve grown
to need them.
But now, to live at now
Is begged of you
And dreams are only meant
for dreaming,
Not living,
not yet.