ix
The morning after what Esther called our “consciousness raising session”, I remembered that Mike had told me his first varsity swim meet would be at Brandeis that afternoon. We couldn’t see each other, he said. The team would ride up together on a bus, eat lunch as a group, swam, then head back to Connecticut right away. But Brandeis was on the Fitchburg train line, so I could go see the meet anyway, even if I couldn’t talk with him. I’d never seen a swim meet before.
The first thing I noticed, all the guys on the team sat around in their swim suits, which were tiny little things, slung low under the belly button, barely covering their butts. They constantly shook their arms and legs, a jangly dance of muscle and bone. Mike had a little thing he did with a partner, where he locked his fingers behind his back, straightened his arms, and the other guy pushed Mike’s hands up towards his shoulders. This pressed his upper arms against his sides, making them appear large, smooth, and powerful.
He only had one race, towards the end of the meet. I knew the idea was to finish ahead of the other boys in the pool, but each time, it was different. Different strokes, from the undulating butterfly to the more relaxed backstroke. Different distances, from the explosive two length freestyle to a seemingly endless one which took almost 20 minutes. And then there were the divers. Running forward, jumping up from the end of a teal colored springboard, then twisting, flipping, and finally spearing through the water, some with floppy splashes, others, the better ones, straight and clean. They looked like dynamic sculpture, making art with their bodies.
Finally, Mike stepped onto a starting block at end of the pool. He’d told me, “I’m the worst swimmer on the team. There’s another guy in my year who’s the designated breaststroker. I’m there to fill out the lanes. If I get a third place, I’ll be doing well.”
The white suited starter, holding his pistol straight overhead, shouted “To your marks!!” Everyone walked forward, curled their toes over the edge, reached down, and grabbed the block. After the gun went off with a puff of smoke, Mike exploded forward, arms outstretched, head extended then tucked between his shoulders. With a slight bend at his waist, he sliced into the water. Underneath, he pulled his arms back and kicked hard while bringing his hands forward. He lunged his head up into the air, took a sharp breath I could hear from the stands, then launched into a rhythm of stroke – breathe – kick, pushing a foot-high swirling bow wave out in front. Eight of those cycles, then he touched and turned at the wall, pushing off hard, repeating the whole thing three more times. When he finished – he’d come in fourth – he stood at the edge, heaving, spitting, coughing, until he hauled himself out. He dragged himself back to the team bench, slung a black and red striped towel over his shoulders, and sat slumping head down. The coach was talking earnestly with his winning teammate, surrounded by half the team, pounding his back in congratulations. Apparently his win gave them enough points to secure victory for the day. Off to the side, one other guy came over to Mike, leaned over, smiled, and seemed to say, “Strong work.”
Thanksgiving was the following Thursday. Mike and I were both staying at school, ostensibly to study and write papers. He planned to drive up Friday morning, we’d spend the day in Cambridge and Boston, go to Lynn Shore Drive where he was born. I realised we hadn’t talked about what to do after that.
Radcliffe had closed the dorm food service for the weekend, but they did provide a turkey dinner for those few girls who’d gotten permission to stay on campus. I’d secreted leftovers in the lounge ‘fridge, so we wouldn’t have to buy dinner. We ate up in my room, where I told him about my secret trip to Brandeis.
“What?” he asked. “You were there and didn’t come over to talk to me?”
“I was up in that balcony, where the stands are. What was I supposed to do, holler at you? You’d probably say I was embarrassing you.”
“Probably right.” He took a contemplative bite from his turkey sandwich. “What’d you think?”
“This might sound a little funny, but I’d never seen you like that before.” He raised his eyebrows, so I went on. “That’s a side of you I haven’t paid attention to before, the guy who likes to swim, who can swim well enough to be on his college team…”
“I told you, I’m the worst one there. I’m not sure why they let me on.”
“Even so, it’s different. It’s not something you do with words, like a poem, or talking with me. It’s something you do with your body. What do you think about when you’re swimming in a race?”
Typical of Mike, he pondered that seriously. Satisfied he understood, he said, “I’m not thinking of anything other than how hard my body is working, making sure my arms and legs are doing what they’re supposed to.”
“What’s that like?”
He chuckled. “It’s about the only chance I get to have my brain shut up.”
I stroked his arm, feeling, probing a little, trying to remember what he’d looked like when he was stretching before the meet. Once more, we spent the night together, in my bed this time.
The next Friday, Esther had us over again. The other girls she’d invited last time must have gotten scared off by the mirrors, as only Jeanne and Marcia showed up. I’d been anxious all week, holding inside a nagging worry I’d carried since Mike and I spent the night together in Cabot.
Esther sensed right away I needed to unload. After serving us some tea, and chatting about the snowstorm that day, she looked at me and said, “Janie, you seem quiet tonight. I haven’t even seen you smile yet.”
I’d been able to hide my fear all week, going to class, studying, joking in the dining room. But here, where the subject was our bodies, where we knew we’d come to talk about sex, it all came flooding out.
Before I knew what was happening, I blurted, “Can you get pregnant if he doesn’t come inside you?” Jeanne and Marcia stopped rattling their tea cups, frozen on my words.
“What happened, Janie?” Esther asked. Her face was full of sympathy and concern. “Did he go in and pull out before…?”
“No.” I shivered. “No. We were in bed together, mostly naked. We almost feel asleep, but there isn’t really room for two of us there, so we kept waking each other up. It was like I lost my mind or something, remembering seeing him at the swim meet on Saturday, then feeling his skin, warm, and smooth. I pulled him over on top of me. I kept my legs closed, but let him push down between them. He started moving – we both stated moving – and next thing I know, he’s quivering, shaking, almost, and moaning. Then I felt wet down there, I don’t know if it was him or me, or both of us.”
The room was quiet, a steady ticking of the kitchen clock the only sound. Jeanne broke the silence. “Do you think he…”
Feeling stronger, I completed her thought. “…penetrated me? No, I checked after he left, with my mirror. It’s still intact, and there was no blood. Just a goopy spot on the sheet.”
“Ewww,” Marcia whispered, shaking her head.
Esther firmly said, “Janie, you’ve got a health service here, right, at the college? Go see the doctor first thing, talk to him, ask about birth control, OK?”
Reluctantly, I answered, “Really? Even if we don’t ever do that again?”
Esther said, “Oh, you’re going to do that again. Believe me, you’re going to want to do that again.”
x
Esther, older married Esther, was right of course. First thing Monday morning, I called for an appointment at the campus health center, telling them I wanted to get my ears pierced. I didn’t have the nerve to give the real reason; I decided I could bring it up when the doctor was punching holes in my lobes. I walked out with a stud on each side and a prescription for Enovid, thinking to myself, “Well, Sarah Jane Stein, you’re officially grown up now.”
I waited with some trepidation for my period, so I could start the pills and get this whole thing over with. Finally, on Pearl Harbor Day, it came. The next Thursday, I opened the little pack, popped out the first pill, and contemplated where I was going with this. I had not told Michael anything yet, so this was all on me. Was it what I wanted? I put the pill down on the copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions I was reviewing for the term paper I’d write that night. I went across the hall to Jeanne’s room, finding her with Marcia, reviewing flash cards for their biology final the next day.
“Uh, can I talk to you guys?” I asked, closing the door behind me.
Jeanne seemed a bit put off. “Better be important. This Bio test is the difference between an A and a B for me.”
Marcia knew I’d gotten the pills, and had my period, so she jumped in. “Is today the day? Did you take it yet?”
I slumped down on the bed next to her, leaned over, and started sniffling, feeling like I was ready to cry. I rested my head on her shoulder. She patted it, stroking my hair. Shaking, crying, I couldn’t say anything.
“I know, I know. It is a big deal. You want it to be right.” Marcia kept up a quiet reassuring patter while my sobbing came to an end. “Have you talked with him about it?”
Collected again, I sat up and said, “Mike’s coming up next Friday. He’s flying out of Logan on Saturday, going to Idaho with his family for Christmas. He’s going to stay with me the night before.”
“You’re sure this is what you want?”
The past two years slammed around in my head. Seeing him, his beautiful hands, his softly glistening hair in French class. Pursuing him through debate team timekeeping. Talking endlessly with him so many days and nights. Sharing our thoughts, our dreams, our selves in letters, reading his poems, knowing his ideals and fears. All I felt was a rush of love, of being loved, and knowing there was still something missing in all of that.
I tried explaining that to her. “It’s like I’m – we’re – putting together a jigsaw puzzle. One piece is love…but there’s more, the picture’s not complete.”
Jeanne looked puzzled. I couldn’t tell if it was what I’d said, or her frustration with the flash card she was staring at. Marcia simply nodded, saying, “He’s beautiful, you two look so…so perfect together. No one’s going to say this is anything but good for you, for the two of you.”
“OK, I’m going to take it now. Want to watch?”
Jeanne finally asked, “What are you two talking about? What’s the matter, Janie?”
I went back to my room, grabbed the pill and the pack it came from, returning holding both aloft. Marcia must have filled Jeanne in while I was gone, as she said, “Ooooh…the Pill.” They cheered as I swallowed it with a glass of water.
After Mike arrived, we had dinner celebrating the end of my first semester at college. After Christmas break, of course, I’d be back for “reading period”, and a few more final exams, but the real work was over.
Back in my room, Mike started talking about his family’s trip to Sun Valley. “My father wants to try skiing there, with Shelly. He’s always finding some new sport.”
“Are you going to ski, learn how?”
“I don’t want to. It feels like something rich people do, to go and show off in their clothes, act pompous and entitled. I’m going to sit in the Inn while they go out. A chance to study for that Organic Chem final. I have to get at least a B, if I want to get a C for the semester.”
“C! Don’t you need that class for medical school?”
“Yeah, if I keep that up, guess I’ll be finding another career.”
“What would that be?”
“I’ve thought about that. I like to drive, sit in my car going across the country, hours on end. Maybe I’ll be a long-distance truck driver.”
As usual, he seemed serious, so I didn’t make fun of that. But I really couldn’t see him eating at truck stops, talking with guys in overalls and baseball caps.
Sitting next to him on the bed, I realised, ‘Now or never”. Taking what I hoped was a quiet deep breath, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Listen, there’s something I want to talk about.” Lifting my hand away, I pulled back my hair, tilting my head towards him. “What do you see?”
“A new hair band?”
Frustrated, I chastised him. “No. I went to the doctor last week, got my ears pierced!”
“Why?”
“It’s something girls do at this age.”
“Sure, but you? I mean, you don’t wear lipstick or make-up, why did you want to do that?”
“I just wanted to.” I hesitated, wondering if I had the courage to go on. “But there’s another thing. While I was at the doctor, I asked him about …about what we did a couple of weeks ago. He said, you can get pregnant even from something like that.”
Mike’s face went blank, but I could sense him stiffen up, getting anxious. I went on, “So I got some birth control pills.” The wind, which had been rattling against the windows, fell still. “Mike, I don’t want to stop what we were doing, but I don’t want to get pregnant either.” He stayed quiet. I blurted, “Say something!”
“Well, that’s good. That’s good, yeah, that’ll be better.” We were looking straight at each other, not smiling, but not turning away either. Inside, I was a little mad that I had to do all the work here, getting the pills, having my body changed by them. But I didn’t want to scare him off, so I kept that to myself, for now. Instead, I reached out and stroked his cheek.
He finally got the idea, and started to kiss me, unbuttoning my blouse while I undid his belt. The bed beckoned.
After we finished, I sat up. Lifting the sheet, looking at its underside, then at the one below me, I observed, somewhat analytically, “Look. I bled a little. Not much, but there it is.”
xi
Chanukah came late that year, after Christmas.The whole first week at home, I tried to keep busy, buying and wrapping presents for my parents, brothers, and sister, cooking with mom, and spending some time with Lizzie. Over at her house one evening, we started talking about the differences between high school and college.
I noticed she had a mess of literature books spread over her desktop. Poetry, classics, even some foreign works like Gunter Grass and Dostoyevsky. “That’s a lot to read!” I observed. “All for class, or are you just bored?”
“When you’re an English major, you can never read too much, whether it’s assigned or not. The only problem is, I don’t have any time to write, which is what I really want to do.”
“What about outside of class? Are you on the paper? Is there a literary magazine?”
“Well, yeah, but there are so many girls there who want to do it, unless you’re already a published writer, or a senior, there’s no chance.”
“So, are you doing anything outside of class, anything formal, like we used to do at Avondale?”
“No. No time. Oh, I talk with people a lot, I go to dances, I even have a boyfriend, Clark, at Amherst. But nothing like school, no extracurriculars. You?”
“It’s more like the whole world is our extracurriculars now, right?” I wanted to know more about her boyfriend. “What’s he like, Clark?”
“I hate to say this, I know we always used to make fun of girls who went by looks alone, but he’s …dreamy. Thick blond hair, like straw. He’s kinda tall, five inches more than me. He plays guitar, and he’s on the crew.”
“Not like Leon, huh?”
“He’s a WASP through and through, went to prep school in New Jersey, doesn’t ever say a word in Yiddish.”
“He sounds, uh, perfect? Is there any edginess to him at all?”
“He does wear a bead necklace. And he’s started saying ‘Peace’ whenever he gets anxious. What about Mike? He still a Boy Scout?”
“I don’t think he’ll ever stop being Mike.” I didn’t want to go into any details about us, so I tried to keep things simple. “I saw him at a swim meet finally. All they do is go up and back a few times, it looks pretty simple, but they get so tired out!”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s in Idaho, Sun Valley again, with his family, not learning how to ski.”
“Not learning?”
“No, he says he doesn’t want to get sucked into a social, jet set scene. You know Mike, always trying to be above, outside of, whatever might be popular.”
“You guys have been together, what, almost two years now?” Eyes widened, brows arched, head tilted, she seemed to mime the question, Have you finally done it, Janie Stein?
Sighing, I felt myself flush from the neck up to my cheeks and ears. I dodged her unasked query. “I’ve been thinking, about us, Mike and me. I really am lucky we are together.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I’m with him, I feel alive, in a different way. He doesn’t tell me what to do, he listens to me about things.”
“Like?”
“Like, he started subscribing to the New Yorker. He goes to plays and movies I suggest. He thinks Martha’s Vineyard is a special place. But he’s not a schlump. He’s got his own mind. Boy, does he have his own mind. When he thinks he’s right, there is no arguing with him. When he decides he has to do something, nothing, nothing can stop him. He’s this strange mixture of fear and hesitation on the one hand, and brilliant headstrong ambition on the other.”
“Hmm. That does sound like Mike, now that I think about it. Someone you can hold your own with, who doesn’t put you down, and who you can lead around a little, when he’s not leading himself.”
A couple of days later, Lisa was getting ready to go to a party with some kids from Avondale, home from college. While she sat at her mirror, plucking a few stray hairs from her eyebrows, I asked her, “Lisa, what do you know about birth control pills?”
She put down her tweezers, turned three quarters round on the stool, pointed to the nearby desk chair, and said, “Sit.” Putting her hand on my knee, she brought her face uncomfortably close to mine. “Are you thinking about starting them, or are you already…”
“We’ve already,” I answered, hoping I wasn’t being too cryptic.
She patted my knee and picking up the tweezers, resumed her eyebrow excavations. “Good. Good. Finally. Pills. Yeah, they’re bad. Good, but bad. Good, of course, ‘cause you don’t get pregnant, but bad, cause they’ve got all those hormones. Your breasts swell and hurt.” She turned again and looked at my chest. “Well, maybe that wouldn’t hurt you. Sorry. And you gain weight. Not fat, but you kinda swell, retain water I think. There’s the nausea, too. But overall, I’d say it’s a good thing.”
“Why?”
“Why!? Haven’t you started having fun yet?” Apparently satisfied with the arch of each brow, she slammed down the tweezers with finality and turned fully around. “Come on, sister. Do you need an anatomy lesson?” What followed was one of the very few times I actually got some value out of having crazy Lisa as my big sister.
Christmas eve, Mom was making us a special “spiritually uplifting” dinner, with as little help from me as I could get away with. It seemed to be be the same old steak, peas and potatoes. Maybe the matzo ball soup was the secret sauce?
Innocently, I asked her, “Mom, do you love Daddy?”
She turned off the mixer, satisfied with the fluff of the mashed potatoes. Checking the oven temperature, she set a pan of water to boil. I put some bread into a basket, tucking it under a soft damask cover. “Well, of course I do. You know that.”
“But why? You guys…you’ve been together forever, I see you kiss every night when he comes home. But what is it, really? Love.”
Her eyes clouded over, then cleared. “I think, Janie, it might be, we’re different, Henry and I. He’s so rough and ready, always finding fun in everything. He doesn’t care about books and reading, or going to shows or anything like that.” A pause for reflection, then, “I’ve thought about this many times, over the years, 30 or so, we’ve been together. Have you ever seen that drawing where you look at it one way, it’s a vase, and another, it’s two people looking at each other in silhouette?”
“Right, we saw those in psych class this year. There’s another where, one way it’s a young woman, look at it again, you see an old lady.”
“Exactly. Well, that’s your father and I. We…complement each other, fill in the gaps, the missing parts. You look at us, you think you see one thing, but there are two of us there, hiding in plain sight. You wouldn’t see either of us, without the other. Does that make sense?”
It did make sense, and it got me to thinking. What if Mike and I were too much like each other? What if, instead of complementing, we clashed? That evening, I picked at my meal, barely touching the steak, mostly stirring the potatoes, and tried reading the peas as if they were tea leaves.
xii
Mike came to Cambridge during reading period, spending the first three weekends in January with me. Mornings, after I had sneaked breakfast up to him, we went over to Widener Library for three hours of study and review, seated facing each other at a little table in the stacks. Afternoons we spent writing papers and walking along the snow-crusted pathways criss-crossing the Yard. Evenings, he could safely join me in the Cabot dining hall, then up to my room for more study and writing. Each night, we enjoyed the new pleasures we’d found together in bed.
I discovered his secret for falling asleep in the strange environs of a woman’s college dorm. During World War II, his mother worked at the Harvard acoustic lab, where they developed an ear plug to protect the hearing of artillery gunners. She had bequeathed what appeared to be a lifetime supply of the pale red stoppers to him. Each night, he would open the clear plastic case protecting them, roll his tongue around one to moisten it, pull up on his ear – “to straighten out the canal” – and pop it firmly in. He looked so intent, yet silly, I couldn’t help but needle him every time I saw that. My first try fell flat. Using an insult common at the time, I said, “Oh, stick it in your ear!” He wrinkled his nose, shaking his head, but didn’t see the need for a comeback.
Next weekend, I tried imitating him. Every move he made, I mimed. “Some of us don’t need no stinking ear plugs!” I smiled at him. This irritated him enough, he pulled the plug out, pressed me down, and faked plunging it into my ear. That of course led to a complete breakdown in our night time protocol, leaving us exhausted on our backs, term papers abandoned until the morning.
He leaned over, nuzzling my neck. Looking up, he asked with surprise, “Why do you have holes in your ears?”
“Holes?”
“Yeah, right here,” he said, rubbing my lobe between thumb and forefinger. As usual, I’d taken my dangly earrings out before bed. “Won’t they grow over?”
“Are you serious?” Someday, I thought, I might figure out when he’s kidding and not.
On our last night together, we must have been fully satiated, sitting cross-legged on that narrow bed, just talking.
I wanted to know what happened in Idaho, if he had indeed resisted trying to ski. “You haven’t talked about Sun Valley. How’d it go?”
His face came alive, fully smiling, even a small chuckle as he started, “I love it there. It’s like a little gingerbread town. Nothing is real, it’s all fake chalets trying to look like a Swiss village. We stayed in a room right by the Opera House. That’s a cool place where they show movies, have concerts, meetings. Kind of like a fantasy community center.”
“That sounds like the theatre on the Vineyard.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, a place where everybody goes, sees plays or shows, listens to music.”
“Right.”
“I remember, a couple of summers ago, this guy Jamie Taylor – his father’s the dean at North Carolina medical school or something – started coming every week, to play his guitar and do his songs. He was so good, everybody loved him. Very shy though.”
“Did I tell you about my father, when he went skiing?”
“Not yet.”
“You know, he’s an engineer, always plans everything out methodically. I’ve never seen him get emotional or charged up about anything, always seems controlled. Well, he was determined to try skiing, even though he’s what, 53? He thinks he can do anything if he reads about it and then tries it out. He signed up for a lesson, rented skis, went out to this little hill where they teach, Dollar Mountain. He comes back that afternoon bubbling. I’ve never seen him so excited. He was going on about what you’re supposed to do when you ski, talking very fast, ‘See, if you want to turn to the left, you make a “V” with your skis, then step, put your weight on your right ski, lean a little, and around you go. Same thing turning right, step on the left ski. It’s different than ice skating, so much more stable, no thin little blade to trip you up. You don’t have to push off like in ice skating – going downhill, gravity does all that work for you. It’s all about controlling your speed, so you don’t go too fast! That’s what’s fun about it.’ He never talks like that, about having fun.”
“What did you do?”
“He kept going on, ‘Come on, Mike, you’ve got to do this, try it for half a day, see what you think.’ He was so enthusiastic, so persuasive, I went ahead and signed up for lessons the next day. Learning how to ride the lift was … interesting, but I didn’t fall off, so I guess they thought I was coordinated enough to try going down the hill. I did what my father said, made a ‘V’, put my weight on the outside ski, and turned across the hill before I got going too fast. He was right, it’s the most exhilarating feeling, speed like you’re almost going too fast, but still in control.”
I hadn’t seen him this animated since I spied on him at the swim meet. I must have appeared confused, as he went on, “It’s hard to describe, sitting here thinking about it.”
I tried, “What if you were writing about it, what would you say.”
He took a deep breath, looked down at my lap, then out the window. Returning his gaze to me, he explained more calmly, “Remember, last year, when we were at the Vineyard, and were riding bikes around? That day we came back from Chilmark along the beach road?”
I nodded, “Uh huh.”
“I felt so…free on the bike that day, and then we saw those kids, two girls and a boy, on their own bikes, going over the bumps by the dunes. They had those streamers coming out of their handlebars, and they were hollering, screeching, not saying anything, letting out what they felt inside. I didn’t tell you then, but riding that bike, I got a flash back to when I was 10 or so, riding around the neighborhood, not caring about anything except moving fast. The bike carried me, I didn’t have to think. That’s what skiing feels like.”
After he was gone, that Sunday, I found a poem chicken scratched in black ink tucked amongst the pages of my final draft for the English 101 term paper.
SERANADE
These are what sang me to sleep last night:
Ephemeral imagery wafting soundlessly
across
My sight,
leaves no tracks
Bears no weight and knows no
boundary,
Bother or burden.
Buffeted, soft and restful as a
Feather
Easing down upon a crackling bed of leaves,
Herald of some now flown drifter,
Seeking warmer shelter.
Or else some cloistered curls, now unfurled,
Drifting, wafting, fading
across
The undraped softness of two still young shoulders,
Cloaked in raiment
Finer than purest silk or gentlest
Tears,
warm and liquid,
Cried for love.
The shoulders
soft and young
and warm and
Slightly freckled
Transform into a vastness
Softness
Vastness,
And out pours
Yellow
Mounds and mounds of
yellow
Daffodils and raisins, kissed by the
yellow
Sun and
yellow brighter
still
Than daffodils – –
and raisins
Are the clouds and grains of dune-
Grass,
growing from the sand
On which a drifter bird
Has landed,
near two
Bronzed shoulders,
hidden by
Voluptuous hair, revealing a misty,
shrouded
Silk-shrouded form
Of tears of love
Weightless
boundless
Endless
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