Losing Elizabeth

Losing Elizabeth

Losing Elizabeth A memoir

Al Gramatas

Sirena Press

Lyrics from “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Ewan Maccoll reproduced by permission of David Platz Music, Inc. Copyright © 2009 Al Gramatas All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written consent from the publisher and author, except by a print reviewer, quoting brief excerpts.

Sirena Press an imprint of Murmaid Publishing ISBN-978-0-9760634-2-1 ISBN-0-9760634-2-5 Cover and Book Design   Nancy Frederich Printed in the United Sates of America Second Edition

Acknowledgements Diane Marcou Nancy Frederich Dr. John F. Gay III

Dedicated to

Elizabeth Marie Johnson

“The first time ever I kissed your mouth, I felt the earth move through my hands, like the trembling heart of a captive bird…” The memories still linger, not wanting to go—just yet. A tapestry of unclouded colors remain, etched on the canvas of my mind. I’m hopeful others will visit with her, now, and long after I’m gone: my words pulled from a bookshelf, assuring in a way, she will never be alone. On the following pages, I’ve chronicled our impassioned love affair, and the compelling aftermath. The dialogue is true to the best of my unbroken memory …the nuance of a moment …precise as my writing skills allow. I have taken the liberty of substituting my own name with another; a surrogate, freeing me to write, I believe, more objectively, and with less trepidation. The story begins an hour before we meet.

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Chapter 1

The escaping landing gear breaks our slumber, as the giant airplane descends slowly toward Atlanta out of a dark, rainy sky. His face is slumped near the window, eyes gazing into darkness. Our words were mostly about business and his childhood hero, Joe DiMaggio, before he suggested a nap. He looks more tired now, in his wrinkled white shirt and loose tie, for a moment reminding me of a weary tortoise, after lumbering from a churning sea. The three-day LA trade show and five-hour flight have taken a toll on my boss, the man I love like a father. “What’re you looking at, Charlie? You’ve seen it a thousand times before, my man.” ”Yeah, I guess. All those little, slow moving cars down there remind me of ants following each other back to their mound. I enjoy flying into LA at night. You can see lights as far north as Santa Barbara and south

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almost to San Diego but to the west there’s nothing but the darkness of the Pacific, like the world just stops. Sometimes, this sort of selfish thought creeps in my head when I’m looking at all those lights, doesn’t matter which city, really. There’s a woman down there who would’ve brought me more contentment than the one I married all those years ago, just never had the good fortune to meet her. When I think of what might have been, it makes me sort of blue. Everybody’s world is so small.” He turns my way, with a smile. ”You ever think about crap like that, Nick?” “Not in the last few minutes, Charlie, but you gotta’ be one of the great thinkers to ever grace mother earth, right up there with Aristotle and Plato.” “You really think so, huh?” “Darn right. They say stuff like that all the time, just opened their second hamburger joint, this one over on Spring Street. You ought to drop by sometime. The three of y’all would really hit it off.” Charlie’s laughter is rarely contained and it’s not this time. The waitress-in-the-sky lady looks at us questionably until she remembers we hadn’t ordered alcoholic beverages during our long journey. “I’m flat worn out after the last few days,” he says, wanting to get back to business before we land. ”Just might retire next year or maybe sooner. You keep on selling smart in those European-cut suits of yours and my business card might wind up with Nick’s name on

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it. By the way, I bought a suit like that a few months ago. Damn thing made me look like a blowfish so I gave it to the Salvation Army. Want to have a drink at the Crown Room before you head home? I’ve got a two hour layover before I hop a Charlotte plane.” “Wish to heck I could, Charlie, but two friends and I meet for dinner once a month and if I don’t show, they won’t let me forget.” “Say hello to Kim for me. She’s a pistol. Tell her I said if I was twenty-five or thirty years younger, you wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.” “I will, Charlie. I will.” The rain abates, leaving a fine mist in the air, inspiring the driver of the shuttle bus to open a window to the left of his corn bread fed arm. A rush of fresh spring air sweeps away the musty smell of damp luggage. The radio is tuned to Motown at a sound level high enough for his enjoyment but low enough to not offend those aboard with a more puritan taste or none at all. “Marvin Gaye do anything for you?” I ask. “Oh man, don’t get no better than Marvin. My old lady’d run off with him if he’d have her, know that won’t happen.” As we pass the familiar, large lit billboard ”Fly the world with Eastern in 1977,” I think about Charlie’s retirement and the possibilities. I was privy to his occasional outbursts with other sales managers but with

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me there had never been a cross word. Amusing it was, when my counterparts dubbed me “the anointed one,” owing to my apparent immunity from his tirades. My thoughts move from Charlie to a couple sitting across the aisle, the lap of the woman holding a baby girl. My smile is returned through sleepy, brown eyes as I picture her with Rover, the best dog there ever was, when I was a boy. I wonder if there’s a mutt in her family. Not likely, I reason, the wife reminds me of the sort that would have brought along a cat or two from her single days. Such foolish thoughts come to mind when life is good. Driving north over water drenched streets, I remember our first meeting at the Rainbow Café on Piedmont Avenue some two years back when I introduced the business-suited Arne to Ben, clothed in green sleigh bellladen trousers of a Christmas past. ”Only thing that was clean,” Ben said at the time. I don’t recall whose suggestion set our monthly gettogether in motion but now it’s ingrained. We don’t call, just show up on the first Friday of each month. Closing in on the café, a thought springs to mind that we should go somewhere different next month, maybe someplace with outdoor seating and different food, diversity being the spice of life that it is. New restaurants seem to pop up every week in northern Atlanta, christened with

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unique names and splashy signs to draw the attention of the hungry with loose money. Pulling into the almost full parking lot, I see Ben pacing slowly back and forth near the front door of the restaurant as he always would when someone was late. “I talked to Kim from the airport. She said that Arne called a couple hours ago to let us know he was heading to Florida with his honey and won’t be here,” I inform him through the passenger side window before scouting for a parking space none to early. “Screw Arne,” he says in his inimitable way as I open the restaurant’s familiar oversized door. ”Going off to the beach in his new Porsche with what’s-hername. We don’t need him, Nick.” “Sounds like you might be a tad jealous, Ben.” “The only time I’ve ever been jealous of Arne is when the old Aunt he barely knew left him that money when she croaked. Naw, that wasn’t jealousy, just plain old envy, man. The only thing that’s ever fallen into my lap is bird crap, and that’s a fact, partner.” Never in the history of the modern world have there been two people more dissimilar, each marching to a radically different drummer. Arne, the not quite good enough ex-jock, is now a serious and sometimes fastidious sports reporter at the morning Constitution. A couple months back, after Ben raked him over the coals for being too uptight about an upcoming deadline, Arne shot back, ”Jesus, Ben, you don’t realize what’s involved. I have to get the facts right or my boss is on

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my ass and if I write something with a hint of criticism about play on the field, some of the readers get pissed and the players won’t talk to me and on top of that my writing has to be grammatically perfect.” Ben told him that he wouldn’t be any less up-tight working as a grocery bag boy. ”Hell, Arne, you’d worry that you might step on some wet chewing gum in the parking lot on the way to the customer’s car. Then you’d be concerned about stuff gettin’ on your socks while you were waiting for the gum to harden in the freezer so you could scrap it off your shoes.” Ben went to work after college with a soda bottler and has been there ever since, sitting behind a desk all day ordering components from endless pages of endless catalogs. But, away from the office he would transform immediately into his real persona: the most amusing person I’d ever met. When his wife coined us “The Three Stooges,” he countered, ”That’s so unfair to the Stooges. They’re much more sophisticated than we are.” The summer before, Arne and I urged him to do stand up at a local comedy club on amateur night. It started awkwardly, when a three sheets in the wind, middle-aged female climbed from her barstool onto the bar and began singing sad lyrics, pleasing no one, other than her own alcohol hazed mind. The bartender re-seated her, but the damage was done. Ben lost his timing and any confidence that he might have had. He returned to our table through light

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applause. We wanted to know why the drunk disturbed him. Nothing ever flustered Ben. “She reminded me of my mother when I was a kid,” he said. Tonight he’ll order the same entrée as before and the time before that, but only after examining the menu and asking a question or two about specials the waiter has described. He’s not yet had an opportunity to examine the familiar menu. We’re waiting with others for the anxious young hostess behind the tall, slender desk to call us to be seated. Her long black evening dress sets her apart from the scurrying wait staff in their employer supplied white polo shirts and tan slacks. Every few minutes she hurries to a dining area hidden from her station to check for an available table. High heels just under the black dress seem to be fighting the feet, wanting her to look awkward with each step. An older well dressed couple strolls unhurriedly with drinks in hand from the bar. Their facial expressions indicate they resent being called for seating much too soon. “It’s a wicked, cruel world when the very young hurry us along, isn’t it, Doris? This wouldn’t happen in Ft. Lauderdale,” he says to his lady companion as they pass. “Nick, why did you tell the hostess that your name is Zin? I remember you doing that the last time we were here.” “It’s less confusing. They’re never really sure how to pronounce my last name when we’re called. It makes

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things simple for the hostess and it’s easily heard over conversation, cuts through the air well.” The crunching sound of an automobile accident comes from the busy six-lane street just outside the restaurant, easily heard over the buzz of conversation. Almost everyone turns to look toward the front, unlike me, whose eyes rarely hunt the source when a waiter drops a tray or a hungry baby cries, possibly due to compassion, I like to think. But she turns, almost in unison with her date, both standing directly in front of us. Her line of vision toward the front door is temporarily interrupted by a slight glance at me, and then another, like seeing someone in a crowd who seems familiar, deserving a second look. Then she turns away as if the wreck had never happened or the hostess might call their name any moment. She stands still, possibly to reconcile something in a curious mind. The smooth back above cloth greets her neck in a most enchanting way. I study the white summer dress with straps embracing the shoulders as perfectly as her ankles fit into the pale pink espadrilles. She touches an earring hiding under blond hair, like a reaction to an afterthought. The room seems brighter than before. A faint smell of fresh cotton permeates the air. My sense of things only moments before is rapidly expunged, replaced by titillation, an intense sense of attraction.

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My wife once said she appreciated that I didn’t look at other women when we were out and that it made her feel special. ”I have no reason to do that,” I said with complete honesty at the time. Her date says something before disappearing from view, walking past me toward the exit, probably wanting to see blood on the tracks, I jealously assume, without knowing him at all. “Nick, honey, I’m goin’ to get us a menu to look at,” I hear Ben say in a mocking Southern gay voice as I step forward to occupy the sacred space vacated by her date. “Excuse me, Miss, I just want to have a word with you if I may and then I’ll return to my under educated friend,” thinking she probably heard his inappropriate remark. She turns, not directly facing me, like a beautiful bird aware of an intruder while at the same time keeping its poise. I ramble, the mind telling me my words are bungled, imbecilic. Then, as I see her date returning, from my mouth, like a simpleton, ”If you’ll accompany me to dinner some evening, I can promise you’ll experience something more exciting than tonight, I would think.” I hold my business card chest high, exposed, expecting rejection. Not a word has she spoken. Her right hand rises slowly, apprehensively, to gather the card. I smile as her head turns forward, dismissing me.

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“What were you doing? Do you know her?” Ben inquires, at the same moment her date looks my way, a stern look indeed. “No, not really.” “Harrison, party of two,” the hostess announces, and they leave, reminding me of the couple atop a wedding cake. “Miss, could we be seated in the same room as the couple before us?” I ask, to no avail. As we follow the hostess to our table, she’s sitting across from him with a large menu in slender hands, oblivious of my attention. “What was that about, Nick? I’ve never seen you hit on a woman before. Married men are supposed to wait till they’re middle age before they start that shit and you aren’t there yet, partner.” “She turned her head toward the front door and our eyes met, something went through me like a knife, only it felt better. She’s lovely.” “Brother, Atlanta’s eat up with good-looking women, you know that. What about the blond here last winter that came over and asked if you wanted a ride in her red Corvette? Remember what you told her?” he says as he positions the chair containing his body closer to our dinner table. “Nope.” “You said your pecker had been shot off in Vietnam and you have to sit down to pee. How do you come up with shit like that?”

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“I don’t know. Thought it was sort of funny at the time, I suppose.” “Me too, but she didn’t.” “Hey girls,” Arne says, unexpectedly appearing at our table with a smile on his face. “Thought you were on the way to the beach with what’s-her-name.” “Not yet. Had to stay at the paper longer than I wanted to rewrite an article a new reporter did on one of our local sports heroes who got a DUI last night. She’s in the car and I have to go by the apartment to pick up my stuff. Just thought I’d say hello to you farts. You look a little undone there Nick. Did your best client leave you?” “Naw,” Ben chimes in. ”Nick just went a little crazy on us awhile ago. He’ll be okay when he screws his head on straight. Is the one waiting in the car the same gal that went with you down there at the end of last summer?” “No. That was a different lady.” “Nick, are you listening?” Ben wants to know, leaning forward to get my attention and interrupting my daydream. “This’ll get your head turned around,” he continued. ”Did Arne tell you what happened on the way down there last year?” “I don’t remember.” “I still laugh every time I think about it. Arne meets this girl in a bar down by the Constitution and a cou-

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ple weeks later they take off to Florida for a few days and when they cross the state line from Georgia she tells Arne it would be nice if they stopped at her parent’s house in Cottonville.” “Cottondale,” Arne says, needing to keep everything exactly right. “Yeah, it’s on the way. So this old geezer about eighty comes to the door with his wife and he’s got overalls on and over them he’s wearing a holstered pistol. He talks about Arne’s girlfriend as being their youngest child out of something like ten and she’s his favorite. Then he asks Arne to help him saw a tree stump in the backyard for winter firewood. They start sawing with this thing, six foot or so saw blade with a handle on each end. After ten minutes in the heat, Arne’s run out of oxygen and sees stars and shit in his eyeballs. The old man tells him he looks peaked and he needs to get out of the sun. Then they go in the back door of the house and Arne keeps on going out the front and collapses in the driver seat of his car and when the daughter gets in, the geezer sticks his head in the window and says ‘you take care of my little girl, you hear, and if you don’t, I’ll find you and shoot you where it hurts.’ Arne pulls out on the highway smilin’ and wavin’ at the old man, hoping he never sees him again and glad he’s still alive. What do you think, Nick?” “Funny, Ben,” I say with effort.

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“Gotta go guys. See y’all in a few weeks.” “Hey, Arne, don’t go visiting now, you hear,” Ben has to say. My thoughts drift back to her as I half-heartedly listen to Ben. His words seem less interesting than nights before. He rambles on about his wife wanting a bigger house when the baby comes. Finally, after little conversation from me, “Let’s go, Nick, I could have more fun than this down at the A&P watching the truck unload. You need to get your head out of your butt before you go home.” The busboy has cleared their table and is laying out fresh silverware as we pass. I open the door to the parking lot with Ben following. None of the diners are walking to their cars, no headlights glowing. The smell of newly paved asphalt saturates the air, stark enough to be associated with the night somewhere in the future. They’re driving south toward the bars or north to the apartment and bedroom communities, I guess. Why waste time? I’m sure they turned north. A sense of melancholy sweeps through me, leaving a feeling of discontent. “Pal, what you did tonight, you need to just forget. Think about what you’ve got at home. What the hell’s wrong with you? We’re living the American dream, man. Keep it in your pants. Think about it. If you get out of your funk call me Sunday morning and I’ll get us a tee time around two o’clock.”

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“Yeah, I’ll call you, Ben.” He shuts his car door and pulls into the night toward home. Walking to the car, I think of my words to him a few months before concerning his pending marriage: “That Lynn of yours is a heck of a woman, buddy. Marriage is commitment. My father married for the first time at forty and when his heart stopped at sixty-four he was on the bathroom floor with the shaving soap still on his face. Before everything went black he told my mother that he had loved her every day since they had met and before they took him away, she shaved his face because she said he never left the house unshaven. She let them know the funeral home could expect her there to ‘comb the hair on that beautiful man’s head the way it should be.’ He was handsome, but that’s not what my mother was talking about. Do you understand, Ben?” Considering my actions tonight, the words seem synthetic now. The drive home overflows with thoughts of the last few hours, the compulsive need to approach her and say those things, so unlike me. I recall the hue of her blond hair and the blue-green eyes that were urging the mind to speak, but words never came. I remember she almost turned to look back as they began the walk to their waiting table. As we passed, her

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eyes seemed unfocused and the mind into thought, a meaningful nuance, I wishfully believe. What sort of voice resides behind that splendid exterior? Have you read Nietzsche and Voltaire or do the Hollywood tabloids hold your interest? Something halfway between would be nice. Her face continues to captivate my mind as if the genes were predisposed for my benefit, to offer something extraordinary, especially for me. “What are you thinking about, Hon?” the wife asks the next day as I stare into the woods, holding a plate of kebabs destined for the grill. “Thinking about Ben. Need to call him about a tee time,” I say, realizing the lie.

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Chapter 2

“My name is Elizabeth,” the engaging voice said. ”You gave me your business card a few—.” “Yes,” I interrupt, eagerly and somewhat foolishly. ”I’ve thought of you every day since that night at the Rainbow two weeks ago. I went back the next Friday thinking maybe you and the sort of effeminate fellow in the Madras jacket might return. But after a couple hours the barkeep said she didn’t think it was going to happen. So I took her advice and drove home.” “He’s not effeminate, just good mannered. That was sort of a foolish thing to do. What would you have done if we had walked in?” “I didn’t have a plan. I was goin’ to play it by ear.” “Are you married, Nick?” “No. Do I look married?” “I don’t know how one looks married. Do you wear that black suit often?”

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“Noooo,” I say, thinking she dislikes the suit I had bought just a few months earlier. I hear what sounds like muted laughter. ”Are you laughing at my suit, Elizabeth?” “No, I’m laughing at you sounding like a schoolboy. Are your parents Greek or Italian?” “Well, it’s a tad more than that. My father was born on a Greek island and my mother is a small town girl from Alabama.” “Are there any Greeks in the Mafia?” “Don’t think so. Greeks like to own restaurants so they can bring cheer to people, not whack ‘em.” Again, the inviting laughter. ”You have a sense of humor, don’t you?” “Yes, and the way you’ve been putting me on since this conversation began I assume you do, too. Incidentally, Elizabeth, you’re stunning.” “If I were stunning I’d have more work.” “How so?” “Shouldn’t have mentioned it, really, I’ve modeled part-time since I was twelve. First one was a retail catalog doing casual clothes and then this and that, but now that I’m in my late twenties, it’s different. I’m in their girl-next-door files and there are a bunch of those types out there. My five day a week thing is being a hospital nurse and I love my job.” “I can picture you in nurse’s attire, sort of a prettier Florence Nightingale.” “Don’t get carried away.”

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“Sorry, but I have been since my brown eyes caught sight of you that night. Am I coming on a little too strong?” “Probably, how a person might look is only a small part of what they’re about. One should never base their opinion of another on that. You believe that, don’t you, Nick?” “I did until a few weeks back.” “What happened then?” “I saw you.” The laughter scoots through the telephone line to my welcoming ear. “Elizabeth, are you into astrology?” “In a small way.” “Well then, as you probably know, most Libras, including myself, share some common traits. A kind nature is generally the one most folks would think of. I’m sure you’d agree if we could be with each other awhile.” “What did you have in mind, Mr. Libra?” “It just so happens I’ve been thinking about that since the night I saw you, I mean, met you. What about the Diplomat, if I can get reservations?” “That’s very expensive.” “We’re not going Dutch. Don’t concern yourself with it. Where do I pick you up?” “We can meet there; I don’t know you and rather not give you my address. My daddy has always told me to be cautious of better looking guys.”

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“If you’ll promise to be there tomorrow night at seven, I’ll do whatever needs doin’ to get the reservation. Probably be there early in case you are.” “There’s no need for that, I won’t be early, see you at seven.” “Till tomorrow night, Elizabeth.” “Wait!” ”I forgot to tell you something, it’s important.” “Yes.” “My mother didn’t have sex until she married my father and I decided when I was a teenager I’d do the same. I’m aware of how that sounds, at my age and especially during these times, but that’s how it is. Do you still want to have dinner? Take a moment before you answer.” “I don’t need a moment, Elizabeth. See you at seven.” All the selling savvy I could muster was necessary to lock-up the reservation, I think to myself, waiting near my car for the restaurant’s valet. I’d heard that most en vogue eateries leave at least one table open during prime evening hours to satisfy a late call from a prized customer or celebrity floating through town. The spiel over the phone, about my near lifeless sister desperately wanting to dine here before she passed on to the heavens, worked. How could anyone deny such a request made by a caring brother? Well, only

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those few on our planet without a heart, no heart at all. Superlative selling skills should be classified as an art form, like ballet or conducting a symphony, I like to think. The part-time valet, but full-time Georgia Tech student is earning his money, accelerating to the back of the restaurant to park a car, then to the key box as fast as possible and on to the next car that’s pulled in. Sweating and only a quarter till seven, he says his partner car parker is late. ”I’m dying, man,” he shouts in my direction while running to deposit another key and carrying a little too much girth around the middle for his age. “You need to thank your buddy for showing late. If you work off a few pounds, maybe one of those piglets over at Tech will let you take her to the Varsity for a slaw dog and onion rings.” He tries to laugh but it refuses to come out. “Stop a moment,” I say, as he’s about to enter my car. ”Here’s a few bucks and all you have to do is tell my date that I’m in the bar waiting for her and say it to her real nice.” “How will I know her, man?” “You’ll know. She’ll be alone and you’ll still be thinking of her when you’re back in your dorm cell tonight.” “Nick, is that you?” asks a voice from a small red Volvo that has pulled in, her head sticking partly outside the driver’s window.

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“Yes, I’m here,” I say to the face, fresh as an early dew, and wondering why I’m thinking that I sound like the village idiot. I open the door offering my hand but the car lunges forward. Her foot hits the brake. She turns the engine off and lays her head on the steering wheel. “Are you okay?” as I place my hand on her shoulder. ”The same thing happened to me awhile back. I forgot to put it in Park,” I offer, attempting to lessen the embarrassment. Gathering the slender hands, I gently pull her from the car toward me. The slight trembling fades as the blue-green eyes look up to greet mine. ”I guess I’m a little early, huh?” “I thought you might be.” “Why?” “Because I wanted to believe you would.” The valet is waiting for us to move from the car. ”You’re right, man, I woulda’ known it was her when she rolled in.” “What did you say to him?” she asks as the restaurant door is opened by an attendant. “I told him that you would be the best thing to ever grace his parking lot, something like that.” “Oh, that was nice, but I’m sure it’s not true.” “Sir, my name is Nick Andreious,” I say to the maitre d. “This angelic creature and I have arrived at the appointed hour for what hopefully will be the culinary experience of a lifetime. Where shall we be seated? Also, would you kindly furnish me with pencil

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and writing paper? It seems I’ve left mine behind at the Constitution.” “Of course, sir. This way, please.” “What was that about?” she questions after we’re seated at the table draped with white cloth, located away from most of the crowd. Elegant French adornments enhance the large but intimate room. “I was trying to impress you, of course, and at a fairly new place like this, they may mistake me for a dining reviewer. If that happens, the meal might be on the house. At the very least, they’ll do their best to please us.” “What would you tell him if he asks if you are a writer for the Constitution?” “I’d say that I’m not authorized to divulge that.” “I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you.” “I’ve been thinking the same about you, Elizabeth.” “I’m going to the ladies room. You order for us if the waiter comes. Just don’t order red meat for me. I never eat it more than once a week. Maybe seafood would be nice. Order a glass of Chablis, too, but not a bottle. More than one glass and I get giddy.” As she walks away, the dress looks perfect for the occasion, like the white summer dress the night we met. She doesn’t glance to the left or right, the body moving with a sensual presence without any hint of overt display. A man and woman engaged in conversation at a table near her path look up, their eyes following until

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she is well past. The purse she’s placed on the table for my safekeeping is refined, like her. I’m gazing at the purse as she returns. “There’s a nice attendant in the restroom handling towels and stuff,” she says after sitting down. ”I told her I didn’t have my money with me and that I would be back with a tip. She smiled and said that management wouldn’t allow her to accept tips but the man that does the same thing in the men’s room is allowed to. That’s not right, you know. So, Nick, what is it you do for a living or is it that you’re just a kept man?” “No, no, I sell logistic services for a large company, lots of entertaining and laughing at bad jokes. The fellow I was with the night I met you is a client and a friend.” “Did I show the right amount of reluctance before I accepted your business card that night?” “Actually, a little too much. I was thinking at the time if you didn’t take it, I’d drop to the floor and hold on to your leg until some cop pried my arms off. I had this insatiable desire to be near you. Not a word escaped your pretty lips that night, you know.” “I shouldn’t have taken your card. I was on a date. It wasn’t the right thing to do and I apologized to him later but didn’t throw away the card, obviously.” “I’m glad you didn’t.” “Yes, me too.” “Sir, the pen and paper you requested.” The waiter is decked out in a short, black tuxedo jacket with a gold

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medallion of some significance on the right lapel, serving notice that it was going to be an expensive evening. “Thank you. The lady will have lobster and for me, chateaubriand, light on the béarnaise.” “How is the wine, sir?” “Better than Thunderbird.” “Yes, sir, thank you, I suppose,” The waiter turns to walk away. “Elizabeth, tell me everything about yourself from the day you were born.” Our words flow as if tonight will be the only opportunity, like something dangerous might happen tomorrow. We want to explore everything tonight, just in case. She recounts the growing up years in Memphis, the only child of a physician and a mother who aspired to be the same, then derailed after meeting her future husband in medical school and having the baby Elizabeth to care for. ”He still smiles at her the same way he did when I was a child.” The family trips are recalled, Europe and the Orient and other interesting places I have never seen, beginning when she was very young. She recollects in detail the night of her tenth birthday, tagging along with her father at the hospital to visit patients, then praying for them at bedtime. She speaks kindly of the boyfriend in high school before dissolving the relationship during their freshman year of college.

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There was nursing school before working in her father’s practice, then moving here to be near her best friend since childhood and to ”see what Atlanta is about.” The words leave me thirsting for more, her brightness of thought darting here and then there, filling my emotional reservoir, a dormant, hungry place I didn’t know existed before tonight. I tell her about the earlier years: growing up in a small town, riding my bike to the city pool and playing baseball until the summer sun was gone and standing on a box behind the cash register in my father’s restaurant as a kid, taking payment from customers. But when I chat about the cheerleader I dated during the senior year of high school, I fail to mention we’re married now and that she will probably be asleep in the bed we share when I return home. The dishes had been taken away much earlier by the time the Head Chef puts his hands on our table to solicit praise for the food he had prepared and to temporarily relieve his tired, stubby legs. My compliments are greeted with a smile and then he looks only at Elizabeth. A heavy French accent influences each word, rendering much of his chatter indecipherable, but only for me. She begins speaking in his native language. He becomes captivated and continues babbling until she asks directions to the toilette. He retreats to his kitchen, finally.

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“Guess I shouldn’t have let him know I speak a little French. Sorry, I don’t know that much, actually.” “I adore that Memphis voice in any language. He seemed tired from a busy night in the kitchen. He needs to go home.” “Speaking of home, I can’t believe we’re still here, it’s almost eleven. I really need to head for my apartment and get in bed. I have to be at work at seven and I’m always there a little early to discuss what happened overnight with the other nurses before they leave.” The room has been full most of the night and now only the two of us and a table of Japanese businessmen, some looking our way with envious faces, remain. The manager thanks us for being the restaurant’s guests as he retrieves our keys before we walk into the warm night air. Our cars are parked adjacent to the door by the now gone Tech student. “Elizabeth,” I begin, as I open her car door. ”The woman an hour or so ago who touched your shoulder on her way out, you know her?” “No.” “She sort of paused half a second and then moved on with her husband or whoever it was. Do you remember that?” “Yes.” “Well, why do you suppose she did that?” “They were at the table to our left. She was seated facing us.” “And so?”

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“You wouldn’t understand, it’s a woman sort of thing. She thought we were having a nice time. I’ll explain it to you sometime.” I close her car door. “If you say so, but I’ve got a feminine side, you know.” “I’m not sure you have a feminine side, Nick. Good night.” “Can we see each other again?” “Yes.” “I don’t have your telephone number.” “If you’re a good boy, I may give it to you. I’ll call.” “I miss you already, Elizabeth.” “You can’t miss someone when you’re with them.” “Yes, you can.” “Give me a little good night peck, Nick. I have to go.” I gaze at the flawless profile while she locates the headlight switch and engages the transmission. Her face turns toward me, illuminated by the remaining lights from the restaurant. She allows my kiss on her tender lips to last the precise amount of time to confirm the magic, not a second more, and then turns right onto the late night street, without looking either way.

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Chapter 3

During the days that follow, I’m absorbed with thoughts of Elizabeth and what might be. Since our dinner, feelings for my wife have become altered, unsettled. The harshness that seemed to simmer under her skin before is now more conspicuous, the contentiousness of her demeanor more noticeable. There had always been a sense of unrest laying in wait to be drawn on at any hint of provocation, whether real or imagined, dormant thoughts now lay exposed. I try to temper these heightened perceptions by remembering the earlier, brighter times, not so long ago: the soft summer nights at seventeen, sitting in my car outside the Baptist church, listening to her pound the piano keys to the choirs’ last offering, “Amazing Grace,” and waiting for the dash from opened double doors for our ride to the drive-in theatre north of town where we would do things teenagers do and talk of the future.

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And on her parents’ porch on Sunday afternoons, I would listen while her father imparted simple snippets of wisdom, invaluable for a precocious teenager with a wild streak, but without a father of my own. Late at night from the car parked in an alleyway, we would see a bathroom window curtain move, reassuring himself his daughter wasn’t going too far with the boy carrying such an unusual last name for a small Southern town. We married at the large downtown Baptist church that supported a red face preacher with an Irish accent and then sped off to Atlanta, thinking we were a little too quick on the draw for the town of our birth. Memories are unable to erase the feelings for another. My conception of happiness has been reshaped— nothing can be the same again. The infatuation with Elizabeth could pass, I tell myself with insufficient conviction, still thinking of her at the restaurant, fingertips provocatively touching the necklace, significant in a way only a man can fully appreciate and understand. “Arne, how goes it?” “Over worked and underpaid,” my friend replies over the phone. ”Just got back from an assignment in Tennessee. What’s up Nick?” “Actually, I’ve been calling your place since Sunday. I’m in a pickle, I need your help.”

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“Hope it’s not like Ben when he got that DUI driving home last winter. I was downtown half the night bailing his ass out.” “No, nothing like that. It began the night you went to Florida with your lady. You stopped off at the Rainbow to say hello to Ben and me. Well, I met a woman there. It’s a long story, there was a wreck outside and I’ll tell you everything later. Anyway, she called me at work a couple of weeks later and we had dinner and I can’t shake it. I’m nuts about her.” “This is getting a little crazy. Did you forget you had a wife at home when you were doing this shit?” “I know it’s not good and I can’t believe it’s happening myself.” “Guess you already popped her, right, Nick?” “Far from it, but I lied. When she asked on the phone if I was married, I said no. If I’d said yes, she would have hung up. It was the tone of her voice, deliberate, I know she would have. It was the only thing I could do, and then at dinner she asked for my phone number, and I gave her yours, it was the first thing that popped in my head. That’s why I need your help. I want you to pretend we share your apartment if she calls there, won’t be for long.” “Nick, this isn’t like you and it’s crazy. Not good for anybody. What the hell’s wrong with you?” “I understand how you feel but this isn’t the time for moralizing. You’re either my friend or not, simple as that.”

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“Yeah, I’m your friend but in the pro sports there’s a term they use when a call is highly contested – playing under protest. I’ll go along with this and give you a chance to do whatever you’re going to do, but I’m playing under protest and I’m going to feel like shit while I’m doing it.” “I’ll resolve this situation soon. I promise.” I knew how Arne would react before he opened his mouth. He speaks often of widespread infidelity in the professional sports world with disdain and has become jaded in much the same way a cop becomes weary of seeing too much of life’s underbelly. I feel I’m letting people down, most of all, the wife. My life is being uncontrollably reshaped; the past of only weeks before, irretrievable. There has not been a call from her for more than a week and I’m tortured with thoughts, expectations of the worst. My anxiety tells me our night at the restaurant meant nothing, or possibly another caught her attention. A completely new experience I have taken on, wanting someone, not knowing if she feels the same. “Nick?” The one word nullifies all my insecurities. “Yes, Elizabeth, great to hear your voice. How are you?”

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“Good. What are you doing Sunday afternoon?” “I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that whatever I’ll be doing will be done near you.” “Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re beyond the pale?” “No, I don’t know anyone intelligent enough to say something like that.” “You make me laugh, Nick, you do. I’m calling to invite you to come with me to celebrate the retirement of a lovely man who has known me since I was born. The reception party will be here at Georgia Baptist Hospital, where I work.” Driving through town to the hospital across raindrenched streets, I feel no guilt. There can sometimes be things in life that are too enormous, refusing to be bound or judged by conventional codes. My life should be like this, I’m thinking, as she talks about Dr. Samuel retiring as Head Administrator. She interrupts herself, asking me to slow down a teeny-weeny bit because of the rain. The inflection of her words, tactful, yet enchantingly tender. The large room is austere but without the faint smell of sickness in the corridor we had come from. “Girl, I’m so glad you came. You know that, don’t you?”

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He is a small man with little hair, but with the presence a person should have in the position he is vacating. His narrow face radiates a warm smile as he greets Elizabeth. “Don’t be silly. You know I couldn’t miss this. Daddy and Mother have a special present for you. They mailed it today. Dr. Sam, this is my friend, Nick.” He greets me with a handshake one would expect from a surgeon of many years, and with an inviting expression laced with underlying apprehensiveness. ”Good to meet you, young man, how long have you known my godchild?” “We met about a month ago. She’s limited our association to a dinner date and today, but I hope there’s more to come.” “Yes son, many have wished that. Did she tell you I was in the room at her birth? Her father Jack was my student in medical school. My wife, Anne, has assembled a year-to-year photo album of Elizabeth, the birthdays, proms, first day at college, everything. The last one is of Elizabeth and her parents while she was moving into the apartment on Buford Highway. Jack wanted her to live with us for a while but she wanted her own place. Anne and I were unable to have children.” “Is your wife here, Dr. Samuel?” “Yes, Nick, she’s upstairs distributing magazines and bringing warmth to the infirmed and may come down later. Anne said she’s seen enough of me in the last forty-five years and is not going to stand around

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here for three hours watching me talk to people. She’s too damn independent. I need to get me a younger woman I can control.” “Dr. Sam,” Elizabeth says, ”If Anne wasn’t around, you’d perish.” “Yes, dear, you’re probably right.” Regardless of where he steps, he draws us near with a gentle hand on Elizabeth’s arm or a gesture. He moves about the room like an old politician, shaking hands, a pat on a back here and there, always with a sincere, reassuring smile. ”This institution will continue its road to excellence without me, Alice,” he says to a middle-aged female admirer with moist brown eyes. ”My successor has a great sense of purpose. He’s dedicated to the employees and the people we serve.” He turns to Elizabeth, placing a hand on her lower back. ”Elizabeth, you probably haven’t met Mr. Lowe, the hospital’s procurement manager. He purchases everything we need, including multi-million dollar machines.” Without warning, the evening takes an unforeseeable turn as a man interrupts Mr. Lowe’s conversation: “Dr. Samuel, good evening. I don’t believe you’ve met my wife, Joan. Please introduce me to this pretty thing. Do you work at the hospital, dear?” “You foolish person, aren’t you aware that you’ve insulted both me and your wife,” Elizabeth turns to walk toward the corridor. I instinctively point my fin-

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ger in the man’s embarrassed face. As I turn, Dr. Samuel is following step-for-step. Entering the corridor he grabs my hand, like a small child in distress. “Nick, she’s going into the women’s room. Let her be alone for a few minutes. You’ve known Elizabeth for a short time, but do you care for her at all?” “I love her.” “Well then, you have to do something important for yourself and me and everyone who loves her. Are you listening, Nick?” as I stare at the door she’s entered. “Yes, of course.” “Since childhood Elizabeth has had this acute sense of empathy for those treated unfairly. She had distaste for that ‘pretty thing’ remark, mostly because he said it in front of his wife and she knew it was embarrassing for her. Elizabeth would have let it go if it wasn’t for that. For the most part, she deals with things like we all do, but she doesn’t have the tolerance most of us have and every so often something like today happens.” “Are you saying it’s a mental problem?” “No, son, I think of it as a gift. I can envision a world where everyone is as mindful of not hurting others as she is, it’d be a much better place to live. Now, when Elizabeth comes out she may be in a different mood. Don’t mention the incident. Just be supportive and stay with her as late as possible. She shouldn’t go to bed tonight with this on her mind. The man who made the comment is a physician I’ve known for many years. He’s not a bad person. They had attended a wedding recep-

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tion earlier and he probably had a couple cocktails. I’ll have him send a card of apology to Elizabeth. The Board of Directors has arranged a dinner for Anne and me tonight, otherwise I would invite Elizabeth to our house. Everything will be fine. You understand how much she means to us, don’t you Nick?” “Yes, of course.” “Darn rain,” I say, hoping for a response that never comes, her eyes staring through windshield wipers working at full speed. “I’m glad you came with me for Dr Sam’s retirement,” she says after long minutes of silence. ”I think he probably likes you.” “I hope so. I didn’t say anything to offend, like I usually do?” “No, Nick, you’re the epitome of a social chameleon. You can impress anyone when you have the need. You impressed me, didn’t you?” “The same answer as before, I hope so.” “Why do you suppose all the other drivers are going slower than you?” “Your point is well taken, dear.” “Did you say dear to placate me or something more?” “Both.” Few words are spoken during the remaining miles to her place. The sound of rain pounding on the car

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roof is more pronounced, after turning north onto the Freeway. She looks forward, without expression, as if the cadence of the windshield wipers has cast a hypnotic trance. I consider a joke, but decide not to voice it. Placing my hand on her neck or knee comes to mind, but I do nothing, realizing she wants to be alone, with her thoughts, without my intrusion. I recall everything she said on the way down to the hospital, letting those words replace the silence. “I wouldn’t make a good host tonight, Nick. Just need to go to sleep,” as I return the key, after unlocking the green door to her apartment. “How about an hour of TV?” “I don’t think so. I’ll call you tomorrow.” “Will you be okay?” “Sure, everything will be fine.” “Good night, then,” I can only reply, as the door is gently closed. I stand in the breezeway, concerned, staring at the rain bouncing off the roof of my company car and her red Volvo. The door opens. I turn to see her standing in the doorway. ”I didn’t hear you go down the steps. Are you going to stand there all night?” “You might need me for something.”

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The laughter is the first since leaving the hospital. ”You’re crazy. Want to tuck me in? I’m not implying anything more than that. Do you understand?” “Yes, and it’ll be the highlight of my day, dear.” “I stayed with my friend from Memphis who lives in Dunwoody during the time I was looking for the apartment,” she says on her way to the bathroom to brush her white teeth. ”She told me to look at Riverbend up in Marietta or around here, so I found this, almost new and somewhat affordable. Then Daddy tells me he’s going to pay the monthly rent. I was furious with him. I said ‘Daddy, why didn’t you tell me that before I moved here, I would have gotten a larger place’ and he said ‘that’s the reason I didn’t tell you’ and he was right of course. Aren’t you going to ask me about the tick-tick sound?” “Sounds like the timer my mother had on the stove when I was growing up.” “What was the color?” “White.” “This came from my mother’s stove. It’s white,” she says, the words coming between teeth brushings. ”My daddy put it in my bathroom when I was twelve or so. His best friend is a dentist and he told my daddy everyone should brush their teeth for at least three minutes. I’ll be ready in a minute.” The placement and quality of each piece of furniture in the relatively small living room resembles a smaller

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version of the house she grew up in, I assume for no particular reason as she beckons me from the bedroom. “Do you feel okey-dokey?” I say, sitting on the bed next to her, now in thin, pink two-piece pajamas. “Yes, but I feel spent, you know. I’m sorry about what happened, but he shouldn’t have said that. Can you imagine how his wife felt? I’ll call Dr. Sam in the morning to apologize.” “That’s not necessary. I spoke with him while you were in the ladies’ room. He understood. An apology isn’t necessary. Maybe I should’ve made the fellow’s simple face even uglier with a fist to the teeth.” “Glad you didn’t, that would have been stupid. Tuck me in. There’s something about you that I trust and I don’t know why.” I pull the pink sheet over the smooth shoulders, accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. The sensual smell remains as I stand. “I may wait a few minutes to see if the rain slacks. I’ll make sure that I turn the inside lock hickey on the door before I go.” “Be careful, Nick. Please don’t drive fast.” “Will not, promise,” assuring her, before pulling the bedroom door shut. I sit on the couch looking at the rain pound on the sliding glass door to the sun-room, abating now and then into a restful silence. The events of the day rush through my mind. Her reaction to the man’s remark was a little overboard. Most would have let it pass. She

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was concerned the words he used to praise her, embarrassed his wife, I ponder, wishing my idiosyncrasies were as admirable. The couch slowly becomes my bed. I prefer to stay here tonight, only a room away. The feel of the pajama cloth as I pulled the sheet over your shoulders and that face framed by blond hair strewn on the pillow was almost more than I could take without enveloping you. It’s not exactly lust; afoot here is something more special, Elizabeth. When you turn to look at me, with the eyes trailing my way a second later, do all men go crazy over that? Even the little boys probably did when you were ten. I love watching those bare feet walk from here to there in the apartment. There’s something in the way you move. And the voice, I love listening. All in all, remarkable, divine. I’m flying like a bird across the sky. Euphoric contentment sweeps through me, a nirvana in its purest and most delicate form, before sleep comes. The neon sign in the window of the women’s shop was flashing ‘open’ ever second or so when I turned the doorknob to enter. It seemed like a sign to be hung in the window of a liquor store or Chinese restaurant, but not where ladies things are sold. I walk in to buy something for my wife’s birthday. The mall, with its abundance of things, is only a few miles away, yet, I’m drawn to the gaudy sign. The inte-

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rior is smaller than I expected. The sales clerk goes from one customer to the next, making suggestions. She tells a woman with wide hips that the full pleats she holds may not be the best choice and then sends her off to the fitting room with different pants, pulled from its hanger. She impresses me, using the right words, with a sincere smile. The customer will not think of herself, in this store, as overweight. The clerk approaches me to ask if I’m looking to select something for my wife. I tell her today is my sister’s birthday, not knowing why I lied. She pulls a hair clasp, held a second between white teeth and puts it in blond hair, while I’m unable to take my sight from the blue-green eyes. I ask why someone like her would work in a place with such a crude sign in the window. Her smile fades before she tells me there is no flashing sign and that she knew the present was not for my sister. A loud shriek loosens me from the bad dream at daybreak. “Nick, for a few seconds I didn’t recognize you. I thought someone had broken in. My heart almost stopped. You were supposed to leave last night. Why are you here?” “To protect you from other men.”

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She says nothing and plops the full length of her body on mine, the face resting on my shoulder, her warm breath soothing my neck. “Can we stay this way for awhile?” I say softly from under jasmine-scented hair. “Yes.” “Why does your hair look so beautiful when it’s messed up?” “I don’t know, silly.” “Elizabeth, may I retract my earlier thought? You’re smashing my bladder. I’m in excruciating pain. I have to go.” “Me too,” she smiles. “Aren’t you going to your office today? ” she asks while preparing toast. “I’m the boss, I don’t got to, and since this is your off day I thought I’d hang around with you awhile if that’s okay.” “I’m going to the park later. You want to come?” “Of course, can I have butter for my toast?” “I don’t have butter.” “What do you mean, you don’t have butter?” “It’s not good for you. Eat your toast and drink your grapefruit juice like a good boy.” The phone rings out from across the room. ”Ah ha, do your boyfriends usually call this early?”

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”I don’t have a boyfrin–Good morning, Daddy… yes, I told him y’all mailed his present yesterday…Oh, maybe a hundred people were there…Daddy, Nick is here. We’re going to the park later. Want to talk to him while I take a shower… Love you too.” “Good morning, Dr. Johnson.” The liveliness of the voice, like his daughter’s, is engaging. “Well Nick, just being in her apartment means you got a shot. I don’t think anyone has been there when I’ve called before and I call just about everyday. Heck, I may never have grandkids. The last person she cared about was probably Will. Did she tell you about him?” “No sir.” “She and Will went steady their senior year in high school. Come to think of it, I don’t know if young people use that word anymore. Anyway, we would all go over to his father’s place on the lake. It was the first time I’d ever ridden in a boat. Will was a big football and basketball guy in school. He was always smiling but when game time came he was all business. “Elizabeth started calling him Buster. She thought he looked like a character in a Broadway play we went to when she was little and then everybody started calling him Buster. I don’t think he minded though, anything she did was all right with him. “He and his best friend rented a limousine for the prom and Elizabeth wouldn’t go in it,” he rambled on.

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”She told him that no one else would be there in one and she refused to get in so I loaned him my car. I don’t think he ever got any of his money back. They went off to school at UT in Knoxville together and about halfway through their freshman year I get a call from her on a Saturday morning explaining that she’s coming to Memphis to tell Will she’s breaking up with him. “Will had come to Memphis to see his folks because he didn’t have any classes till the following Tuesday. I asked why in the world didn’t she wait till he got back to school and she said that wouldn’t be fair to him because he should know and she drives all the way to Memphis and spends a couple hours with him Saturday night and then comes to our house to sleep. “I was telling her that I thought she loved Will and she said she had never experienced love and what attracted her to Will was that he was handsome and his daddy owned half of Memphis. “Then she said the most exceptional thing about Will was that he had such a beautiful heart. She was sad that night. We heard her tossing and turning in bed like she did when she was little. I still don’t understand why she didn’t wait till he got back to Knoxville. She’s like her mother: when she makes her mind up, there she goes, doesn’t matter if it makes practical sense or not.” There was a pause, perhaps time contemplating the new topic of conversation. ”So how do you like

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her apartment? She’s got it fixed up nice, wouldn’t you say?” “Yes, sir, super nice. She mentioned you’re helping with the rent.” “Nurses salaries aren’t what they should be. I didn’t want her to starve down there. I know what it’s like to have no money. Did she tell you about the apartment we lived in until she was four?” “I don’t believe so,” I reply, thinking that I’ll know ninety percent of their family history before I get off of the phone. “It was dark and drab. They tore them down a few years ago. I met my wife in medical school. There were only three females in the whole damned school the year we began. After Elizabeth was born, I got a loan at the bank for two hundred dollars just to pay the rent. Our parents couldn’t help us financially so we both had parttime jobs, we were struggling. “My wife and I were playing canasta on the kitchen table and Elizabeth was sitting in the high chair eating crackers. Betty puts her cards down on the table and says, ‘Jack we can’t go on like this. There can only be one doctor in this family.’ I ask her who it was going to be and she said ‘Let’s flip on it.’ She called heads and the dime bounces off the table onto the floor by her foot. She picked it up and said, ‘Tails. I guess you’ll be the doctor in the family.’ Then we started playing cards again as if nothing had happened and we’ve never talked about it to this day.”

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“Did you see the dime on the floor before she picked it up?” “Nope, couldn’t see through the table.” “Has it ever crossed your mind that it might have been heads?” I inquire, peering down the hall, noticing the shower had been turned off. “Nope,” Dr. Johnson asserted. ”She wanted to be the one, but she lost. She’s like Elizabeth: won’t lie or connive. She could have said heads but she didn’t, end of story.” “That was very poignant. Thanks for sharing it with me. I hope to meet you and your wife soon.” “We’d like that very much, Nick. You’ll understand the importance only if you have a daughter of your own someday. Elizabeth has mentioned you to us on a couple occasions.” “What sort of things did she say?” “Can’t tell you. She might come to Memphis and give me a tongue lashing. Let’s just say it’s positive.” “Your daughter seems to be about ready to go to the park.” I offer, seeing Elizabeth exit the bath, fresh and radiant. ”I suppose I need to see if there’s anything to be loaded in the car.” “Y’all have a wonderful day. Goodbye, Nick.” “Goodbye, Dr. Johnson.” “Hold on! Hold on! Betty wants to talk with you a minute. Are you there?” “Yes.”

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A heavy yet feminine woman’s voice chimed through the phone. ”Nick, how are you?” “Fine, Mrs. Johnson, and you?” “Good—and you can call me Betty. I just wanted to hear your voice and speak with you a minute or two. Elizabeth has spoken of you.” “Yes, your husband mentioned that, but he wouldn’t divulge anything more.” “Elizabeth likes you, Nick. We ask her questions, the kind all parents ask their children.” “Of course.” “She says you and I are similar in one respect. We say what we think, maybe a little too direct with people some time.” “Yes, I was scolded by Elizabeth a week or so ago at a restaurant for being critical of a waiter. She lets me know when I go overboard.” “I’m not criticizing,” Mrs. Johnson disclaimed. “I’m only saying when we talk to each other, neither will be perturbed by the other, if that makes any sense.” “Yes.” “I overheard most of what Jack told you. I love him but he talks too much, spending all that time talking about stuff that has nothing to do with the present. Elizabeth has known you for only a short time. We worry about her. We don’t want her to be hurt.” “I would never do anything to harm your daughter,” I respond, while guilt stabs my brain, realizing my big lie may cause Elizabeth hurt someday, in some way.

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“She said you dress nicely and sell intangibles or something, as I understand it, and live with a friend. I suspect you have other lady friends. Is that true?” “No, that’s not true,” knowing it is the only answer to give and feeling less of a human being every time I lie. “I care for her as much or more than whatever she may have said to you about her feelings for me. My father died when I was fifteen and was not wealthy like Will’s dad, but I have a good job and look to the future. “I say these things because there’s something in my mind that tells me you hoped she would have married Will and you couldn’t really understand why she turned down the wealth and a good man. You’ve not gotten past that and now anyone she cares about is suspect. Is that the way it is and am I being too direct, Betty?” “She said you were perceptive. I liked Will. He would have made a good husband and taken care of Elizabeth. She’s more fragile than she seems. Please remember that. Hope to see you soon, Nick, when we can get to Atlanta.” “Same here, Betty, goodbye.” I sit on the couch waiting for Elizabeth to dress, thinking of Betty’s questions and the concern for her only child, my guilt increasing with each word she spoke. I’ll tell her that I’m married now, before we drive to the park. She’ll tell me to leave and that will be all there is.

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“Did Mother beat you up pretty badly,” she says, with laughter, on her way to the kitchen. “She put things in perspective for me.” “I haven’t told you about my first date,” as she continues to gather things for the park. (sentence structure) “I was sixteen and he came to the house in his Father’s new Buick. Mother was on the phone with somebody upstairs and me and Daddy were standing in the front yard with him. “Daddy was admiring the car, telling him that his family had made a wise choice and all of a sudden mother comes out the door to make sure he knows that I must be home by ten o’clock. And then she notices he doesn’t have a watch, so she takes hers off and puts it on his arm. “It wasn’t the nice one Daddy bought for her when we were in Switzerland. It was a cheap thing she’d worn around the house for years. The clasp to lock the wrist chain in place was damaged so she had to manipulate it just right to put it on or take it off. It looked so silly on his arm with the short sleeve shirt he was wearing. He was so embarrassed when he would look down at that small woman’s watch. “When we drove off, I told him I’d try to undo the latch and he could put it back on before we returned home, but he was afraid we might break it and what Mother might do. When we were standing in line for movie tickets, he stuffed his hand down in his pants

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pocket as far as it would go to hide the watch from other kids in line who we knew. It was all so funny, Nick.” “Yes, it was. I love the way you describe things.” “Do I look nice? Will the ducks like me in this?” she asks, standing before me, mimicking a model’s pose. “You look wonderful. The ducks will be pleased,” I say, mesmerized for the millionth time. “No, don’t turn here. Go over to Briarcliff Road,” she says, while I’m heading east on Fourteenth Street and thinking that this is not the right time to tell her. Everything is too perfect today. “We’re not going to Piedmont Park?” “No, it’s a small park near the horse stables on Briarcliff Road. Do you know where I’m talking about?” “Yeah. I know where the stables are, but I’ve never noticed the park.” “It’s neat. I was stopped in traffic a few weeks ago and saw a duck through the foliage and went back on the weekend. She and her male companion were floating around in the pond until I fed them bread and the three of us became friends.” “How do you know their gender?” “Personality, silly.” “Excuse my ignorance, Elizabeth. I should’ve known that. Did you bring the whole-wheat bread?” “Of course, white bread isn’t good for any living creature, including you.”

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“Frankly, Elizabeth, I have no idea how I’ve lived to be thirty three years old abusing my body with all that good tastin’ white bread. I’ll be forever grateful for that information.” “Nick, stop with the words and pull over, well off the road.” “Where’s the walkway?” I ask, stepping from the car. “There isn’t one. Walk through there toward the big oak.” The thought of being transported from a noisy carnival midway to a peaceful utopia in some far part of the world comes to mind, as my eyes gaze on the small park and miniature lake, together occupying a space not much larger than a large house. “I see why you come here, a lovely place indeed, someone has spent lots of time manicuring. It probably belongs to the folks in the white house behind the pecan trees.” “I think so. The last time I was here an elderly man came out the front door and waved. After I returned his wave he went back inside. I suppose they don’t mind if people come here for a while.” “Elizabeth, I want a place of our own like this some day, where I can sit and watch your blond head turn to gray while you hold my wrinkled hand.” “I knew you’d say something like that before we came.” “Really?”

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A smile, passed over the shoulder, is her only reply. “Ducky, ducky,” she calls to the unseen twosome in between conversation with the less important me. They appear from the bushes slowly waddling directly toward her, heads cocked to one side and then the other, as if wanting confirmation that this was the one from before, with the brown bread and soothing voice. Their pace speeds up, after concluding she is the friend. They stand near, accepting snippets of bread tossed on the ground, never bickering over the other’s good fortune, taking their turn. “Elizabeth, what’s the most beautiful thing your eyes have ever seen?” I lounge on the blanket, enjoying life more than ever, feeling things I’ve never known. “Sometimes you tickle me, the way a thought pops in your head, like that. Ther’re so many beautiful things in the world. Let me think, maybe the Pieta.” “I’m not sure …” “A sculpture by Michelangelo, depicting the Madonna holding the body of an adult Christ on her knees like a sleeping infant. It’s the first thing you see entering the main basilica at the Vatican. You don’t have to be a believer to appreciate the significance—its beauty transcends beyond any religious stuff.” Unhurriedly, she talks of things and places she’s seen, transporting me there with words, sometimes stopping in mid-sentence, allowing time for a motherly response to a duck’s quack. In between her thoughts,

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I’m mostly silent and reflective, preferring to wait for her voice, rather than hearing my own. Her eyes look upward from the lap, darting from place to place, embracing the small lake for a few seconds, then moving to locate the ducks and finally settling my way with a smile. All the while, the hands and fingers are guiding knitting needles and brown thread into an unfinished edge of cloth, the intricate rhythm remaining the same, regardless of where the eyes wander. The larger duck nips at the edge of our blue blanket, wanting more bread or attention, maybe both. “I think we should go, don’t want to wear out our welcome with the people in the white house,” she reasons. “We’ve been here almost an hour, you know.” The traffic whizzes by as we approach the car, drivers attempting to get somewhere to do something of less worth than our experience in the park, I think, closing her door. “Let’s come back next week Elizabeth,” as I began to pull onto the roadway. “Stop the car!” she shouts. “The ducks are going to be killed!” She springs out, scampering to the rear to cut off the ducks’ path toward the busy street. “They wanted to say goodbye,” I call out, before she disappears into the bushes, a duck corralled in each arm, returning a few minutes later with soiled knee length white shorts and disheveled blouse.

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I pull onto the roadway with John Lennon’s ”Imagine” on the FM dial, telling the world what could be. “Let’s go to my apartment so I can change clothes before we do lunch,” after brushing red dirt from her blouse. “Nick, those darn ducks, they’re dumber than most barnyard animals, you know, but aren’t they precious?” Golden moments arrive sweetly, on soft feet, stealing another piece of my heart. She looks backward, but the ducks do not reappear, prompting a bright eyed smile. “I think they’ve settled in, don’t you?” “Yes, Elizabeth, I’m sure they’ve settled in.” In mid-afternoon, I ease the car into a space in front of her favorite ice cream shop to purchase the usual two scoops of strawberry in a cup and my one scoop of the same, mounted on a wafer cone. We drive to a place not far away, feet from the Chattahoochee River. It’s a place I’ve visited often over the last several years, by myself, to think a business problem through, but mostly to enjoy the solitude. The last time here, an older man and a young one were up-river, both wearing waders to keep the chill of the fast current from their legs. Before I departed, the older man pulled several trout from his bending fly rod and the younger man, none, as I recall.

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Today, there is only the two of us and an occasional couple, lounging on their inner tubes, floating south, disappearing as they round the bend, toward Atlanta. I put my hands around the scant waist, to sit her atop the table, settling her feet away from the nail head that has worked its way slightly from the weathered bench. She’s happy I’ve brought her here. I can tell, by the expression on her face, and body language. Fingers on the spoon remove small bits of ice cream at a time, allowing her words to flow, unrestrained. She describes the flowing river and moss covered trees lining the bank, in words more vivid than those of Thoreau, and then becomes quiet; rushing water, the only remaining sound. I think of her smile, during lunch, when the small child ran to her mother and out the corner of my eye, I saw the extra money she laid on the table for the hard luck waitress, who told us her story of woe. She walks nearby to deposit the ice cream container in a waste can and returns to sit near me, more close than before. My hand is pulled into her lap, held tight, as if it might escape. “Do you think about me, when we’re not together,” she says, with eyes fixed on the flowing river. “You know I do.”

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Chapter 4

Some eight weeks after offering my business card at the Rainbow, we’re together for some portion of almost every day. My wife rarely questions the absence, aware that client entertainment and traveling have been an integral part of my job for the past several years. Those pursuits have been replaced, for the most part, by something more immediately gratifying. Admittedly, the amount of time I devote to Elizabeth in mind and body is excessive, but it is the only place where contentment resides. I can only imagine the suffering experienced by those who are obsessed like myself but are without reciprocating love, unfathomable. A physician in the hospital cafeteria is occasionally summoned by the intercom to difficulties upstairs.

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“Elizabeth, is this Nick?” asks the nurse on her way to a table with her tray of noontime food. “No Libby, this is Eduardo. I use him only to satisfy my carnal desires,” she says, sitting across from me and sucking on a straw, relieving the container of its last inch of lemonade. Her symmetrical face and blond hair are accented by the whiteness of a perfectly fitted uniform, everything unsoiled, bright. “Yes, Libby, I’m Nick. Good to meet you. I’d like to think there is no Eduardo.” “There isn’t, just you.” “Libby, you can get that nice seat by the window if you hurry.” “Is she this playful when she’s upstairs?” “Not really, she’s all business. Bye, Nick, I think I’ve said too much already.” “Bye, Libby.” “You were sort of sharp with her, weren’t you?” “She talks too much sometimes,” she says, pushing away the emptied container. “When I get off at three, I’m going to scoot down to Rich’s. There’s a summer dress sale, want to meet me there?” “I could pick you up here at three.” “Do you work anymore?” “Let’s just say that you’re my priority at this point and time in my life, Elizabeth.” “What will I do with you?” “Anything you wish.” Her laughter makes me feel good, all over.

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“What do you think?” She’s barefoot, swirling in front of a three-sided full-length mirror in the third dress she’s modeled. “Looks splendid on you, same as the others.” Her slight smile disappears as a couple to my left catches her eye. A thick waisted woman of little feminine refinement stands in front of her husband, wearing the same dress as Elizabeth. The back zipper isn’t completely zipped with the price tag dangling as if it had been defeated. Elizabeth darts into the dressing room and emerges later with the dress of her choice. “That was a nice thing you did,” I comment, as we enter the elevator on the way to the car. “You’re perceptive too, aren’t you Nick?” “What does the word ‘too’ imply?” “That it’s not your only quality.” “You know, her husband didn’t notice you in the same dress as his old gal, but it was a nice gesture, you not wanting to be compared. Actually, if I was in his shoes with a mental picture of you and her in the same dress, I might push her out of the car on the way home.” “She wasn’t an old gal. The woman was my age. Sometimes your empathy gene just doesn’t kick in, Nick. Tomorrow, I’m bringing home a long needle syringe with empathy medicine to shoot you in the butt with, or maybe half in the butt and the other half in your heart. Would you prefer that or do you want to work on it?”

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“Work on it, if that’s okay with you. Is there anything else that you’ve found objectionable about me lately?” “Let’s talk about something else.” “No, I won’t let it go until you tell me. I can hear it in the tone of your voice. I’m thin skinned but I can take it.” “All right, Friday night in the grocery store,” she begins, as I negotiate the car from its fourth level parking space on the way to her car and then to the apartment. “You asked the middle age guy if you could look through the sunglasses for a moment that he was wearing. You put them on and walked around the aisle like a blind man before handing them back. I knew you were making fun of him for having them on in the store. He pushed his grocery cart a little farther and left it there and walked out.” “Well, he was wearing the shades at night in the store trying to be cool. When I did that it probably came into his pea brain how un-cool it was and he was embarrassed. I’ve done things like that since I was a kid. “When I was fifteen, standing by my father’s casket at the wake, these two women in their fifties, who I didn’t know, came up to me and the taller one said, ’You’re not as big a man as your father.’ Is that the kind of thing you say to a fifteen-year-old boy standing next to his dead father? So I pointed a finger toward my pecker and said, ’Down there I’m bigger.’ “The smaller woman fainted, fell to the floor like someone hit her on the head with a hammer. The one

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who said that to me looked down at her friend and then ran out the door, too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened. She left the woman laying there for others to tend to—real friend she was. I got immense satisfaction seeing her leave under those circumstances. It shows what sort of human being she was. “Elizabeth, it’s just the way I am. When fools or the pretentious present their wares, well, I like compromising them, I suppose. We’re all flawed my dear: some in a beautiful way, some not.” “Yes, Nick, we’re all flawed.” The apartment seems larger with each visit, as my eyes wander over the room, waiting for her to finish a phone call received from her mother. Furniture in the living room is positioned to use the floor space effectively as possible. The sofa and chairs are clothed in muted colors. A narrow table with slender legs above lion’s feet holds a photograph of her father with his right arm around his wife, contagious smiles covering their faces. They’re standing on a small town sidewalk in Switzerland. The base of a mountain rises from the edge of a peaceful lake in the background. The carpet is noticeably denser than in apartments that I had known. Accent pieces scattered throughout the room enhance the ambience, creating warmth and calm, a good place to be. Some have an acute sense of

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aesthetics from birth, enabling refinement to crowd out the mundane in their lives. Off the phone, she rests her head in my lap, legs stretching the full length of the sofa. “Did the furniture come from your parents’ house in Memphis?” I ask, as my fingers linger in soft blond hair. “Other than the bedroom, I purchased everything in Atlanta before moving in. Mother and I like the same kind of stuff, period furniture rather than contemporary. We shopped until I found the perfect pieces. I arranged to have everything delivered from four stores on the same day, and wouldn’t you know that the trucks arrive within thirty minutes of each other? Mother took over like the commander of a battleship until everything was in its place. Daddy had the bed shipped from my room in Memphis. It’s so comfy.” I listen intently as I have before, wanting more. “Napoleon and Josephine,” she says, looking toward the glowing television, one delightful finger pointed toward the couple in question. “Do you think they had a relationship as meaningful as ours? I mean caring for each other?” “Are you joking? Of course not, what other goofy thoughts are in that pretty head today?” Her laughter overflows the room, hiding and then returning even more sweetly. The eyes are alive with

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joy as a foot, flung backward over the sofa, returns to the seat after the laughter has settled. “You know, Elizabeth, fighting wars in central Europe, he would send horsemen to Paris everyday with letters he wrote to Josephine. Can you imagine how many riders and horses would be needed to relay a letter a day to Paris?” “No. Would you have done the same for me?” “Yes, if you had wanted to stay in Paris, but I would’ve tried to persuade you to come with me. I’d made sure you were safe with a thousand of my best soldiers guarding your castle.” “Why would you want me to go with you?” “Because.” “Because why, Nick?” “I miss you anytime you’re not with me.” “Oh, I see.” She beckoned for those special few words that would mean everything, freeing the mind from doubt, I think on the way home, not sure why I didn’t say more.

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Chapter 5

We arrive home from work at the same time, my wife slightly ahead, lowering the left garage door with the remote control before her car is completely inside. “Nick, check the mailbox before you come in. I’m expecting something for your mother’s birthday. I’ll start dinner.” “Hello there, my friend,” Marty says, stopping his car as I’m unloading the mail. “Hadn’t seen you lately. You’ve been traveling more, huh?” “Yeah, traveling more. How’s your wife?” “Good, good. As a matter of fact, she told me to make sure I tell you something. She said I never said thank you for your help.” “What help?” I ask, thumbing through the mail. “You and Kim the only people to invite us over when we moved here. We know some don’t like us because we talk different and from Beirut, and you introduced

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us to people. Thank you. And my wife laugh so much when I tell her about goat.” “Goat?” “You remember, I ask you if there is local customs I don’t know and you said, ‘You can’t kill goat in your front yard,’ ha, ha. See you, Nick. Come to the beverage store and I give you magnum of bubbly.” “Thanks, Marty.” I look up at the manicured lawn and shrubbery, remembering the untold hours I spent there, drenched in sweat. All that seems in vain now. “You seem stressed, Nick. Anything going on at work?” Kim asks. “No, there’s nothing going on at work. Why would you ask that?” “Forget it.” “I’m sorry, Kim, what time will you and Lynn get away from Lennox Mall Saturday?” “I don’t know. Why?” “Ben and I will probably be off the golf course around five. Thought we could all meet up at Friday’s for dinner. The four of us haven’t been out for awhile.” “Are you sure that’s what you want to do Saturday night?” “I don’t know where this is going, Kim. I’m taking a shower before dinner.” “Yeah, that’s exactly what you need, a good long cold shower.”

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We have discontinued indulging in sex, but now and then have friends to our house that was once a home. She doesn’t ask questions but will occasionally disguise a comment that suggests I’m suspected of infidelity. Others see a perceptible difference; those close to us question the nuance at times with a stare lasting slightly too long or a lull in conversation that shouldn’t have been, waiting for an explanation that never comes. Discontentment hangs in the air, waiting for a new day. We’ve passed the point of no return, those things good in our marriage have been silenced, as if they never were. Lots to do, I’m thinking, as I settle into my high back chair and begin examining the contents of an overflowing inbox on a Monday morning. “Get line two, Nick,” Cindy says from her desk just outside my office, in between bites of her second Krispy Kreme doughnut. “Arne here. Elizabeth called the apartment around eight this morning. I lied and told her you had just left for your office.” “Thanks, man.” “You need to do something to right the ship.” “I will, Arne.” “Another call holding, this one will be more fun,” Cindy says. “Nick, I tried you at your apartment earlier. Arne said you were on your way to the office. He’s so nice. I

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want us to do a movie tonight. It’s showing at the arty theater on Peachtree where we saw the French film with subtitles. We’ve got to go. We can do the six forty-five show and then get a bite.” “Sure, be at your place at around six. What’s the flick?” “Elvis Presley! Bye, I have to tend to my patients now.” I put the telephone back into its cradle, dumbfounded. There seems to be a resurgence of his cheesy sixties flicks playing now but she has never spoken of Elvis. Since eighteen, her favorite singer by some margin has been Charles Aznavour, the French cabaret singer she had seen perform at a nightclub in Paris while vacationing with her parents. “He sounds as if he had lived each word a thousand times,” she had said. “I didn’t know you were an Elvis fan, Elizabeth,” as we find seats in the half-full theatre a few minutes before show time. “I’m not really. I like a couple of his songs, though.” “Well then, why--” “Shh,” she interrupts. “We’ll see, maybe.” The house lights are lowered and the screen heralds the arrival of the feature film, 20th Century Fox presents Flaming Star, starring Elvis Presley, co-starring Steve Forrest, Barbara Eden and Dolores Del Rio, Directed by Don Siegel. As the film begins, the popcorn container in her left

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hand goes unnoticed as if it was another appendage of the body. The large Coke with two straws remains untouched, sitting between pants covered thighs. The sometimes head on my shoulder is absent, replaced by an erect body, anticipating the Elvis Man, I figure. As the film unfolds, the half-white, half-Kiowa Indian Elvis is the chief instigator of musical merriment in a shotgun house on the post-Civil War western Texas prairie. Then, less than five minutes into the movie, Barbara Eden enters from stage right, accompanied by a smile and single pigtail and I know immediately why we came to the Elvis movie. “Jesus, Elizabeth, the resemblance is astonishing, but you’re more attractive,” I say excitedly in a hushed voice. “You really think so, I mean the resemblance?” “Your mother couldn’t tell the difference. This flick was probably made in the sixties. She was around your age then. It’s uncanny.” “Mrs. Moore, the Admissions Manager, came to see it over the weekend and told me I had to come see her. She said we looked so much alike. Mother saw her on television a few years ago and mentioned the resemblance. The hair is the most obvious difference. I don’t think it’s real, do you?” “I don’t know, but picture her with your hair. It’s sort of spooky isn’t it? Maybe y’all have the same daddy. Was he a player when he was young?”

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“That’s not funny Nick, let’s not talk, we may be disturbing other people.” Tonight is the single instance of Elizabeth drawing attention to herself: the physical similarity with the actress on the screen. Her self-deprecating nature rarely allows praise, a quality I find admirable in a person so attractive. Compliments from others are usually deflected with a gesture or change of subject. Her way of diverting attention with ease is artful, almost as if it had been practiced. The movie, not as cheesy as expected, parades Elvis as the protagonist but not the usual target of a women’s affection. He rides into the hills gravely wounded to die in the last scene. The audience flows from their seats into the aisles as credits roll on the screen. Elizabeth presses her hand to my leg as I begin to rise from the seat. “Let’s not go yet” she says in a serious but soft tone. “I have something important to tell you.” “Yes?” “I’ve been thinking about this for the past week. I know it’s true.” “What, dear?” “I’m falling in love with you, Nick—if you’re not with me, its okay.”

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Rarely in my life have I not been able to spontaneously respond to another’s words, but now my brain temporarily recoils to an irretrievable place, stunned, unable to process the most important piece of information it would ever hear. I regain my senses and look her way, as she’s entering the aisle, maneuvering around the few remaining people toward the exit. I follow, unable to catch up, hindered by the small crowded lobby. “Elizabeth!” I cry out, running toward her in the parking lot but receiving no answer. I reach her to grasp an arm as she opens the car door. Popcorn, from the box she holds in her other hand, spills onto the asphalt. “Elizabeth, I love you. My mind was spellbound when you said that in the theatre. Forgive me for ruining the moment. I’ll never again do anything so stupid. I can’t live without you, Elizabeth.” “Are you sure?” “If you leave me, I’ll run into that traffic on Peachtree and kill myself.” She raises the popcorn container over my head and slowly empties it with gleeful satisfaction. For the most part, the contents lay happily on my head and shoulders. “You’re not so handsome, now. You look like a snow cone.” “I’m your snow cone, Elizabeth.” “Yes you are. Hold me.” I embrace her, in a sea of popcorn. Our laughter expels the tension, leaving anything imperfect in its

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wake, transforming sweet confusion into a beautiful June night. The laughter subsides, replaced by a calm, blissful look spread over her face. “Should have said we loved each other the night we met.” “If I remember correctly, you wouldn’t speak to me that night.” “I suppose.” We hold each other awhile, until the last of the movie-goers pull their cars onto Peachtree, our softly spoken thoughts the only remaining sound. Her eyes are filled with comforting warmth, like a mother has for a child. I realize my heart has drifted beyond physical attraction to a place of more substance, where enduring love resides. “Glad I took the waiter’s suggestion, the Feta cheese thing was good,” she says, thinking of the all night diner that serves tasty hamburgers and delightful Greek dishes and everything in-between. “Nick, why did you order the same entrée? We usually order different stuff so we can sample,” she wants to know, her left hand of little weight resting, palm up, on my right leg as we drive toward the apartment. “I wanted to know what your taste buds were feeling.” “You say things sometimes that are so crazy. Were you dropped on your head as a little boy?” She laughs,

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leaning her head against the passenger window. “I like the way your hand looks, holding the stirring wheel, especially at night. Turn off the air conditioner and roll down the windows. I want to feel the night air in my hair.” “My wondrous Elizabeth, thoughts of taste buds and your fetish with my hand are heart-warming.” “I don’t have a fetish with your hand and roll the windows back up, I want to snuggle.” The atmosphere is mellower, more provocative than times before in the second floor apartment that I have come to cherish. Aznavour’s voice, conveying past experiences of love, with occasional staccato phrasing, flows from the small Bose speakers. We assume our favorite seating position on the plaid quilt laid across the floor, our backs supported by the front of the sofa. The Chardonnay is within easy reach, poured into wide bottom glasses to lessen the possibility of spillage on the unblemished carpet. Sweet aroma of cannabis is pulled from the room by the air conditioner in thin floating strands, made visible here and there by hall lighting. “You tickled me tonight with that ‘run out in the street and kill myself’ thing you did in the parking lot. Nick, you’re so... I don’t know... melodramatic sometimes. I can’t imagine you dead, ever.”

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“Not to get morbid, my sweets, but I can imagine. Got to put something in my will to make sure it happens when I croak. I’m going to be incinerated in a big oven. The operator will push me in feet first and then maybe light a cigarette or call his wife while I’m being reduced to ashes. Then the drudge will shovel most of the cooled ashes into a small, brown box and at the end of his shift he’ll sweep up what remains on the floor and deposit it in a garbage bag, along with the other customers of the day. I love this wine.” “Nick, don’t joke of death again. Promise me you won’t” “Okay, but I’ll need the soothing nectar of your lips to seal my promise.” As she released me from her soft lips, I wonder as I had at times before if she felt the same fireworks exploding in her mind, like my own. I’m fairly sure of the answer. “Nick, what was that phrase you used to describe a red Ferrari we saw a few days ago on Peachtree?” “Super fine?” “Yep, flaming red and super fine.“ She had changed into pink pajamas soon after we arrived, the ones she wore the night I fell asleep on the sofa, unbeknownst to her, until the following morning. “I prefer to be comfortable,” she mentioned earlier. “Me too,” letting her know the reason my white dress shirt hangs partly outside of wrinkled pants under the unbuttoned collar and loosen tie.

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“Nick, it’s your life. I’m not telling you what to do, but when you smoke that stuff you’re a different person.” “Yeah, I smile more and raid the refrigerator more often.” “Be serious, please. It can lead to more dangerous drugs.” “Have your way, Elizabeth, if it’s important to you, I won’t allow this vile, enjoyable substance to enter my lungs again, ever.” “Are you just talking?” “No, take the bag on the kitchen counter and dump it wherever you want.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, everyday is like Sunday when I’m with you, woman. I’m so into you I can’t think of anything else. There’s a few things about me that I need to change, it’s in your eyes sometimes for a second or two. I’m not going to allow anything to screw-up what we have, especially something as stupid as a little weed. I stumbled out of a hole in the ground and landed on your wings. I’m crazy about you.” “Come to bed,” she says, after slightly lowering the stereo’s volume and extending her hand. “I don’t understand.” “I want to be with you when I open my eyes in the morning. I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve never been in love before.”

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“You’d know what that word means, only if you were me, Elizabeth.” I gaze up at the canopy of the four-poster bed, enveloped in swirling colors of mauve and cream, silken like. The bathroom light is flicked off, a hall light remaining. She stands in the doorway long enough to offer the contour of her unpajamaed body. “You’re beautiful.” “Don’t talk, Nick.” The room is bathed in soft light from the hallway; subtle white noise from the air conditioner provides a sense of tranquility. She sits on the opposite side of the bed, feet on floor. I study the sleek back until she turns her head toward the dresser to deliberately reveal the refined profile that has always mesmerized me. The legs are slowly drawn onto the sheets, positioning her body near, luminous eyes examining mine. All things in my head other than her vanish, replaced by a tender kiss and then another, each feeding from the one before. The senses seem elevated, owing to the charming cannabis and the touch of her body. My mouth explores her smooth neck under the familiar jasmine scented hair and the almost translucent breasts that retain their perfect shape in any position.

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She reclines slowly on her back, legs spread this way and that, a nymph in a bed of mauve, with a want of something not yet experienced, eyes closed, head turned toward the open door. My hands transmit each arch and valley of her body to my intoxicated mind. The delicate arms flail femininely from place to place on pillows and sheets, searching for a place to be, not really caring. Her constricted carnal passage intensifies my desire, reshaping the senses, lusting for everything— her essence. The gentleness I provide isn’t enough to prevent a millisecond of discomfort expressed in blue-green eyes. Minutes later, the graceful hands clutch my arms, then hips, finally resting on both sides of my moist, satisfied face. She shouts, ”My God” toward the silken canopy and everything is relaxed. “Elizabeth, my sweetness, are you okay?” “I’m more than that. I love you and that thing too,” she says, one leg flung over me, playfully humping my upper leg, her fingers twisting hair on top of my head into small wet knots. “Nick, how much time did you spend making love to me?” “Twenty minutes or so, I suppose.” “Let’s do it again, now.” “No, Elizabeth, I’m spent. I did all the work.” “I’m joking, silly. What was it like for you?” “Beautiful.” “How many times have you done something like this?”

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“That was before love came to town, talking about it demeans what you and I have.” “Never be another love for you or me, will there, Nick?” “No, baby, others would be like pablum.” “I came close to having sex with Buster in college. I never cared for basketball much, but the coach told him that he would get to play some that night and I went. I knew he’d do good when given a chance. Every time he made a basket or did something good, he’d look up in the seats, to see if I was cheering. He wanted my approval so badly. “We were in his room later that night, and this terrible thought came over me that it would be like having intercourse with a brother. I felt so sorry for both of us. That’s the moment I knew we should go our separate ways. Do you think that’s a strange story?” “No, all kinds of stuff happens in a person’s life. I’m happy you don’t think of me that way. I don’t think I’d want to go on if you did.” “The morning after we met, I had forgotten where I’d put your business card the night before. I found it on the kitchen counter, soaked with water. Guess what I did?” “Put it in the oven.” “I set my iron on low and scooted it on top till it was dry.” “That’s sweet..”

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“I wanted to have sex the first time our eyes met. That black suit looked a little sinister. I thought what it would be like when I got to the apartment. Did you think about me that way?” “Not exactly, I wanted to hold you, right there in the restaurant, and be with you the rest of my life. That’s what I was thinking.” “I’m sorry I said that about my sexual feelings. I sound cheap, don’t I?” You don’t sound cheap, Elizabeth. To me, you’ll always sound like the sweetest voice in a midnight choir.

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Chapter 6

For the most part, Arne’s apartment has always been a reflection of himself, everything in its right place and clean. The furniture ”has to have character,” he would say after finding another piece in a flea market at the right price and cleaning it with a disinfectant, twice. The living room is sparse of adornments other than signed photographs from a few big league sports players and a velvet picture depicting Jesus that his mother made him promise on her deathbed to always keep on a wall. Arne especially liked that the front door was on street level near where he parked so that engaging in trivial conversation with those he considered uninteresting was mostly unnecessary. “Arne, this is Elizabeth,” I tell him after he opens the door of his two bedroom bachelor pad.

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“Good to meet you, Elizabeth. Nick talks of you as the Madonna and I see why. Please come in. Can I get you a drink?” “A half glass of wine would be nice, Arne. He sees things foolishly at times. Why is the apartment so neat? Aren’t y’all suppose to have things thrown around like in a frat house?” “Nick does that, and I clean up,” he says, perpetrating the lie. “Most Greeks, whether they’re lawyers or Indian Chiefs that I’ve met, are a little rough around the edges, but I think Nick takes the cake. Sit down, please, Elizabeth.” “Yes,” she says, settling into the living room couch. “My father took me on a day trip to a book signing at this cute store in Oxford, Mississippi on my sixteenth birthday. There was this old Greek clerk, with a bushy mustache, handling books for the author to sign. He had his name tag thing upside down on his shirt, I think purposely, and under it was this big round button that said, ‘Greeks are happy to have brought you your world.’ “He hardly took his eyes off me when we were in line. My father picked up on it and after having the book signed he told the old man in a stern way that I was only sixteen. Unapologetically, he looked at my father and said, ‘A tender age, indeed.’ My father was still mad about that when we got back to Memphis and called the bookstore to complain. He was told that the old Greek was the owner. My father felt defeated. I just laughed about it all.”

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“Has your father met Nick?” “No, but Daddy knows of him, he asked me if Nick wears any buttons with sayings inscribed on them.” “You’re something else.” “What do you mean?” “The whole package, so to speak. When you become tired of Nick, please don’t hesitate to call me.” “That’s not going to happen, Arne.” “I was just joking, really.” “Elizabeth!” smiles Ophelia, entering form the kitchen. “Good to meet you. Dinner is about ready. Hope you like pasta because it’s about the only thing I know how to do. I rarely cook at my apartment but Arne wanted me to cook for y’all. He loves anything Italian. I’ve known Arne only a couple months but I know he’d eat pizza for breakfast if he could find a joint that opened early enough. Everybody grab a plate.” “Thanks for doing all this. Nick and I love pasta things.” “Don’t speak so fast—better try it first.” “Shut up, Arne, or I’ll make you clean the pots and pans by yourself. Y’all sit anywhere except this chair, please, it has a wobbly arm. Arne looks like a drunk sometimes when he’s eating in it, rocking back and forth. Are you going to fix that thing or not, Arne?” “Not, it’s got character.” “Arne, how did you and Nick meet? He‘s never mentioned that,” Elizabeth inquires.

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“I’ll let him describe it, he’s better at telling stories. I’m just a sports writer.” “Yeah, well, the night we met wasn’t that pleasant. A client and I were standing at that huge bar at Harrison’s waiting on a table. Gees, lots of things happen to me waiting for tables. Don’t know if you knew, Ophelia, that’s how I met Elizabeth.” “Yes, I know all about that. Arne told me lots about you.” “Well, I’m telling the client a lawyer joke and Arne comes crashing in between us to get the attention of the barkeep for another drink. I had to protect my territory so I poked my finger into his side and told him if he was going to continue acting like a redneck he ought to find a beer joint on the Southside. “Arne didn’t seem to like that and he takes a punch at me, felt sort of like a flea hittin’ a windshield. I get him in a headlock and there’s fifty bartenders jumping over the bar and ushering us to the door. My client followed us outside. It was crazy. “The cop working the front door says, ‘Boys, you got two choices: you can get in the back seat of that nice car over there with the screen between the front and back seats and we’ll all take a ride downtown, or you can get in your own cars and one of you go north on Peachtree and the other south.’ “We got in our cars. Then as fate would have it, maybe six months later, a few of us from the office are in the same bar celebrating someone’s birthday and I get a tap

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on the shoulder and there stands Arne. I told him when I finished my beer I’d meet him outside and whip his ass and he tells me he just wanted to apologize for the way he acted that night and then he bought a round of drinks for everyone in our group. Long story, but we became friends and later I introduced him to Ben.” “You’ve stopped goin’ to Brave’s games with Ben,” Arne says after taking a bite of the pasta. “I don’t know, I’m not a great spectator, I suppose.” Ophelia gives me a pointed look. “You like to ‘participate,’ don’t you Nick? Can I get you anything or do you have everything you want tonight?” “Yeah, Ophelia, I suppose I like to participate. And yes, I have everything I need, thanks. Y’all want to go with us tomorrow night to see “Midnight Cowboy” at Perimeter?” “Saw it when it came out five or six years ago. What’s so special about an old movie?” asks Arne. “The whole damn thing. Ratso Rizzo is the best thing Hoffman has ever done and Voight plays that simple-minded cowboy like it was written for him. And the cameras lingering on those seedy shots of Manhattan, then cutting away at just the right moment, something about that was beautiful. But the end of the movie is what everybody remembers, the scene when Rizzo dies in the back of the Greyhound bus just before they make it to Miami Beach. Hell, it’s great cinema, a character study of shattered dreams. That’s what it is.”

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“I’ve never seen it. Arne, you want to go?” Arne dismisses the notion, seeming to wash it down with a sip of bourbon. “Don’t think so. Nick, I ran into someone I know the other day at the supermarket. She’s from a small town in Alabama, like you. Her name is Kim.” The verbal spear struck home. “Lucky girl, no better place to grow up, if it was a place like my town. I don’t feel so hot right now. I’m going outside to catch a little fresh air.” “Could be Ophelia’s pasta.” “Come with me Arne. There’s something I want to show you in the car.” “Baby, how can I help you?” Elizabeth asks. “I’ll be okay in a minute.” The first thought that occurs as I walk outside is to put him on the ground with a sucker punch to the jaw, no words spoken. “So what do you have out here?” he says as we approach the car. “Just wanted for you and me to be out of earshot from Elizabeth so you could explain the reasoning behind that snide remark. Have you lost your friggin’ mind? What the hell’s wrong with you?” “I don’t know. I’ve had a few drinks. Maybe I’m jealous, sitting there comparing Ophelia to Elizabeth, sort of like a lump of coal to a diamond, you know.”

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“What’s that got to do with anything? I have no idea where you’re coming from, Arne. You invited us over and now you’re acting like an ass.” “I don’t like what you’re doing, maybe that’s the bottom line.” “Arne, we’re going back inside now and if you say anything crazy, I’m going to come back over here tomorrow and beat some of that cynical shit out of you with my fists. I thought you were my friend but I’m beginning to think differently now, things are changing with you and me. Can I count on you to not do anything stupid until I tell her the truth?” “Yeah, sure.” “Hon, why don’t you lay on the sofa while we finish with the dishes?” Elizabeth says from the kitchen. “Let’s go to your place, baby, I think I’d feel better there, lots better.” “Okay.” The women engage in a slight hug, each telling the other that we should get together soon, not realizing the full import of the evening. Arne and I stand apart, unwilling to shake hands or exchange salutations, knowing that our friendship is no more. Ambivalent thoughts run through my mind as Elizabeth and I drive away. She’s purposely quite, as if she knows something is wrong, but not sure.

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I think of Arne and the laughter we’ve shared in the past, mostly at our own expense. We were both athletic, unlike Ben, and spent Sunday afternoons in the spring, shagging baseballs in the outfield and telling each other how good we were. There was something alike about us, a need to be boys again, escaping to a simpler place and time, where responsibilities and careers would be temporarily forgotten. But that’s all gone now, never to return. I leave feeling ostracized, like a freak on the midway, to be frowned upon before they retreat to their own less-than-perfect lives with hollow satisfaction.

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Chapter 7

“Ben, when I called today asking you to meet me here... well, the reason was I thought we ought to talk about stuff ... you know, a lot has happened.” “Yeah, it was out there in the lobby that you met her. It hadn’t been the same since.” “What do you mean?” “Well hell, the three of us don’t get together anymore. Arne and I came down a couple of weeks ago but it wasn’t the same. Don’t get the big head, it’s not like you were leading the parade or anything. It’s just that the three of us jelled, you know.” “Arne invited Elizabeth and me to his place a few days back. It wasn’t a fun time. He mentioned Kim, sort of like a jab at me without letting Elizabeth know what he was talking about. That pissed me off.” “Nick, he’s got this thing. He talked about it the last time we were here. His father left his mother when he

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was a kid and ran off to some other state with a woman he worked with and didn’t halfway pay child support. I think he’s transferring those old resentments to you.” “That’s not fair, comparing me like that.” “I’m just telling you what I think, brother.” “So what about you, Ben, where are you and me?” “Think back when I was on the job only a few weeks and ran in to that trouble. You remember, don’t you?” “Sure.” “Well the fact is, I screwed up the export papers and the Mexicans were holding up that piece of machinery at the border and the plant was shut down till it got there, serious shit. You can recall that me and my boss and you had the emergency meeting in the conference room that morning. Well, the night before, I told Anne I might loose my job the next day and she cried. We didn’t have a bunch of money then and I couldn’t afford to loose it. “When he asked you to describe exactly what happened, you started talking your world class bullshit. Then you said ‘Mr. Barton, I’m pleased to report the shipment has been released by the authorities and will be delivered to the plant before noon,’ and he smiled, shook your hand and left the room.” “So, what’s your point?” “Let me tell you, Nick, what the friggin’ point is. All you had to say was ‘dumb ass screwed up the paperwork and this is what I’ve done to correct the problem.’ It would have made you look good but you didn’t do

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it. When I came out of that conference room I had two thoughts: I still had my job and a friend for life if you wanted it that way.” “You never mentioned that stuff before.” “No reason to, you knew how it came down. The other thing, I’ve been thinking about you and Elizabeth, okay? Maybe I’d feel different if you were a skirt chaser before you met her. I know you didn’t do that. What I’m saying is I know how much you care about her and if she makes you that damn happy, how can it be so wrong? You just need to get off the fence. You need to choose which way to go.” “I’d get a divorce tomorrow and marry her if that would do it, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. It’s difficult to explain, you’d have to know her like I do to get the full impact of what she’s about.” “What do you mean?” “I know she’ll leave me if the truth is revealed that I was married when we were together. I’ve thought of all sorts of stuff. I could say, ‘Elizabeth, I lied to you about not being married. I’m sorry, please marry me and if you will I’ll never in my lifetime tell another lie,’ or a million variations of that. “She wouldn’t say anything. She’d just turn around and leave and that would kill me. I’m waiting for something to save me like I saved you in that meeting. I’m so consumed with her. I don’t care about anything else, really. It’s like walking on egg shells everyday.”

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“You’re consumed with the prospect of losing Elizabeth but you’ve got to tell her. There’s no pie-in-the-sky something that’s going to save your ass. Being so crazy about her has clouded your thinkin’ man. Let’s say she walks. You can send her a dozen roses every day or hire one of those airplanes that pulls the banner behind it and you can keep puttin’ the old Nick charm on her till she breaks. If you don’t tell her, what do you think is going to happen? She’ll find out and leave you for sure. Arne said she thinks you’re living with him and now since y’all aren’t tight anymore, hell, can you imagine what he might say if she calls there looking for you when he’s drinking? “That’s the other thing, man, I remember when we started coming here he would have one or two beers but when we ate here the last time, he was knocking down Jack Blacks one after the other. “You’re skating on ice about as thin as Saran Wrap. You need to go off by yourself and think about what I’m telling you. I love you, man, and I don’t want you to get hurt, but you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to tell her.” “Ben, you ever been in a place where you didn’t know what to do or where to turn? This hasn’t got to do anything with that, but last night I dreamed that I set fire to that old chemical warehouse on Fulton Industrial. It was like I couldn’t help myself, and I knew getting burned was the way it would probably end, but I went and did it, anyway. I was like an arsonist sicko, wanting to see the flames, or feel the rush. I’ve had weird

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dreams before, but that one takes the cake, I woke up in a sweat.” “How did it end?” “I dunno, maybe I don’t want to remember.”

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Chapter 8

“I’ve been unable to contact Elizabeth for a couple days, Libby. Is she at work?” “No, Nick, she’s not here.” “Why?” There is a hesitation before she continues, and then barely audible over the phone, “I don’t know.” “You’re not a good liar, Libby. Where is she?” “She’s sick.” “Where?” “I can’t tell you.” “That’s crazy, what’s going on?” “She said I wasn’t to tell anyone, especially you.” “I can’t stand this any longer Libby. You know we’re nuts about each other. Tell me where she is or I’ll come down to the nurse’s station and make a fool of myself. I’m in pain, please relieve me.” “She’s at a facility on the Northside.”

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“What’s wrong with her?” “Here’s the doctor’s number. See what he has to say.” Minutes seemed hours. “Thanks for returning my call so promptly, Dr. Reston. As I explained to your assistant, I’m deeply concerned about Elizabeth. There seems to be secrecy surrounding all this. Why has she been hospitalized?” “We’re helping her, Mr. Andreious. She’s mostly depleted and needs rest. She’ll be fine in time.” “Your words mean little to me, sir. I need two pieces of information, her diagnosed condition and where she is. Nothing in life means anything to me right now other than that. If you refuse me, I’ll do something irrational. I appreciate the patient-physician privilege, but this isn’t the time for that. I have a mad man in my head right now, please understand.” “Go to the Northside Hospital auxiliary annex. I’ll leave word that you can spend ten minutes with her, but no more.” From the entrance to the receptionist desk on to the room seems benign compared to her place of work, everything settled, no one rushing to help. The floors are covered with carpet, the walls with reproductions

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of the masters. A place to revive the mind, not the body, I conclude. The door to the room is open. She lies in bed, eyes closed. Her body is limp, without purpose. My heart cries but my eyes remain strong. “Elizabeth, it’s me, are you awake?” “Yes, just resting. Dr. Reston said you were coming. He mentioned it would be best for everyone. How are you?” “Fine, but I became so concerned when I couldn’t reach you. Libby wouldn’t tell me anything and the doctor finally relented enough to let me come by for a short visit. Now that I’ve found you, can I hold you for a moment? Would that be okay?” “Of course, silly. Why would you even ask something like that?” “You look so fragile. I don’t want to hurt you.” “Come here, Nick. Let’s cuddle.” I sit on the white sheets, my feeling of aloneness sweetly vanishing as I feel her presence. “Remember, Elizabeth, the first night we were at your place watching television? Your back was resting on my chest like now and we stayed that way a long time. I didn’t say anything but I was thinking we had the same voltage running through our bodies. I didn’t want to move, to lose the magic. It had nothing to do with sex, something more.” “I don’t remember it exactly like that. At times, your hands were in places they shouldn’t have been before I

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removed them. I was aroused that night more than you knew.” “Do you still like my touch, Elizabeth?” “Yes, and always will. Why did you ask that?” “I don’t know. Just needed to know that you love me. All sorts of things rushed through my mind when I couldn’t get you at home or the hospital. When you get out of this place, we’ll go to the mountains or beach and you can rest and I’ll take care of you. Maybe we should go now. They can’t hold you here. I only have ten minutes with you. It’s difficult to control my emotions. You may see tears in my eyes in a minute.” “There’s no need for that. I’ll be out in a few days and everything will be like before.” “Why are you here, is it something I’ve done?” “No, of course not. I should have called but didn’t want you to see me like this.” “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it now.” “Well, yes, it’s okay if we do. This is where people with temporary emotional problems come. Dr. Samuel suggested it. I was disturbed by something that happened. “There was this old man who sits on the bench at the bus stop in front of my apartment complex. I’ve seen him there I don’t know how many times, dressed on most days in a shirt and tie when I come home from work and sometimes on the weekends. He never boards a bus and when no one is there other than him the buses don’t stop.

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“When I pulled into the apartments Wednesday he was lying on the sidewalk in front of the bench. A policeman had parked his car on the street with the lights flashing and was bent over him, trying to help. I ran over and could tell he was having a heart attack but was unable to bring him back. He thought the policeman was his son and asked him if he was still married and then he died. “It just troubled me. It’s different when people die at the hospital. I don’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t function at work the next day and I called Dr. Sam and now I’m here.” “Mr. Andreious, your time’s up,” the gray-haired nurse says with a sullen expression, standing in the open doorway. “Is this too much for you to deal with, Nick?” “No, Elizabeth. Don’t have those kinds of thoughts in your pretty head, ever. Like you said, when you get out of here, it’ll be like it was before.” “Hold me. You still care for me, don’t you?” “More than ever.” Pulling into a space near the entrance to my office, I remember the day Charlie introduced me to the building that does not pander to the aesthetics of any kind. The regional sales office, occupying only a couple thousand square feet is dressed in carpet, contrasting with the thick concrete floor that covers more than

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an acre of the interior. Hundreds of cargo trailers sit against open doors and on the sprawling yard, waiting their turn to be filled and dispatched to distant places. My business suits and silk ties have always seemed out of place, though everyone knows they’re an essential part of the job when I’m away from the building with customers. “Nick, Mr. Forman called to find out why you didn’t keep the lunch appointment with him today,” my assistant, Cindy, says as I enter the sales office just off the reception area of the building. “I forgot to call him. Something of a rather serious nature came up that I had to take care of.” “We need to talk, Nick, behind closed doors.” “Are you going to ask for another raise, Cindy? Come on in.” “No. It’s about what’s going on with you.” “Like what?” “Like the affair you’re having with Elizabeth and other things.” “Why would you think that’s true?” “Women are intuitive about stuff like that.” “Is it that intuitiveness that helps you attract husbands who have a fondness for the bottle and wondering where they’re going to find their next job?” “There’s no need to be rude, Nick. You’ve changed in the last couple months.”

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“Who else here knows about this alleged affair, Cindy? Have you discussed your thoughts with the other ladies in the office?” “Of course not, and I answer the phone almost always when she calls. No one else knows.” “So what did you want to talk about?” “I’ve just finished the spreadsheet on last month’s revenue and there’re several accounts down substantially from the same period last year.” “The economy isn’t that hot, Cindy.” “You know that’s not all there is to it.” “What else?” “Your wife came by yesterday with some cookies for the office. She knows something is going on. She’s sly. I think she figured that I’m not her competition. She introduced herself to the others and was looking in their eyes to see if she could detect anything.” “My head is filling up. Anything else?” “Yeah, there’s Charlie. He loves you like a son, but he’s a sharp old dude and he’s going to put things together at some point. Remember your opening statement at the regional meeting in January: you told all the sales people that if they don’t work harder and smarter than the competition we’ll get eaten up and spit out. I’m just trying to help you, Nick, you helped me when I needed a job. I’m telling you, things are getting out of whack. You need to think about it. That’s all I want to say. Don’t forget to call Mr. Forman about the missed lunch appointment.”

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“Cindy.” “What?” “I apologize for that uncalled for remark I made. I appreciate all the good work you do. I’m just going through something important right now. Things will be like the old days real soon.” “I hope that’s true. One last thing, our no-smiles terminal manager, Andre, asked me today where you were. I know he’s not your boss. Just thought I’d tell you.” “Cindy, has Andre ever mentioned to you where he was born?” “No.” “Well, he was born in Hamburg, Germany. Have you ever heard of a German with a friggin name like Andre?” “I don’t know about things like that.” “Nor should you and don’t worry about anything.” “Dr. Samuel, good afternoon. This is Nick Andreious. I accompanied Elizabeth to your retirement reception. How are you?” “For an old guy, very well, but since I’ve retired my wife says I’m driving her nuts,” the familiar voice said over the phone. “She told me this morning I ought to get a paper route. Yes Nick, I remember you well and Elizabeth speaks of you.”

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“She’s the reason for my call. Could we talk a few minutes?” “Of course.” “Dr. Reston allowed me a short visit with her today and I’m very concerned. She spoke of the man dying near the apartment and I understand that triggered something in her mind. She looked so fragile lying in bed, I’m worried sick. I’d appreciate anything you could share with me about her condition.” “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. These episodes don’t happen often, rarely, actually. When she was a teenager there was an incident concerning a little boy whose mother was a prostitute. She came home very upset. I don’t remember all the details but her father took her to a friend of his, a psychiatrist, and she was diagnosed as having a transcending consciousness. In laymen’s speak I would say it’s a small prick in the mental makeup of emotions. In her case it’s empathy, mostly. “When you or I see or hear about something terrible happening to someone, we feel bad about it, to a degree relative to how close we are to the person, that’s the normal human reaction. “At times, Elizabeth has a more intense level of emotion than we would experience. It latches on subconsciously and is very draining. She and you could be standing on a street looking at people jumping to their death from a burning building and she could possibly have the same emotion as you. But then something like the old man dying on the sidewalk, which for most

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would be a less traumatic event, can send Elizabeth into a tailspin. “That’s about as well as I can explain it. The irony is that she works as a nurse surrounded by human misery and as far as I know has never had a problem with her emotions there. It’s unexplainable you know. Heck, psychiatrists aren’t sure. It’s like how the world began and what was there before that. Some things we just don’t know. “Son, Elizabeth came to this earth with looks and intelligence and best of all, a good heart. That small prick in the emotional makeup, as I described it, is nothing to be concerned with. She’ll be back to her regular self soon and life will go on as usual.” There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if Dr. Samuel was carefully considering his next words. “I was partly responsible for a bad decision concerning Elizabeth, and I regret it to this day. She wanted to be a physician like her father, Jack. Her mother wanted that too, but Jack and I decided that all the blood and guts, if you will, would be too much for her. “She went off to college and after the sophomore year enrolled in nursing school there in Memphis without telling her parents. I was at their house the night she told them. She waited till Jack had his two nightly bourbons. Elizabeth could play her daddy like a fiddle, you know. “When she told him, he wasn’t having any of it and she went into a story about the manager at the Dairy

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Queen in a run down section of Memphis who said she could come to work there anytime she wanted and that the salary would pay the way through nursing school. “She told Jack that after school she would go directly to work and after leaving at eleven at night would come home to study for the next day’s classes. Jack told her that she was never to go anywhere near that damn Dairy Queen and that he would pay for the school. “Her mother and I began laughing because we knew she had made up the whole thing. Jack was sitting there, staring at us, trying to figure it all out. “She would have made a fine physician. Jack and I made a big mistake but I take some solace in the fact that she enjoys being a nurse and she’s a good one.” “Dr. Sam, many thanks. Your words relieved some of my anxiety. And regarding the story about the Dairy Queen, I could picture Elizabeth saying that to her father as you were talking. Lastly, is there anything in particular I should do to help her through these episodes when they occur?” “You’re in love with her, aren’t you son?” “As much as one can love another.” “I think you’ll always do the right thing. Just be yourself.” “Maybe the two of us could visit you and Anne sometime.” “We would like that very much.”

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Chapter 9

Decision making, my strong suit in the business world, has abandoned me now concerning Elizabeth. I continue to wallow in my quandary. Her first few words on the telephone at the beginning, asking if I was married and my untruthful response, torment me more each day. After the lie escaped my lips, I wanted to grab it back like a baseball pitcher letting go of a hanging curve, wishing he hadn’t, sure that something bad is going to happen. But now, knowing her like I do, if I hadn’t lied, she would’ve said goodbye or maybe nothing at all before returning the telephone to its cradle. I reside in a perilous place, afraid of both losing and hurting her with the truth. She has distaste for those who lie or show unfairness toward others and there’s empathy in her heart for the weak, but she gives no quarter to the strong, those like me.

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Every day I write words and phrases, things I’ll say at the right moment to appease her while I tell the truth, hoping she won’t leave, a thought unimaginably painful. A hurried divorce to marry seems a short-term solution, but my deceit would be revealed by a contemptuous ex-wife. She would ensure Elizabeth knew I was married during the days and nights we were together. I procrastinate, waiting for the right time to tell the truth. I think she will forgive my lies, as some would, to be with the one they love, but that thought is released when I remember the prized virginity that was forfeited to one unworthy. There will be no sympathy for the devil. “She’s on line two,” says Cindy. “Who?” “Nick, please don’t ask that.” “Hello, is that you?” “I’m out, I feel good,” said the excited voice. “I’m with Dr. Sam and Anne. They picked me up yesterday and we went out to eat last night and I slept here. I feel so rested. They’re going to take me to my apartment in a little while. “We went to Lennox Square last night and I bought this neat two-piece swimsuit that I’ll model for you. Maybe we could go somewhere for a few days, like you mentioned. I don’t have to return to work until

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next week. I talked to Mother and Daddy this morning; they’re leaving for Paris for a week. I’ve been there. Could we go to the Ocean? The weatherman said it will be clear and sunny over the Southeast for the next few days. I’m so happy. Have I given you an opportunity to talk, yet?” The evening reddish sun to the west skips through the Florida pines while we drive toward the white beaches on the Florida Panhandle. Her bare feet rest against the dashboard, a forefinger tapping my knee, keeping perfect time with the radio signal from nearby Panama City. “We must still have quite a number of miles to go. We’re in a forest or something.” “Not really. We’ll break out of this soon, go over a couple bridges covering brackish backwater, and then there’ll be the Gulf. Mister sun will be gone for the day. You won’t be able to see the beautiful turquoise water ‘till morning.” “How many other females have come with you to this little paradise of yours?” “I was waiting for you to come along.” “Is there a book you get all of those right answers from or do they just pop into your head when a question is asked?” “Do we stop for a cold one to get in the beach mood?”

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“I’m in the mood already. Where are we staying?” “At a nice condo, Pinnacle Port, if they have accommodations, it’s high season here. We’ll be away from the maddening crowd. Should have called from Atlanta but I was so excited to see you, I forgot. We’ll find something.” “Why don’t we just stay in a dump, with linoleum floors? You know, do the bohemian thing. I’ve never done anything like that.” “The word ‘bohemian’ isn’t used much around here, love. I don’t think Jack Kerouac ever wandered through this part of the country.” “Can we walk on the beach tonight?” “Only if you’ll let me hold your hand.” “I like it when you say silly things.” “I know.” The next day is a present from the Gods, cloudless blue sky stretching forever. “Nick, wake up! Half the morning has wasted away. Get out of bed now and come on the balcony. The water and beach are beautiful. Beaches in Italy and France are ugly compared to this.” “I know. I’ve been here before.” I mumble, reluctantly turning over on a mattress and sheets of enticing comfort. “But not with me, it’ll be different.”

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“Those things you say, Elizabeth. Jesus, I love it. Is there a coffee maker in the room?” “I got you a coffee from the downstairs restaurant. It’s on the night table. Don’t turn it over. I’m not going back.” I had known summers on the Gulf Coast since my teenage years: music spilling from bars and restaurants overlooking white pristine beaches, a summer place for parents and their young to take refuge from cares back home and play by the turquoise water. Unlike the other Florida, most came to the Panhandle from cotton mill towns and cities throughout the Southeast to stay in small Mom and Pop motels, steps away from the beach. There seemed to be in each family at least one teenage daughter sprouting a newly bought bathing suit for boys my age to ogle at and wish for more. After dusk, we danced to beach music and most anything else at the Hang Out, just a walk away from the beachside carnival rides. And best of all was the nearby wooden pier where one hoped to kiss a newly found ingénue toward the midnight hour with organ music from the wooden horse carousel drifting over the water. The clear, blue water and brilliant white sand remain the same now, but nothing more. The old concrete store where we would bring our gallon jar to be filled with

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beer for a dollar has been replaced by a seafood restaurant, sitting under a large, glitzy sign. Only a vacant lot remains, waiting for condominiums, where the five of us lived, in the summer when I was seventeen, in the battered old beach house, with only running water. To us, it seemed like paradise. We never complained, cleaning motel pools or life-guarding under a blazing sun, anything to feed ourselves and maybe have a little something left over to buy a young lady a soft drink after we danced and before we walked out on the pier. At times, I escape to that summer, and that will never change. “Why didn’t you tell me about this place?” she asks, after curling her body into my boxer clad lap on the long balcony, a pelican sharing the same view from above. “Don’t you like surprises?” “Yes. Do you feel good?” “If things were any better, my body would explode.” “How much did you enjoy me when we made love at the apartment?” “The second most enjoyable experience I’ve ever had.” “And the first? Never mind. I don’t want to know.” “The moment I realized it was you on the phone a couple weeks after we met at the restaurant.”

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“You’re giving me goose bumps. I wish things would stay just like this, forever.” “They will. I’m nuts about you, woman, more than you are for me.” “Don’t say foolish things, we both know that’s not true. Wanna’ start the day with a bang?” she inquires after a soft kiss. “I feel something pressing on the back of my leg that wasn’t there before.” “I know, it’s an excitable little devil with its own agenda, when we’re close.” Everything is more relaxed this time, her body more supple, a mind free of anxiety. The rhythm, at times, emulates the sound of surf entering an open sliding glass door, deliberate but unhurried. Her eyes, opened or closed are always expressing emotion. A face flushed with pale pinkness contrasts with alabaster breasts, in a delicate feminine way. The bed serves us well with its quilt, now lying crumpled on the floor and pillows trying to loosen themselves from their covers on our white sheeted playground. We indulge ourselves and whisper words until morning turns to noon. I watch her walk onto the balcony, covered by a white sheet from shoulders to toe, everything bunched in to the body by arms and hands around the waist, looking like a cult goddess on the way to address her subjects, waiting patiently below. She stands near the

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railing, eyes surveying the blue water and white beach, a snapshot of memory, to be recalled with ease at some other time and place. I continue watching from the bed, not wanting my sense of the moment to change, or time to move forward. Her head turns to the west, revealing a partial profile under hair, now shinning blonder, under bright sun, reminding me of a mythical siren, pulled from a page, written long ago. I own her and she owns me, irrevocably entwined; the swarthy and brazen fused with the angelic and gentle, forming a unique completeness, overshadowing anything I’ve known. “You missed a spot,” she says, in mid-afternoon, laying upside down on a lounge near the condo’s Olympic size pool while I’m returning the cap to the bottle of suntan lotion. “Where, love?” “Right foot.” “Stick it in the air.” “How’s that look?” “Marvelous, sexy.” “That feels good, do the other one again.” “I love your feet.” “Are you sure feet can be loved?” “Yours, yes indeed, the arch not too high or low and the toes, exquisite, everything so feminine, sensu-

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al. And the bottoms, free of that calloused look of some women. Pray tell, why are they so unused looking? “That’s sweet.” “It’s true.” As we walk into the cavernous club on the beach road, not far from where we had a late dinner, the house band covers, “Can’t get enough of your love,” the Bad Company rocker. A bright summer sun had gone to sleep hours earlier but left a reminder of its ageless power in the form of a slightly pink Elizabethan nose that she touches ever so often with the tips of three cupped fingers to assure herself that a blister or two had not settled there. “Don’t look at my nose. I mean it.” I laugh. “Sweetness, I can’t look at you without seein’ your nose. It’d still be beautiful if it was Martian purple. Do you want a drink from the bar or should we go somewhere else? I know you’re not into this kind of music.” “Can we just go to the condominium and listen to the kids splashing in the pool?” “Anything you want.” Never would I have suggested coming to the pool in late evening to sit among families with noisy children, but surprisingly, now that I’m here I find it worthwhile,

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even blissful when I look at Elizabeth’s smiling eyes looking at the children. The night hides the Gulf as it rushes against the white sand, a sound of permanence, reassuring the young and old that it will be waiting for them tomorrow. “Where did the nice lady go? I want her to throw me in the pool again,” the little boy inquires, water dripping from his swim trunks onto the concrete, near my chair. “She went upstairs to get us refreshments but probably will be back in a few minutes. Want me to throw you in?” “No, sir, I want her to. Is she your wife?” “Not now, hope she will be someday soon.” “My daddy married my mother when he was eighteen. How old are you?” “Thirty three.” “My mother said I’ll understand things better when I get bigger.” “Your mother’s right, son.” The next day’s blue sky is a replica of the day before until late afternoon’s dark, fast clouds come from the west, accompanied by strong winds, turning the placid Gulf into a churning, white capped surge. “Why did you refer to this area as the ‘redneck Riviera?’ she asks as we pull into the parking lot of my favorite but somewhat expensive restaurant at the east

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end of the beaches. The crews of sport fishing boats tied to moorings in the protected harbor are making small repairs and hoping for calmer water by morning. “That’s what everyone calls it.” “I’ve never really liked that word. How would you describe a redneck?” “Well, I suppose it would be someone who chooses not to avail themselves to the finer nuances of life.” “Could I be a redneck?” “Hardly, too much savior faire surrounds you, dear. Can I have a little reward kiss for remembering one French phrase you taught me?” The perfect tonic for Elizabeth, this three-day get away is, as I hoped it would be. The eyes are always smiling, her thoughts dancing and the voice, reassuring. “I’ve cherished our time together here,” she says, with an effervescent smile, sitting at the restaurant table in pastel knee length shorts and blouse that compliment the newly tanned skin. “Maybe we could come back before summer ends with Margie and her husband, Paul. She’s my childhood friend from Memphis living in Dunwoody, now. Would never tell her, of course, but I never understood why she married Paul. He’s so dull and when someone asks a question, he hesitates before answering, like he’s searching for the right words.”

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“Gosh, can’t wait. Sounds like we’d have a super time, let’s plan that wonderful trip as soon as we hit Atlanta.” “No, silly, Margie’s outgoing. She makes up for him. She’s a lot like you. By the way, she couldn’t believe I was coming here, that I would do that. And while I’m thinking about it, make sure you don’t let it slip if you’re talking to Daddy on the phone. He and Mother would go bonkers if they knew.” “Gees, Elizabeth, this is no big thing.” “We come from different worlds, Nick.” “Are you ready to go back to work?” “Yes, and I guess everyone will ask me where I got this tan. When’s checkout time in the morning?” “Eleven, I think.” “Can we stay till eleven?” “Of course, whatever makes you happy. That lobster design on the bib the waitress put on you is almost the same color as your delicate lips.” “I’m cleaning the bib and keeping it as a souvenir.” “There’s nothing on it to clean. It’s perfection, like its wearer. “Are you trying to get in my panties, Nick Andreious?” Our shared laughter spreads to tables nearby, infectiously. Slight smiles appear on faces as they look our way, wondering why they’re not brimming over with life tonight, like Nick and Elizabeth.

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The six hour drive back to Atlanta the next day is filled with her voice, excited and reeling off tidbit flashbacks of the past three days. She doesn’t want to wait years to recall memories of lying on a float in calm blue water or the laughter of those around us when a pool boy’s attention was diverted her way a second too long, producing a collision with a carelessly placed chair that deposited him in the pool; his face and embarrassment turning more red than a sun burn. Her thoughts run here and there, always leaving a smile on my face or a look her way, making me think that all I want from life is to make her happy, every day. An hour from Atlanta, I think it’s the right time to talk, to say the truth. I have a feeling that the stars are lined up perfectly in their galaxies. The time is as right as it will be. Something tells me she’ll be receptive, that things will be okay. “Elizabeth.” She lays her head on my right leg, pulling tanned knees toward her chest, creating rest. “I’m listening and don’t go to sleep driving. We were up much too late last night and I know you’re tired. I’m just resting a little. I’m going to pinch you every once in a while to keep you sharp. Talk to me.” “I love you.” “I love you, too.”

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“Go to sleep.” “Maybe, but don’t make me pinch.” With Elizabeth at rest, I gradually increase speed, always aware a cop car may be hiding behind the next bridge, or maybe gaining on me, in the rear view mirror. Her shut eyes haven’t erased a slight smile. She may tell me to slow down, at any moment, after hearing the harsher tire hum, but she doesn’t. I look down again, at the sculptured nose, sunburned a few days before, now tanned the same exquisite color as her shoeless feet. A few minutes go by before the needed sleep comes, announced by a hand falling from my knee onto the floorboard. I find the fingers and return them to my knee near the blond hair and cover them with a hand of my own, leaving it there, quietly, until I turn off the car’s engine in front of her apartment. “Elizabeth, I have to talk with you about something very important when I get back from a business trip to Birmingham tomorrow,” I say, after depositing the last suitcase on her bed. ”I’ll be back in Atlanta around six and then come over here, okay?” “Talk about what?” as she begins to unpack. “I have to go to work now. It’s not the right time. I’m nuts about you, don’t forget that.” “I love you, too.”

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Chapter 10

Several employees, including Cindy, are walking to their cars, their work day over, as I enter the parking lot. “Cindy, what’s up? Any problems while I was gone?” “The messages are stacked on your desk, but I’d suggest the first phone call should be to your wife. She’s called twice. I told her you were in Augusta and that I didn’t know where you were staying. If I knew you were comin’ back with that tan I’d have told her you were in Florida. She’s pissed, Nick.” “I’m driving to Birmingham after I leave here to make a couple sales calls tomorrow. I’m staying at the same Ramada Inn as usual. I’ll be driving back late tomorrow, but we’ll talk sometime in the morning, okay?”

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As I open the door to my office, I’m momentarily stunned by the overstuffed inbox and other stacks of paper Cindy has arranged in order of their importance. I ask myself silently if the three day mid-week trip was worth it and I answer out loud, ”Yes, and a million times over.” Before I pick up the phone to call Kim, I consider what she may say, then realize it doesn’t matter. Maybe she’ll ask for a divorce, if not, I will. Then I’ll tell Elizabeth everything and go from there. After the trip to Florida, the thought of not being together is not an option for either of us. I feel sure of that. “Hello, I’m back. Cindy said you called.” “Where have you been, Nick?” “The beach.” “I want a divorce. You can sleep here until you find a place to live, just don’t talk to me. We’ll split the equity in the house. A lawyer is drawing up the papers now.” “If that’s what you want, Kim.” “You better fuckin’ believe that’s what I want.” Her venom spews, as it had so many times during the marriage. This time a good reason was at hand, unlike before. When the phone goes silent I think of a late afternoon when the tone of the voice was the same, the day before Thanksgiving at a grocery store. She was agitated, having to stand in line with others waiting to reach the cashier and then minutes later at home there was her loud complaint of my foot, light-

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ly closing the car door, my arms occupied with bags of groceries. After everything was put away I spoke in a relaxed but determined voice, telling her that she was a bitch and was born that way. As she faced me with hostility behind contemptuous eyes, I told her that being a bitch is worse than being born unattractive. The unattractive can make themselves more appealing by offering a pleasant personality or applying the right makeup but bitches have no camouflage, their hard words and cynical attitude diminish any desirable traits, making them forgettable. I said all that and then drove to a movie theatre to escape. After working at the office late into the night, I begin the drive to Birmingham, hoping to get at least a few hours sleep at the motel before a mid-morning sales call. I think of Elizabeth and what I’ll say. It will be truthful, every word. I think of the hurt it will cause but that won’t last forever. I’ll wash her back in the tub everyday, the way she likes it, with the sponge and I’ll do her feet and kiss them before the soap suds are gone. Then I’ll dry her with a soft towel and be silent until she has something to say. The morning had gone well.

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“Cindy, it’s me. I sewed up the account with Argon Industries, it’s a biggie. We’re on our way back to the glory land.” “Nick, that’s great, but something has happened. I don’t know how to tell you other than the way it happened. A woman called early this morning. I was on another line and Sharon answered the phone. The woman asked for the name of your wife and Sharon told her, then she left this number for you to call. The number is six nine two--” “Stop. I know the number!” “Was it her, Nick?” “Yes.” Desperation envelopes me. The beautiful, lingering memories of our days at the beach are replaced by dark, fearful thoughts of losing her. “Elizabeth, it’s me. I know you’re hurt. I’m leaving Birmingham now. I’ll be at your place in less than three hours. I’m sorry this happened, I had planned to tell you everything tonight. We’ve got the rest of our lives to be together, okay?” “I’m so disappointed. I trusted you, I loved you,” the saddest voice I have ever heard, said. “I love you,” I say as she cradles the phone before my last word. The silence is excruciating. The delay in telling her was a huge mistake, I tell myself over and over on the drive back to Atlanta. There was never the right time, always tomorrow. The procrastination now seems the most reckless thing I’ve

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done in my life. The sound of her voice on the phone, the few words, I will never forget, no matter where we go from here. I’ll spend the remainder of my lifetime making up for this, Elizabeth. “Be there,” I whisper to myself, before turning onto the street leading to her apartment. My heart sinks as I see the empty space where the red car was usually parked. I walk to the second floor breezeway knowing there will be only darkness in the kitchen window. The pale green curtains are not drawn shut, as they usually were, heightening my sense of unwanted change. Everything my eyes visit now is cloaked in a mysterious shroud: cars coming and going, people talking, sounds that seem to belong to another place, remote and alien, not a part of my own, estranged world. I drive by familiar haunts: restaurants, theatre parking lots, the small park of her beloved ducks, finding nothing. I return to the apartment near midnight and wait. Where would you be, Elizabeth? What are your thoughts? The questions run incessantly through my exhausted mind before I make my way to a silent house and into bed, unwanted. Saturday morning arrives with an unsure memory of her friend’s name in Dunwoody. Marge? Did she mention her last name? I don’t remember. Should I call her

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parents in Memphis? I don’t have their phone number but it’s probably listed. If there, she’s protected. I should leave that alone. I drive by the apartment repeatedly over the weekend until people look at me with suspicious eyes. I sit at my desk Monday morning, undone, contemplating a call to her parent’s home in Memphis. “Someone is on the phone for you on line one, Nick.” “Thanks, Cindy.” “Hello.” “Am I speaking with Mr. Nick Andre–?” “Andreious, yes that’s me. Who’s this?” “Sir, I’m Lieutenant Barton with the Atlanta Police Department. I have information that you may or may not know at this time. It concerns a Ms. Elizabeth Marie Johnson. “I haven’t spoken to her since Friday. What’s wrong?” I answer as something rushes through my body, making it weak. I stand, for some reason, pressing the phone receiver more tightly against my ear. “Sir, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. She took her life on Saturday.” “What are you saying, ‘she took her life?’ What does that mean?” “Sir, she committed suicide.”

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“Are you sure that happened?” I say as a yellow note pad on the desk began absorbing my tears. “What happened?” “She bought a twenty-five caliber handgun from a pawn shop on Buford Highway a little before noon on Saturday and told the clerk she was going to put it in a drawer in the bedroom for protection. “She asked him to put one bullet in the chamber and he did. Then she walked out to her car and locked the doors. The clerk is still in a psychiatric facility. “The reason I mention that is he saw her put the gun to her head from where he was in the store. He said his eyes followed her out to the car because she was such a pretty lady. He ran to the front door but the gun went off before he got outside.” I wondered what the pain would have been like. I wanted to feel the pain. “Your name appeared in her diary every day for the last few months,” the officer continued in a monotone voice. “It was on the front seat of the Volvo. We got your telephone number from the address book at the apartment. I understand that you’re emotional now, sir, but we would like you to come to the downtown precinct and give us a short statement because as far as we can ascertain you were the last person with her. I’ll be in room 210 until …” He continues to talk but I stop listening. There seems to be a peculiar quietness as I walk through the office on the way to the car with no destination in mind.

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After several miles I pull to the side of a road to lie in the seat for several hours in a fetal position, wishing I had never been born, allowing her hurt and death to be erased from time and space. I see myself lying on the car seat from above, the body seeming feeble, the face ashen, like it’s ready to die. The tears change the color of the seat fabric near my eyes. The only coherent thought I’m able to hold is that I must kill myself to relieve the intolerable misery and the guilt of taking her away from all the people who loved her in those twenty eight years of life. I pull the silver pistol from the master bedroom’s dresser drawer and examine its magazine for cartridges. In the kitchen I place a dry, red washcloth on the dinette table to protect the glass from the harshness of the steel barrel. A bird stares toward me from the patio in a misting rain as I switch the safety catch to the off position. There should be one special snapshot memory of her embedded in my consciousness, I tell myself, when the sudden blackness comes but my mind wanders from one to the next, all equally worthy. Peculiarly, when death is imminent and self-controlled, the mind recalls moments that have before seemed insignificant. I remember the feel of her hands grabbing my arm when lightning struck, leaving a shopping mall. I

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remember the instinctive slight turn of her head, when inappropriate words were spoken by me. I remember a question I never asked, concerning the mysterious disappearance of half a dozen high heel shoes from the closet, shoes that would have extended her height to exactly that of my own. After awhile I realize that I’ve become consumed by the memories and unfocused on the task at hand. The decision to not leave an exit letter seems sensible, I tell myself. What is there to say? She’s dead because of me and I’m doing this because of that, period. I hear the garage door opening, wondering why my soon-to-be ex-wife has returned home midday. I put my hand around the pistol and take it with me, laying it under a pillow on the bed in the guest bedroom. I close the door and lay my head on the other pillow, listening to her footsteps. They’re the same sounds I’ve heard since the first day of marriage, now repeated as she changes into nightclothes in the master bedroom. “Are you awake?” she asks, after walking to the outside of my closed door. “Sort of.” “Why are you home?” “Don’t feel good.” “I’ve come home to rest, too. I think I have the flu virus,” she says. ”The lawyer has the papers ready. We need to be there this Friday at two. Is that okay for you?” “Yeah, that’s fine.”

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“Nick, is there anything you want to tell me before Friday?” “Just that I wish you happiness and I’m sorry this happened.” I say with sincerity, knowing I have hurt her too. I remain in bed until past midnight and then drive to the apartment. The space where she usually parked the red Volvo is vacant. I pull in next to an adjacent building to have an unobstructed view of the empty space and the breezeway on the second floor. The once green door now seems black, foreboding. I stay until sunrise. “I’m sorry you had to wait,” Lieutenant Barton says, standing in the doorway of his office on the second floor of the ragged police headquarters. “That’s quite alright.” I wait in the armless metal chair for him to retrieve something from a file cabinet and think of the jailhouse next door, which I had passed only minutes before. There should be a place for me there. A cell that is so dark it cannot be found for delivery of food or water. A place that smells of urine and is never washed, where I listen to the demented chant my guilt to the murderers until I’m done with.

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“Please speak into the small mike in front of you. We tape conversations in non-legal matters so we don’t have to type it up later. Is that alright with you?” “Yes.” “Someone would have contacted you Saturday, but there was no listing of your name in the phone directory.” “We’re not listed.” “I assume you mean you and your wife.” “Yes.” “You were having an affair with Ms. Johnson. Is that the long and short of it?” “She didn’t know I was married, so for her, it wasn’t an affair.” “How long did you know Ms. Johnson?” “A little over three months.” “When were you last with her?” “Thursday, when we returned from Florida.” “Why do you think she committed suicide?” “She found that I was married.” “That seems peculiar. Most women cuss you out and leave or they stay in the relationship.” “She wasn’t most women.” “How do you mean?” “Difficult to explain, things like deceit were more harmful to her.” “We contacted her parents on Saturday. Is there anyone else we need to contact?” “No.”

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“We still have a few items from the car, the diary included. It was decided by the Department years ago that when diaries are confiscated for any reason we forward them to surviving parents and if there are none we store them. Rightly or wrongly we think that others should not have access to the deceased one’s most private feelings. In this case we’ll of course send the diary to Dr. and Mrs. Johnson in Memphis.” The Lieutenant hesitated, then looked at me again, retuning his eyes from the floor, before bringing his hands together under a receding chin, as if he was going to pray. “Because of the pain I’ve seen in your face since I saw you sit down in the waiting room, I’m offering you an opportunity to read whatever you’d like. I can find you an empty desk where you can be alone. There’s not an unkind word about you and there are some beautiful entries that only a woman could write. Would you like to read them, Nick?” “Thank you, but I don’t think so. The guilt would probably increase and I don’t think I can take anymore.” “I understand.” As I walk back to the car, thinking about the decision, I catch my reflection in a storefront window and turn instinctively to look at the face that had always pleased me. It looks differently now, repulsive, monstrous. Nau-

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sea racks my body as I stumble to the curb and begin regurgitating on the pavement. A high-heeled woman stops to place her hand on my back. “Are you going to be okay?” she asks kindly. “No, I killed someone Saturday.” She removes the hand and continues her journey more swiftly than before.

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Chapter 11

To me, it seemed the sweetest summer of all. Most afternoons on the way home from the small town’s swimming pool or the baseball field named after Babe Ruth, I’d steer my Western Flyer bike into the parking lot of my father’s restaurant. Making a beeline for the pie case, I’d devour two Boston Crèmes and see how many orange sodas I could drink. My father never said anything, maybe because I was his only son. I was coming of age at fifteen, I thought, on my way to manhood. The waitresses would smile at my foolish attempts to flirt, and then ask if the training wheels were still on my cherished bike, and all of us would laugh. Sometimes I’d talk to customers or work the cash register. Sometimes I’d wait for the Coca Cola truck, so I could say hello to John. The truck would show up once a week, always at the same time, give or take an hour.

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The driver was a nice fellow, I suppose, just never said much. But he did tell the story about being bitten by a rattlesnake when he was a kid, hunting in the backwoods, and how John, his black-as-smut helper on the truck, carried him a mile on his back to the highway for help. They had been friends since childhood, and I thought how peculiar that was. The driver rarely smiled and had a serious nature about him, and his helper never met a stranger. John was the one everyone liked. One hand would hold the delivery door open, while his other pulled in a large hand truck, loaded with cokes inside wooden crates, everything clanging as he moved. I always thought the bottles were about to break in their crates or the whole thing would topple over onto the concrete floor, but they never did, because John knew what he was doing. He called my father Mr. G and me, Little G, I supposed because he couldn’t pronounce our foreign names, or he just didn’t want to try. Before stacking everything against the wall, he’d address everyone in the kitchen with a smile and a few words, which seemed just right for the moment, making them feel better than before he entered the building. My father asked him once if he got a second check every week from Coca Cola for being their goodwill ambassador. He replied that God put him on earth to

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bring a little sunshine in people’s lives and that he had done a good job, for the most part. I wondered, as a young boy will, why an old man in his forties would do such hard work, and what would happen when he got even older. Most everyone in our southern town knew something about John, and I knew it too. He had found love with a white woman, Thelma, a half a dozen years before, when they worked at the cotton mill. Thelma came to the restaurant one day looking for a job, and my father hired her. Later, I overheard him tell my mother that a supervisor at the mill said she was a hard worker, and that was good enough for him. When Thelma heard John’s bottles rattling in the kitchen, she never ventured there, until my father went to the cash register to pay the driver’s bill and the truck had pulled into the street. One of the last times I saw John was the week of my graduation from high school. Riding shotgun, as usual, he climbed down from his seat, with a smile across his face, and found me standing by the truck. I asked if he knew that Thelma was sick. She had called, not sounding well. He stood, not saying anything for a moment, seemingly puzzled that I would know of their relationship. I asked if he wanted to use the phone because I’d heard there wasn’t one in the old battered house by the rail-

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road tracks where he lived with an aging mother and a son. He thanked me, saying he would call from a pay phone near the next stop. John urgently rolled the sodas in and went outside, to pace back and forth, his face lined with apprehension, waiting for the driver to start the engine. Thelma never came back to work again. Her paycheck was picked up each week by a sister, and that continued until the end. Everyone at the restaurant liked Thelma, and there were no dry eyes when we got the news. Our family and several employees went to the funeral, where they laid her in the red earth, after prayers were offered in a small Baptist church on a country road. John was not there that day, and we all knew why. After Thelma was laid to rest, the truck came without John for a while. The teenage son of the driver rode with his father for a month or so, both pulling bottles of soda inside, the sweat dripping from their pudgy white faces, as if they had to use every muscle in their bodies. My last memory of John was the week he returned to work, the same week I would head for school in Atlanta, wanting a fuller life, more than a small southern town could spare. Taking payment from customers was my job that day, when I heard cokes entering the back door. The

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sound was different, like before, John’s sound. Everyone was quiet when I approached to welcome him back, and to say I was moving out of town. He wished me well, but said little more, before returning to the truck to sit in his seat, without expression, waiting for the driver. His profile was unlike the one I had known. It was vacant and without joy, needing solace that would probably never come. Fifteen years have passed since John lost Thelma, and the truth is I’ve not thought of them much, maybe a fleeting thought now and then. Tonight, my mind has wandered back to that place and time. I know now what John was feeling, sitting there in the truck. The same things are roaming in my head now. Elizabeth and I were of a different bent, and more sophisticated about the ways of the world than John and his Thelma, yet, the measure of the loss is the same, the very same.

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Chapter 12

I summon the manager of our Memphis office to telephone local funeral homes and identify the one handling Elizabeth’s service. He responds within minutes of my call. “Nick, it’s the Providence of God, I’m telling you. The first place I called was the one,” he says, the good Christian that he is. “Oh, of course, we can do wonderful things these days,” the man at the funeral home tells me when I call to ask if the casket will be opened. I may not be brave enough to look at her, I say to myself, after listening for a few moments to the enthusiastic description of his skills, cutting him off in midsentence, not wanting to hear more and to ask for less gruesome information.

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“The deceased will be taken to the Church for a viewing by the family at a little before two o’clock and after the pastor’s words we will proceed to the final resting place,” he says with little empathy for the caller but with practiced reverence for the dead, as it should be. The airplane flight to Memphis is delayed, a result of problems never quite explained. This may be the final indignity I have to offer, arriving late or not at all for her funeral, as I ponder, waiting in the Atlanta airport, engulfed in my private world of torment. I finally board the plane two hours after the scheduled departure time, wondering if this is a bad omen, a reckoning for the wrong I’ve caused and a forewarning of things to come. After running to the rental car in Memphis, I navigate street after street, finally arriving at the church shortly before two-thirty and park at the rear of a line of cars, directed there by an elderly man. As I hurry nervously toward the tall front double doors, they’re suddenly opened outwardly by two young men dressed in black. I stand still near two motorcycle policemen, one pulling a helmet over his head. Within moments, she comes out, encased in a polished walnut casket held in the black gloved hands of six men approximately her age. My tears flow uncontrollably as Dr. Johnson and his wife follow their only child.

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He is beyond grief, slumped, hands dropped to the sides of his legs rather than consoling his wife. He stares at the casket wide-eyed, trancelike. The mother, crying and speaking inaudible words known only to her is supported by a man, his tears unable to be wiped by hands that are holding Mrs. Johnson’s shoulders. His petrified expression is much different from the smiling photograph lying among others in the album Elizabeth had shown me in the apartment on a Sunday afternoon, not many weeks before. Will’s beautiful heart, as she described it, is evident as he comforts the mother of the woman he loved not so long ago, and whom he seems to love now if the tears are a measure. He carefully deposits the mother on the rear seat of the black limousine and walks to the back of the hearse as the pallbearers strain to position the coffin for its last ride. Their job completed, they step back, facing each other, looking at the ground with stolen glances toward the coffin. The attendant puts his hand inside the open door of the hearse, seemingly to adjust something, to make it right. He withdraws from the opening and grabs the handle of the heavy door, pushing it forward. The harsh, ominous sound of the closing door resonates through my mind, announcing Elizabeth’s journey to her grave. I become hysterical, instinctively walking to the hearse, touching the side window, looking at the flow-

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er-laden casket, not wanting the driver to get in or the hearse to leave. “Elizabeth, the experiences you’ll never know. I’ll love you forever. Please forgive me.” The church steps appear as I wander across the lawn, trying to find a private place to regain a part of my sanity. “You’re Nick, aren’t you.” The man says, not asks, standing over me like the Good Samaritan, a soothing voice in my world of despair. “Yes,” I say, through a shattered voice, not my own, ”and I recognize you, Will, from a photo she showed me. I’m pleased to meet you, but not under these circumstances. I’ll compose myself in a few minutes. I can’t talk anymore right now.” “I’ll go with you to the cemetery. I’m with my parents and sister. I’ll give them the keys to my car and be right back.” We wait for those in front of us to enter the street. “You must have rented this at the airport.” “Yes. I almost didn’t get here. There was a problem with the plane in Atlanta.” “I suggest you don’t introduce yourself to her parents. They’re not themselves right now. He had a nurse bring over some pills from his clinic yesterday. Both of them are like zombies.” “I understand.” “She told them about you on several occasions.”

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“Do you know anything about the conversations?” “I spent most of last night at their house. We talked about everything there was to talk about. Last week she called late at night to tell them she was madly in love with you. “I felt hate for you when her father told me that. I shut myself in the bathroom and stayed awhile, trying to get it out of my head. She broke up with me in our freshman year in college. That night she told me she cared for me, but wasn’t in love. I called my best friend in Memphis and we went out and got drunk at the Rendezvous, a club here. The cops took me to jail after a ruckus in the parking lot. My father bailed me out and I told him about Elizabeth. He knew how much I loved her. It was the only time I’ve ever seen tears in his eyes. He’s a hard man. I’ll never forget it.” “Are you married, Will?” “Yeah, I married a sweet gal. She worked in my father’s business. We got two kids now. She’s a super person.” “That’s great.” “No, that’s good. What you had was great. I go to Atlanta for business reasons now and then. I’d like to have a beer with you and talk about what happened. I don’t think talking about it now would be right.” “Of course.” “When we were eighteen, Elizabeth said she understood why people commit suicide. ‘The only way to relieve the mind,’ that’s the way she put it.”

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“What was going on when she said that? The circumstances?” “We had been water skiing at my dad’s place at the lake on a Sunday. I was taking her home late in the day when we saw this maybe nine or ten year old black kid walking beside the highway, alone. “It was miles from anything on the back side of the lake and she asked me to stop. He said he was on the way to his aunt’s house on Morris Avenue, and when he got in he slumped down in the backseat like a scared animal. “Elizabeth asked him if there was anything wrong and he told her his mother was a heroin addict and that she was in bed with an old white guy at the lake and he decided to leave. He said it matter-of-factly, without any emotion. Elizabeth noticed him holding the back of his left hand and when she asked about it, he unwrapped a bloody sock that hid a gaping wound. “The flesh was lying apart, like it had been cut. Elizabeth told him we would have it taken care of at the hospital and then drive on to his aunt’s house, but when I stopped in front of the emergency entrance he jumped out of the car and ran. We drove around for a while but couldn’t find him. “Elizabeth was mostly silent on the way to her parents’ place and before she got out she said that about suicide. It worried the hell out of me but when I telephoned her later that night she said, ‘Now, Buster, why would I ever do something like that?’

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“She sounded fine so I didn’t think much about it anymore until she died. Nick, I have to ask you a question. I know it’ll sound peculiar. You and Elizabeth, did y’all have a sexual relationship?” “No, Will. She told me about her mother being a virgin till she was married and that she was going to do the same. She let me know that in the beginning.” Compassion, even when a lie, gives relief to those suffering, I’m thinking, as I drown in my own misery. As she’s lowered into the earth I stand nearby, alone, sensing for a moment, through the tears, that it’s a dream, then immediately realizing the truth. Dr. Samuel sits next to Elizabeth’s mother holding her hand. The cries of those around me, who knew her, send me deeper into despair. I sit in the Memphis airport, desolate, a feeling that I’m sure will be with me the remainder of my sorry life. “Miss, the car I turned in a few minutes ago, I’d like to rent it again. There’s no need to have it cleaned.” I drive back to the cemetery, arriving just before sundown, her favorite time of day. The caretaker, walking near his house, eyes me as I approach the grave, then looks away, as if he has seen many come before. A slight wind stirs the air, now and then lifting my tie. The sweet smell of flowers and aroma of the recently unearthed soil assaults my nostrils.

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“Elizabeth, I’m here, sitting on the ground in the black suit you mentioned the first time you called. I thought you were laughing at my suit but you said ’no, it’s because you sound like a schoolboy’. Your face mesmerized me that night at the Rainbow and when you called two weeks later I went nuts when I heard your voice. I’ll never know exactly what emotions you had after you found that I was married, but I know it must have hit you like a ton of bricks, devastating, wasn’t it? You knew at twenty-eight you finally found the one you loved and figured that what we had would never happen again but you thought of me as being soiled, so what were you to do? You tossed away your virginity when you took my hand that night at the apartment. When you began thinking about it all, you supposed I was a fraud, someone who takes what they need and leaves, but it’s not true. I was going to tell you everything and ask you to marry me. You didn’t know that, did you or would it have changed anything after you found that I was married? Lieutenant Barton said that most women who find their lover is married give them a cussing and go on with their lives, but you had to do this. That quirk of yours, being so sensitive about people being unkind, well, what I did to you, my lie, was just

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a little speck of a thing compared to the cruelty around us, Elizabeth. You should have been beside me in Vietnam to hold smashed human bone dying in the rain, the horror of it all or how about the millions of Jews who were herded to the crematoriums at Auschwitz. And did you know that thousands in our world die every day with swollen bellies because they have no food? But for you, my lie was horrible too, wasn’t it, dear? My eyes are filled with tears but I won’t wipe them. I don’t want to see the stupid flowers and the red dirt they’ve piled on you. If you hadn’t done this we could be moving into a house soon and maybe would have had a daughter that looked something like her mother. I wonder sometimes if you did this to hurt me. That’s a foolish thought, I suppose, but if you did, you succeeded. The hurt is more than I could explain to anyone, not that I ever would, and the consuming guilt is heavier than anyone should bear, even me. Don’t think I’m mad, I’ll never have those thoughts. There’s nothing in my heart but love. I just want you back. I’ll never understand why you thought you had to do it. I have to go now to catch the last flight of the day to Atlanta. If you ever want to speak to me, I’m here and I’ll be talking to you during my worst nights and will visit you from time to time. I’m so lost without you.

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As the plane lifts from the runway I write the following on my boarding pass and put it in a shirt pocket, unsure of the reason I want a memento of the most brutal day of my life: The funeral for Elizabeth Marie Johnson began in a Methodist Church near downtown Memphis and ended not far away. Her body, encased in a polished walnut casket, was lowered into the red earth among the moss covered gravestones of those long forgotten.

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Chapter 13

On a bright, pretty day in early August I move from the house into an apartment community, the kind with manicured grounds and expansive lagoon pool, telling its residents that the premium rent is justified. I plunge into work again, vigorously, to distract my mind from other thoughts and to repair the damage inflicted on business, caused by my lack of attention. I also become a parody of the times: a white pants dandy, slicing through the night; a supreme indulger of booze, drugs, and lascivious sex, things to anesthetize the mind and soul. I have no relationships, only a once empty fishbowl sitting in the pantry holding business cards, deposit slips, and napkins, all vestiges of the women who have passed through for a night or more. At times, peculiarly, I find that I’m lonelier with someone than without. Nevertheless, a compulsion to

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pursue the next experience remains. Until Elizabeth there were no affairs or serious flirtations during an almost decade of marriage, but I swiftly find attracting the opposite sex is, for the most part, effortless. A sign of the times, I suppose. Drugs are available as fast and easy as a squirrel changing position. Most everyone I know smokes weed, but I find it’s not my drug of choice. Lounging with potheads doesn’t blend well with my temperament. I find my drug of choice quite by accident, while talking to an occupant of a bar stool around midnight. “Want to dance?” she asks. “I’m beat. Worked all day and then took a customer to dinner before coming here.” “Be my guest,” pulling an orange plastic container from her purse. “Looks like a prescription container. Did a doctor prescribe the pills? “No. I keep them there in case my mother or somebody goes through my purse. Stick your tongue out.” “What am I taking? Can you be trusted?” “Speed.” “Amphetamine?” “Yeah, speed, crystal, all the same thing. I’m going to the ladies room. You be here when I get back.” “Linda, you’re a purveyor of magic,” I say, with a smile on my face, after she returns. “Let’s dance and where are we going after we leave here? The night’s still young.”

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As the seventies speed toward the next decade, Atlanta is the Mecca for those looking for a more desirable life and an opportunity to grow professionally. They come in droves from the decaying cities of the North and small Georgia hamlets where there wasn’t enough to do on Saturday nights, bringing their baggage, as I had brought mine. Everybody is looking to find their special one but most settle for less, someone that’s not hard to look at and easy to hold. “You have a really nice apartment, Nick, but there’s not a single photograph. Why is that?” the overly inquisitive night visitor asks. “Don’t want to remember.” “Did she leave you for someone else?” “No, she just left.” I continue believing the grief will subside as the months slip by, similar to after the death of my beloved father when I was fifteen, but it doesn’t. Days filled with the complexity of business and adventures in the night are mostly free of her, but at times, especially when I’m alone late in the evening, it’s the long black cloud closing in, things gnawing at the mind. Keeping my plate

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filled is what I need to do. Keep moving. One can’t feel the sun by sitting alone in the shade, I figure. Only a few months into my new life I sense that the metamorphic process of transition was complete. Other than the job, my previous life had evaporated. There is no longer the stability of a marriage, something to come home to. Those couples my wife and I considered friends have decided to side with her, I suppose, and rightly so. Ben has deserted me, too, at the request of his wife, not wanting her husband associating with a known adulterer. Most of all, of course, is the affection I no longer receive from Elizabeth and the sweetness that began in the theatre parking lot when I first expressed my love. It was the kind of sweetness that hung in the air. I miss that terribly. There are smiles on countless faces that have looked my way lately, but they are manufactured, as are mine, to entice, to charm. I don’t confuse those smiles with the sincerity of Elizabeth’s sweetness. At times, I think the future holds little other than work and going into the night to fetch more women, like a painter retuning to the canvas to make another stroke on a bad painting. The sleeping, or more accurately, lack of it, has become a burden. Sleeping pills are serving me less well now, but I continue to consume them before bed for

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the placebo effect. I need their help, even if they deceive me. As each month turns to the next I become more jaded by the lifestyle I lead. I think of women differently now, especially the lonely ones and the things they will do for affection, even the disingenuous kind. They tell me things about their past as if I’m the Messiah, put here to save them from their loneliness and self-doubt. I have demons of my own, I should tell them, but I don’t, preferring to keep Elizabeth above it all. I lend them my ear and they repay me with their wares, an unspoken bargain made in the night. A sordid lifestyle it is, but I push such thoughts from my mind for the most part, wanting to retain as much humanity as possible. I look in the mirror, realizing I’m a willing participant. Decadence can stain the soul, I’m thinking, as I lay across the brass bed late at night in a room I’ve not seen before and will not visit again. She stands naked in the bathroom, preparing another line of cocaine to snort into her abused nose. “Want a little more of the white lady before I put it away,” she asks. “Nope, wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week.” “I didn’t bring you here to sleep, Nick. Do you do this often?” “The sex or the coke?”

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“Both.” “The coke, almost never, too addictive and expensive. It’s for rich bitches like you. The sex, now and then.” “Why did you describe me like that?” “The car you drive and the size of that bag of nose candy sitting in front of your teats. The bitch part, hell, do I have to explain that?” “I think you got it about right. Want to do some crazy shit when I come back to bed?” “Not if I’ll be hurt.” “You won’t be, I will.” “You ever think about gettin’ off the train, before it crashes?” “Why get off, it’s fun. We’re going to be old and fat one day, Nick, enjoy it while you can.” “Yeah.” “Your tone has changed since leaving the club, the good time Charlie has turned to something else. You’re not an axe murderer or something, are you?” “Not lately.” “Listen, I was married to a Braves player for a while. I thought it was going to be good, but it wasn’t. He didn’t know how to do anything good off the field. My daddy never said anything, but I could see it in his face. He thought my husband was dumb. He wasn’t good in bed and didn’t even know the small fork is for the salad. The three close friends I’ve had since college are all divorced. One has two kids and no child support. He

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ran off to South America or somewhere. Nothing is like I thought it would be. I live for the moment and don’t think about all that other shit. You want to hear more?” “No.” I look forward to Charlie’s visits from the corporate office. They have become less frequent than before. He never says why and I don’t ask, nor do I talk about my life away from work. It would seem to him a life without substance and he would be right. He’s standing outside the baggage area of the airport with his expensive, tan Hartman luggage and matching briefcase. I think of what he said a couple years earlier as I pull to a stop…’Buy the best stuff when possible. It gives you that warm fuzzy feeling and everybody thinks you’re smarter than you are when they see you with it.’ He greets me enthusiastically after placing the Hartmans into the trunk. “Gees, Nick, where you been? I coulda’ read War and Peace, the whole damned book, while I was waitin’ for you.” “I’m sorry, Charlie. The traffic is crazy. I’ll buy you a drink at your favorite watering hole if you won’t be mad, you old fart.” “I’m going to miss coming to Atlanta,” he says as I pull away from the curb. “What does that mean?”

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“What do you think it means? I’m hanging her up, retiring next month. Had my fill of this rat race shit. The wife and me are moving to the mountains. So, are you going to screw it up?” “What?” “Your new job.” I lay a hand on his shoulder, ”Charlie, if I wasn’t driving, I’d kiss you on your bald-ass head.” I knew you were queer all along, you fucker.” “Charlie, seriously, I never thought I’d be getting your job after what happened. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me since day one.” “You and your folks brought the revenue back to record levels. You deserve a lot of credit for that, Nick. There was a time when I was thinking about firing you back then, but after that call about the girl dying, just couldn’t do it. Don’t remember exactly how I responded to you on the phone that day because I was stunned by what you were saying. But I do remember telling you that yesterday is dead and gone, and that you have to go on with your life. How are you doing now?” “Found that yesterday may be dead, but it’s never gone. Some nights, I’m imprisoned by dreams, Charlie, about the way it could have been.”

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Chapter 14

He had not lost the phone number I’d written on a piece of paper from the rental car’s glove compartment the day of the funeral. I think of the kind face that day as I listen to his voice calling from the Atlanta airport to say he was in town on business, wanting to meet me, if possible. I suggest a bar, not for from the Interstate that would be easy to find. I sit in the corner, away from the laughter, knowing this isn’t a place where we should talk about her and thinking about my bad suggestion as he enters the door. “Will,” I call out, after walking halfway across the room to greet him. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice, sorry that I didn’t call from Memphis. I was in a hurry.” “It’s okay, we’re here. Have a seat. What can the waitress get you?

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“Nothing, I’m an alcoholic, been on the wagon six months. Can’t go back. It was pretty bad.” “I was thinking this was a dumb place to meet when you walked in, wanna’ go someplace else?” “Naw, most of my friends drink, I’m around it all the time. You don’t have to call me Will. I’ve been Buster to everybody since Elizabeth named me that in high school. I wear it now like a good fittin’ coat, or maybe a badge, wouldn’t want any other name.” “What can I tell you?” “Anything you want to. Her parents never questioned things. It’s like they don’t want to know why. They don’t travel anymore. Betty started working at his clinic, I guess to have something to do. They damn sure don’t need the money. It’s sad as hell, really. You were married, weren’t you?” “Yes.” “How could you do something like that?” “She was everything and I was afraid of losing her.” “You lied to her.” He hurries his weight out of the chair and walks to the bar, holding it at the edge with both hands for awhile before turning to look toward me through sad eyes. “Come with me Buster. I want to show you something.”

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He sits in the passenger side of my car, not wanting to be there, while I pull the small crimson box from my briefcase. “This is what I bought in Birmingham the day before she died. The jewelry store lady asked why I was so sure of the size. I told her I just knew. I was going to explain everything and ask her to marry me after returning to Atlanta that night and then I would have put it on her finger if she said yes.” Why didn’t you take it back?” “Take it back? Why would I do that? It’s all I have left.” “Why can’t things work out like they’re supposed to?” “I don’t know, Buster. I try not to think about it, but I do.” “When y’all were sittin’ around sometimes and you said something stupid, did she curl her lips and look cross-eyed at you?” “Yeah.” The baseball game is in the bottom of the second when I flick on the television in my apartment. We had gone to a restaurant to eat together. It was there I extended the invitation to have him as an overnight guest and he readily accepted, willing to wallow in the past and the pain, like me, anything to be near her again.

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The funeral is never mentioned. Now and then, one of us gazes toward the meaningless game for a while, giving the other a chance to recover from a hurtful thought or allow a single tear to be secretly wiped away. At times, he speaks of her as if she loved him, refusing the truth. I hold back, not describing our intimacy, words I know he’d be unable to erase from his mind until death. When the last out is recorded in the ninth, we walk to the lagoon pool and sit in the darkness under an umbrella to finish our thoughts. It occurs to me that we could be close friends in another life, but never here. The past is too painful, the loss too great. We head back to the apartment with nothing resolved, but with an understanding of what love for a woman can do to another man.

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Chapter 15

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of Elizabeth’s death. She enters my mind incessantly these days, sometimes as a fleeting thought and now and then as prolonged images so vivid they can almost be touched. I’ve stored memories of our time together, down to the inflection of her words, the nuance of a hand removing an earring. With little effort, I can turn to a particular page, reliving an experience as if I’m sitting alone in a theater, watching ourselves reenact a scene on stage. My conscience, at times, seems incapable of denying entry to other players, demons dressed in guilt and remorse. They arrive on stage parading themselves as if they own me and then beckon that I go with them to their dark, confined room, a space that happiness and joy has abandoned.

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A fickle concoction it all is and sometimes, mostly in the dead of night, tempestuous thoughts stir the air. I know well the persistent raven tapping at Poe’s chamber, things being the way they are. I ‘ve visited Elizabeth’s grave site in Memphis twice, the first during a business trip in June of last year and then yesterday, on Saturday. I arrived from the airport in early afternoon, staying with her until the caretaker said it was time for the gate to be closed. There were things I didn’t have time to say, so an overnight stay in a memory motel nearby and returning today was the only option. I thought it peculiar when he explained about the gate not opening until noon on Sunday. Before, I had only known of cemeteries without fences where the griever could visit the loved one whenever they wished. A short time after my return today, the caretaker appeared seemingly from nowhere, delivering a small black folding chair and departing without a word spoken. I viewed the delivery as compassionate and thought of his silence as golden. From my place on the ground, I looked up as the chair was placed by my side and sensed he did not expect me to speak. He looked away from my wounded face out of learned respect. A procession came in the afternoon to bury one of their own nearby. I remained until the last of them had gone so there would be only the two of us for a while.

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I talked to her today about things left undone and of my crying heart and how much she is missed, and I spoke of atonement for my shameful deceit. There was deliberate silence for extended periods. As she not long ago said, ”consuming all of the time with words isn’t necessary, silence can hold beauty when you’re with the one you love.” Late in the day I carry the chair to the caretaker’s house, thanking him for his kindness and return to the grave to lie on my side for a while atop the polished marble above her body, before I walk to the rental car on the hill.

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Chapter 16

Years had passed since the parking lot would fill on Sunday, yet the church in downtown Atlanta still drew attention to itself. The high slender steeple rests atop a silenced bell tower, everything supported by the massive building occupying the best part of a city block. Most of the parishioners drifted away over the years, finding comfort in suburbs, wanting peace from downtown. A wino or two would be slumming on marbled steps sometimes as I drove by on the way to visit a client in a high-rise office building nearby. The glass-enclosed signboard, attached to the facade, announces a welcome with words from the scriptures, beckoning lost souls seeking redemption or anyone else who happens by. Pulling open one of its tall double doors, I expect solitude and quiet, but discover more than a dozen worshipers, mostly men, scattered about in the front rows

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listening to a sermon. The preacher stands to the right of the pulpit, in a robe, glancing toward me with a halfsmile before returning his attention to the small flock. His words and delivery are unpolished, as if he chose the wrong profession in his youth. Now, at an advanced age, he has the dismal duty of preaching to the unkempt and homeless, sitting and coughing, before him. I sit in a back pew, away from others, like a voyeur, preferring not to participate. Heads are bowed in silence for a short prayer before the ragged congregation heads up the slightly inclined isle toward the front doors. Some look my way as they pass, as if my suit and tie are out of place. The preacher ambles up the isle, behind them, like an old horse unable to right its neck and head, ready to be put down, any day now. “Welcome, young man, I’m Reverend Monday. I hope you won’t mind if I rest here a few minutes before going in the back to the rectory.” He places the Bible between us and sits several feet away, not wanting to invade my space. “I’m Nick.” “You should have gotten here an hour or so earlier, coulda’ had a good meal with us.” “You have a soup kitchen?” “Well, that was back in the depression days. I remember them well, stood in line with my father more than once. Still recall the look on his face. No, soup is about the only thing we don’t serve. A restaurant owner down

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on Ponce has an employee deliver what’s left over after they close every night. He’s got a key, puts the stuff in the frig around midnight. Been doing it for years. Started with his father and after he died, the son kept sending the food. Never even met him. I used to call to say a thank you every couple of weeks, then awhile back, he said that wasn’t necessary. On Thanksgiving and Christmas day, there’s something extra. I’ve heard he likes the ladies too much and gambles in Vegas. I pray a few words for him most every day.” “Reverend, I’d think the good he does overshadows the bad.” “Maybe so. What were you thinking before you came here today? I can tell from your clothes that you’re successful, or working on it, but that means little when something is heavy on the mind, maybe I could help.” “Not to offend, but I have to work it out on my own. I came, thinking I could be away from phones and people, and bad thoughts. Driving down the street, I felt the need all of a sudden, to climb into a cocoon. I thought your place would do just fine.” “Do you have faith in Jesus, son?” “What do you really mean, do I believe words in the Bible, written several generations after his death and that he was born from a teenager who never laid with a man?” “Yes, that’s what faith is about.” “I think I’ll just sit here awhile, Reverend, and think about everything. I’m tired.”

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“Stay as long as you wish.” The voices come from different directions, waking me from a slouched position at the end of the pew. Several dozen people of different ages and colors, some already seated, have arrived. The sign out front, advertising the seven o’clock service in red letters, flickers in my mind. “I was told you came in by yourself, this afternoon. The Reverend said you might need a little company during the service. I’m Ann and this is my sister, Joanne.” “Good to meet both of you, please have a seat.” “He’s a good man, isn’t he? Last year his mother left a small inheritance and he told us a salary wasn’t necessary anymore.” “That was an unselfish thing to do.” He rushes from the rectory, approaching the pulpit with vigor, as if a transformation had taken place from late afternoon. “You should see him when he feeds the downtrodden. He’s a different person. I asked a long time ago, why that is. He said they’re more accepting if they believe you understand their misfortune, and it’s better to speak and act with little ado, like their life on the street.” “Welcome, my fellow Christians and whoever else may be with us. I’m speaking only a few minutes tonight. I’ll be leaving soon to be with our long time member Mary Sims at the hospital. Her physician

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called a short time ago to say she is in a bad way. I know everyone will pray for her tonight before leaving the building. This is also choir practice night, so I suggest you stay and listen. Couldn’t cause any harm. “I want to talk now about faith, a word so fragile, it is sometimes misunderstood. Do you remember the story of our Prophet Jonah and his three day sojourn in the belly of a whale, and then was spit out on dry land, after praying to God? There is, in the Bible, any number of described events that draw the suspicion of some, and on the other hand, are accepted as fact by Christian Fundamentalists who are not of our ilk. “So, is the whale story real, did it happen, or is it a parable, used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson? Common sense tells us if we were in the whale for three days, our remains would have been excreted as waste, same as with the many smaller fish it had digested along the way. It would be folly to believe otherwise. The Bible is a guide, explaining the fallibility of others, and the faith that saw them through. Faith is that complete trust and confidence of knowing there is a higher power beyond this world, a place that is everlasting. I have to go now. Bless you all.” “He’s good, isn’t he?” “Yes Ann, , I hate to say it, but earlier when he was with the homeless, I thought he was a simple man. Actually, he has an eloquent mind and you can hear the conviction in his voice, like red on a rose.”

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“You say things like he does. Are you coming to our church again?” “I’m not sure. Why do you come?” “The church brings me peace. I’ve not had an easy life. I believe there’s something beautiful and serene on the other side, after death. Reverend Monday interprets the Bible like he wrote it himself. There’s a place waiting for him in heaven and I pray there is one for me too. I love the Lord. Do you?” “Ann, at this point in my life I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone, even the Lord.”

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Chapter 17

Summer is nearing its end, with the darkness of fall and winter drawing close, unwanted, when I notice a dark haired woman lying apart from others at the apartment lagoon pool, wearing red-framed sunglasses. She’s holding a paperback that had lost its original shape to wet hands and the sun. Near her are thick soled flip-flops, serving as paper weights for the already read New York Times. My memory flickers back to a beachside shop some two years before. I had offered to purchase pale blue flip-flops for Elizabeth, accompanied by my explanation of their practicality. “Thanks,” she had said, ”but I prefer to wear the shoes I’ve brought with me,” and then marched off on the sugar white sand in the shoes she spotted in a boutique window while shopping with Dr. Sam and Anne.

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I referred to them as her Grace Kelly shoes and she smiled. Everything was wonderful. I wade to the edge of the pool, resting my arms on the concrete. “My name’s Nick. You look good in cheap sunglasses. Want me to teach you how to swim?” “Know how to swim,” she says with a Northern accent, not looking up from the book. “Is that your opening line?” “Yes, how did you like it?” She lowers the book to her lap and looks toward me. “It doesn’t lack originality.” “Well, then, may I sit on the end of your bench and discuss where we might dine tonight or do you prefer to read?” “You can sit. My name’s Mary.” “Did you tell me you’ve never been here?” I say, driving my company car, only a few miles from the white Gulf beaches. “I’m from Jersey, remember? I’ve never been to Florida. Our family would go to the shore near Wildwood most summers.” “Mary, you’re going to have a delightful experience in the Sunshine State. We’ll be there soon.” “No sir,” the reservation lady said when I called the week before to reserve the condominium. “That unit

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was sold last winter and the current owners don’t allow us to rent it. I can put you in the unit just above. It has the same beautiful view, of course.” “That’ll be fine,” I respond, thinking how asinine it was that I requested the same room where Elizabeth had walked and laughed. Earlier, my thoughts were different. I wanted to be there, again, to see the balcony, where she stood wrapped in a sheet and the bed where the pillow was held to her chest. I thought there were particulars that I’ve maybe forgotten, and wouldn’t be able to carry along, in the years ahead. I remember the carpet’s color, but the tile pattern of the balcony floor escapes me. There could be nuances of conversations that would be rekindled or other moments that have slipped away. And now it seems foolish I would allow another to intrude Elizabeth’s space, a place of dreams and memories that should remain untouched. After the call is concluded, I ask for forgiveness and then hate myself for the remainder of the day as repentance. There was a stop at the Atlanta airport to pick up Mary on the way to the beaches. She had served passengers their food and drinks on a flight from Boston and now after all those hours working in the air and traveling

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on land she was on the way to a much deserved shower and change of clothes before we dined. “I’ll be on the balcony when you’re ready. The Margaritas will be waiting for you in the blender on the bottom shelf of the fridge.” “Great! If I get tipsy tonight, you won’t take advantage of me, will you, Nick?” “A gentleman would never do something so repulsive, but I’m not entirely sure about myself.” “Bad boy,” before water begins splashing against the shower door. The sun had slipped below the horizon before I stepped onto the long balcony. The sound of surf lapping at the shoreline can be heard but barely seen in the dimming twilight. Floodlights illuminate a portion of the white sand beach near the building. Faint voices rise from the balcony below as I lower myself into the dark green chair. The man’s voice seems familiar, maybe from the past, something about it, engaging. Looking below, a man’s hand is attached to a glass sitting on the flat railing, but I’m unable to see more. “Be back soon, Elizabeth, so we can go out and eat. Your mother and I are starving,” the familiar voice said. The young woman appears to have come out of the building from the stairwell ground exit. She walks toward the water in a two piece white bathing suit, the left hand holding blond hair away from the back of her

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neck for a moment, the right adjusting a strap on the shoulder. The name, such a coincidence, I think, just before she turns her head to answer the father. “I won’t be more than ten minutes,” she calls over the shoulder. Suddenly, intently, she looks up directly at me with an expressionless face, resembling the expressive one I had known so well. Then she turns quickly, moving from the lighted area toward the surf, skipping, then walking, then skipping again with hands held out from the body, a mirror image of Elizabeth. I run to the front door, pass the elevator, then down five flights of stairwell. The moment feet hit sand, I look up toward their unit. The back of a man moves from the balcony to a lighted living room. Good that her parents don’t see me. They might mistakenly think I was running after their daughter to do harm. Standing near the surf, nothing is seen to the east but to the west, someone is in the distance near water’s edge. The night seems to darken second by second as I walk toward the figure and then it disappears from view, inexplicably. I look out over the salt water, needing an explanation, but none comes. On the way back to the building I see what seems to be flickering light from a television screen in their condo. I stand on the walkway near the stairwell and elevator entrance for a while, waiting for her to return.

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The strangeness will be answered later on, I tell myself, I’m tired now. There were no thoughts of Elizabeth earlier when I walked to the balcony to sit in the green chair. On my mind was the missed sunset, a consequence of Mary’s flight arriving almost an hour late to Atlanta plus the stop at the bank and then on the way down, her insistence to stop at the fruit stand. Tomorrow will be a new day, I’ll think of tonight as a coincidence, the name, everything. “Where have you been? I thought someone kidnapped you,” Mary says as she opens the door after my knock. “Just a little walk on the beach.” “I’m starving.” “Yeah, me too, sort of.” “I got a memory for faces like a dog has for the ones that feed him,” the middle-aged, portly waitress says, looking at me. “I remember you ate with us before, either last summer or the one before that. You left me a tendollar tip. I didn’t know it till after y’all went out the door ‘cause you put the check on your American Excuse card.” “That’s a hell of a memory you got, lady. That was the only time I’ve been here, other than tonight.” “Are y’all married?” “Nope, just here to have some good clean fun.”

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“Well then, it’ll be okay if I say the other thing. I remember her, the woman with you. She was blond and y’all smiled a lot.” The words spread a chilling loneliness through me as Mary looks at her purse on the floor, for no reason other than to deflect what’s been said. The waitress flips back the cover to her note pad, pen poised in hand. ”Order anything but the oysters. They ain’t no good this time of year and don’t ask me why ‘cause I don’t know. Just take my word for it.” “She’s a card, isn’t she?” I say after we order. “So much like a woman who works in a diner just before you go into the Holland tunnel on the Jersey side. The only difference is the accent.” “Mary, you don’t have that hard edge some seem to have from that part of our beautiful country.” “I went to parochial school from elementary all the way through the twelfth grade. I think that has something to do with it. My mother says there’s something perceptibly different about Catholic school kids as they grow older. By the way, you have an edge sometimes but you can also be a lamb. Where did that come from?” “Don’t know, no one has ever mentioned that.” “Do you want to go out tonight or should we go back to the condo?” “There’s a place a few miles down the beach road with a house band that sounds a lot like Fleetwood Mac.” “Similar, but different, you mean?”

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“Yeah, there were a couple horn players in the band, last year.” “Isn’t it good that everyone is a little different from everyone else?” “Yes, Mary, I think about that every day. I do.” I slip out of the bed after sunrise, away from her almost silent snoring. The lobby is vacant other than a bored young woman behind the front desk waiting for her replacement. “Miss, the people in unit 412, I may know them. Could you tell me their last name?” “You’re mistaken. 412 is owned by an older couple from Michigan. They’re only here in the fall and winter. They would never come in high season and they don’t let us rent it. Maybe it’s another one you’re talking about?” “No, it’s that one. Someone is in there now. I saw them last night. I’ll prove it if you’ll unlock the door. Let’s go now, please.” “Sir.” “Please, I insist.” “See, I told you, there’s no one here,” she says as I stare at the blue quilted bed in the master bedroom where Elizabeth and I once laid. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience I’ve caused you.”

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“No problem. You have a nice day. Can I send the maids to your unit?” “Not yet, someone is still sleeping.” Submerged to the shoulders in water at high tide, my skin tells me the clear blue water has not yet absorbed the full warmth of the rising sun. I gaze at a boat on its early morning way to the deep water fishing grounds and then look up toward the mysterious condominium where I had become perplexed and embarrassed minutes earlier. I try to think of a rational explanation, but pathways of my mind offer nothing as an answer for those events of the night before. Without doubt, the condo was occupied. My eyes clearly saw the young woman who looked much like Elizabeth standing in the brightness of the floodlights. Everything was real. Did I see an apparition or maybe insanity has overtaken me? I’m not among those who believe in the supernatural or a hereafter. Religion is the opiate for the masses, someone once said. Yes, we slithered from the ocean who knows how many billions of years ago and finally became strong and sophisticated enough to build condominiums and bridges and wars and then we go away, our guilt and sin silenced. “It was out there, Elizabeth, we were on floats. ‘Simple times are best,’ see, I remember your words that day. You wanted the blue one so it would be less noticeable

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to any sharks that wandered by. And you mentioned my red float and yellow swim trunks would be the first thing they would see from miles away and that I was sure to make the six o’clock news in the worst possible way. Your mind, so amusing and beautiful, those things you would say. I miss that most of all. The water that day was smooth as glass, but you wanted waves to rock you, so we paddled out past the sand bar. We were lying on our backs and your fingers were around my arm when the wave hit, pushing us apart. Side-by-side again, you put your fingers around my arm like before, only a bit tighter. Do you remember what you said? ‘I don’t need another silly wave, everything in my little world is fine, just like this.’ Life was wonderful, wasn’t it, magic always hovering above us, as if it had found a home. Any day now, I’ll be released from you, Elizabeth. I’m slipping below the water line.”

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Chapter 18

As time tumbles by, I bring along baggage packed years before. Sometimes the weight seems no more than a human hair and at other times there is heaviness, like the massive rope that holds giant ships to their moorings. The memories of her come and go without continuity and seemingly unrelated to other events of the moment. At times I recall them voluntarily, wanting to relive an experience of joy and sometimes thoughts of her invade my consciousness, uninvited, sitting there like birds on a wire, bringing their own agenda. As Dr. Sam said of Elizabeth’s flaw, the mind is a complicated thing. I can attest to that. There were my twelve visits to a psychiatrist, a good man nearing the conclusion of a professional career devoted to assisting those with drug or alcohol dependency, and the emotionally maimed.

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“Nick,” he said, “You have taken on more than your rightful share of guilt in this tragedy. The fact is she pulled the trigger of the gun. That was a selfish thing to do. You’ve carried this undeserved burden far too long. It has damaged you and must be released. Only you can do that. I think you don’t want to let go of her. You must, if you are to improve.” I refrained from asking questions during our time together until the end of the twelfth hour. “Are there things in people’s minds so enormous they can never be erased?” The answer came without hesitation, “Yes, of course.”

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Chapter 19

“Meant to be,” were the words her pastor chose to describe the circumstances. My soon-to-be second wife and I are sitting in his church office, making preparations for the wedding. She had sung in the choir until she went off to college, and after that, there was the job in Manhattan, keeping her away for another year. Now she was back, listening to him intently, because this would be her first wedding and she wanted everything to be right. The wedding coordinator church lady sits next to the pastor with a look of astonishment, a consequence of the story my soon-to-be-wife laid out for them, moments before, concerning how we met and what occurred before that. While the three of them discuss particulars, things of little interest for me, I think of parts of the tale she had deliberately left out, those too offensive for church

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ears. I look toward them, in case they ask something of me, yet, my mind drifts back to the beginning. It all began when Kim and I were happy together. After moving to Atlanta, we took a one-bedroom apartment on St. Charles Avenue, a tree lined street where magnolias blossomed in spring and everything seemed right. On Sunday afternoons, we’d walk a couple blocks to the Highland Theatre, and after the movie, our minds were always on the scoop of vanilla served in a green glass of Coca Cola at Fleeman’s Pharmacy. A dark mahogany counter near the front reminded me of the drug store back home, but we preferred sitting at one of the small tables by the window, so we could see people walk by, and maybe wave to a friend or two. One thing we’d always count on was the little girl, about eight, bringing our vanilla floats over, one at a time, held with both hands, so they wouldn’t spill. She was the daughter of the owner, a forty-ish man with vacant smiles, who seemed always to be busy counting pills, or moving around like there wasn’t enough time. He would always be there, coming and going, behind the sign identifying the prescription pick-up window. The daughter looked unlike the father, with her fair hair and soft face, the cheeks always with a ready smile. She’d plop herself in at our table, or sit at a nearby one if there wasn’t an extra chair , and ask us about the movie

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and a million other things. The pharmacist would shout from the window, sometimes telling her to leave the customers alone, and we’d always tell her to stay. I fast-forward to memories of only eights months ago, and the knock on my door. I’m inside, lounging on the white couch with a simple-minded brunette, pleased with my attention. The air conditioner can barely keep up, competing with the July afternoon heat and flames in the living room fireplace. We’re smoking the last of the hashish my companion brought over, while we watch colorful cartoons on television. Deciding that someone from the lagoon pool may have come up to find why I’m not there, I ignore the knock – until it persists. “I saw your head through the blinds from the parking area. My daughter is moving in. The moving van will be here tomorrow, but she has a small TV in the trunk of her car. Would you help?” The woman clamps her nostrils with two fingers, for a second, after smelling the odor creeping out the door. “Why in the world do you have the fireplace going?” “Atmosphere, lady, have you ever seen Bugs Bunny do a back flip in slow motion?” “No, but will you help my daughter?”

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“Of course, I find I’m standing before you in only by boxers. Let me attire myself in more suitable clothing and I’ll be right down.” “What’s goin’ on Nick?” the voice from the couch says. “Find my pants, babe; I have to prepare myself for a gallant deed, much needed by this lady and her daughter.” We see each other coming and going after she moves in, and exchange words and smiles now and then, but nothing more, until I receive a call late at night. “I’m up at Applebee’s on a date.” “Good for you. How’s the food?” “Fine, but he’s not like you. Why don’t we go out sometime?” “Would that be wise? We live so close to each other; what if something stupid happened? “Nothing stupid is goin’ to happen. Don’t you think I’m pretty enough? I’m better looking than most of those bimbos I’ve seen you with.” “I’m at least ten years older than you.” “I don’t care.” “How about tomorrow night?” “That’s better.” “The restaurant was not the kind that lends itself well to a first date,” I say, driving back to the apartments.

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“That greasy fried fish smell is in my blouse and skirt. I’m taking them to the dry cleaners tomorrow. The restaurant advertisement in the paper looked good. You can select the place we eat the next time, if there is a next time.” “There will be.” “I liked the fish sandwiches served in my father’s place, except on Saturdays. He said he didn’t want to offend the Jewish customers. I never understood the logic of that.” “Your father had a restaurant?” “No, a drug store, but they serve drinks and sandwiches and ice cream.” “Where is it? “Intersection of St. Charles and Highland; it’s been there for years.” “Did you take stuff to the tables when you were little? “Yes, how did you know?” “I would come in with my blond haired wife on Sundays after the movies. We’d sit near the large window. Do you remember?” “Yes,” she says with astonishment. “Do you still love her?” “No, a lot has happened since then.” The pastor’s words ring in my ears.

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Al Gramatas

Chapter 20

We flew to Maui after the wedding and during the ensuing years had traveled extensively. And now, after a decade of marriage, my wife has changed little, carrying the same spirited temperament and kind nature, much the same as those years before in her father’s drug store. We boarded a ferry earlier today at the port of Piraeus, along with several hundred backpacking college-age youth, on our way to Santorini. This is our first trip to Greece, and I view it as very special, almost a pilgrimage. Last night, we had visited the home of a relative on the island of Lesvos, the birthplace of my father. She had invited others, including two men who had known him before he sailed for America at nineteen.

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They told me things about my father that I had never heard and as we sat a stone’s throw from the blue Aegean Sea, I realized they didn’t fully realize the importance of their words and laughter, directed at a son who had lost his father long ago. The ferry arrived after midnight this morning at the town of Fira on the western shore of Santorini and we fell asleep in a cliff-top room situated on the top of volcanic remains more than a thousand feet above the ocean. Opened curtains in late morning reveal the most magnificent view eyes will witness, striking beauty that would escape the brush of the most gifted artist. Dazzlingly white houses cling to the top of cliffs, intermingled rapturously with blue domed chapels. Resting in the calm blue water below is a long, clean, three-masted schooner with her sails fully extended. An old woman dressed in black from head to toe leans against the white buttress of a walkway near our window, looking out to sea. The day is nearly cloudless as we walk the winding pumice stone pathways, discovering visual treasures, with the sea rarely out of sight. At shops, we lay hands on the right gifts for those back home and sit at outdoor cafés to gather our thoughts. A late afternoon taxi ride is temporarily interrupted by an important stop at the young driver’s house, his wife standing out front, breast feeding an infant. The driver kisses both with Greek affection before

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our trip continues toward Oia to watch the sunset. We arrive with droves of travelers from scattered parts of the world, all speaking excitingly in different tongues about what they will see and then are hushed as the bright orange sun slowly disappears behind the volcanic caldera. The beautifully warm night air is touched now and then with the aroma of spices drifting from restaurants alongside the harbor’s busy main street. A white aproned waiter invites us to a table near the moored fishing boats, rocking gently now and then in the harbor water. “Are you enjoying your dolmades, Nick?” “Taste better than I had in Athens but not as good as those you make back home.” “Maybe we can come back someday, there’s a million islands we haven’t seen and maybe we could go to France,” she says with enthusiasm. “I like some of their movies but Parisians are too civilized. Here is better, to be around my own. They’re more fun, vibrant. I’d like to go to Corfu and Rhodes.” “Let’s walk down the dock before we leave,” she suggests. The bouzouki music from the café is slowly replaced by the thin sound of a radio coming from a small fishing boat as we walk down the long wooden walkway over the water.

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He’s sitting on the deck of the blue and white boat, a bottle of wine in the left hand and a cigarette in the other. “Kalispera,” I say, greeting him a good evening. “You and your wonderful lady have come from America, I think,” he says in English with a heavy accent. “How did you know, sir?” she inquires. “The way you dress. Easy to know.” “That’s an incredible observation skill you have. Are you a fisherman?” “I have fished God’s waters since a boy. The fish, they make more fish. He has been good to me.” “You’re lucky to work in such a beautiful place. Would you take us out on the water for a few minutes if we pay you? “Lady, I have no need for money. Your company will be enough payment. Can we leave your man on dock until we return?” She laughs as he extends a weathered hand to steady her balance, settling her on the front seat. He looks my way and extends his hand to shake mine. “Your name?” “Nick.” “I’m Gus. You sit with me here at back, boat not move good through water with more weight on front.” “Do you sleep on the boat, Gus?” “Sometimes, like now when my wife pushes me from house.”

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“Why is she upset with you?” “I drink little too much sometime and snore. She doesn’t like. My sweet Helena and Gus have married thirty-nine years. Everything is okay tomorrow. Love for a woman is something, you know.” “Yes.” The putt-putt engine seems to have a rapport with the boat, moving us over the water without vibration, at a speed that’s in harmony with our words. His right arm rests on the transom with the left on the tiller to guide us over the calm harbor water. He holds the wine bottle forward. “Lady, have a taste, good, made on Santorini.” “Never refuse a Greek’s gift,” I say, knowing she will if I don’t interject. “Is this retsina, Gus?” “Yes, you like?” “It’s distinctive.” He and I began passing the bottle from one to another, as if we had known each other for some time. “What reason you decide to travel here?” “I’ve heard from more than one world traveler that this is the most beautiful place on the face of our earth. I’ve always wanted to see Santorini with my own eyes. My father was born on Lesvos where we spent several days before coming here. Everyone there refers to the island as Mytilini, its largest city. It’s confusing as hell.” “Life is confusing,” he says in a knowing way. “When I was a young man I fall mad in love with this

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girl and everything is good until day I ask her to marry. She said ‘No, I will go to Athens, my brother has a job for me there.’ I beg her to stay but ‘No, no,’ she said. So next year Helena and Gus find each other at church. We marry and I adopt her little girl. We have good life, the three of us. You know, sometime you can’t have what you want, but find something you need.” “Yes.” “Life is this and that, you know. At sixty-five Gus looks back at his life, good and not so good. I have brought happiness to some but have regret for those I caused hurt and the ones who loved me but I couldn’t give back. There are things that poison the mind. The olive can be tasty but too much rock under the ground can make bitter. Fruits of a lifetime can be the same. Here on the sea I have only good thoughts. She’s my mistress.” The fisherman talks on into the night with exuberance about his Island when he was young, before the tourists came and of his life now. “Mr. Gravedigger, I’ve already told him. When you dig mine, would you make it shallow, so I can listen to the sea kissing my Island, and feel the rain. I made him promise.” “Gus, you’ve been so gracious to us over the past hour,” my wife says, turning around to face him with a thankful smile. “We can go in now, if that’s all right,” as she feels the first coolness of the late night air. “Whatever you say, America lady.”

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Over the bow of the boat I see people eating at outdoor cafés and strolling to shops on the street by the water. Floodlights illuminate the darkness of tall volcanic remains in the background and in front, a mélange of colors decorate the waterfront, reflecting their warmth over the nearest boats in the water. The thought surfaces suddenly and thoroughly without warning: Elizabeth, please come sit beside me a moment. For a fleeing second I feel her presence and then she leaves, as hurriedly as she came. I focus filled eyes on my wife’s back as she gazes toward shore; a sliver of guilt flickers in my mind for wishing that another was here from so long ago. “Are you hurting?” Gus asks, over the slight sound of the engine. I say nothing, waiting to be released from emotion, wanting to compose myself before reaching the dock. “A woman?” he asks, close to the ear, as if my thoughts had been laid out on a platter. He begins singing in his native tongue with a bravado that seems out of place and then the baritone voice begins embracing the moment, as if the words had been written long ago to be song only on this summer night. The fisherman’s life of passion and heartbreak are emotionally captured in simple but poignant lyrics, lamenting the past and foreseeing a wondrous, untold future. ”Embrace memories of the heart as if they were pieces of gold,” the words urge, ”throw away those holding sorrow and others will have room to grow.”

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His hand rests on my shoulder, remaining there, until we lightly bump the side of the dock. “What’s wrong, Nick?” she wants to know, looking at me, preparing to step from the small boat. “He’s overcome with the beauty of it all. Greeks are that way. But he can’t stay here. He needs to go back to America and love you. It’s easy to know. Did I say it good, Nick?” “Yes, Gus, as perfectly as it could be said. I wish you a happy life, my friend.” “The same to you, Nick. Will you remember me, America lady?” “Of course, Gus, we’ll never forget you,” she answers with a smile, before we turn to walk toward the waterfront street to hail a taxi for our hotel. Thoughts of Elizabeth’s brief visit play over and over, as the small taxi pulls from town onto the road toward Fira. The moment her spirit departed, I recalled the day of the funeral, but unlike before, without the veil of guilt, that for so long had tethered itself to my thoughts and dreams. In the side window of the taxi, I picture scenes from the past. They rush by, a kaleidoscope of events from the night of our meeting at the restaurant to her last words on the phone. They do not bring pain now, only a feeling of sweet melancholy, the kind one feels for a distant loved one, knowing time will pass before they

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meet again. A sense of contentment flows through me, an emotion that has been elusive since her death. The miles clip away easily, through the lovely night air, with the dark ocean on one side and houses, most unlit, on the other. The driver practices his English with my wife, preferring to hear a woman’s voice, rather than mine. His words are painted with youthful exuberance, wanting to be heard. He’s the same driver who drove us to view the orange sunset earlier today, and there may be a stop at the house, like before, to kiss his wife and child, before entering town. Another smile will find our lips, if he does. I think of his youth and when my age was the same. He resembles me, in his face and the way the hands move about in conversation, as if words are not enough. There are many things I would say to him, if he was my son. I would tell him that mistakes will be made along the road and a time may come when your heart will be tempted to cast aside truth, craving something that your eyes have told you is gold. It’s a place you must never go, where lives can be shattered, one of them your own. And keep in mind, there are those who are more fragile than most, who can be wounded with simple lies, and sometimes the damage is done in the blink of an eye. “This is last trip tonight,” he says, as we pass his small unlit house on the edge of town. “We’re going

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to America when I know English good and save more money.” “Good, my father got off the boat at Ellis Island with a hundred dollars. By the time he reached his midtwenties he was the proud owner of a restaurant on the lower east side in Manhattan. Work hard and America will be good to you.” “You live in New York?” “No, we are from Atlanta, in the South.” “Where was father born?” “Lesvos.” “My family is from Lesvos. What is your last name? “Andreious.” “Get away from here, as you Americans say. We are maybe cousins.” “That would be nice.” “You grow up in the South? Your father move there?” “Yes.” “’Why he move from New York?” “The same reason you stopped earlier today to kiss your wife and baby. He fell in love with a woman from there. My possible cousin, it’s why we do things, really. It’s always about a woman.” We enter the hotel after midnight. The lonely desk clerk has a need to tell us about his son in America and the

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hotel’s history and a number of other things before we work our way to the small elevator and into our room. “I’m gonna’ call Charlie. Today is his birthday and I always call. You remember, I’ve told you about him. He was my boss, years ago. It’s mid-afternoon in the States now” “Don’t be all night, probably cost an arm and a leg from here. I’m taking a shower so I’ll smell good for you.” “Charlie, it’s me. Happy Birthday!” “Thanks a bunch, Nick, where are you this time? “On the island of Santorini, in Greece. I’m on vacation.” “Gees, I know you like feta cheese, but you could have bought some in Atlanta.” “That’s funny Charlie, but I got something important to tell you.” “Everything you say to me is important, you know that. I can recall stuff all the way back to the day I hired you. When I asked if you wore cuff link shirts everyday, you said when a client makes a decision about who they’re goin’ to give a big chunk of business to, they’ll remember you, and when they think of your competition, you want them to think of polyester. God, I liked that!” “Remember when we were in that fern bar on Peachtree after work, and a woman in a red dress

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walked by our table. I looked your way and said she had soft shoulders and dangerous curves, and you didn’t say anything, just looked away. I knew why you did that. You thought I should have more respect for my wife, and you were right. Your silence said it all.” “Shit, I remember all that stuff.” “And, do you remember the sales meeting when the rep asked why he couldn’t close that sale until you went with him? Do you remember what you said? You leaned over the podium, and he knew you had something important to say. You told him to have his shoes shined every week and kiss his wife before he left for work, even if things had gotten old.” “Yeah, but this is different. I had an epiphany tonight.” “A what?” “It’s like you suddenly realize the essence of something important, the meaning of it.” “What happened?” “I was in a little fishing boat, in the harbor, and this thought out of the blue came in my mind. I asked Elizabeth to sit beside me, and she did.” “You mean her body?” “No, of course not, her spirit. I was engulfed by it.” “I thought you didn’t believe...” “What do I know, Charlie? I’ve never been one to delve into the mystic. Maybe there’s something out there more powerful than the Gods that people have thought up, something indescribable, just there, shrouding all

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the billions of planets in an unknowing way. Last night was an incredible experience. I’ve not had that feeling since she was really here. “I can hear it in your voice. Did she talk to you?” “No, but it was like when she was alive, I always knew what Elizabeth was thinking when she was silent.” “Why did all of this happen. What did you think?” “I know for sure Charlie. She came to forgive me.”

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Epilogue

The hotel bed with fresh linen is comfortable, but sleep doesn’t come, the memories too bright to be swept away. My wife’s sleeping face is slightly lighted by the tall streetlight, below. I think of her kindness and the smile she brings wherever we might be. The thought of sharing the event on the boat comes to mind, but I dismiss it as a foolish idea at best. I’ve never mentioned that part of my life, knowing our marriage could be tainted in a slight way if my obsession with Elizabeth those years ago was unveiled. Some things should be left unsaid, to be recalled silently, but not in a secretive way. All that remains from a past of angst and longing is now nothing more than a flickering candle, the slight flame refusing to be put away by time or the changing winds. I look toward

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my wife again, and think of places we’ve seen and special moments shared, over the years. “We have a full and satisfying marriage, wouldn’t you say?” I whisper in a hushed voice, watching her sleep. The day of our marriage comes to mind, with smiling faces looking from the pews, while I took the ring from Charlie to slide it on her hand. I knew we would never visit that place of magic, where I had once been, yet, comfort surrounded me at the altar, as if she was sent to make my life all right. I recall the tears in Charlie’s voice after I spoke about my mystical encounter tonight. The conversation lasted long enough for me to say I loved him like a father. There was an importance attached to my words. His health may prevent another birthday and I needed to tell him now. More than an hour before sunrise, I slip silently from bed to walk the narrow winding paths in town. Lights from the small shops remain on to remind late night revelers that the wares inside can be had the next day. I sit on a bench near the boats and listen to their slight movement in the water and think of the town down the road, and that harbor, where it happened. Maybe there should be a last visit, to see the small blue and white boat again, but when I walk to the place where taxis

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were parked, one after another earlier tonight, none are there. The proprietor of the modest coffee shop and his helper arrive before sunrise. “Kalimera,” he greets me a good morning, while I sit on the nearby bench, looking over dark water. With Greek words, I ask if he speaks English. “Yes, I lived in Boston for twenty-five years before returning to the Island of my birth. I’m George, and you?” “Nick.” He invites me in, saying there will be a parade today, a religious holiday. I listen to him describe the day’s events, and then mention that we will be leaving soon. An early summer sun slowly reveals the dark blue harbor before he places our coffee on the table and sits in a chair, looking pleased with his life. “We celebrate this week,” he begins, “because it’s very special to us. Over the years many beautiful things have taken place, some miraculously.” “What do you mean?” “Last year on this day, my father telephoned me from his house and talked to me.” “What did he say?” “That’s not the point. He had not spoken in ten years. The doctors didn’t know why.” “I have a story to tell you, George.” “Start from the beginning, I have plenty of time.”

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“Well, I was going to explain only about last night, but you’re right, it should be told from the beginning. The story begins when I was thirty-three and ends today. It’s about a man’s love for a woman and the things that happened along the way. “Over the years, I’ve thought of writing a memoir and now I’m sure that’s something I’ll do. Before last night it would’ve been like a song without a final verse, but now the book will have an ending, you see. It’ll be my gift to her so she knows I still care, like always.” “Will you return to our island someday?” “Maybe, there’s an older fisherman in the next town. I don’t think he’ll be going to sea many more years. I could buy his boat and do some fishing myself or just take it out in the harbor at night to sit and look at the waterfront. Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be wise, George. There comes a time when things past should not be so close at hand. Santorini is the most beautiful place my eyes have ever seen. I understand why you returned. But for me, too much of the past would be lingering at my door, because of what happened last night. After leaving the business world, I’ll find a place near blue water, somewhere that’s free of yesterday and easier on the mind.” “I understand, ya sas, Nick.” “The same to you, my friend.”

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People are in the streets, on my way back to the hotel. Shopkeepers open doors and the smell of a new day permeates the air. I change path for a man and woman, into their years, deserving respect. She looks up, with a wrinkled smile, expressing thanks without words and moves on, supported by a hand, in a manner he knows is needed. Costumed children began gathering in the public square for the parade, happy they’re here. He’s about six, holding her small hand, embarrassed, but glad it’s there, not knowing why. A thought comes: slipping back in time, to his age, a chance to have another shot at it all; faces never seen, smiles from good friends not yet met. Deposing a King would be nice, to have gold laid at my feet. Yet, all that would seem paltry, compared to the bright midway I’ve walked, and the love felt, strong enough to bend the mind. No, I’ll leave it to you, little man, and those who come after you, not yet born, to keep the circle unbroken. I look back, before entering the hotel. He’s still holding the little girl’s hand, and in the other is a shiny religious icon, held high, with exuberance, the kind only a child can display. He steals a glance toward her, while she says something to her pregnant mother. An older man bends down, to put his ear against the mother’s extended belly. His smiling face talks to the unborn child, as if his words can be heard.

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Musicians, in the gazebo, began playing a traditional Greek song. He raises his head from the mother and begins dancing in the street. A white handkerchief, decorating his suit coat, is pulled, an end offered to a young woman in the crowd. “Granddaughter, we dance,” the old man shouts out. They move side by side, connected by the white piece of cloth. Over his head, fingers are snapped to the festive rhythm of the music, like he did those years ago, with her grandmother. Their dark eyes look forward, at me, the tourist, with my hand on the opened hotel door. I smile, and it’s returned, as if I’ve been invited into their world for a moment, to capture a little piece of the magic, hanging in the sweet summer air. Before reaching the elevator, I receive a slight wave from the desk clerk. His other hand is busy checking-in new guests. The couple standing before him are young. They hold hands and speak with Irish accents. She turns her head toward me. “Sir, do you speak English? Are you enjoying your stay here?” “Yes, I’m sort of in a hurry to pack, or I’d tell you more. It’s all good, the hotel and the Island. You’ll remember the experience when you grow old.” “Our wedding was yesterday. We promised we’d grow old together,” she says, with the innocence of a child. “I wish both of you luck, and hope it comes true. Leave the bags on the floor and go out to enjoy the parade and festival. Dance, if you feel like it, and if not,

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sit near the gazebo and listen to the music. Look at the people, with smiles on their faces and watch gulls fly across the sky. Listen to your dreams. Get carried away by it all, this wonderful thing called life.” Later this morning we fly to Athens, where a larger airplane will be waiting to take us home. And, after suitcases are unpacked and things put away, I’ll walk outside, as I have before, to gaze at the sky and wonder how it all began. I’ll marvel at the fullness of my years and whisper a thank you to any ear that might be turned my way. I will think of the present, and all the love that’s been laid on my table by those I cherish, knowing they feel my devotion. And I will remember Elizabeth in her summer dress, the memories resting like polished pebbles in a shallow stream, their weight granting reason to stay, refusing to be washed away. I can hear the laughter. I can see the smile.

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