?
I was her revolt. And when she was determined to do something, she did it, even if it was revolt. And so, that afternoon early in our relationship—not long after we met and I had mistaken her for a princess—we sat on her parents’ sofa. Adeleine seemed so nonchalant about the whole business. I was thrilled to be in the room with her and I felt hyper alive. I couldn’t believe my luck.
I hate this house, she said.
Are you crazy? It’s a beautiful house!
I hate it. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem like home, I suppose.
Are you crazy?
It’s a claustrophobic house. She took off a bit of clothes.
I disagree. It’s open and airy.
I dislike it. It’s too corporate. It’s like an office building.
You may dislike it, but to me, coming from where I stand—the bungalow belt—it’s a wonderful house. You’re lucky to live here.
I’ll be lucky to move.
Why don’t you show me around? I’ve never seen a house like this before.
Sure thing, she said, smiling. That I can do.
I didn’t think it then, but later when I left her house it occurred to me that I would call Cal and tell him what had happened to me, and he was a guy first and foremost who wouldn’t be jealous, and he would listen in disbelief to what happened to me.
I can hear Cal’s laughter even now as I recounted the good fortune that had befallen me, running into this woman at a party, and then bumping into her again at the grocery store, and then before I knew it I was getting the complete tour.
Later we would marry—the lavish wedding on the lake. I didn’t care for it all: the display of wealth, her parents’ country club friends, the snobbery of it all. And frankly, neither did Adeleine, but she recognized it was part of the thing we had to do.
But after the wedding we did what we wanted to, and we drove in a car all the way to a tiny little town, Chokoloskee, on the Gulf of Mexico near the Everglades in Florida, and we stayed in a shack for fourteen days right on the beach and we didn’t do a thing but lay in our bed with the window open to the surf and mosquitoes that we swatted with a fly swatter and at night we would walk on the beach feeling the tug of the tide and the moon and the stars overhead and how they made us feel, not tiny and insignificant, but grateful to be alive even briefly to experience such cosmic grandeur and how many years would go by with us married and intimate and loving.
But the passion of that first day we spent in her parent's house getting to know each other after we first met, while her parents were away—it was a one of a kind experience that started us off on our journey, and she gave it to me, she’s the one who made it happen. It was a gift and I’m grateful to her for having given it to me but I’m sad even as I write this that the soulmate I had shared this experience with is no longer with me. I can’t turn to her even if I wanted to and say: remember that time at your parents’ house when you first brought me home after we ran into each other in the grocery store? In fact, all that was left of that moment was what I could remember of it, and memory was one of those things: maybe you worked it as hard as you could to squeeze all the details out of it, but the problem with memory as far as I could see was you could never quite be sure if what you remembered really happened. Memory was like standing on the sand in the surf. Here you are with your feet planted firmly in the sand, and yet as the cool bubbly surf rolls in you feel the sand erode under your feet and what seemed like terra firma is suddenly less firma and less terra too for that matter.
Oh, memory! What part of you is real and what part imagined, and even real or imagined, who else could possibly care what occurred in the privacy of her parents’ bedroom that afternoon so many years ago? For even if I said, this is what happened, exactly as I describe it, is there a soul in this busy hectic world who would care? Meg maybe, a little, but no kid really wants the details of that, and after that it matters less to each generation, so who would even care?
?
I lay in bed in the hotel room with Rita and I couldn’t decide whether to retain the memory I had had of that afternoon with Adeleine or to banish it from my memory forever.
Like Adeleine, Rita too had removed her clothes, and we tried to have sex, but it didn’t work so well. I couldn’t escape the sense of déjà vu, not to mention I was older now, so much water under the bridge this time, and when she seemed miffed after a few minutes of her effort failed to register on me she looked up and spoke.
What’s the problem?
Should I tell her I’m an old man? Old and broken?
There is no problem.
This is a problem.
This is life, I told her.
It’s not a very friendly life. I thought you liked me.
I do like you.
I mean I thought you found me attractive.
I do find you attractive.
Then what’s this?
The tone of Rita’s response after that first time established forever the tone of our relationship. It didn’t take any time at all, I tell myself now, to go from hellos to hell. And once I was in hell I haven’t been able to figure out a way to escape.
?
It was the first time but not the last time I had had a problem with Rita. I hated having problems in bed with Rita but I knew what my problem was. I had never had such problems with Adeleine.
But of course I couldn’t say that. All I could say was: I’m sorry Rita. I don’t mean to have problems.
OK, then. Let’s not have any problems.
I’ll try.
And try I did, but I still had problems.
Is it me? she asked.
Of course it isn’t, I said, which was true and not true.
I don’t like the way you said that.
What do you mean?
You weren’t convincing. Maybe it is me that’s the problem.
She got up from bed and started putting her clothes on.
No. Come back to bed. You’re not the problem.
Then what’s the problem?
There is no problem.
She took off her clothes and came back to bed.
OK, let’s try this again.
So we tried it again, but I had a problem.
You’re still having a problem.
I hate to have this problem. I don’t know how to explain it.
It’s me.
No it’s not.
Yes it is. If it were someone you were attracted to, you wouldn’t be having this problem.
The problem is I cannot believe my wife is dead. I think this without saying it: the problem is I cannot believe my wife is dead. Her death is like smelling salts in my nose. I can’t get the strong sensation of those smelling salts out of my nose. The problem is: How do I tell Rita that my problem is related to my dead wife? Is this how I say it? I’m having a problem because I cannot believe my wife is dead.
I didn’t know how to say it.
I thought of opening a bottle of champagne. I thought maybe that would help. I told Rita that’s what I was going to do. I had a bottle chilling in my office across the street.
Do you want me to come with?
No, just stay here. Watch a movie or something. I’ll be right back.
But you’re coming back, right, Art?
Right.