Prologue
“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” Jane Austen said, and she agrees.
She says, “I still love you. Very very much.” She is not lying.
But, “I've decided this.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to be involved with you anymore. I don’t want to be girlfriend-boyfriend with you.”
“Could you explain this to me, maybe?”
Some days he is angry. Soon he realizes: how preferable anger is to the other. Anger is energy, at least. For that he is grateful.
Space & Time
Is what he wanted. Or maybe it was time and space. It’s fuzzy now, that last conversation. This was a long time ago. But whatever it was, she had it to give. Had it in spades.
Then
And so when it ended she was the one crying, begging him to please stay, leaving overlong messages on his machine that he would listen to only in part, before pressing seven-to-delete on his touch tone phone.
She cried, told him she’d always loved him.
He, on his way to a new life and a new lover in a city far away, noted the circularity of things.
When
She told him she had missed him very much. They were sitting on her porch. She had a terrible pimple swelling on her chin. They had just come back from dinner.
“I am ready now.”
She did not feel the weight of what she said. She said it as if she were telling him anything else, as if she were telling him that she wanted to travel in Europe, to color her hair red.
“I’ve—” he looked at her. He said her name.
“You don’t want to anymore?” She realized he wasn’t saying anything.
“I’ve let go of all that. I’ve moved on now. I’m over it.”
He was with another woman now. She knew this. She didn’t think it mattered. He was still in love with her—more in love with her than he was or would ever be with the new woman. The new woman has been divorced. The new woman is old. The new woman would never really be serious about him. All of this she told herself.
Later she would realize she was wrong about the new woman. The new woman might be serious about him—and if not serious quite, then something close to serious. The new woman enjoyed him. He and the new woman had fun together. And that, it seemed, was enough.
She thinks now about how it is enough. She thinks now about how much she would give to be having fun with him. She did have fun with him, once. And then—
And then it was Christmas, and then New Year’s Eve.They rang in the new year together. They stayed home. He made dinner. They bought champagne glasses. They watched Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year’s Eve.They watched the ball drop. He kissed her when it was midnight in Chicago. He kissed her when it was midnight in New York. He kissed her when it was midnight in Tennessee. He kissed her when it was midnight in Los Angeles. They said Happy New Year and danced in his living room, their arms wrapping around each other. She dropped herself down onto the carpet still holding on to him and pulled him down toward her where they wrapped themselves around each other on the floor. He pulled her clothes off, she pulled his off, and they made love there on his old worn carpet that hadn’t been vacuumed in months—grabbing at each other, feeling hungry, tired, not quite happy for the new year.
Where
He lived at 521 East Elm; she was at 406 East Maple. Elm and Maple lay perpendicular, the one to the other surrounding the Historic Jackson Park, which was the center and the reason too for the Historic Downtown Farmington Jackson Park district.
When they spoke of it they said: “We live around the block from each other.” But that was not exactly true. It was true that her home at 406 East Maple faced the park south. His home at 521 East Elm faced some homes north, though just a walk two blocks west would put you at the park, and thus, across from her home.
So in a sense it was true that they lived around the block from each other. It was true too that they lived across the park from each other—which is the way she spoke of it. It was also true that this expedited, if it was not so much the reason for, their relationship.
It was not the reason for it. No, not at all. But it helped. It did not hurt.
But it would have happened anyway. Because it was a small town, because it was a small program they were in—because the year prior, he had said aloud to friends and colleagues: “I’m going to pick up one of the new students.” It would have happened. Because it would have happened.
What
What she likes to do first thing in the morning, before making her bed, before making coffee even, is to take a walk. It is not quite winter yet, only the first of December, but you can feel it coming. It is in the air.
She doesn’t take off the shirt she’s slept in, only puts on a sweater or coat over it, along with her hat and jeans, and walking shoes. She walks, counting sometimes, not counting other times, but thinking--or not thinking--or just feeling. Sometimes she wants to go back to bed; sometimes she recalls her dreams. Sometimes, if she’s taken a sleeping pill, she feels dizzy. Other times she hums. And other times she doesn’t do anything, just walks.
These are the best times. Today is one. She just walks; time is in the present even though there are stories in the past and in the future, there is possibility always out there too laying itself open for her but she is like the sentence in the present tense today, now walking one foot, the sun in her eyes, another foot and breath she can feel in and out, in and out, steady, simple, sun, breath.
Her dreams last night were action films and soon they will be gone. If she wrote them down they’d be stories to tell but she doesn’t want to tell such stories. She walks. She turns left and she is not in the park anymore; she is a breath today with the sun in her hair.
This street is south of the one he lived on last year before she left. She decides to walk by his house. It is an impulse but it is a natural progression too. Maybe she had been heading there without knowing it all along. She decides to continue the journey, to complete the walk she had made so many times for the years they lived around the block from each other. It was more often a trip with a destination, than a walk. But now she will let it be simply a walk. She will not stop. There is no reason to stop any more at his house, because it is no longer his house. She will walk by.
She is pleased to make the decision.
Today she knows it is over. She knows she can walk by his house and no longer feel sad. She knows it is gone, the heaviness. Just as in those days, she knew it was not gone, and knew she would feel sad, even before she drove by. And she did.
She turns the corner, approaching his house from the back. She can see the back staircase. She is across from the Family Video, visible from his apartment window. His apartment faced northeast. Hers faced southwest, which they both agreed was a far superior placement. On the other hand, his apartment was much larger than hers. His kitchen was as large as her living room. She had only a kitchenette, which they called an “ette” because it was not large enough for two people to stand in at once. It was absurd, really, her kitchen. On the other hand, she did have the southern exposure. That sort of decided things. They spent most of the time in her apartment.
She sees a man walking up the back stairs to his apartment. Maybe he lives there now. He is young, a college student. She turns the corner and walks by the front of his apartment. She reads the number 521 but does not stop and does not look up toward the windows of his apartment. Which is not his any longer. Which is not something she thinks too long about, walking by now. Neither does she feel sad. She does not feel anything much, or does not register a feeling; there is no need when one is breath and sun and steps.
When she gets to the park she is not sure if maybe she didn’t speed up her step. She is not sure if it was as simple as she decided it was. It was not sad, no—but it was not happy.
She decides not to question it further, just keep the steps and the breath, or try to return to them. No more questions. There are no answers. That’s what she knows. And she knows that not sad does not equal happiness. Just as she knows that happiness has its own kind of sadness deep down within its heart. She knows too about her desires, her tendencies, her terrible moods. And she walks one foot after the other now until she reaches her apartment that lies southward facing the historic Jackson Park in downtown Farmington.
Why
Because she wanted to. Because she did not live in a moral universe. Because she was lonely, and new, and because he was very kind. Because he felt safe. Because she was getting old. Because he was a good writer. Because she was afraid of failure. Because he was sociable, popular, well-liked. Because she tended toward agoraphobia. Because she feared death. Because she wanted a child someday. Because she would turn thirty next year. Because he came from good people. Because her siblings were all married, or engaged. Because her father was drinking himself to death. Because her mother had been dead for twenty years. Because of where she had been. Because when she told him where she had been—and for how long—he didn't cease loving her. Because he had good teeth. Because she needed to be touched. Because she needed to touch someone. Because she hated sleeping alone. Because she enjoyed—and that is not the word, but there is not a word—sex. Because sex. Because sex.
Because she did not know what the Tractacus Logicus was, and because he could tell her. Because he knew the famous author. Because he had lived in Paris. Because he had gone to a good college. Because people respected him, admired him, envied him. Because she was born under the Taurus moon, and was fatally attracted to status.
Because she wanted to.
Who
Just some undergraduate college boys, the sort proliferating in this town. They're leaving the store, on New Year’s Eve, walking to the car with their dessert and complaining about the cashier who would not let them buy alcohol because he didn’t have a license; when she offered hers as an afterthought, it was too late.
Some guys, assholes. They were looking at him anyway in the store, with her, but on the way to the car they yell, “Pussy boy”. And she should have pretended not to hear it but reflexively said “What did they say?” because it pissed her off and he said “Pussy boy” quietly, looking really sad, defeated like.
How
With a certain heaviness. With a complicated desire. In a way that was delicate, maternal and true.
© 2009 Suzanne Scanlon
