Chapter 13
With the composure that sex between two people in love brings, Jeremy and CC lie naked in bed. She’s still holding him tightly. If she could, she would pull the rest of him inside her. He senses her remaining desire. It thrills him. All his life, he’s imagined entering a heaven like this, in love with the woman from his dreams, with her in love with him the same way, her satisfaction stirring up her desire for more. Arriving here leaves him without a care in the world.
“Are you sorry we did it?” he asks.
“It was nice… I tried. We both tried. I sort of knew it was going to happen.”
She softens her grip. They share a long silence. Then, from his bedside drawer, Jeremy takes out another joint from his plastic bag. He lights up, drags deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as possible. As he exhales, he hands it to her. Like an old pro, she does the same. They are both happy partners in crime, naughty and nice. Free to do anything they want.
They pass the joint back and forth until Jeremy takes out surgical forceps that lock on the remainder of the joint, enabling it to be smoked until the very tip. Jeremy has to pucker up his lips to get that last drag. He hands it to her. Waste not, want not has been engrained in her, too. He watches her lovingly, nicely sodden in a satisfied fog. They are exactly where they’ve wanted to be. Happily wanting more, happily expecting what is to come next.
He looks at her, studying the details of her face. He smiles like he is about to tell a joke.
“I really don’t know anything about you,” Jeremy says.
“There’s nothing to know.”
He puts the forceps and spent joint in the ashtray. He looks at her expectantly.
“What do you want to know?” CC asks
He shrugs. “Anything. I guess about your family.” He chuckles “Who are you?”
“I’m not sure you want to hear about my family. I’ve liked being on a pedestal. You know Carol’s mother really well. And that’s a great relationship.”
“You mean the way she judges me?” He catches his angry tone. He doesn’t want CC to see him riled up. In a softer voice he continues: “We’ve known each other a long time. Right now, she can’t stand me. I don’t like her, either. But we love each other.”
“Didn’t look like a lot of love to me.”
“It’s there.”
“My family. You’re not going to be too thrilled with us. Except Mark. The two of you are twins.”
He doesn’t mind the comparison. Mark has been such a big part of her life. Jeremy doesn’t mind the comparison at all.
“Maybe I’m Mark, maybe not. But bottom line, I’m not Mark. I’m an entirely different person.”
“Perhaps, but right now I hear you and I hear Mark. As for the rest of my family, Wittgenstein would consider them so trivial that they aren’t worth a place on his planet.”
“You have it wrong. Wittgenstein lived among carpenters, and gardeners. He thought that they understood things better than Cambridge professors.”
“What do you want to know about my family?” CC asks.
“Anything. Whatever matters to you.”
“You tell me what matters to you,” CC answers.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay, for starters, I want to know what makes them proud.”
“I’ve never thought about us that way.” CC answers.
“It’s not something you have to think about. It’s just something you know—when they’re proud and when they aren’t. When you are.”
“Maybe, but I haven’t thought about it,” CC replies.
“What you think about it doesn’t matter. I’m asking about what you do that makes them proud. How you can disgrace them. Not what you think about.”
She hesitates.
“It says a lot about you and them.” Jeremy explains.
“I guess. Okay, I’ll tell you the family’s biggest secret.”
“The secret?” He’s half excited.
“When Mark was in the sixth grade, he and two of his friends made up this questionnaire that they sent to several girls in their class––questions like ‘How big are your tits?’ That’s what they wrote on their questionnaire. The girls were instructed to return the questionnaire to our home address. One day this person rings our doorbell. He was an investigator from the post office. He showed his badge. He told my parents he checked and saw that Mark and his friends were good kids. Nevertheless, he warned them that Mark could have a criminal record if he ever repeated it.
“My parents took it very seriously. No one in my family has ever committed a crime, on both sides. It would be a stain on the family’s name, permanent disgrace. Our name’s incredibly important. I think it is the same for all of their friends.”
Disappointed, Jeremy smiles mockingly. “So that’s your family’s big secret?”
Ignoring him, CC continues: “Laugh if you want, but no one ever mentions that incident. I only found out because Mark told me about it right after my parents confronted him. He tried to play it down, but I could tell. He was scared. Ashamed that he had brought disgrace to us.”
“Have you talked to him since about it?”
She smiles. “Now he laughs about it. But it still bothers him. I can tell. My father brings it up whenever he gets on his case.”
“Really?”
“Well… Not so much about that. Ever since Mark started talking back to him, that incident hasn’t mattered. They go at it. Shouting by the second sentence… So, this little misdemeanor is small potatoes.”
“It’s a good thing Mark’s dropped out.” Jeremy observes.
“What do you mean ‘dropped out’? He’s nothing like those people who quit school and do nothing. He gets high all the time but he works hard.”
“He refuses to go by your father’s rules, to take them seriously?”
“That’s true. He’s dropped out of the family. For a couple of years, he was in his room all the time. Wouldn’t come in to watch TV with us. Wouldn’t eat with us. I guess that’s a good way of putting it. But I know it bothers him that my father has something on him. Even if he was a kid at the time. It’s like he’s Mark’s parole officer.”
“I like Mark.”
“I like him too, but I wish he was more part of our family. We matter to him. I know that. But he lives on the edge.”
“Yeah, the edge of freedom.” Jeremy cheerfully adds.
“So, let’s say he is free. What has that gotten him? Where’s he gone?”
“He’s made that clear. Berkeley.”
“Right. Berkeley,” she says with an undisguised sneer.
She thinks for a moment before continuing. “I had this Irish friend who told me that in her family pride is incredibly important. Her family has a very pale complexion. They blush easily. She thought half of who she is, half of who everyone in her family is, has been related to the fact that they blush so easily.
“Her mother constantly preached pride, told them to keep their heads high. They were as good as anyone. La de da. Stuff like that. My friend has her theories. She said it was easier in the old country. They had to keep their behavior within the bounds of what her priest would approve. It was all spelled out. They were able to keep their heads very high—well, most of the time.
“But America’s more complicated. Her family’s standing in the community, the name they’ve earned, isn’t about being a good Catholic. In Ireland, everyone was from the same class. America’s so different. People moving up in the world. Or they aren’t. That’s what counts. It started in junior high. She turned scarlet at school if anybody asked her where she lived. It was a broken-down neighborhood. She’d want to dig a hole in the ground to hide.
“Her brothers have the same problem. They blush easily. She told me it’s the reason her brothers get into a lot of fights. Instead of being embarrassed, they kick the shit out of anyone who could embarrass them. Shame—nothing leaves people so full of rage as shame. Think of how many Blacks have been shamed over the centuries, and their rage.”
“I guess so.”
CC continues, “It’s the same for Jews. Being proud or ashamed of where your family stands—that drives people to do all kinds of things.”
“I know,” Jeremy says. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Some people claim that if you’re proud of yourself, it doesn’t matter what other people think. Is that true of you?”
“Maybe half the time,” CC answers. “I wish it was more. I’ve known people who are self-assured all the time—no matter who they are with, or what’s happening to them.”
“Maybe they’re good actors.”
“Maybe, but it’s more than that,” CC tells him. “They always seem unflappable. I don’t know if they are born that way, or they possess this amazing wisdom that gets them there, but I’d like some of that. It would be nice.”
“You struggle a lot with it?” he asks her.
“Not that much now. When I was younger, yeah. Junior high, even in high school, but now most of the time I’m feeling neither—not proud, not ashamed. It probably influences what I am doing. But I’m not aware of it. I just try to keep things copacetic. I guess that’s good.”
“Me too. Basically. You learn how to cover up. Half of what people see, three-quarters. It’s this mask I wear.”
“I’m surprised,” CC tells him. “You seem really out there. You go out on a limb a lot. Take chances. What you said about your Brooklyn accent.”
“I know. But, it bothers me. When I’m in front of a class, I either make a fool of myself or I wow everyone. It isn’t a choice. I wish it weren’t true.”
“But then, wouldn’t you be boring like everyone else?”
“You mean like Jay?”
CC laughs teasingly. “You hardly know him!”
“Well, I got the drift.”
“What about when you’re not in the classroom?”
“Elsewhere? With Carol? I’m comfortable. She knows all my shit, same with my friend Dave. Everyone else? Certain faculty members—”
“You crave being in that position, don’t you? The star.”
“It brought you to me—didn’t it?”
“I don’t know about that,” she teases back. “You really want to know? It was Wittgenstein.”
He smiles. “I nail that lecture. It’s my big hit.”
“You seemed to be in a rapture. That’s what turned me on, but you know what? We probably would have gotten here some other way.”
“Right,” he says drily. He knows she is lying. He knows the classroom show he puts on has opened the door to her and a lot of other people.
“It must be hard to have to be that way all the time.”
“But it isn’t all the time. Not with Carol.”
“And me. Am I part of your show?”
“You’re the whole point of the show.”
“And you’re not happy about it?”
“As long as I can keep coming up with winners, meaning new ideas, I’m a happy turtle. So far, so good. Something about lecturing inspires me.”
“It seems that way. You can go loopedy-loo and the class would do it with you.”
“I lose myself.”
“It’s really not under your control?” CC asks a bit surprised.
“It isn’t. I don’t understand what happens. Before a lecture, I can be edgy, like maybe this time I won’t have it. No more magic. Or I will completely screw up. But once I get going, I’m on automatic pilot. Ideas keep popping out of my mouth. They must be coming from somewhere in my brain, but it’s almost as if a different person has taken over. That person is coming up with the thoughts. It’s only the last few years. That’s the closest I get to feeling proud. Really proud. I love it. I guess you are my muse.”
“Me? It really is me? It isn’t having an audience?”
“Yeah. I guess the audience does it. But actually, it’s not the audience. It’s this fantasy I’ve always had, that you would be there in the audience. It’s been for you.”
“Me? I thought you’ve been doing it for years.”
“I have, but it’s always been to win my dream girl.”
She chuckles. “Come on!”
He smiles back. Thinks a bit. “Okay. Actually, I get turned on even when I am alone. No audience. You know when a song is right, you sing it to yourself. It just feels good. I get that way with ideas. If it’s right you try to grab it. Even when I’m not in front of a classroom. If I start to lecture that takes over. I am flying. Bam, bam, bam. With or without someone to hear it.”
“So, you take off?”
“Carol, says I’m off in my own world. She kind of likes it, but in front of other people, she’s not too keen. She keeps reminding me people don’t like lectures. I’m not in a classroom. She’s right, but it’s not under my control. It just takes over. My shrink says it’s because I’m manic depressive.”
“Really? It’s part of an illness? What if people like it? You are the star professor on campus.”
“Not outside the classroom. Plenty of people think I’m a jerk, especially Carol’s family.”
“You’re not a jerk. It’s something I love.”
“We’ll see. We’ll see.”
“So. You are two people.” CC asks
“I suppose.”
“The flying you isn’t the real you?”
“It’s me. But sometimes I’m not sure… It may be a symptom of something, but it is also something I love. I mean obviously it’s me, but when I think about it after… it’s like someone else. I mean, it must be me. But I don’t know where I come up with half of my ideas.”
“So, you’re like Clark Kent dashing into a phone booth to become–”
“Superman?” He’s pleased. Does she really think his ideas are that stupendous?
She smiles. “The same thing happens to Mark. He says it’s like baseball. You practice and practice. Then your hands and arms and legs—your body takes over. You go out on the field and it all happens automatically. Sometimes it amazes him. He could not have possibly thought out how he was going to get to that grounder and get off a throw. He hears the cheers. He’s told me sometimes he would also like to applaud. He’s that impressed. He says the same thing. It is as if he were someone else.”
“Right.”
“Some god that has taken over. It’s almost too good to be true. You practice and then it happens. Mark says he’s happy to take ownership, but it’s weird.”
“I’m sure he’s delighted. Why wouldn’t he? After making a great catch it’s got to feel good.”
“Yeah but it’s strange. When Mark talks about his great baseball moments he also looks ashamed. After a great catch. I don’t get it. He doesn’t get it. Why embarrassed?” She is in a reverie of her own thinking about Mark.
“So, baseball is his thing?”
Again, a smile. “Was…No longer. He told me that he lost what he had when he realized he wasn’t as good as he thought he was going to be. He gave up. But he remembers what it was like. Working towards that. That moment when it all comes together. I can tell he misses it.”
Jeremy is listening closely. She continues.
“Assuming he was going to be great kept him practicing. When he lost that, there was no reason to practice.”
“He dropped it entirely?”
“He’s never joined a softball league. Maybe he didn’t like playing the game. It was all for the glory.”
“What’s so strange about that?” Jeremy tells her a bit defensively .
“I think he is still trying to get there a different way.”
“For glory?”
“For glory. Yes,” CC replies.
“Who wouldn’t like to get there? Climbing the mountain and getting to the top. What’s wrong about that?
“It’s a trap. You never get to the top. Take it from me. I already see it.”
“In Mark?”
CC shrugs. “I don’t know.” She gets out from the covers and stands up. Starts to stretch but then doesn’t. Feeling chilly, she puts on Jeremy’s winter coat. She doesn’t zipper it. She goes to the window and stares out at the snow. It’s a bit of a show. Hers. Glancing back to the bed, she can see that he’s still in la-la land. She’s enjoying the pleasure he’s getting watching her. He is seeing flashes of her pussy, her nipples. His eyes are lit up.
When they talk, it seems like it is a separate relationship. She’s not wrong. It’s nice, but what his eyes are taking in means more than what he hears. Not that what they’ve talked about is just chatter. So far, so good. They’ve spoken honestly, revealed a good deal of who they are, trusted each other, and that’s satisfying. But no matter how honest, it’s staying on the surface, resorting to cleverness if they start to get deep. That’s fine with her. It’s an improvement on her previous relationships with men. The other times she’s slept with someone, they got dressed quickly. Once, she was fully dressed when they made love, her skirt lifted, her underpants pushed to the side. She closes her coat so he can only see her legs. For now, she prefers that. Mind over matter.
“I’ll tell you straight out. My family is boring.” She returns to staring out the window. She turns to face him. “I’m boring. Mostly, we bore one another. . .”
“Come on.” He assumes it’s false modesty, or she is fishing for a compliment.
“You don’t understand. It doesn’t bother us. That’s why the TV is always on. And half the time, that’s boring.”
“You bore one another?”
“We have nothing to prove. It’s comfortable. We kibitz a lot. Could be a bit more often but__”
“That must be nice.”
“It is. Well—it used to be. . . Jay and my father sometimes played chess. . .”
Almost immediately she realizes she’s trying to impress him. They don’t play chess very often. Suddenly aware of that need she becomes uncomfortable.
“Actually, lately, not all that often. The last few years… when my father and Mark are in the room together, that’s not boring. We’re all tense. Afraid things will flare up.”
“You’re the peacemaker?
“I guess my mother and me. . . Basically, Mark is probably thinking up some way to get my father going.”
“He’s that calculating?”
She thinks further. “I’m not being fair. When they fight, it isn’t under their control. Plenty of times, maybe most of the time, they both start out with good intentions. I don’t think they want to fight, but it doesn’t take much to get Mark pissed… Or my father.”
“Your father—what’s he doing?”
“He’s trying to concentrate on the TV. It’s not really fights. Not usually. It’s just quick flare-ups, but the tension is always there. Sometimes there are these long silences.”
She thinks further. “I take it back, about my mother being the peacemaker. She talks to both of them, trying to get them to understand each other, but, in a way, they are fighting over her, trying to win her to their side. She’s the queen of the household. Who she loves and favors determines our standing. And she knows it.”
“So, who’s winning?”
“No one. It makes my mother angry.”
“At both of them?
“I suppose so.”
“I thought she likes it?”
“Being the queen–yes, but the warfare…”
Jeremy says nothing.
“I take that back. She doesn’t really get angry at Mark. She tries to understand him. What she figures out, she tells my father, which riles him up. He says her explanations are excuses for him. That really pisses my father off. And most of the time he’s got to stuff it. He can’t say anything. She has him on a short leash. Although sometimes—”
“Where’s Jay in all this?”
“He stays out of it. If the two of them get started, he’ll go to the TV and turn the volume up. But that’s basically it.”
“Your family doesn’t sound very close.”
“Just the opposite. What’s that Tolstoy quote?”
“Which one?”
“About happy families?”
“Oh. ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’”
“Exactly. The happy part is the way we were for years. We just got along. Didn’t give it any thought. Didn’t have to. We just took it for granted. Now it’s rarely like that.”
“So, it’s not boring.”
“I guess not, but now we have to make an effort at being vanilla… Carol Burnett, Ironside, Marcus Welby, Merv Griffin. For excitement, if we want to get all charged up, maybe a scary movie. Mark and I see things like Psycho. Or The Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
He grins. “You saw that?”
“The point is, there was a time when we didn’t expect trouble from one another. It never occurred to us that anything could go wrong. It was like long afternoons at the beach—just the sun and the sound of the waves. For years and years.” She thinks further. “Now, when Mark and my father get started… they don’t even have to raise their voices. But you know. Coco’s tail goes down and he slips out of the room.”
“Who’s Coco?”
“Our French poodle.”
Jeremy’s contempt returns only partially subdued: “A French poodle? . . . Does your mother have him groomed into froufrou cuts?”
“No. Just a standard cut,” CC’s says, relieved Coco doesn’t get froufrou haircuts.
Jeremy shoots a glance at Perry. He’s off in the corner, watching the two of them. Perry’s back paw goes to work on an itchy spot. Jeremy feels lucky. It’s so quiet. Perfect. He’s used to a lot of crying at home, noise from Alyosha. One of the joys of fatherhood. Lana, Dave’s wife, is still taking care of him while Carol is in the hospital. It’s nice not having him around.
“So, Coco leaves the room?”
“Animal instinct. Not just Coco. We all feel it. But Coco knows before any of us.”
“It’s not so bad when people fight. If you can’t rock the boat, you don’t have a very good boat. Your relationships aren’t real.” Jeremy observes.
“The last thing we need is a rocking boat. It rocks more than enough. Our job is to keep it steady. Real steady. So, we can concentrate on the important things.”
“Such as?”
“Enjoying what’s on TV.”
“No, really. What else?”
“Yes, really. What’s on TV.”
“There has to be something else.”
“Basically, there isn’t.”
“There has to be.”
“Okay, my mother. When my hair is looking good, she wants to know what kind of shampoo I use, what kind of conditioner. When my hair is not looking good, she gives serious thought to which shampoo she should get for me. She’s tried maybe seven or eight shampoos. She does heavy thinking on that subject.”
“You’re serious?”
CC laughs. “Why are you surprised? That’s important to her.”
“Come on!”
“Not everyone’s nose is in a book. Some people actually play cards, or write letters, or do cross word puzzles.”
“With the TV on?”
“With the TV on. It’s always on.”
“So that’s your family? Eyes on the TV until bedtime.”
“I don’t know why you think that’s so strange. Besides my mother is not all TV. A few days before she is going out with my father, she’s obsessed with finding the right shade of lipstick to wear with her blue blouse, or ivory blouse, or whatever she’s planning. She goes to this one store. But sometimes they don’t have it. Once she went to three stores. She would have gone to ten.”
“For lipstick?
“It’s how she spends her day. Doing her nails, her toenails. Looking beautiful is extremely important. I told you about the club. Besides that, they go out several times a week. To her it is like going to the prom. Everything has to be right.”
“The prom’s the prom because it’s once a year.”
“Not to her.”
“So, finding lipstick? That’s it?”
“She likes her hair not to look flat. She can’t always make that happen, not easily even though she’s had it layered. For a while she was obsessed with Audrey Hepburn’s look in Sabrina, then her look in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She loves Audrey Hepburn. Lately, Mia Farrow too. My mother has that chiseled look. She can pull it off. Movie star looks—enough people have told her and I’m sure she looks in the mirror. She’s proud of that. But it isn’t automatic. She has to work at it. 99% of people would love to look like she looks on a bad day. Getting it right seems unnecessary. But the pride she has when everything is right, can be gone in a split second if she doesn’t get there, in her mind, not anyone else’s. Hers–that’s what counts. If she thinks it’s off, it is. She looks in the mirror and sees a witch. So yes, if necessary she’ll go to ten stores for the right lipstick.”
“Nothing else?” He assumes her mother is a birdbrain and it is clear in his tone, a little too sarcastic. He can’t hide his contempt, and he only half wants to. “She’s something!”
“She is. She’s beautiful. You have no idea.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
But then he catches her drift,
“Must be a tough act to follow.”.
“Her most important thought of the day might be how white Jay’s teeth are. What a good job he’s been doing brushing them. Jay also has nice taste in clothes. Real nice. She credits herself for that and all his good habits.”
“What does your mother do for excitement?”
“That is excitement. It’s what’s important, making a cameo appearance at the Copa or their club.”
“That’s amazing.”
“You really can’t imagine it, can you?”
“I can. I’ve known plenty of people like her. There were plenty of people like that in Brooklyn. I just don’t get it.”
“And they don’t get you. Books? To my mother it’s like surrounding yourself in dust.”
“What’s excitement for you?” Jeremy counters
“Psycho was plenty. I can take maybe one movie like that a year.”
“What about this?”
“You mean what we’re doing?”
He smiles with disbelief.
Her voice is serious. “It’s crazy, the craziest thing I’ve ever done. It would make a good movie. But actually, doing it…”
“Doing what?” he snaps back. After a moment he begins again, this time more calmly. “I can’t live without excitement. Don’t you crave it a little?”
“Not really.”
He puts his hand around his penis. It is semi-erect. “You’re sure?”
She’s not used to this kind of talk. She’s vaguely disgusted and at the same time thrilled. Tentatively, then wickedly, her eyes meet his, and then they go to his penis.
She laughs. “You’re getting cocky.”
“I have to pee,” he says as he walks to the bathroom. He doesn’t close the door.
She returns to the bed. She can hear his stream. When she was a little girl, she used to be fascinated by the sound of Mark and Jay peeing. She wondered what it would be like to pee like that. Her therapist called that “penis envy.” She wasn’t really envious, just curious. As for the rest of what he was implying, she doesn’t think men are lucky. So much is expected of them. Why would anyone want that? Their life is much harder than women’s.
She looks for a magazine or something to read. She finds an L. L. Bean flyer on his night table. It’s opened to a page showing men’s leather jackets, very rugged-looking. She smiles when she sees one that Jeremy has circled.
At the bathroom sink, Jeremy studies himself in the mirror. He flashes a smile. CC’s romantic desire for him has changed what he usually sees in the mirror. Since her infatuation he half likes his looks. He studies several different angles of his face, including one in which he tries to hold a distinguished expression. He’s not successful. He looks a bit comical, but it doesn’t bother him. Right now, nothing could bother him.
He tones it down, finds a slightly less distinguished expression to study. That look is okay. He puts his hand through his hair, trying to puff it up a bit. When he moves the mirror to a different angle, he sees CC reading the flyer. He shouts to her. “How do you like those jackets?”
Cheerfully, she holds up the catalog and points. “The one you circled would look great on you.”
He goes to the doorway naked, semi-erect, expectant.
In anticipation, she lowers the zipper on Jeremy’s coat. He returns to the bedroom, sits on the edge of the bed near her.
“Mark has a jacket like that.”
“Mark, Mark” He’s a bit exasperated. “So, tell me more about Mark.”
“That’s what you want to talk about?”
“You keep bringing him up, comparing me to him.”
“True. But—” She’s steals another quick glance at his penis. Her desire embarrasses her.
“Seriously, I want to know about Mark.”
“Okay… Mark,” she says, as if making an official notation to begin a story.
“Until maybe seven or eight years ago, he was a regular person.”
“Meaning?”
“I didn’t have to think about him and who he is. He was just Mark. I knew everything I had to know.”
“Been there. I used to be a regular person.” Jeremy tells her.
“Doubt that.”
“Really. I was. I just grew out of it.”
“So did Mark. He totally changed after he was kicked out of the family room.”
“What do you mean, ‘kicked out’?”
“Well, not really kicked out. There wasn’t a posted sign. ‘No Mark in Family Room.’ But he no longer was welcome to watch TV when we were all together. If Mark looked into the room and saw my father, nine times out of ten, he didn’t enter the room.
“They’ve tried a dozen times to make up, but it doesn’t last long. Invariably, they go at it again. And then TV stopped mattering to him. Mark stayed in his room a lot. Basically, lived there. A lot of times he didn’t eat with us. Before that, we tried. One time after another we tried to have a peaceful meal, but there were too many blowups. Eventually, he’d eat before we did. My mother let him to do it–my father too. They accepted reality. There were family rules, and then there were Mark rules. My mother actually let him decorate his room with a Che Guevara poster. She didn’t allow Jay or me to do anything like that. It’s been like that for years.
“He’s become very different from us. He has almost no interest in TV or magazines. He reads a lot of serious books. I mean serious. He doesn’t just read them. He wrestles with them. Marks them up.”
“Marks?”
“Writes questions in the margins. Sometimes, when he gets going, his comments in the margins can go on for pages. He debates the authors. Or loves them. He dog-ears the pages that he loves so he can find them easily. Mostly so he can read them to me.
“My mom would go up to visit him in his room and he would do the same thing, tell her all about the latest things he read, and what he thought of them. Just like he used to tell her about his baseball games in incredible detail, inning by inning. Or she would serve him dinner and they’d talk. I doubt that she heard a word he said about any of it. Didn’t matter. Whether she could follow his thinking, whether she was interested in half of what he explained to her, she sensed his enthusiasm and could join him without understanding the details. She could be troubled when he was troubled, happy when he was happy. Just being together.”
“So, your Mom and Mark are close.”
“Much to my father’s displeasure.”
“Your father’s jealous?”
“He would never admit it, but it’s pretty obvious. It isn’t just Mark. He knows all of us kids come first. He accepts that. A lot of other men are in the same situation with their wives. So, he is philosophical. He can joke about it. But dealing with her favoritism when an incident between him and Mark comes up can set him off. He doesn’t have to worry about Jay and me.”
“So, she likes the way Mark has changed?”
“She’s not thrilled, but she’s his mom. That’s what moms do.”
“Do you think Mark can return to being a regular person?”
“I can’t imagine it. He’s pretty different.”
“Is he really?”
She nods. “Sometimes I look at him and I see the exact same person I used to know.” She laughs. “Someday he’s going to be over thirty. He’ll be one of them.” Her smile widens. “By the time he’s forty, he’ll be like everyone else. All of his rockets fired.”
“So, you don’t take him seriously?”
“I do. Right now, he’s fascinating. Well. . . He was. I’d go to Mark’s room or the backyard and we talked and talked. He’s always trying to figure things out. I love the way his mind works. He’ll come up with perspectives that no one else is even considering.”
“Like what?”
“Anything. What’s going on in the world, in the house, in his head. Usually something’s he’s read has taken root and is growing there. A week later, he might completely tear it out of his brain, when he decides the original premise is wrong. Or he doesn’t like where it led him. Or it may grow even more.
“He’s like you. It pours out of him. Not just Vietnam stuff. I mean, there’s too much of that, but he goes to interesting places without leaving his room. He wanders everywhere.”
She looks at Jeremy happily. “He should do what you do, be a teacher. He wants to be a psychiatrist. I think it’s a mistake. They’re supposed to say practically nothing to their patients. Certainly, no gushing. That’s not Mark. He’s putting himself in a straitjacket.”
“So, you like listening to his ideas?”
She hesitates. “I used to love them.” She playfully pushes her fist into Jeremy’s upper arm. “Why do you think I’m with you? I gobbled up everything Mark had to say. We’d go to the backyard and get stoned. Now I disagree with half of his ideas. Sometimes I can’t stand him. I hate where he’s at.”
“Really?”
“He can be a real schmuck. Crazy. Offensive. I understand where my father is coming from.”
“He’s that off?”
“More than I can stand. He’s so angry. Like he wants to kill someone. I understand why sometimes they shoot people like him.”
“Really?”
She shrugs. “I guess not. But the truth is sometimes even if I disagree, what we talk about stays with me. Even his most far-out thoughts. Day after day we used to argue about something or other. Back and forth, issue after issue. For hours after, I’d be thinking about questions he was asking, looking for answers. I’d wake up in the morning with a rebuttal to something he was pushing. Or I realized that I agreed with him. I’d never done that before. Not even for school. He got my mind going, made my opinions matter. I was never like that before.”
“So, we are a natural. I really am your Mark substitute.”
“Well, it isn’t your looks.”
“I thought you said you liked how I look?” Jeremy’s never fully believed that story of how she thought he was cute. He has eyes of his own.
She laughs. “It’s eerie how much you are like him.”
“I saw that picture in your wallet. Mark’s pretty good-looking.”
“I like your looks more. Mark’s too pretty. You’re ugly but handsome. Like Humphrey Bogart.”
“I’m ugly?” It confirms what he has all thought along.
Her voice remains teasing. “No, you look fine. Told you. That time you followed me . . . I kept seeing your face, remembering it. Can’t explain how you’re handsome. I think it’s your eyes. They’re very intense, hungry. Like you’re searching for something.”
“Well, I wanted you”—he stares at her as he speaks— “real bad.”
She answers lightheartedly. “You have me, but you still have that look. I’ll bet Wittgenstein… And you…What’s in front of you is covering up what you’re looking for. Behind the smoke screen, there is something you need to find.”
“Which is?”
“You tell me.”
He shrugs.
She chuckles. “Nothing will ever be enough for you.” She continues: “I like that.” Then her voice becomes more serious. “Except when it comes to TV. I’ve spent half my life with my family watching our programs. When I got my own TV in my bedroom, it was on all the time. Every night after homework… and during homework.”
“What about since you’re in college?” he asks with a snobbish inflection.
Intimidated, she tells him what he wants to hear. It’s not altogether a lie.
“Not as much… I don’t go to the lounge, where they have the TV.” Half in jest, under her breath, she mumbles, “They don’t watch my programs.”
He hears her but tries to ignore her answer.
“No, actually,” she goes on, “I’m reading a lot. And I enjoy it. Still, when I go home to Long Island, I’m locked into my TV. I feel like I’ve missed a lot of programs. Like something happened without me.”
“Like what?” he asks, again snobbishly.
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t picture you growing up with your parents.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t.”
“They were . . . parents. They had their rules, which were basically reasonable. The only pressure came when we were going to the club. That’s where what you said about pride applies. That was very big. Very. It was like we were stepping up on a stage. They expected me not to let them down.”
“I don’t get it. Having a daughter who looks like you? I’d be strutting.”
“No one struts at the club.”
“Figuratively.”
“Whatever.”
“Beside your looks, what else made them proud?” Jeremy asks.
This time, he notices her stealing glances at his penis.
“I know what makes you proud,” she teases.
“What?” He looks down again. An erection is forming. “You like?”
“Not bad. I also know what makes you cocky.”
“What?”
“Being Mr. Professor and looking down at me and the rest of us peasants.”
“Who is us?”
“Us is my family, most of the students, everyone who’s a regular person.”
“Come on.”
“It isn’t just you. All the professors. Here on campus, you’re royalty. You walk on a cloud of ideas. You’ve got Socrates, Aristotle. Archimedes, Einstein, Hemingway on your team. Oh, and Wittgenstein. I got Carol Burnett, Ed Sullivan. My family? My parents read three or four books a year. Best sellers, page-turners, like a good TV program.”
“That’s not how I think about you.”
“Bullshit. Come on. It’s not just you. From the first day I got here. The dean’s welcoming speech.” She imitates the dean: “‘Welcome to U.B.’ Blah blah blah. ‘Let us be your guide to the wonders of Western civilization.’”
“Well—”
“Meaning books . . . books,” she repeats. She continues to imitate the dean: “‘Literature can liberate your minds. Answer the mysteries of the universe.’ Books, books, books.”
“Well, they can. Also, movies. Bergman and Antonioni. And Fellini. You know, 8½.”
“Mark explained what that one was all about.” She adds, “Last Year at Marienbad. What was that?” she asks in a challenging way.
“That wasn’t Antonioni. It was Resnais.”
“Same thing! That movie—I couldn’t figure out what it was about. Even after Mark explained it to me, none of it made sense.”
“The French worship style. Doesn’t matter if the movie means anything. ‘The medium is the massage.’” He’s pleased with being able to throw in McLuhan.
“I just don’t get it.”
“What’s to understand? Your parent’s club sounds like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I visited a club on Long Island. It’s quite a scene. Very stylish.”
“Maybe, but that’s not a movie. And we are not French.”
“Aren’t there times when people at the club look great and you can get into it?”
“Okay.”
“So why is Marienbad confusing?”
“Because that’s for a glance or two, not a two-hour movie.”
He smiles, granting her point.
“I like Fellini and Bergman. They’re not boring,” CC says.
“You do like them?”
“Except the way Bergman’s movies end. All he’s done is create more mysteries.”
“That’s how it should be. The more you can tolerate ambiguity, the better your mind is.”
“Maybe, but a lot of times I think Jay has the right idea. He’s a can-do person. He majoring in accounting. The only questions he cares about are the ones you can answer. He ignores the rest. He’s not like Mark. He thinks Mark is wasting his time reading so much.”
“But you prefer Mark?”
She thinks it over. “I don’t know about prefer. I mean our conversations turn me on . . . the questions he asks. But the truth is, reading separates us. Before Mark went away to college, I constantly frustrated him. And once he started college. . . He had nonstop great discoveries—at least he thought they were. No. Sometimes they were. I was turned on by them. But he expected that to happen to me with every single idea he had. And that didn’t happen. Not just his discoveries—other things.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He expected me to read every book he liked. I read a few of them. No—a lot of them. Actually, ten or fifteen, but nowhere near what he wanted. I liked them, but he wanted me to love them. I mean, some I loved but. . . I have a to-do list, dozens of books. Lately, I’ve stopped looking at it because it makes me feel too guilty.”
Jeremy can’t hide his disappointment.
“Sorry,” she concludes, “but that’s the truth.”