What It Was Like (20 page)

I called out a weak “Bye!” as Rachel practically dragged me across the dining room and the living room toward the front door. I tried to say something, but she shushed me.

“Wait!” she whispered. “Wait until we're outside.”

She slammed the door behind us and instantly turned to me, almost leaping into my arms. She hugged me tightly, burying her face in my neck. It was as if she were holding on for dear life.

I held her tightly, trying to comfort her.

“Baby,” I whispered. “What's wrong?”

I wanted to get her away from the house. It would be just like Eleanor to be looking out from behind the velvet drapes.

“We should go,” I said, holding her away from me. I looked into her downturned eyes and asked, “Where would you like to go?”

She looked up at me with those blue-blue eyes, now wet with tears, and said simply, “Your room.”

≁

I briefly thought of smuggling Rachel up to my room without introducing her to my parents, but that wasn't reasonable. It was the correct thing to do, plus they would have heard my key in the door and would have come to see who was breaking into their house anyway.

“Mom, this is Rachel,” I said. “Rachel, this is my mother.”

“So nice to meet you!” they both said, in absolute unison, rushing toward each other for a quick little hug. It was hard to watch, and I separated them as soon as I could.

“We're going upstairs,” I said. “I want to show Rachel my –”

“Don't be rude,” Rachel said, turning on me. “Your mother and I are allowed to say hello.”

“Yes,” my mother stood, agreeing with her. “Have you noticed how bossy he is?”

“Absolutely!” Rachel declared. “He is very bossy!”

“So, you know what you do?” my mother suggested. “Don't
let
'im boss you!”

Rachel laughed and my mother laughed too. They were having a little fun at my expense, but I didn't mind too much.

“Can we just please stop the tag-team match – ?” I said, delicately separating them.

“There's some Baskin-Robbins in the freezer!” my mother said as I guided Rachel gently in the direction of the staircase up to my room.

“Thank you! We're fine!” I said, practically herding Rachel up the stairs.

“Will you stop?” Rachel hissed at me.

“Good night!” I said to my mother as an invitation for her to disappear.

“Good night, Rachel!” my mother called, but by then we were halfway up the stairs.

“Your mother is so cute!” Rachel whispered, trying to turn around.

“Please!” I said as I guided her into my room and closed the door behind us.

“She's like a little doll!

“What? Is there a Peasant Barbie?”

“Be nice!” said Rachel, putting her arms around my neck.

“I
am
nice!” I said, pulling her into a kiss that was way, way, way overdue.

“Can I breathe?” she gasped.

“Breathe later.”

≁

It was later that the real tears came. In the moonlight. We were lying on my bed when I touched her on the back of her arm someplace and she let out a little “Oww!”

I reached and felt the little rough patch on the soft part of her upper arm and she said, “Oww! Stop that!”

“What is that?” I said but she pulled away from me and covered the spot on her arm.

“Nothing!” she said, but I grabbed her and turned her arm to the moonlight; there was a dark little circle on the pale flesh of her upper arm.

“What is that?” I said, not sure of what I was seeing. “What happened?”

She looked down, not wanting to tell me.

“Eleanor burned me there with a cigarette.”

“
What
?”
 
I said, my mind briefly flashing white with anger. “Are you kidding??”

“She says it was an accident,” she scoffed. “But I don't believe her.”

“That –” I didn't curse but I wanted to. “She can't do that,” I said. “You should have called the police.”

“And then what? When she says it was an accident,” she said, her eyes filled with tears that reflected the outside light. There was a streetlight two doors down from my house that burned all night. “And anyway, Herb is this big-deal lawyer. He knows all the cops and the people in the town government. He's always dropping these big hints about his connections and who he knows. I really think he might be connected to the Mafia.”

“The
Mafia
?” I repeated, thinking that Herb certainly seemed sleazy enough to be in the Mob, but that meant nothing. “How do you know?”

“I don't
know
,” she said. “I've just got this feeling, just the way they stop talking about stuff when I enter the room.”

“OK,” I agreed with her, seeing that she was seriously worried about what was going on. “Then why don't you call your father and tell him about what she did?”

“I
should
do it,” she said sardonically. “Pour a little gasoline on the fire. See how
she
likes it.”

“I suppose you're right,” I said, seeing her point. “But you can't let her burn you, or do anything like that again!”

“But I got my revenge,” she smirked. “I took three hundred dollars from her.”

“
What
?”

“She won't miss it!” Rachel dismissed my objection. “She has loads of cash hidden in the back of her closet that she never uses. My father has cash too. They both love cash.”

“Well, good for them,” I said. “Good for all of them. . . . Bastards. . . . Still, stealing is wrong.”

She just laughed once and said, “You know I only do what I have to do, under the circumstances. You understand. The money is for
us.
”

I sat there, holding her in the moonlight through the window. I touched her leg. It was sleek and smooth, like soft ivory. She took my hand and held it against her face. I caught a glimpse of the burn mark again.

“I just can't stand the thought of anyone being mean to you,” I said. “
I
really feel like calling the cops on her. Or some social service –”

“Please don't!” she pleaded, holding my hand tightly. “Let me handle things. I can deal with it . . . for now.”

“OK, but if she's
burning your arm –”

“I'll get my Mustang when I turn eighteen, and I'll get myself out of there.”

“Good,” I said.

“I have an appointment with my family's lawyer,” she continued, shifting around and sitting up. “And I'm going to find out exactly how much my grandma left me.”

“Excellent,” I said. “The grandma money.”

Looking out the window, staring at nothing, she said, “After all these years, they still don't know who they're dealing with. I
refuse
to let them ruin my life.”

She started to shake, unsuccessfully trying to hold back her tears.

I really didn't know where she was going, or what her intentions were. How bad things would get with her mother and everything. I only knew that I wanted to be with her. To help her, and hold her, and do everything that a lover and friend should do. Again, it was the obvious thing to do.

≁

I didn't see her for the rest of the weekend. I spent most of the next two days sitting at my parents' dining room table, waiting by the phone and working on my first Freshman Composition paper for Professor Brilliant. Both things sucked. I didn't actually talk to Rachel again until Sunday night when I was back at the dorm.

“My father came and took me,” she said. “It was
his
weekend.”

“What do you mean ‘his weekend'?” I asked.

“I told you,” she said. “They're gonna split me sometimes.”

“And you couldn't call me?” I asked, trying not to sound too put out.

“It was super early in the morning and he took me with this friend of his on a private plane to this lake in Connecticut,” she said. “They didn't have a phone there.”

“On the private plane?” I asked, playing dumb on purpose.

“No!” she said. “Where we went. To this stupid lake. We flew out of Islip. Then we came back. I was sick the whole time. The one good thing was that I didn't have to see Eleanor and Herb for two days.”

“Is Herb still there?”

“Herb is
always
here!” she half screamed through clenched teeth. “Don't you understand?”

I let there be silence for a while. I reminded myself that no matter what I had to do (commuting, all this homework, and Roommate A), she had it worse. And, for that, she needed me.

“OK,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” she muttered. “I should have found a way. But I could
feel
you. I could
feel
you waiting for me.”

“Remember Friday night?” I asked, trying to bring her closer to me even though we were on the phone.

“I remember,” she said, a dreamy smile in her voice.

“That was the best part of the weekend.”

“Damn right it was!” she laughed her musical laugh.

“What do you think about next weekend?” I asked.

“Can I just get through this weekend before we start worrying about next weekend?” she pleaded.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I was just asking.”

“No,” she said. “You're right. That's how I'm going to stay alive until I see you again.”

“Call me,” I said. “Whenever you want. If I'm not in class, I'm in my room. I gave you the number for the hall phone in my dorm. Use it! I could be in the library or someplace, but it doesn't matter –” My mind started to spin, thinking of the work I still had to do.

“Oh, no!” Rachel hissed. “He's looking for me.”

“Who's looking for you?” I asked.

“I gotta go.”

“Tomorrow night?” I said quickly. “Eight o'clock?”

“I love you so much,” she whispered desperately and hung the phone up hard.

Sudden silence. I hung up my phone softly, left high and dry, worrying about what she was facing at home, worrying about this unfinished Freshman Comp paper and all the rest of the work I had to do – until the next time I could be in The Zone with her, and escape this unfriendly, pressurized world.

≁

Things went on like this for a few weeks. Some things better, some things not. I got to see Rachel on Friday nights – glorious Friday nights when we'd go back to my room upstairs to be together. Sometimes she'd find a way to steal time on Saturday or Sunday, and we would meet secretly at the Oakhurst public library or some mall, any mall. But she always felt nervous that someone would see us together and report back to Eleanor.

I didn't ask her about Eric, nor did I detect any slip up on her part. She seemed as devoted to me as ever, and just as sure that we were going to be together when she got her “grandma money.” I didn't really know whether to believe her about that; I was just happy that we were together and she still seemed to love me as much as at Mooncliff. Maybe more. I didn't detect any further cigarette burns on her, thank goodness, but her relationship with Eleanor was as rocky as ever. And Eleanor loved to put up roadblocks between Rachel and me, whenever she could.

“They don't understand why I want to spend time with someone who actually
likes
me as a person,” Rachel said. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Apparently, there was.

On alternate Fridays, I had the pleasure of picking her up at her father's condominium apartment in Garden City.

Manny Prince. He
was
a trip-and-a-half. If you thought I got a frosty reception from Eleanor and Herb, you can imagine what Rachel's actual father thought of me.

“Come on in,” he said with a tone of voice that said
Get the hell outta here, punk!
as I walked into the foyer of his top-floor unit in the big fake-limestone, fake-chateau apartment building.

“Why, thank you, Mr. Prince,” I replied, extending my hand for a handshake that felt like I was offering my arm to a shark's mouth. “Nice to meet you.”

Manny was a large, slope-shouldered man, wearing a heavy gold watch on his thick wrist and one of those white embroidered shirts with lots of pockets that they wear down in the Caribbean. I made eye contact with him as we shook hands, and I instantly saw where Rachel got her blue-blue eyes. But Rachel's eyes were alluring and warm; Manny's eyes were as cold as a threat.

“Yeah. She'll be ready in a minute,” he said, crushing my fingers just enough to establish his greater strength.

“Good!” I agreed, perhaps a bit too quickly as I extracted my hand from his grip.

“Come on in,” he ordered. “Sit down.”

I sat down on the first thing I could find – an ottoman at the foot of a big lounger, across from the big TV in the big living room – as Manny flipped on all the lights, showing the full expanse of the room: shiny marble floors, two chandeliers, three couches, and glimmering walls hung with gold-framed paintings of flowers and what looked like the Italian coastline.

“This is a great apartment,” I said.

“It's a condominium,” he corrected me.

“Then it's a great condominium,” I replied.

As soon as I said it, I knew that I sounded like a smart-ass. It's just that I was nervous. I sometimes think that the source of most of my smart-assedness is nerves.

Manny glared at me. I had to say something.

“Rachel says that she likes it over here,” I began enthusiastically.

I could tell he didn't believe me.

“I love my daughter,” he said bluntly. “But she's like her mother: sometimes she says things that she don't necessarily mean.”

Another conversation stopper. He made me long for my good buddy Herb. Fortunately, Rachel came into the room to rescue me.

“This is so annoying, Daddy,” she said, still putting one last brushstroke through her long, dark hair. “I don't have any of my right things over here. They're all at the house.”

With a scornful flick of his hand, Manny said, “Whatever you don't have, buy! I told you that a hundred times. Just stop complaining.”

“I'm not complaining,” said Rachel sharply as she put the brush into her little purse. “I'm just stating a fact! You said you wanted me to be more realistic. Well, this is realistic.”

“What time are you going to be home?” Manny said, ignoring her comment.

“What time do you want me to be home?” she said back to him.

Manny turned to me and said with deadly directness, “Have her home by midnight.”

“
Midnight
?” Rachel squealed in protest. “One! One
thirty
!”

Manny looked at me and said, “Twelve thirty.”

“Yes, sir!” I snapped back to him.

“And don't be late.”

“I wouldn't even think of it,” I said, and that was no lie.

I wanted Manny Prince to like me, and I had gotten off on the wrong foot. I wondered if there was any “right foot” with this tough, thick, humor-deficient man. OK, I didn't really expect him to
like
me, but if his treatment of me, someone whom his daughter obviously cared for, was an indication of how he respected his only child's feelings . . . well, I felt even more compassion for Rachel than before.

Fortunately, Manny wanted to get rid of us as fast as we wanted to get out there.

“He has a girlfriend,” she said as we practically raced to my car.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I know because my father doesn't smell like Chanel No. 5,” she answered.

“I bet.”

“I think he's had a bunch of girlfriends, over the years.”

As I was about to put Rachel in the car on the passenger's side, she stopped suddenly, turned, and gave me a sweet, soft kiss.

“Now you see why I love you so much,” she said with a sad smile. “You're the opposite of everything that I was raised with, everything that I can't stand anymore.”

≁

She spent the next few hours in my room, trying not to cry. Not crying about school, how much she hated it, and that she had no friends there. (“They're all shallow and stupid and competitive about
everything
.”) About missing me constantly, about how her mother and father
and
Herb were treating her.

“He's always around,” she said. “He came into my bathroom the other day when I was taking a shower, and it wasn't an accident.”

“That sleazebag!” I hissed. “You should be sure you lock the door.”

“I thought I did!” she replied. “I lock my door all the time! He said he was looking for something. I never feel safe there. One or the other of them is always after me. I cannot wait to get out of there!”

“You will, baby, you will,” I said, trying to comfort her, having no real solution for her now. “You just have to be patient.”

“How can I be patient when they're actively
trying
to make me miserable? Like it's a game or something,” she cried as the tears flowed again. “And they absolutely
hate
you because you make me happy.”

I held her for a long time. She tried to keep from crying so hard that she shook in my arms. I tried to think of things to make her happy as I checked the time on my Sony clock radio.

“So how's Driver's Ed going?” I asked.

That perked her up a little.

“
That
, at least, is good! I've got my Learner's Permit,” she said, drying her eyes. “And I'm going to be a
great
driver!”

“I bet you are.”

“You know I have excellent hand-to-eye coordination, or whatever they call it.”

“That's because you have excellent hands and eyes,” I said, happy to see her cheer up a bit.

“I'm not kidding!” she laughed.

“Neither am I!” I silenced her with a kiss. Which was always a good idea.

That helped to clear the clouds for a while, or at least helped us ignore them. I could see that the burn mark on her arm was healing, so I decided to say nothing about it. Afterwards we had a little time to relax and just be together in the The Zone. I played her records and she told me all about school: stories of her ex-friends and ex-rivals. She needed to tell me things. I could see her gain strength from being able to unload her problems on me. I understood her, no matter what she said, and I was always unquestionably on her side.

One night we spent a half hour listening to “A Hard Days' Night,” a song we had each heard about a million times, over and over again until we finally figured out together that John was saying, “
So why on Earth should I moan
/ ‘Cause when I get you alone / You know I feel all right . . .” That became a kind of motto for me later on.

“She keeps after me to do these college applications,” Rachel said. “And I have no intention of going.”

“Maybe you should fill out a couple,” I said. “Just in the New York area. So we can be close. Go to NYU; you'll just be down in the Village.”

“I have an appointment next week with this lawyer,” she said. “So I'll find out then about my grandma's will.”

“Good,” I said. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”

That seemed to satisfy her. I was happy to satisfy her – that was my job. But as we embraced, I couldn't help but see the pile of books on my desk, all the work I'd brought home for the weekend, work that never seemed to be finished. All this
stuff
hanging over my head, shadowing every moment of pleasure with real assignments and absolute deadlines. I naively thought that college was supposed to be fun. I'd be free of the rigid schedule, small minds, and constricting atmosphere of high school. College was supposed to be about deep discussions with learned professors, the free exchange of ideas and all that. What I actually was doing was processing homework, one assignment after another. It was
work
. In fact, it was easier being a counselor at the Moon-shak. Which brought up a perplexing thought: What did I really
want
to do? But in Rachel's arms, all these worries disappeared, if only for a while.

I got her to her father's
condominium
well before 12:30. I wasn't stupid; there was no way that I was going to cross Manny Price, especially on the first date under her father's jurisdiction.

“What about tomorrow?” I asked, whispering in Manny's echoing marble foyer.

“We'll see,” she said. “Maybe I can slip away from him. But he's promised to take me Mustang-shopping.”

“Well,” I snickered. “I can't top that.”

“When I get my car,” she said. “Nothing will keep us apart.”

“I always like how you think. Why is that?”

“Sssh!” she whispered. “I think I hear him!”

I knew it was time to go, again. I was
always
leaving her. There was
never
enough time together. Ever.

“Call me if you can,” I said as she closed the door on me. “I'll be waiting.”

≁

I wound up waiting most of the next day for a call that never came. Maybe Manny took her to several Mustang dealers, to comparison-shop. Somehow, though, I think that when the time came to buy, Manny Prince would just flip open his checkbook and write a check. Or maybe pay cash. Did I mention what Manny Prince did for a living? He owned two lumberyards: one in Nassau County, one in Suffolk.

So I sat at the dining room table most of the day, grinding through my homework, just as I did in high school. “
This
is my college experience?” I asked myself more than once, sitting right where I always had, where I had longed to escape from, not so long ago. I briefly flashed on my high school friends who
really
went away to school, my buddies who went to Williams and Lehigh, who right now were probably frolicking on the quad among the fallen autumn leaves, on the way to a football game with some giggly co-eds from Mount Holyoke or Bryn Mawr.

It was better to be lost, daydreaming about Rachel (both remembering the past and projecting the future), than do what I actually had to do. Sometimes (and maybe I promised not to talk about this) I couldn't keep thoughts of our physical life out of my head. It was indeed unprofitable thinking when she was out of touch and out of reach, but I couldn't help what my brain kept circling back to: our love making. Both the little things and the other. It was fitting that I thought about these things while I was sitting quietly at the dining room table because over time we had learned to make love quietly: in my upstairs bedroom, in the backseat of cars, on blankets and beach towels, and in some frankly uncomfortable places – places which I would revisit in a heartbeat. I learned to listen to her when she said that it wasn't the right time of the month for us to do certain things, no problem. I was a very considerate boyfriend. In fact, we were perfect lovers, so thinking about it somehow made the absence worse.

Finally, I gave up and went out to a 10:00 movie (
Night of the Living Dead
, perfect for my mood) and over to The Lexington afterwards, to see if anybody I knew was there. When I walked in, it was like Death Valley. A couple of railroad workers, an old drunk talking to the waitress at the counter, and that was it. What the heck? I sat down and had a big Linzer cookie and a big glass of milk. No caffeine: I wanted to be able to go to sleep.

As I ate, I thought about driving over to Garden City, to Manny's condominium. Not that there was any chance of seeing Rachel; she was probably all locked up in that fake chateau. It was probably best to go home, I told myself, go home and get some good sleep, considering I still had lots more work to do tomorrow: two papers, studying for midterms, and the Freshman Comp paper for Professor Brilliant that was due every Monday (it wasn't the same paper every week; it just felt like it was). If I couldn't be with Rachel, I told myself, I would make the best use of all that other time. The work at Columbia was tough, and there was a lot of it. To tell the absolute truth, in high school, I was always one of the smartest kids in the class. At Columbia, all the kids were “the smartest kid in the class” from their home schools, and I couldn't coast. So if I had to be away from Rachel, perhaps it was a secret blessing to make me study harder. I should make peace with the amount of time Rachel and I had together. Separation would only make us stronger in the long run.