After You've Gone (19 page)

This first meeting took place in the narrow front hall of Julia's Twin Peaks flat. Roger was to take her to a party, an
arrangement engineered by mutual friends: “Why don't you spend time with an intelligent woman for a change? Try it, you might like it.” They suggested that Roger bring Julia to their annual anniversary party, over in Belvedere.

“But a mathematician? Jesus.”

However, Roger called her anyway, out of curiosity, he later thought. They fixed on a time, she gave concise directions to her house (a very nice voice, he noted). Twin Peaks was not an area in which he normally spent much time.

And there she was, opening the door to him, with her shy half smile, her pale scarred face (scars from a troubled adolescence, probably), and her rather unusual, yellow-brown, really amber eyes. In her off-pink, not right dress.

They shook hands; he found her hand harder and stronger than he would have expected. It turned out later that she re-finished furniture as a sort of hobby (not awfully well, in Roger's judgment), a diversion from the math, which at that time she was teaching at Stanford. She was then an instructor, very hard-worked and underpaid.

In his car they had the requisite conversation about their hosts-to-be. It was established that Julia had known Barbara at college, Sarah Lawrence, and Roger knew Bruce in a business way, through real estate. Roger had in fact designed the house in Belvedere, the site of the party. Roger and Julia could well have met before at one of these annual bashes; they were never to establish whether this was or was not the case—the truth being that if they had met they would not have paid much attention.

“Actually, I don't like these parties very much,” Julia confided. “I just seem to go when I can't think of a good way out.”

“Well, me neither. But we don't have to stay very long.” He could happily take her home early, Roger thought. An early evening, a nice healthy change for him.

…

The talk about Bruce and Barbara had only got them as far as the Golden Gate Bridge; thus, to fill in, Roger told Julia something about his recent divorce. “It's a little upsetting, after more than twenty years,” he said. “Losing everything you were used to. Especially the kids. But of course I'll get to see them a lot. Take them skiing, stuff like that. Which is not like having breakfast with them every day, though. On the other hand, I do feel a certain optimism about my life. The sixties just getting under way as I start out in my forties. I mean, I think it's going to be an interesting time all around.”

“Oh, I really do,” agreed Julia. “Except for the horrible war I really like the sixties, so far. The kids I'm getting down at Stanford, even
Stanford
, are really interesting. So rebellious. Not at all like fifties kids.”

“Rebellious is good?”

“Sure it is. If it's L.B.J. and the Pentagon you're rebelling against.”

“Oh,
right.
”

Roger's glance at her just then took in a shy, semi-defiant look. Insecure, Roger thought. She probably grew up not very popular, smart but sort of out of it. “My former wife would never agree with you,” he told her, feeling friendly. “She really gives the kids a hard time about their hair, all that. Still wants to buy all their clothes at Brooks and I. Magnin.”

By now they had crossed the bridge and traveled north up the highway. They turned off at Tiburon, and then were almost at Belvedere. And so, as Roger saw it, there was no point now in amplifying the circumstances of his divorce: the affair with Candida (beautiful Candida, where was she at that moment? Candida lived in Marin, and a sudden rush of longing seized Roger, thinking of her). His wife's finding out. Her rage. No
point going into any of that with this woman, who was indeed intelligent, a good listener.

Julia was nice, that was clear to him. Too bad about those scars. And the dress.

The party, like all those Barbara-Bruce anniversary parties, was a huge, jammed crush. At some point, maybe after an hour or so, Roger looked across the room and found Julia in a corner, in animated conversation with some group, people she seemed to know. And at that distance she looked considerably better. It was partly her animation; she was clearly enjoying that talk. Also, since she was standing, he could see that she had a very good body. A little voluptuous for Roger's taste, both his wife and Candida were long and lean, tennis players, but Julia was very shapely. He wondered briefly what they were talking about, she and her group, and then he managed to forget her entirely.

Those were days of fairly odd forms of dress among middle-aged, “establishment” people. Both miniskirts and Nehru jackets were in vogue, along with some imitation hippie outfits. In that particular room, at that party, all looks were represented: Barbara, the hostess, wore a white wool minidress with a huge exposed zipper down the front; her husband, bald Bruce, wore a dark blue Nehru jacket and sported a full untrimmed beard. (Roger, whose hair was still very thick and dark, thought Bruce looked a little silly. Talk about overcompensating.) More daring guests were in fringed leather, floppy bedspread-type floral prints. Julia's pink dress was more hippie than mini, a sort of compromise (in Roger's view) supposed to be safe but actually not quite working out.

But the room itself was very good. Roger was always pleased to see it again, to see how his work had held up. He felt that he had made just enough but not too much of the spectacular view, the green lawn that dropped down abruptly in a sheer, rocky cliff to the brilliant bay. And out across the choppy water, beyond Alcatraz and Angel Island, lay San Francisco itself, the bleached-out, pastel city, a Mediterranean backdrop. No, none of that splendor forced itself into the room; it was simply there, as the very large, heavy-boned room was there, a space so elegantly impressive that it took people all unawares, or so Roger had often been told.

An hour or so later, coming upon Julia in a passageway, he said to her, “
Well.
” And then, “I've been looking for you all over,” he lied. “About ready to go?”

“Oh sure. Any time.”

She was almost too agreeable, Roger felt, as though she had no views or feelings of her own, which he sensed was not so. But a yielding woman, he decided. All give. He himself preferred a little more abrasion. Candida was a pretty feisty number, at least half the time, fussy about small things like just which motel for the afternoon. And he sighed again for beautiful Candida, who had said quite clearly that she didn't want to see him anymore. “It's getting too heavy,” she told him. “And I don't want any part of anyone's divorce.” All that was said through tears, lots of tears, but he knew that she meant it. No divorce, that was one of the rules.

As Roger and Julia crossed the bridge on their way back to the city, an exceptional sunset was in progress out across the bay, beyond the Farallones. Intense, wild, brilliant colors, now just
on the verge of fading. Roger saw that Julia was looking out that way, toward the sunset, and he gave her points for saying nothing about it, simply turning back to him with a small smile.

And then she said, “Those parties. Really, such a waste. I always wonder why I go. But at least the house is so great. I always love just seeing it.”

Grinning, Roger told her, “That's very nice for me to hear.”

“Oh? Oh, of
course
, Barb told me you were the architect. I
really
like it,” she emphasized. “It's an amazing combination, elegant and splendid and at the same time extremely subtle, if you see what I mean. I probably didn't say it very well.”

“Extremely well, as a matter of fact. It's about the best thing I've ever heard.”

“Oh. Well.” Shyly she ducked her head down.

“But you did seem to like some of the party,” Roger said a little later—still a long way from Twin Peaks (of all eccentric places to live). “You found some people you knew?”

Julia's laugh had a quick, nervous sound. “People to argue with, mostly. I seem to be getting a reputation as a real pot-head.”

“Pothead?” It was not a word Roger used, and it took him a couple of minutes to take it in. “Oh. Grass. But, uh, why pick on you?”

“I signed a petition about decriminalizing marijuana, which incidentally I really believe should be done. I mean, God! the things they do to those kids they find with a little dope. Whereas L.B.J.—Well, anyway, I got in trouble down at Stanford over the whole thing. Fortunately a kindly dean, a woman, took care of me. But now I guess a lot of people think I'm constantly stoned.”

He laughed. “Well, are you?”

“Hardly. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I turned on.”

However, as Roger glanced over he saw that she did remember. She was smiling to herself in a pleased, secret way—and looked very pretty as she did so, with those eyes.

Almost at Julia's door it occurred to Roger that it would have been nice to feed her, in some way. If not dinner at least a hamburger somewhere. And so he said, “I know I should have thought of this earlier, but is there a Zim's somewhere around? We could pick up a hamburger or something?”

Pausing, seeming to give this somewhat deeper thought than it deserved, Julia asked, “Do you like spaghetti? I could, uh, pull together some carbonara. Salad. There's some wine.”

“Well, really, I don't want you to do all that.” (But he did; it sounded terrific.)

“I'd like to. But how do you feel about garlic? That's a prime ingredient.”

“I'm crazy about it.”

In her narrow, unremodeled thirties kitchen, everything old and stained and creaking, in very little time Julia produced one of the nicest meals Roger ever had, he thought. Rich with butter and oil and Parmesan. Thick bacon, and indeed a lot of garlic. And a nice light crisp green salad. The burgundy was not too good, but what the hell, it was nice of her to go to all that trouble. Really nice.

Julia was a generous woman. Too generous for her own good, probably.

…

Her living room, to which they adjourned for coffee after dinner, was somewhat better: more narrow Victoriana, but some nice exposed wood (Julia's handiwork). Shabby-comfortable furniture, worn-down corduroy, old leather—and plants, really too many plants. A philodendron so huge, climbing in a corner of the room, that it looked tropical, dangerous. And lots of ferns.

During dinner, they had talked mostly about each other's marriages. Julia had been married twice—a small surprise, that: Roger would have put her age at less than thirty. “Marriage doesn't seem to be something I'm very good at,” she said, in the slightly harsh, very wry style he later came to recognize as hers.

And Roger admitted, “I was a lot at fault in my marriage, God knows. It takes two to be wrong, don't you think?” He still saw no point, though, in specific admissions (Candida, a couple of her predecessors).

Now the conversation seemed to lag a little, possibly from the sobering effects of coffee. Actually, Roger would as soon have gone home just then, but to leave right after dinner would have seemed impolite, if not downright ungrateful for the meal.

Which one of them was it, then, who suggested that it might be fun, or “interesting,” to smoke a joint? It could have been either, or both. In any case, from somewhere, some jar or secret drawer, Julia brought out a couple of thin, misshapen cigarettes. And lit them. And instructed. “Don't puff out. Hold in as much as you can.”

“It tastes funny,” Roger told her a few minutes later, with a little laugh.

And moments or maybe half an hour after that he said, “Did
you know that your philodendron could crawl? It's starting across the ceiling?”

This seemed very, very funny to them both. They laughed back and forth, contagiously, leaning toward each other and then starting up again. Until quite naturally they began to kiss, meeting somewhere halfway on the sofa.

Soon, or perhaps hours later, they were naked. Lights all out. They were making love, and for Roger the experience of Julia's body, then and always (quickly forgiven for voluptuousness), was like walking through rooms, a series, endless rooms, one after another. Walking, walking into explosions of light.

“I love you—”

“You're—”

“Beautiful, wonderful—”

“No,
you
—”

Those are the things they began to say to each other, Roger and Julia, that first night. As soon as they could talk.

The next morning, in Julia's cramped and lightless (but now magical) bedroom, Roger woke early. He had an appointment, he had to go home, shower and change.

He touched sleeping Julia, who woke and reached toward him, sleepily. Roger began to kiss her, soon found himself making love to her. Again.

Afterwards they both laughed, staring at each other. In disbelief. In the growing pale pre-dawn. “I'll see you tonight,” Roger told her. “I'll call you.”

“I'll be down at Stanford, and it's sort of hard to get me there. Just come over. Whenever.”

…

All day, all through his appointments, driving about the city and during his few solitary hours at the drawing board, in a wondering way Roger thought, Good God, what have I fallen into? And he answered himself, Into love. This Julia is something else.
Marvelous.
Much more than I deserve.

He should bring her something. That was another thing in Roger's mind all day, some terrific present for Julia. Or at least he could call her and say he wanted to take her out to dinner. He couldn't have her cooking all the time. However, she had said it was hard to call her down there at Stanford.

He settled on some wine, a Napa cabernet that he knew to be reliable, if not superior. And a bunch of flowers, white narcissus that smelled of spring. Sweet. Aphrodisiac.

That night, within minutes of their collision at Julia's door, their ravenous kissing, they were in bed.

Somewhat later, Julia, in her pale-blue rather dowdy robe (that Roger found incredibly endearing, in a way that something more stylish never could have been)—Julia brought in glasses of wine, and one joint, which they shared. And then, after more wild and incredible love, she made dinner. A great stew that she had put together that morning, before driving down to Stanford.