The Year of Pleasures (4 page)

The restaurant was loud and bright, the tables covered with the commonplace but always comforting red-and-white-checked tablecloths. Tiny white lights ran across the ceiling and down the walls. There were beautiful wooden booths with wide benches and high backs, and I saw couples sitting there together, some with their heads practically touching, some ignoring each other in the tired way of many long-marrieds. I concentrated on looking at the bored couples so that I did not have to see intimate smiles, quick caresses, the open joy of those who clearly appreciated the person they sat across from.

I ordered eggplant Parmesan to go, then leaned against the wall near the hostess station to wait for it. I checked my watch every few minutes. When thoughts of John and the resultant sting of tears came, I willed them away, thinking,
Later.
It was like trying to hold back a full-body sneeze.

When my order was ready, I paid and walked quickly toward home. Outside the Bank of Boston, I saw Burt the Bum (not an unkind appellation—it was what he called himself) sitting in his usual spot to the left of the door, wearing his usual outfit: a suit with a T-shirt, running shoes, and a battered fedora. I’d heard rumors that he’d been a very successful stockbroker at one time, but then he began having a little difficulty with that old bugaboo, reality. “Hey!” he called out. “Where’ve you been?”

I hesitated, then walked slowly over to him. “John got very sick.”

“That’s too bad. Is he okay now?” He leaned closer to the bag I carried, and sniffed. “Leftovers?”

“He died,” I said, and the simplicity of it stunned me. Two words. Whole story.

Bert’s eyes widened. He took off his hat. “Aw, man. That’s a pisser. I always liked him.”

“And he you.” It was true. I used to grow impatient sometimes, waiting for John to finish his conversations with Bert so that we could go home. John had appreciated what he called Bert’s clear-mindedness, though it seemed obvious to me that Bert’s mind was far from clear. Still, he was unfailingly interesting, and he had the habit of truth about him.

“So . . . how are you doing?” Bert asked.

I shrugged, then handed him the bag of food. “Would you like this?”

He shook his head. “Just lost my appetite.”

“Yeah, me too.” But I opened the bag and looked inside.

“Probably pretty good, though,” Bert said.

“Have you eaten today?”

“I had a donut.”

“When?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“That’s not today.” I took out the foil dish, lifted the lid, and handed him the plastic fork. “Here. Eat some.”

He looked up at me, put his hat back on, and took a bite. “Not bad,” he said. “Sure you don’t want some?”

“No, you go ahead.” It did smell good. I leaned against the building, pulled my coat closer around me.

“Too bad I drank all my wine,” Bert said. He chewed thoughtfully, then leaned back against the wall, put his fist to his diaphragm, and belched. “Oh. Sorry.” He looked up at me. “Guess life goes on.”

“I guess it does.” I smiled at him. And then, suddenly, I blurted out, “I’m going to move.”

“Really. Where to?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to sell my house and put my stuff in storage and drive to the middle of the country. When I find some small town I like, I’ll buy a house.”

“Uh-huh. You think that’s a good idea?”

“John wanted to do it, too. We talked about it a lot. He asked me to do it without him.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right then.” He took another bite of eggplant, spoke with his mouth full. “This from Agostino’s?”

“Yes.”

“They’re all right, but Donatello’s is better. Donatello’s puts a little something extra in their sauce, maybe allspice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that this isn’t good.”

“You enjoy it,” I said, moving away from him.

“You going?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do tonight?”

“I don’t know. I . . . don’t know.”

“You get lonesome, you get too sad, you come and sit with me. I wouldn’t mind anything you did.”

I smiled at him.

“I mean it!”

Something occurred to me. I had always thought maybe we should invite Bert to our house—to have a proper meal, to take a shower. But John had thought it was a bad idea, so we’d never offered. But then I said, “I live two blocks down, Bert. Would you like to come over?”

“Thanks, but I wouldn’t enjoy it, Betta. No offense.”

“I could offer you a guest room for a night.”

“I’m used to this.”

“I just thought you’d like—”

“I wouldn’t enjoy it, Betta.”

“Okay.” I drew in a long breath. “So, I guess I’ll get going then.”

He struggled up from his sitting position and offered me his hand. I shook it, then wiped away tears that had begun spilling down my face.

“I’ll tell you something, Betta. I’m not going to worry about you. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll be fine. That’s why. You can’t see it yet, but I can.” He tapped the side of his head with his middle finger. “Psychic. Seriously.”

“Okay, Bert. So long. Take care of yourself.” I dug in my purse for my wallet and held out a twenty-dollar bill. “Here you go.”

He looked at the bill, sadness in his eyes. “Betta. Don’t insult me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Put that away.”

“We’ve always given you money!”

“Yeah, a five, that’s all right, buys me a coffee and a Danish. A twenty, you’re saying you feel sorry for me.”

“Would you like a five?” I asked.

He lifted his chin and pooched out his lips, considering. Then, “Yeah, sure,” he said. And when I gave him the money, he shoved it in his pocket without looking at me.

“Goodbye, Bert.” I turned to go.

“Hold on.” He put his hat back on. “Good luck to you, Betta. And . . . I just wanted to say that I sure liked him a lot. He was a rare man. You know. Just . . . a rare man.”

“Yes. Thank you.” I walked quickly away. Some analytical and oddly interested part of me noticed the specific characteristics of my pain: centered in the middle, making for a weight that felt like someone was sitting on me. I squeezed my hands into fists and thought,
I’ll go home and make some scrambled eggs. Maybe I’ll put some cream cheese in there.
After that, a hot bath. Jasmine-scented oils.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
in the background, silk pajamas. I looked up into the night sky, at the shrouded stars. “How’s that?” I asked.

The service for John near the end of October had been a small but elegant affair involving the usual mix of humorous and poignant homages. Everyone who attended—a few friends and a large number of people from the hospital where John practiced—knew of my plans to move right away, and everyone advised me not to. But their advice about staying had not seemed as right as the immediate acceptance I’d gotten from Bert about leaving. And it was not what John had advised.

After the service, I drove to the ocean to scatter John’s ashes. But I didn’t put them all in the water—I hoped he wouldn’t mind a few alterations. I buried a pinch of him in the earth. I released a bit of him to the air. Some of him I put fire to again—I lit a match to a small pile of ashes. A little bit of him I swallowed. Then, weeping, I took off my shoes and walked to the shoreline to let the rest of him go. I stood shivering for a while, watching the water take him—despite the odd warmth of the day, the sand was ice-cold. I put my hand over my heart and said, “I love you.” I said, “My sweet, sweet, sweetheart.” Then I said, “I’ll see you,” and started back for the car. Behind me, I heard the raucous and eager cries of the gulls. I didn’t turn around to see if they were near him. The ashes had not really been him, after all. And I understood, too, that he was right in asking to be cremated. For if he was nowhere, he could be everywhere. As in, with me.

On November first I listed the house with the agency John and I had called, and it sold immediately, without advertising. The real estate market in Boston was crazy; there were waiting lists of people wanting brownstones. I received seven offers over my asking price, and all of the bidders seemed willing to try to top one another forever. One of the couples was in their late twenties. “Where did they get this kind money?” I asked Victoria, the Realtor, and she shrugged. Which I assumed meant none of my business.

By the end of the week, the house went to a late-thirtyish couple with a young child. One point nine million, a cash deal, when John and I had paid a hundred forty thousand. I didn’t meet the people; for many reasons, I didn’t want to. I arranged for the lawyer to represent me at the closing only three weeks hence, then made the call to a mover to pack up my things and put them in storage.

“You’re lucky,” the woman on the phone told me. “We’ve just had a cancellation. Do you want us to come on Thursday?” It was Tuesday. I thought Thursday was probably too soon, but when I cast about for reasons to stay longer, I couldn’t think of any. It would feel good to keep moving, I thought. I didn’t want to stay in a place that only reminded me of him. I wanted to go to a new place. I had been ready even before.

On my last night in Boston, my neighbor Sheila Murphy came over with a gift. It was beautifully wrapped—pink-and-gold floral paper and wide, satiny pink ribbon, and at first I worried about having to make a fuss over whatever it was. I felt at the bottom of my own resources; I had nothing to give. But it turned out the gift was not from her but from John. This was so like him, a corny, bighearted man who quoted aphorisms like “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” Even when he was very ill, he still had sent me flowers. I had once answered the door to a glorious bouquet, looked for a card and found none, then turned to see John sitting on the sofa, smiling. He had no longer been able to walk around very much, but he could still use the phone.

And now here was his final gift. I began to cry and winced as I put a tissue up to my face. My right eye had developed a minor infection from wiping away tears with everything from hankies to paper towels to envelopes from condolence cards. “Sit down with me for a minute,” Sheila said.

We moved to the family room sofa, and I sat sobbing beside her, she patting my back awkwardly. It didn’t last long—in less than a minute, I straightened up and took in a deep breath. “Sorry,” I said, and she said, “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have to apologize.” She had tears in her eyes, too.

I looked at the gift in my lap. “Do you know what this is?”

“Sort of.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s . . . you know, that one time when I stayed with him when you went out for groceries? He spent the whole time writing out things on little slips of paper. I don’t know what they were. But that’s what this is.”

I thought of the papers I’d found in John’s hospital drawer. “Just . . . words?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Don’t know. He asked me not to read them, so I didn’t. He just sat there and wrote these things and then folded the papers and put them in a cigar box. That’s what this is, it’s just a cigar box, but John asked me to wrap it in something beautiful—he said you liked pink.”

I nodded, miserable.

“Well, anyway, I just wanted to bring you this.” She looked around the room, then at me. “Oh, Betta. How are you?”

“Fine,” I said, in a bright and automatic way that made us both smile. “Really,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Well, might as well have one good thing happening!”

“No, but seriously, you’ve got to take care of yourself. Did you eat today?”

“Yes.”

“All three meals?”

“Uh-huh. Yup.”

“What did you eat?”

I sighed. “I had bad cholesterol for breakfast, mad cow disease for lunch, and mercury poisoning for dinner.”

She frowned, then said, “Oh, Wagner’s? The salmon special?”

“Yes.”

“How was it? Randy and I have been meaning to go there.”

“It was all right.” I tried not to resent her identifying herself as part of a couple in front of me, who no longer was.

“I can’t believe you’re moving so soon!” Sheila said.

“I know. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s the best thing to do.”

She stared into her lap and fidgeted with her watchband. “Betta, I have to tell you, I think it’s just too radical. Randy and I were talking, and—”

“It’s too late to change anything,” I said. “I appreciate your concern—I know how crazy this must seem to you, but it’s what I really want to do.” I recalled the time Sheila and I had run into each other at Copley Place and then gone to lunch at Legal Seafood. We’d talked about a woman who lived in the building next to us who had lost her husband in a drowning accident. He was thirty-eight. It had been almost seven months, and Sheila and I—it chilled me to remember it—had apparently decided that the time for mourning was up. No more grieving; Annie needed to get
out there.
“I mean, couldn’t she take a cooking class or something at the Cambridge Center?” I’d said. I saw it as though it were yesterday, the two of us having our sanctimonious lunch at Legal Seafood, the restaurant’s blinds pulled against the bright sun, a table full of businessmen next to us, exulting over their
frutti di mare.
“They have wonderful classes there,” I’d said, “and you get to eat the dinners. And it’s too early for her to date, I suppose, but she could make some new friends.” And Sheila had said, “Well, of course. Or go to a movie with a girlfriend, or shopping, or anything but continue to stare at your own bedroom walls.” “Exactly,” I’d said. “This is just too long to . . . well, I don’t know if
wallow
is the right word.” “I think it
is,
” Sheila had said, around her bite of lobster roll. How cruel we’d been, sitting there with our shopping bags full of new fall clothes, deciding how someone else should repair the rent in her own heart. I wondered whether I would be able to live up to my own ruthlessly dictated standards.