Three Balconies (20 page)

Soon afterward, Harry recovered slightly and took up with another drama student – from Wisconsin – who slapped her hips against his on their first date and led
him
into the woods. They made love virtually around the clock, in deserted classrooms, in the library, in the woods. One result was that Harry came up with the worst case of poison ivy in the history of the school and had to just lie there in the hospital under a sheet for days at a time. But none of this erased the memory of Sybil.

Harry saw her only one more time, dancing with the agriculture major at the Senior Prom, her face close to his and her fingers on his neck. Harry was with the Wisconsin drama student, who looked great and was extremely jolly – but it didn't help, and he spent the evening with his heart in his shoes.

After he graduated, and in the years that followed, Harry continued to nurse the memory of his loss, like an old football injury. It's entirely possible that he got married because of Sally's fairly close resemblance to his first love. Maybe there was more to it, but he didn't think so. So you could argue that Harry had to endure an entire unnecessary marriage and have a child and then get a divorce – all because of Sybil. And she wanted to know if he remembered her.

Strangely enough – and call it ego if you will – Harry had always known that he would hear from Sybil. And maybe even get a letter from her, similar to the one he held in his hand. Each time Harry received a credit on a movie, or even a partial, he wondered if she had seen his name on the screen. She was out there somewhere; surely she went to the movies. He didn't see how she could possibly have missed his name entirely, particularly in the case of his Two Big Pictures.

When she saw his name up there, Harry wondered if she had ever regretted her decision to dump him unceremoniously without so much as a farewell photograph.

Now that he had the letter, he could hardly wait for Julie to get back from the construction site so he could tell her about it. The great thing about Julie was that he could tell her about an
episode like this with no fear of criticism. And he could count on her to enjoy it along with him. They had been living together at the beach for two years now, a couple of hours' drive from the city. Julie was working for the Post Office when they met and had made a recent switch over to carpentry, which she enjoyed more than delivering the mail. Each morning, she went off to join her construction crew – a great bunch of guys from Greenport – while Harry stayed behind and worked on the screenplay he was doing for a little Czech company that paid him in cash. He was enormously proud of Julie for going into carpentry. And the look of her in work clothes was a tremendous turn-on. One day, he had run into her accidentally at the deli, reading off sandwich orders for the crew from a twoby-four and he had wanted to pull off her blue jeans right on the spot.

When Julie got home around five, Harry said he had something to tell her and she said great, but could he hold on for a minute while she settled in. He said fine and did his best to bide his time while she went to the john, checked the mail and popped open an Amstel Light. Then she lit a Nat Sherman cigaretello and plopped down in a living room chair, with one leg slung over the armrest and told him to fire away. She did not like to listen to Harry's stories on the fly. Or at least his new ones.

Harry told her about Sybil and the letter and didn't she think he ought to meet her at the Plaza and play it out. Julie didn't agree wholeheartedly, but she did agree a little bit and said that if Harry wanted to meet her he should go ahead and do so. Instead of letting it rest, Harry said it would give the experience some closure, a new term he had picked up from the psychiatrist he had been seeing on and off for several years. Julie said she understood the concept and could see that it would be important for him to have some closure.

“But what if she's gorgeous?” she asked.

Harry had never seen anyone with eyes like Julie's. They could be warm and playful and kind, all at the same time. That,
and the work boots and the carpentry. Sometimes it was too much for him.

“It's beside the point,” said Harry. “This was twenty-five years ago.”

“I don't care,” said Julie. “And what if she sees your shoulders and tush?”

Harry said she had already seen them and decided he had to have Julie.

“Now?” she said, in mock panic. “When I haven't read the
Post
? And I haven't come down from my carpentry?”

“Right now.”

“Okay,” she said, with a sigh and took off her sweatshirt. “But let's not get into a whole big thing.”

 

Harry was understandably jumpy on the day he was scheduled to meet Sybil. Normally, on his trips to the city, he stayed over at a hotel, since he didn't relish the idea of driving back and forth in one day. But on this occasion, he made sure not to book a room, probably as a safeguard against things getting out of hand. There was another reason Harry was edgy. He feared that he would see a record of his own aging in Sybil's face.

As he walked through the lobby of the hotel, Harry wondered if he would be able to recognize Sybil. He had reserved a table in a dark corner of
Trader Vic's,
just in case she had gotten fat. Call him a swine if you like, but he was not anxious to be caught having lunch with a fat, older woman. There were several middle-aged women in the lobby who were clearly not her. After fifteen minutes of looking around, Harry started to get irritated and wondered if she had changed her mind and decided not to show up at all. That would put him in the position of having to think about her for another twenty-five years. With no closure. And then she walked up to him – or marched up to him, more accurately – and Harry literally received the shock of his life. She was all furs and pearls and white skin and fragrance, and she was far more beautiful than Julie – or Harry, for that matter – had feared.

“Hi,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “Sorry, I'm late.”

“That's perfectly all right,” said Harry, who was every bit as unsettled as he had been the first time he met her at the sorority house and helped her on with her coat. His choice of
Trader Vic's
had turned out to be a good one, he felt, but for another reason. He wanted to be alone with her in the dark setting.

He led her off to the restaurant. After they had settled into the corner booth and ordered Mai Tais, she said he looked exactly the same.

“Maybe a little less hair,” she said, after another quick study.

Harry raised one hand to his forehead and felt it was a fair appraisal. Actually, he thought he had gotten off easy.

“And you look fabulous,” he said, deciding, in his new maturity, not to add that she hadn't aged a day. It was best, he felt, to leave out age altogether.

“I couldn't figure out what to wear,” she said. “I thought maybe kneesocks.”

“Kneesocks,” he said, reverentially.

The thought of her long slender legs in kneesocks made him dizzy. He wanted to run right off with her and have her put some on for him.

He said it again.

“Kneesocks.”

She brought him up to date on her life – her marriage to an orthopedist, the divorce, the two sets of twins, and the humdrum suburban life which was obviously no match for what she perceived as Harry's exciting one. She said the main reason she had come to the city was to see if she could find work in the theatre.

“I thought possibly you could help me.”

“What kinds of parts would you play?” he asked.

Her face fell and Harry saw that she had taken it the wrong way – or maybe the right way – and he wished he could have taken back the question. As it was, he made a limp effort to paper it over.

“Now that I think about it,” he said, “there are all
kinds
of roles you could handle.”

She took a little time to recover, but once they were back on track he quickly worked Julie into the conversation, saying they were great friends and had been living together for two years at the beach.

“She's a carpenter,” said Harry.

The fact that he and Julie were great friends and that she was a carpenter did not seem to make much of an impression on Sybil.

“I'm so delighted you remembered me,” she said.

Harry was happy to admit that not only did he remember her but that she had rarely been out of his thoughts. And then he couldn't resist reminding her of the sudden and seemingly cruel way in which she had dropped him, without so much as a farewell photograph.

“I
hated
my photograph,” she said. “Surely you didn't expect me to give you a photograph I hated.”

Then she lowered her eyes.

“And I was afraid of you then. You were so sophisticated.”

All of this was news to Harry. The photograph explanation made sense, but the thought of Harry being sophisticated at twenty – and of someone being afraid of him – was laughable. He wasn't sure how sophisticated he was right that minute.

“I wasn't ready for you then,” she added, leaving the impression – unless Harry was way off the mark again – that she just might be ready for him now.

To shore up his man-of-the-world credentials, Harry stretched back and said he had done just about everything. She matched him in the erotic department by saying she had done just about everything herself. Then she cocked her head and thought for a second, as if to set the record straight.

“Except for two things.”

Harry didn't inquire as to what they were. Why take the risk of having the reunion come to a crashing halt. But he certainly did wonder what the two things were. He guessed that one of them had to do with the backdoor route. As to the second, he didn't have a clue.

“I guess I've been waiting for the right time to do them,” she added.

Harry couldn't handle that one at all, so he let it sit there for awhile. Then she asked if he was free for dinner. She was meeting her sister and brother-in-law, who was a therapist. The plan was for them to attend a party in Queens for a woman who was dying. Friends and relatives had been invited to sit around with her, in a party atmosphere, with incense burning, while she continued to die.

“It's kind of a die-in, I suppose,” she said. “Would you like to come along? Afterward, we have a reservation at a Thai restaurant.”

Harry said that under normal circumstances, he would love to join her, but he had promised Julie he'd be home in time for dinner.

She pressed him on it, but he held his ground. And then he paid the check and walked her to the elevator which took a long time to get there. While they were waiting, she tilted her head up to be kissed, in the sorority style, and Harry took her up on it, not quite getting all of her mouth, no doubt because he was torn twenty different ways. But he felt the length of her, the long legs, and the spare chest. Then his hands dropped to the substantial, maybe oversubstantial bottom that didn't quite go with the rest of it – and he saw for the first time that it wasn't his youth and inexperience and fear that had kept him from taking her into the woods many years back. The fit wasn't quite right, and it wasn't quite right now. He had probably known it then too, but had preferred to blank it out so that he could hold on to the sweet agony he felt in the years that followed. Still, he enjoyed her fragrance, the freshness of her mouth, the rich feel of her fur coat against his cheek. Harry had been leading a quiet, pleasant life, but there had been something missing, and now he thought he knew what it was.

“Would you like to come up for a drink?” she asked.

He looked at his watch and said he'd love to, but that he had better not.

“I have to get moving if I want to miss the rush hour.”

“Well,” she said, clearly disappointed, “if you ever get to Charlotte . . .”

Charlotte again. Twenty-five years later. He thought about the house and the twins and the way she lived, but he knew he was never going to see any of it. All the same, he told her that if he was ever in the area of Charlotte, he would be sure to look her up.

They shook hands, and with her fragrance still trailing after him, Harry headed straight to the gift shop. Because of the kiss, he felt he had better pick up something for Julie. He had been struggling with a film project that had to do with wood nymphs and, as luck would have it, he found a vanity table mirror that had a wood nymph for a handle. Harry picked it up and was about to bring it over to the sales clerk when he spotted a gossip columnist he knew at the magazine rack. He was all filled up with his recent experience and decided to tell the gossip columnist about it, even though he didn't know her very well.

“You'll never guess what just happened,” he said.

And then it all came pouring out in a rush, starting with the college romance and his broken heart, the passage of time and then, years later, the letter, all of it culminating in the lunch he'd just had at
Trader Vic's.
She listened without comment and when he had finished, she pointed to the mirror and said: “That is the tackiest piece of shit I have ever seen.”

 

There was still some daylight remaining when he got home. He went straight up to the bedroom and found Julie curled up on the bed, with a lapful of mysteries, puffing on a Nat Sherman cigaretello and working her way through a six-pack of Amstel Lights. In other words, all of her favorite things to do. He wondered how one person could read so many mysteries until one day he caught her skipping ahead and unconscionably peeking at the last page of one.

“So how'd it go, stud?” she asked, not quite taking her eyes off the book she was working on.

“Just fine,” he said.