A Likely Story

Sunday, July 31st

Home again. In more ways than one, since I finally have my office back. Though that may not be permanent.

At the moment, Lance has taken Gretchen and Joshua to California for a two-week stay with relatives of his — of theirs, too, come to think of it — in Marin County, north of San Francisco. He’ll be back in two weeks, and is supposed to have some sort of alternate living quarters worked out by then, but I must say I’ve begun to lose faith in Lance’s ability to get his life in order.

After its shaky beginning, with Mary and the blessedly-departed Vickie, the month’s vacation worked out very well. The kids took care of themselves to an extent that just isn’t possible here in the city, and Ginger and I had time to get sort of reacquainted and remember why we’d come together in the first place. I did a lot of work — magazine pieces, and a start on a presentation for a book about the history of greeting cards that Annie thinks maybe she can get Hallmark or somebody to subsidize — and we both got healthier and healthier, and hardly fought at all.

Friday was Ginger’s thirty-fourth birthday; the annual trauma. Nobody ever wants to be the age they are, and this was no exception. We went to the local restaurant, Le Dock, just the two of us, and splurged on champagne, and Ginger got wistful and misty-eyed toward the end of the evening, saying, “Where are we headed, Tom? Where are we going? What are we doing? Where are we all headed?”

“Ginger,” I said, my hand on hers on the table, “why don’t we get married?”

She looked at me with such alarm and shock that I thought she might leap to her feet in another instant and flee the table, the restaurant, the island and possibly the country. However, she didn’t; instead, she stared wide-eyed at me while I had plenty of time to realize what an insane thing that had been to suggest: What if she’d said yes?

Well, she wasn’t going to say yes, that much was clear from the beginning. What she did say, at last, on a rising inflection, was, “Whaa-aatt?”

Did I have to repeat myself? Did I now have to justify my moment’s madness? “It just seemed an idea,” I said.

She withdrew her hand from mine, closed it around the champagne glass, and shakily drank. Then she frowned at me for a few seconds, frowned at the table, shook her head and said, in a tone of quiet awe, “That was really very nice,” as though things that were nice came her way so seldom she hardly recognized them. “It was,” she said, agreeing with herself, and looked at me again as a pair of large tears grew in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, glistening in the candlelight. “That was so sweet, Tom,” she said, putting her hand back on mine. “I’ll never forget that.”

I probably never will, either.

It did all end well, however, my gesture accepted for the noble act it was, without my having to stand by it. We weaved our way homeward from the restaurant by the pale light of the just-past-full moon and sat on the rear deck in the silver darkness for nearly an hour, silent, holding hands. I fell asleep for a while, and I think Ginger did, too.

The next day, yesterday, Lance came out in the morning to hamper his children’s packing. Kids travel with ridiculous things, and they never seem to mind how many different suitcases and cartons and duffle bags they fill: “You can’t carry that much,” is being said, at any instant in time, by probably several thousand exasperated parents to several thousand uncomprehending children all over America. In this instance, of course, I was all in favor of Gretchen and Joshua taking with them to Marin County every comic book, every soccer ball, every shiny stone and broken scallop shell, every LP record and tattered magazine and half-deck of playing cards and single sneaker and cuddly doll and Incredible Hulk poster they wanted to take to Marin County, because otherwise I would have to transport all that crap here to New York; which eventually, of course, I did have to do, today.

At the last possible minute yesterday, Gretchen realized there were several thousand other Gretchens (all these kids look the same and most of them have the same half-dozen names, its like a science-fiction movie) that she must say goodbye to, so off she went, so of course they missed that ferry and Lance had a conniption, and pretty soon everybody was yelling at everybody else, except that Ginger and I didn’t have any reason to yell at one another and therefore didn’t, which even further increased our sense of solidarity.

Lance, in his rage, kept establishing the point that this delay would mean they’d have to take a taxi from Bay Shore directly to Kennedy Airport in order not to miss their plane, rather than take the Long Island Railroad to Jamaica and then a cab which he had previously worked out and which would be much less expensive, but it’s useless to talk to children about how expensive or cheap things are. They knew Lance was angry, that’s as far as their comprehension could go. Gretchen blubbered until the next boat, and was still blubbering as it left to cross the Great South Bay, and for all I know she’s still blubbering now, in Marin County.

Profiting by Lance’s example, I ordered Bryan and Jennifer to say their goodbyes before lunch today and refused to let them out of my sight for the two hours between the end of lunch and the departure of our ferry, when we would be doing our packing anyway. Nevertheless, various troubles and traumas did arise, and this time Ginger and I did have reasons to yell at one another and therefore did, but nobody’s bad temper lasted very long because in truth we’d liked that month in that house and were all sorry to be leaving.

The simple life. Why not?