Aberration of Starlight

~ ~ ~

When Marie heard Billy at the door, she put the letter Tom had left for her the night before under her pillow. She had read it at least a dozen times — it had no reality but it was his, his. Everything that had happened since that awful scene existed in a haze. Her father yelling! Shining a light on her! She couldn’t believe that Tom had left, either, but he had. Standing at his car, ready to go, he had whispered that he loved her and would move heaven and earth to see her — he had his ways, he said, and then she watched his white smile and for a minute felt safe, thought that maybe her life would continue. When they shook hands she almost began to cry, she wanted him to do anything he wanted, take her, force her into the car and take her away. She was ashamed and angry with herself for not letting him Saturday, she wanted to turn back the clock and be there again with him in the car, take off every stitch of clothes and let him see her.

The night before, she had awakened at three in the morning to a slight whispering sound, and turned the lamp on to see an envelope on the floor just inside the door. She had read his letter, crying, again, oh God, again crying, crushed by loathing for her life, for her father, mean, mean as her mother. Worse.

My dearest Marie, darling,

I’m writing this note because tomorrow I’m going to leave and go back to the city. Don’t worry, I’ll make up some good excuse about business, I don’t want to look like I’m running away and add fuel to the fire, they’d all love that. Believe you me my dearest, it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my whole life but I cannot see my way clear to staying another week in this atmosphere, I know it would make your life Hell on earth. I know how mortified you were last night and I still really can’t believe what happened, last night. And I don’t want to say anything disrespectful about your father but between you and me it was a very mean thing to do the way everybody lives here like people in a goldfish bowl. And when I saw your sweet beautiful face this morning at breakfast so sad and I could tell you were crying all night I knew then and there staying here would make everything harder all around, so it is the best thing for me to go and not give the relics fuel for their gossip, they have got plenty already.

Trust me my dear, that I will come and see you in the city by hook or by crook. What I feel about you ever since the minute I laid eyes on you won’t be forgotten, I am not one of your out of sight out of mind sort of men. Just because Fall comes does not mean that I will not think of you, always. I did not have a chance to tell you on Saturday night but, you have given me back a real sense of manhood that I have not had since long before my wife walked out on me. I cannot imagine anything more beautiful than to go on with our beautiful friendship back in the city, this Fall. Maybe your father will cool off a little back in the city and be willing to talk to me man to man and look me straight in the eye instead of treating me like something the cat dragged in and to wipe his feet on me. It might just be that way when he is not seeing Helga Schmidt every day. She sure put a bee in your father’s bonnet about me although, I cannot prove it. And I think she has her own reasons for shining up to him this way but I’ll let sleeping dogs lie if you know what I mean and I am sure you do. Anyhow, I would like to prove to him that I am not the wisenheimer he thinks I am and that I have your best interests in my heart.

My dearest Marie, I will never, never forget Saturday night however it all panned out in the end. That cannot spoil the rest of the evening. I hope and pray that you do not think that I ever planned to take advantage of your purity because I know that you are a good and pure lady, and I mean a real lady and I’m not fit to kiss your feet. Just because you are a good sport and like to have a little fun does not mean that a man can make a pass at you, I know that through and through. I have been worrying about my conduct Saturday night ever since. But you were so beautiful all in white, like an angel, I must have got carried away and I am really ashamed. I hope that you will forgive me and tomorrow when I say goodbye, short and sweet, if you will just shake my hand I will know that you forgive me. I have nothing but the highest respect for your purity.

And please trust me that I will manage to see you in the city some way, by hook or by crook. And also try and talk turkey to your father who thinks because of Mrs. Schmidt that I am some kind of Valentino or something. I promised Billy that I would take him to football games this Fall and maybe Coney Island. I am saying that this is not goodbye. But it is the best thing for me to do right now in this goldfish bowl with a lot of wagging tongues making life unbearable for you if I stayed to the bitter end. With me gone things will have a chance to simmer down.

Your dear friend and admirer,

Tom

Billy had — what? What was in his hand? Tom’s tobacco pouch, oh, surely it was Tom’s tobacco pouch, she could never mistake it. She even used to carry it in her bag sometimes when they went to the beach. She knew that Tom had left it for her. Not as a memento or a souvenir, but somehow on purpose. It was a sort of link between them, even better than his lovely lovely letter because it was his. But now, holding it, she felt enormously sad and exhausted and tears came up in her eyes. She hugged Billy and kissed him, thanked him for bringing her the pouch. Then she asked him to please go out and play, because she had to write some letters. Billy backed out of the room and just outside, before he closed the door, asked her if Tom would come back, maybe, for the tobacco pouch? Because he once told Billy that it was his favorite, his old reliable, and kept his tobacco really fresh. Marie shook her head and smiled, then shrugged, and Billy closed the door.

For a moment she thought that Tom really might return, but knew that it was impossible, a dream. She understood why he had to leave, it was kind and considerate, for her. But she was sure, sure, that he’d left the pouch on purpose. She unzipped it and smelled the rich, sweet blend, her eyes closed, felt his mouth wet and tender on her bare nipples. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, she whispered, and shivered, then got up and put the pouch in a drawer under her new bathing suit. He’d never see it now. She flushed suddenly with resentment and anger. Her father had mentioned it to her the day before. Mentioned it to her! He had been snooping in her room, looking at her private things, it was unnatural. He didn’t want her to wear it, he said. It was time he put his foot down, well past time the way things were going, he should have done it long ago and maybe things wouldn’t have come to this pretty pass. She looked past him at the fields and told him that she didn’t think it was right for him to go rummaging through her private things without her knowledge, and he told her to keep a civil tongue in her head, since when did she have the right to tell her father what he should or shouldn’t do? Rummaging! She had seriously thought of going swimming with Tom and the others that afternoon as if nothing had happened, and with her new suit on, but that was cutting it a bit thick. Not yet, she couldn’t do anything like that, yet. As far as her ever wearing the suit, well, she’d see. She had a right to wear it and knew that her father had got on his high horse about it because he knew she’d bought it so that Tom could see her in it, see that she was still pretty and young and had a figure. Her father didn’t want that, he didn’t want anybody to see her, like she was his wife. How he always loved it when strangers thought she was his wife! Once or twice he hadn’t even corrected them, just smiled as if he hadn’t heard them right. Oh, God! This was no life.

She smoothed the suit over the tobacco pouch and closed the drawer. On the lawn Mr. Sapurty and her father were playing croquet, that goddamned croquet! She felt like putting her foot through the window, smashing it to smithereens, then putting her new bathing suit on and going down on the lawn to take a sun bath — give that damn fool of a relic Ralph an eyeful! Sweet Mother of God! Did anybody ever have such a cross to bear as this?