Just What Is

He sees her at a restaurant. He’s with his two closest friends and she’s sitting down with an older woman and a child three tables away. He says to the couple “Someone I know. My favorite grad student, ever. Haven’t seen her since before Abby died. That’s how I divide things in my life. B.A. and A.A. Excuse me,” and he gets up and goes over to her. “Oh my goodness,” she says, and stands up and puts her arms out and they hug. “You remember him,” she says to the woman. “My old writing professor. Philip Seidel. You met at the reception after the diploma ceremony. Jesus. Almost fourteen years ago.” She introduces him to her mother and says the child is her sister’s son. “I have him for two weeks while she’s in China.” He says “How you doing, and how’s Claude?” and she says “We’re in the midst of getting a divorce.” “I’m sorry,” and she says “Don’t be. It’s fine. But also don’t tell me you thought we were the last couple on earth to ever get divorced.” “Why would I? What do I know what’s going on between two people, married or not?” “Hey,” she says. “I heard from Whitney and Evelyn that the launch event for your new book at the Ivy was a smash.” “You mean a debacle.” “No, they said you had a big crowd, more people than chairs, and the pieces you read were perfect and the Q and A went well too. I wanted to go but I was teaching that night. I haven’t bought the book yet but I will.” “Don’t bother. You know. . sometimes I think my work’s only meant to be written, not read. I’d send you a copy, because the publisher did such a beautiful job on it — the looks. I just know they’re going to win design awards for it — but I only have two left, one with the corrections to all the typos and the other to keep in pristine shape in my bookcase. I can also imagine how busy you must be with everything and also have lots on your mind. How are your kids?” “They’re taking it pretty well.” “That’s good. Listen,” he says, “we should meet for lunch or just for coffee one day.” “I’d like that. Let me get your phone number.” “First one to pull out his pen gets to call the other,” and he takes a pen out of his pants pocket, piece of folded-up paper out of his pants back pocket and says “So give it.” She does and then says “After the holidays. I am pretty busy till then.” “After. That’d be great. Can’t wait. Lunch, so we have enough time to talk.” They hug, he says to her mother “Nice to meet you again. And you too, little guy,” to her nephew. “What are you going to have for lunch?” and the kid says “Chicken salad sandwich.” “Good choice,” and he goes back to the table. “Sorry for holding you up,” he says to the couple. “She was maybe the best student writer I ever had, and it was such a treat seeing her again. I loved having her in my class and fought off my colleagues to be her advisor. She didn’t say anything about Abby. Maybe she was being discreet. Or I have seen her since Abby died, but a while ago. That must be the case. And I think I even remember getting a condolence card from her, none of which I ever thanked the senders for. She looks a lot like Abby, wouldn’t you say? Though that’s not why I always liked her.” The woman says “Abby was gorgeous. This woman’s only cute.”

He thinks about calling her every day after that. Writes her phone number in his address book, telephone numbers section of his weekly planner and on the medical appointment card fastened to the refrigerator door by a magnet. Dreams about her several times. In one, they’re in a kitchen he doesn’t recognize. They’re saying goodbye. He forgets which one of them is leaving. He leans over to kiss her cheek, but she kisses him on the mouth. “You’re surprised, I can see,” she says, “but I wanted to know how it felt. Not bad for a first time. Your lips are nice and soft and your breath’s sweet and the kiss was quick and satisfying. A good sign. My rule of thumb is if it doesn’t feel good the first time, don’t try it again. What’s yours?” In another — right after the last one, he thinks — Abby and he are in the Roosevelt Memorial Hall in the American Museum of Natural History. He sees Ruth, this woman, walking down the grand staircase in the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She doesn’t notice him staring at her till she gets to the bottom of the stairs, looks his way and waves. “Hello,” he mouths silently from about fifty feet away, “how are you? You look terrific. What a pleasure to see you again.” Then he turns back to Abby, whom he realizes he stopped talking to midsentence when he saw Ruth at the top of the staircase, but she isn’t there. He looks around this huge room but she seems to have disappeared and the staircase is gone too. He makes his way through a crowd to Ruth. It seems to be a party. Everyone’s holding a drink and talking about literature and art. “In 1882. .” someone he has to maneuver around is saying. She just stands there, smiling at him, waiting for him, it seems. “I lost Abigail,” he says when he reaches her.

He Googles Ruth. Not much on her. Nothing about her age or even a clue, like what year she graduated college, to help him estimate it. He guesses she’s around forty, forty-two. She’s had several short stories in some of the best literary magazines and one in a major magazine, which was then republished in a Best American Stories three years ago. He wonders how he can get the book without buying it or going to the library. He didn’t know about the stories. He doesn’t keep up with any magazine. She probably has a book coming out or one almost finished and an agent to sell it. She’s a visiting assistant professor in the English department of a local university. She also has an advanced degree from the Sorbonne.

He fantasizes about her. She’s maybe thirty-five years younger than him. He calls her and they meet for lunch. The next time they see each other — he finds it hard to call it a date — they go to a movie, and then dinner out the next time they see each other. All right, a date. He can’t think of a better word for it now. But 42, 77. It seems so wrong to use it. Anyway, after dinner she invites him back to her apartment or house. He’d picked her up this time and drove her home. “Why use two cars?” he said on the phone or in an email. The first two dates they each drove to the place they were to meet at. Her kids are with their father that night and won’t be back till the next afternoon. They had kissed a few times, but just quick ones on the cheek when they first greeted each other and then when they said goodbye. They finished a good bottle of red wine in the restaurant — he insisted on paying for their lunch and dinner and let her buy the movie tickets and a bag of popcorn at the theater — and have a glass of wine or two at her place. He says “May I sit beside you on the couch? And it’s not because my chair’s uncomfortable.” Or he’s on the couch and she’s in a chair and he says “Would it be a really dumb thing to say ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable sitting on the couch?’ Although maybe the chair’s perfect for you.” If he’s on a chair and she’s on the couch, she says “Please, do what you want.” He says “What I want, and I hope you don’t throw me out of the house and banish me for all time for saying this, is to kiss you. But I can’t do it, if you’d let me, while I’m on the chair.” He moves to the couch. Or she does. Anyway, they’re there together — they could even start off there, she first, or he first, but probably he first while she’s out of the room to get the glasses and wine — and he says “May I kiss you now? I know it seems absurd, my repeatedly asking, but it’s been so long. I just don’t know how to put it.” She says “Don’t ask. Just do. There can’t be any harm to it, and if we don’t like it we’ll stop,” and she holds her arms out the way she did in the restaurant that time she was with her mother and he was with his friends, and they kiss and they kiss and they kiss. He recalls a dream he had before he had this fantasy, of him kissing his wife for three minutes and then opening his eyes, which had been shut during the entire kiss, and finds he’s kissing Ruth. He remembers waking up and thinking “Well, I got the best of both worlds with that one. What’s it mean? Several things, all of them too easy.” In his fantasy, he feels her breast under her shirt, strokes her behind through her panties, and she says “Why don’t we move this to the bedroom?” which is almost word for word what Abby said to him before the first time they made love, also in her living room and on a couch. “Oy. Look at me,” he says. “You can see how nervous I am. A confession. I haven’t made love since I last made love to my wife a month or two before she died, and that was nearly five years ago. Confession two. I haven’t made love to any other woman — not even a deep kiss like the ones we just had — since I first met my wife. But I should shut up about her. I’m ruining it, I know.” “It’s all right,” she says. “I understand. But you don’t have to say anything else about her, at least not tonight. Otherwise, it’d be difficult to continue.” He fantasizes more. Their lovemaking goes well, for instance. “Good,” he said, “I found out I don’t need a pill to help me out. Big relief. I didn’t think I would. But after so long, not that I haven’t — confession three — been masturbating, you never know.” “It would be all right with me if you did have to use something,” she says. “But I’m glad it turned out the way you liked.” They start seeing each other a few times a week. Two or three. She’s teaching, he’s retired. They’re both writing and getting things accepted. She wants him to read everything she writes soon after she finishes it and he doesn’t let her see anything of his till it’s published. “That’s the way I was with Abby, except when maybe I was having trouble with a line or two or coming up with the right word or phrase.” The age difference makes him feel self-conscious sometimes. Like when she takes and holds his hand when they’re walking outside, or in a movie theater, even when it’s dark. She says, the one time he brings it up, she never thinks about it. He says “You have to,” and she says “Honestly, I don’t, so leave it at that. But you don’t want me to do things like hold your hand when we’re around people or kiss you hello when we meet someplace, I won’t.” “No,” he says. “I like both of those, so do them all you want. I’ll come around.” More fantasy. He asks her to move in with him. “I’ll take care of all the expenses, you won’t have to contribute anything, so think of all the money you’ll save. The house is small but large enough to accommodate you and your kids and mine when they visit, if I get the basement fixed up as a guest bedroom, and you can have Abby’s old study all to yourself.” She says she’ll think about it—“I wouldn’t mind getting out of the apartment” or “selling the house”—and eventually she and her kids move in. They go to Maine for the summer. Her kids first stay a month in Switzerland with their grandparents — her husband is Swiss and he remembers her telling him when she was his grad student that she and Claude would spend a month every summer with his parents in Lausanne — and the second summer month with them in Maine. By now she’s divorced. He says “Why don’t we get married? I’m aware that it can’t last for twenty-seven years as Abby’s and mine did. But I think I’m good for twenty years, or maybe just fifteen. Still, that’s not bad. You’ll be almost sixty. And I promise never to get feeble and to make a super extra effort to be healthy and to control the health problems I already have.” She says “Let’s keep it the way it is. One of us might tire of the other. I don’t see it happening. But I didn’t see it happening with my husband either. And I don’t want, more for the kids’ sake than mine, to go through another divorce. Things are perfect now, aren’t they, so why fuss with them? Though maybe, for practical reasons, I’ll change my mind.” He stays well. Works out at the Y every day, and she often works out with him. He swims, jogs, cuts back on his drinking, watches what he eats, takes long walks and bike rides with her, loses about ten pounds of belly fat, feels healthier than he has in years. At his next physical his doctor takes him off high-blood-pressure pills—“You no longer need them and you were borderline anyway”—and his prostate seems to have shrunk to normal size. “Your hands no longer shake and your balance and reflexes are better than I’ve ever seen them, so I’ll probably end up reducing those pills and possibly taking you off them too. You’re a medical miracle man. I want to show you off to some of my patients who are half your age and nowhere near the physical condition you’re in.” “It’s all your doing,” he says to Ruth. “What a mess I’d be now without you.” They make love about three times a week. Sometimes once at night and then the following morning before they get out of bed. They laugh a lot with each other, never run out of interesting things to do together and talk about. Never have an argument or really any kind of disagreement or row. Her kids think of him as their second father and his daughters look fondly on her kids as their much younger sisters. He writes several stories about his love for her and his life since he first saw her in that restaurant and also his fears he’ll suddenly get very sick and from then on she has to take care of him and another that she leaves him for a much younger man, one of her grad students. He tells her what he’s writing, still never shows her them till they’re published. She tells him he has nothing to worry about, she loves him and would never hook up with another man. If he got that sick, she’d take care of him the best she could, and if there was anything she couldn’t do, and she thinks that would be very little, she’d get an aide. “Sure,” she says, “we’ve talked of the likelihood of your dying long before me. Though I could also all of a sudden get very sick and die of a disease months after I was diagnosed. Or my illness could linger on for years, while you remained healthy, and during that period it’d be you who’d take care of me as you did with Abigail. But let’s not talk about it or ever again, unless something like one of those did happen. It’s too depressing. You’re happy, I’m happy, our kids are terrific and happy and we’re all healthy, and we’re both writing like there’s no tomorrow. That’s all we need.” “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right,” he says. “It’s terrible of me, I know. But a couple of the things I haven’t been able to get rid of or control, though I should have, seeing how happy we’ve been together — and we are, right?” and she says “Yes. Of course.” “Is my predisposition to melancholy and penchant for imagining depressing things and subverting most of the good that’s happening,” and he gives her a big kiss and after it they laugh.

He calls her and says “Lunch still good with you?” and she says “Sure, I’d love to.” They meet at the restaurant where he last saw her — she says it’s the closest one to the school she’ll have to pick up her older daughter at after lunch — and they talk about a lot of things: books they’re reading, what she’s teaching, tires she’s ruined because of the many times she’s driven over curbs, and so on. They laugh so hard at times he feels their laughter might be annoying other diners it’s so loud. She’s as wonderful as he remembers her — that’s what he thinks about while she’s talking at length about something and he’s listening. Smart, clever, funny. Beautiful, he thinks. He knows he always thought her attractive but he doesn’t remember ever thinking she was beautiful. Could it be it’s something in him that’s changed? That just being so much younger than he is being beautiful? Something like that. And with her relatively young age and natural good looks — well, the two could add up to beauty to him. Who knows? He’s all confused. The truth is, just being with her makes him confused. Or maybe he’s on to something. When they start talking about serious things — or when he does and she’s just listening — she looks too serious, staring straight at him, hand cupping her chin, that sort of pose as if she doesn’t know how to be serious so can only pretend to look it. Is anything wrong with that? He doesn’t think so, or not much. She doesn’t like to be serious. Or she has enough serious things going on in her life — that could be it and probably is. Divorce, money problems, a car that’s falling apart — she brought it in to get it fixed this morning and had to leave it there and borrow a loaner — and she doesn’t know if she has enough money to cover it. She’ll go to her husband. He got the better car. And just dealing with her husband. And teaching and writing and worried about not getting tenure and nobody to help her the days she has her daughters. Lots of juggling. So what’s he saying? He’s not sure. No, he doesn’t know. Got a little mixed up there again. Maybe she just likes things to be light and funny and unserious and gets depressed when they’re not. Especially, he’s saying, when she’s taking a break from all the other things in her life, some of them troubling, and having what she hoped would be a casual pleasant lunch in a restaurant. But he doesn’t know her, at least not since she was his grad student and advisee and a little after when she used to pop into his office with one of her infant daughters for a chat, so what’s he making all these assumptions for? The check comes. “On me,” he says. She says “Then next time it’s on me.” “Next time. . you like movies, right?” “Love them.” “So next time maybe we should go to a movie — a matinee. The Charles or the Senator or a theater like that. A weekend day if you can manage it.” “I’d like to,” she says, “if you let me buy the tickets.” “We’ll see.” “Stop that,” she says. “You’re not being fair. You have to let me buy them. And I’m ordering your book online this week. I’ve been too busy with other things to do it before.” “Don’t order it,” he says. “It’s a hardcover and expensive and not worth it. Let me give you my pristine copy. If I need another pristine copy I can buy it at the Ivy.” “Not a chance,” she says. “Consider it done.” “All right. I give in,” he says. He walks her to her car. “This was fun,” she says. “And I know I got lucky. Whitney told me you never accept invites to dinner or lunch.” “Well, you see how true that is. And I invited you, didn’t I? And I wouldn’t call you lucky. Lunching with me, I mean.” “Nonsense.” Don’t say it, he thinks, but that’s usually what Abby said when he said things like that about himself. They kiss each other on the cheek goodbye. He gets an email from her later that day. She must have got his address from Whitney or someone because he doesn’t remember giving it to her. “Hi! Thank you for lunch. The sandwich was delicious, the soup divine, the double espresso exactly what I needed to get thoroughly started today, and the cortavo (little C or big?), if that’s what it’s called and you introduced me to, the perfect end-of-lunch coffee to top it off. As I demonstrated, I love food and I felt great after. We’ll talk. Ruth.” He thinks: Should he reply right away? He wants to, but give it more time. Don’t want to seem too eager: remember? Ah, just do it. No harm if he’s careful what he says. “Dear Ruth: No thanks needed, but thanks. I like their food too. But because I know what a mess I can make, I’m never going to order a salad with so many little parts to it. From now on, just solid pieces of food I can eat with a knife and fork. Soup I never have in a restaurant unless I’m alone and facing a wall or only with my daughters. I do everything wrong other than eating it with a fork or lifting the bowl to my mouth and drinking from it. I like the restaurant you chose but have lunched there so much or at one of its branches, that I think I know the menu by heart and have had almost everything on it at least twice. For a change, if we ever do have lunch out again, let me treat us to Petit Louis Bistro. Been there only once for lunch, and the food was good, the setting pleasant, I loved the afternoon light that came through the windows, and because the place is French and the service is so attentive and refined, I’m sure my latent good table manners will kick in and be unimpeachable. Maybe we could even do it the same day we take in a movie, though you’d probably be too busy with other things to spare so much time. Lunch-movie. They go together and in that order, I’d say. Anyway. . best, Phil.” Did he write too much? And should he read it over a couple of times and change and fix what needs changing and fixing and wait a day or two before he sends it? He reads it. It’s harmless, really only there to make her laugh, nothing in it to make him seem eager to see her or that he has anything but friendly feelings toward her, so send it, and he does. After, he thinks: Did he just now make a big mistake? Stop it. You’re killing yourself. It’s all right what you wrote and all right that you wrote. She emails him the next day. “Hi! Only opened my inbox a minute ago and read your email very quickly and can’t reply this moment. Gotta run. Busy busy busy. More later. xx, Ruth.” She’s still writing him, not taking days to do it and those x’s. Kid stuff. Don’t make more of it than’s there. The rest, all good signs.

He dreams of her that night. Dreams twice of her but only remembers the second. He’s cutting across one of the quads of the school he taught at and hears someone behind him say “Hi.” He doesn’t turn around because he thinks the “hi” was for someone else and he’s late at meeting up with her. The person’s still behind him and says “Hi.” He turns around. It’s Ruth, smiling at him and carrying a large canvas boat bag filled with books. “That was me, before, saying hi,” she says. “How come you didn’t stop?” “I thought it was someone else,” he says, and puts his arm around her and pulls her into him and kisses her on the mouth. “Oops, sorry,” he says. “I thought you were someone else,” and takes his arm away and with his other hand takes the canvas bag from her and holds it. She says “That’s all right what you did with your arm there. Put it back,” and he puts his arm around her again and they walk that way. “The bag’s lighter than I thought it would be.” “That’s because there’s nothing in the books,” she says.

He checks his computer’s inbox about ten times that day, hoping there’d be something from her. Four days after he gets her last email, he emails her. “Hi. See? I’ve adopted the prevalent, or what should we call it — or I call it — accepted email greeting? If I knew how to italicize on this machine, I would’ve italicized ‘I.’ But I’m saying no more ‘dear’ heading and the addressee’s name. Nor will I, from now on, sign off with ‘best’ or ‘very best’ or ‘sincerely’ or such. Just my first initial or name. Don’t want to appear too passé, know what I mean? So tell me, any further thoughts of a movie you’d like to go to, if that’s still on? If you get a chance, let me know. If you’re too tied up to go to a movie or even get back to me, it’s perfectly understandable. I’m the one with all the free time and two daughters out on their own. Very best, Oops, sorry. It’ll take a bit of getting used to. Phil.” She emails him back the next day. “Hi! Apologies for not getting back to you sooner. As you surmised, I’m tied up in knots and nots. What does she mean by that? She doesn’t know. So excuse me for trying to be literary. I invariably fail there. I’m much better at plain speaking and also sticking to the same pronoun. I thought of three movies — it’s a specially fruitful period for movies in Baltimore. But I have the kids all week — Claude is out of town at a linguistics conference — so I want to but no can do. Best. Very best. Sincerely. Simply showing my solidarity sibilantly, and another literary failure. xx, Ruth.” He checks the computer several times a day the next week to see if there’s a message from her. Then he calls, ten days after her last email and she says “Oh, gosh. I was supposed to call you, yes?” “No. You told me to call or write you after about a week.” “Good,” she says. “I’d hate for you to think I didn’t mean it when we talked about going to a movie. But I’ve been so occupied with schoolwork and mom work and housework and even the girls’ homework. Middle school math, for me, is tough.” “Not to worry, really,” he says. “As I said, I’m the one—” “Hey! I just thought of something. I’m giving a reading from my new novel a week after next. The first public airing of it, and if you’d like to, please come. It’s in a new mortar and pretzel bookstore, which has a wine license, so you can drink while you listen. I’d be curious what you think of the part I’ll be reading, and you won’t have to listen to me long. There are three other readers.” “I’m coming. Only my car breaking down could stop me.” She gives the name of the bookstore. “If you Google it, you’ll get the announcement of the reading on its events calendar and better directions to the store than I could ever give. I always get people lost. And Whitney and Harold are having a small drink party before the reading. I know they’d love for you to come to it.” “Not the party,” he says. “I don’t want to get looped and then drive. I’ll have a glass of wine at the store. And the one party I’ve been to at their house, when Abby was alive, took us half an hour to find it. It was evening and they lived in what looked like woods.” “Then give yourself plenty of time getting there and only drink Perrier.” “You’re so nice,” he says, “encouraging me to step out and socialize more — I know what your angle is. And I will, but one event at a time. Something tells me that’s what I should do. So I’ll see you at the reading, if you’re too busy before then to meet me for coffee or lunch.” “Till the day of the reading, I am,” she says. “A ton of half-theses to read and then discuss with the writers. You know how it is. You did the same with me. And though you told me mine, and later my full thesis, were the easiest to read because of all the brief dialog and half my stories were short-shorts, I know it took a lot of your time. I’m sorry we can’t meet sooner. I had a good time that lunch.” “I loved our lunch,” he says. “Loved it. But there’ll be another. “Of course there will,” she says.

Next day he buys an illustrated book each on Indian and Greek mythology for her daughters. One an expensive hardcover because the store didn’t have the cheaper edition. The salesperson said she could order it but he wanted to mail the books today. Kids love their presents gift-wrapped, and the paper he selected at the store was special for kids. His daughters used to read the same books and also the Nordic and Roman ones, by the same author-illustrator, or he’d read the books to them before they went to sleep. He’d sit in the lit hallway between their bedrooms so they’d both be able to hear, or sometimes would take a chair there. Then he’d shut off their lights and kiss them goodnight. He never read some of the more violent myths if he thought they might have bad dreams from them.

He emails her for her address. “But only if you want to divulge it. I’m serious. You might have reservations about giving it out. This is for some books my daughters loved when they were your daughters’ age, and I think yours would too.” She write back. “Here’s the address of the house I’m renting. Destroy this email after you copy the address down. Just joking. I’ve nothing to be cautious or anxious about. It was Claude who asked for the divorce, and it’s all been sweet, easy and amicable since then. You’re so kind to want to send my darlings something. More later. Ruth.” No x’s, he thinks. Maybe an oversight or she didn’t want him to think they meant something they didn’t. After he mails the books to her daughters — Priority, as he wants them to get there the next day — and is walking back to his car from the post office, he thinks: Did he do the right thing? There’s a strategy to all this. There’s a strategy? Yes. And he doesn’t want her to think he’s trying to worm his way into her life partly through her kids. They have a father, who always seemed like a nice guy. He met him several times, though a while back, at department functions and once for dinner at someone’s house, when Abby was alive. He was quiet and modest and a bit reserved, but from what she told him, is very paternal, and probably still is. “He’s a good father,” she said in his office when she brought her recently born second child for him to see, “just like you.” He wants something to happen with her, that he’s sure of, but he could be killing it by being too obvious. He’s thought this before, but get it ingrained. So that’s the strategy: Don’t scare her away. Do, and she might never come back. In fact, odds are she won’t. But it might be too late. She’ll open the Priority envelope with her kids and say “Oh, what beautiful paper,” and then “What beautiful books,” and think “It was nice of him but it wasn’t necessary and it was maybe a little odd,” and also the gift is too extravagant — with postage, it came to almost fifty dollars — and she knows what he’s getting at, and finally, he’s too old.

He has another dream of her that night. They’re at her rented house. Seems to be a birthday party going on for one of her girls. Lots of kids the same age; balloons are stuck to the walls. She points to a group of well-dressed people talking in the next room and says “See that man there? Know who he is?” “The one with the gray goatee? Very distinguished. I feel like a tramp in comparison. Your husband, I presume.” “That’s right,” she says. “A sweeter man than he has never lived.” Then he’s sitting at a card table with her older girl. The girl holds up several paper dolls to show him. “Did you make them yourself?” he says. “No, I cut them out of a paper doll book,” she says, “but did all the coloring of their clothes. Don’t tell anyone. I want everyone to think I did all of it myself.” “I won’t, my little sweetheart.” “Who are you?” she says. “Philip. An old friend of your mother’s.” “And my father?” “I don’t know him as well, but you can say your father too.” Ruth is standing nearby and seems to be mad at him. “I do something wrong?” his expression says. She signals him to follow her. They go into the bedroom of one of her daughters. The little light in it comes from a slight opening of the door. They stand with their backs pressed up against a wall and their heads turned away from each other. Then her face turns slowly around to his, gets very close, their backs still pressed to the wall. He thinks she’s going to kiss him for the first time. Just as her lips almost touch his and he can feel her breath on his face, she turns away and walks out of the room and shuts the door. “Close,” he says to himself, “but not close enough. She knows I’m dying to kiss her. It’ll never happen. Why am I making such a fool of myself?” and he kicks the wall, feels his way to the door and leaves the room.

Next day, he tells his therapist just about everything that happened with Ruth the past week. Then he reads some of his dreams of her, which he typed up for the session so he could remember them better. She says “What do you think the dreams and the abundance of them mean? To me, right down to the gray goatee, they seem quite clear, except for the paper dolls.” “No, that’s all right,” he says. “Then why did you read them to me?” and he says “I thought you’d be interested in them.” “Would you like me to give my interpretation of what these newest dreams mean? It just came to me what significance the paper dolls might have.” “No, I’m fine,” he says; “really.” “Okay. Let’s go on. Your waking life with Ruth.” “Don’t I wish I had one.” “Yes, yes,” she says. “And this business about making yourself into a fool. You’re not. Never be ashamed of your emotions. But easy does it, I say. Don’t rush into things. You could get hurt. Form a friendship first. It seems that’s what she wants too. Let her get to know and appreciate you even more than it sounds like she does now. You have a great deal to offer. For one thing, and very important, she more than likely looks up to you and your writing and that you’ve stuck it out all these years and written so much and such good work. But don’t scare her off.” “I know,” he says. “Though she’s so lovely and I’m so drawn to her — I mean, I can feel it when I get next to her — that it’s difficult not to pounce on her. Though I know. And by pouncing, I mean affectionately. But hearing you say it is good for me. She’s not giving me any reason to make a move on her, so I won’t. If she never does, I never will. I’ll keep how I feel about her quiet and under control. I don’t want to confuse and scare her, like you say, and send her fleeing.” “Don’t even make a move if you think maybe she’s giving you signs she wants something more from you than simply lunch and your attendance at her reading. No maybes. Let it be absolutely clear she wants to take the relationship to a deeper level. You’re very observant, so you’ll know when it happens.” “I hope so.” “You’ll know. And you’re still a good catch. The two of you have many things in common. You are much older than her and there are your health issues.” “All of what I thought,” he says. “But want to know what I think? That I was misdiagnosed for Parkinson’s. Look at me. It can’t just be the pills, which aren’t that strong to begin with. My hands don’t shake. My balance is good. I can walk as straight as anyone, and now I’m jogging every morning and sometimes I go at a good speed. Also, my vocal cords are back to normal, or the muscles that control them are. And I was so borderline hypertension, that I might not have that too.” “I’m glad, if all that’s so,” she says. “Though don’t take chances, Philip. And I don’t think you’re deluding yourself with Ruth. Look at that famous actor — Jeffrey someone. So famous, I forget his name.” “I don’t know either.” “Married a woman forty years younger than him when he was eighty, I think, and they had twins.” “I don’t want twins,” he says. “Or to be a father again, and I’m sure two kids is enough for her too. But everything you say is something I already thought.” “Then you don’t need me anymore,” she says. “No, I need you. I have to tell someone how I feel about Ruth. It used to be Abby. I’ve told you. In thirty years there was never another woman. Now it’s Ruth. I feel good that I can feel like that again.” “I’m happy for you. You’re a very nice person.” “Thank you,” he says. “One more thing. I had another dream a few days ago that I didn’t even type up for you because I didn’t think I’d tell you it. And if I then thought I’d tell you, it was so vivid and short, I knew I’d remember it. It’s the oddest dream I ever had.” “Then I’d like to hear it.” “It has penises in it. That’d be all right with you?” “Of course,” she says. “Anything.” “Okay. I say to Ruth in the dream, ‘I’m giving myself away.’ Just that opening line is such a giveaway.” “Go on, go on.” “Ruth says to me ‘What do you have to offer?’ I say ‘Two penises. You can have one.’ I pull down my pants. Two semi-erect penises pop out of my boxer shorts. I’m not going too far?” “I told you. No.” “One is pink; the other my normal skin color, kind of beige. I think she’s going to choose the normal-skin-color one. She reaches down, I cringe because I think this is going to hurt, and she painlessly pulls off the pink one. I think ‘Now I’m normal.’ That’s it. Very quick. Whole thing is over in what seemed like half a minute. It’s pretty obvious to me what it means. That I’m revealing my feelings for her too fast and too obviously.” “And the now-you’re-normal part?” “That I now only have one penis,” he says. “If I stayed with two I’d be a freak and she’d never be attracted to me.” “So you’re saying if she’d chosen the normal-colored one to pull off and left the pink one, it would have been the same.” “I guess so,” he says. “What?” “There’s so much to talk about here,” she says. “First of all, why do you think she chose the pink instead of the normal-colored one? And it was a bright painter’s or flower’s pink?” “Very pink,” he says. “Like bubble gum, or what it used to be when I was a kid. But I hadn’t thought of it before. Because it’s a prettier and flashier color than we’ll call beige and she was attracted to it for aesthetic reasons?” “Do you mind if I offer my interpretation as to why she chose it?” she says. “I’ll put it this way. Pink is young, youth, new, fresh, a baby. The reason for her choosing it could be the most important part of your dream. It’s the age difference again. Perhaps the number one stumbling block to a possible serious relationship with Ruth, so you’re worried over it because it isn’t something easy to overcome. Again, it’s wishful thinking. We’ve talked about it. Your kissing and hugging her in your dreams, making love to her, pulling her into your shoulder as you walk, her letting you hold her hand. This is what you want to happen, as they do in your dreams. She acts the way you hope she will. And in this instance: she’s protective, supportive, considerate, accepting. Age turns out not to matter. She chooses the you you are now over the one you can no longer be. The gap between you has been erased with one single gesture. And everything else being relatively equal between you — your interests, intelligence, you say she’s funny, and so forth — it seems you can now get a romance going, which is what you’ve said you’re longing for and want most. It’s a positive dream. No pain; her complete acceptance of what you are. Very positive. It may not work out for you this way in real life, but in your dream world it does. It’s possible I bungled the last part there. It’s all off the top of my head. But did any of the rest of it make any sense to you?” “A lot,” he says. “I don’t know how I missed it.” “It could be other things too,” she says. “There’s hardly ever one single interpretation for any one part of a dream. But this one sticks out.” “No, I like it,” he says. “This one will do. It makes me feel good. At least better than before I told you the dream.” “I’m glad.” “Time’s up, right?” he says. She looks at her watch on the side table next to her. “You still have ten minutes.” “I think I’ll stop now. I got a lot out of it. I want to mull over what you’ve said and I don’t want to get too many things mixed up in it.” “Then I’ll see you next week.” He stands, takes the check out of his wallet and gives it to her. “Off to the Y?” she says. “Your usual schedule?” “Yes. Mind and body. Taking care of both. Thank you for a good session,” and he goes.

His sister calls that night and says “So, long time no speak. How are you? Anything new in your life?” “Matter of fact, now that you ask, yes,” and he tells her about Ruth. Their bumping into each other at a restaurant after about five years. How happy he was to see her and she seemed happy to see him. Her age, teaching, that she was a former grad student of his fourteen years ago, he thinks it was. Her going through a divorce, has two girls, books he sent them, lunch with her at the same place where they bumped into each other, that she invited him to a reading she’s giving and how excited he is to go. That she’s a terrific writer — really special; maybe the best he’s ever had — and a special person too. “I can’t lie about it or in any way be cagey or blasé about it, but I think I’m hooked. First time since Abby I felt this way. That’s good, right?” “Want my unasked-for opinion? It can never work, little brother. There’s nothing I’d like better to happen to you — nobody deserves it more — but a woman thirty-five years younger than you?” “At most. Maybe it’s thirty, or a year or two more than that.” “I’d cut it off now,” she says. “But I’d love to fall in love with someone again. I almost got dizzy when I was with her. Her presence. Just standing beside her. And you can imagine what it was like for me when we hugged hello and goodbye. It can’t be explained — and don’t be saying I’m too much the romantic — but there it is. Something — well, I already said it in so many words, but something I almost desperately wanted, and it’s finally happened.” “What movie have I seen this in?” “Don’t play with me,” he says. “I’m serious, so you be serious.” “Okay,” she says. “Serious. You’re deluding yourself. Go out with someone much older. Even a woman twenty-five years younger than you is too young. Twenty, but preferably fifteen years younger would be the maximum, I’d think, although twenty might be stretching it too far too. What’s her name?” “Ruth.” “Is she Jewish?” “No. In fact her mother was an Episcopal minister, or whatever they are in the Episcopal church. High up. Her own congregation. Retired now.” “So her mother’s probably around your age. Even younger.” “So what?” “Listen,” she says. “You’re hellbent on hurting yourself and also embarrassing yourself too. But hurt is what you’re going to get. I know you. You want more from this woman than she can ever give you and you’re going to kill whatever friendly thing you have with her. I’m sure she has no romantic illusions or fantasies about you.” “What makes you say that?” “Your age, little brother, your age. The whole idea. Once your star former student, now your potential lovemate? It’s not a bad movie it’s out of but a bad book.” “Is there a difference,” he says, “other than one takes one person to do and the other many?” “I don’t quite get what you’re saying. Anyhow, maybe I’ve said too much. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about and something good can come of it, something I didn’t see.” “You don’t believe that,” he says. “I don’t, but I thought I’d say it anyway.” “Ah, you’re probably right,” he says. “I’m all confused. I don’t know what to do.” “Don’t do anything; that’s my advice. But if you have to — if you just can’t stop yourself — here’s one thing you might try. You say you sent her daughters books?” “Yesterday.” “Good,” she says. “They haven’t got them yet or only got them today. She’ll have to email you or call you, thanking you for the books. That’d be the only polite thing to do. If she calls, you have to speak to her. But if she emails, don’t respond. Then, if she emails you again after the thank-you one and suggests you meet even before the reading of hers you’re going to, then meet. Enjoy your lunch or whatever it is. But don’t get lovey or smoochy or confessional as to how you feel to her.” “I want to get smoochy. There’s nothing I want more.” “Don’t. Keep it light. Just have fun with her as a friend. That’s the only way she’ll continue to be with you. If you blow it once, you’ll lose her for good. That’s guaranteed.” “No, what you say’s too much like strategy, which I’m against.” “Okay,” she says. “That’s all I’m going to say on the matter. I’ve warned you. Now, how are my darling nieces?”

Two days later, Ruth emails her thanks to him for the books. “They love them. I love them. It’s a wonder how you knew we’d all love them. They didn’t know which one they wanted me to read first and then help explain the myths to them. I said I’ll read one myth from the Greeks and one from the Indian book. We got on the couch and I read to them that way till each took one of the books to read by herself or just look at those amazing illustrations. Thank you again. You’re so thoughtful and generous. Ruth.” He doesn’t answer her. A week, two. She doesn’t email him after that last one. He thought she might, though what would she say? “Haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything all right?” That would be like her and nice. He doesn’t go to her reading and she doesn’t remind him of it. Nor the party before the reading, of course. Why? The day, or maybe it was two, after he spoke to his therapist and sister, he decided—“decided”? Felt very strongly that things would never work between them the way he wants them to. He’s too old. He looks too old for her. His hair is old; some of his skin is too. His body is mostly hard and lean but there’s flab in places he can’t get rid of that only old guys get. He walks like an old man sometimes, but that’s because he exercises with weights too much at home and the Y and as a result his back hurts almost every day and is bent because of it. She would never let him kiss her on the mouth and wouldn’t like him to hold her hand. Wouldn’t like him to put his arm around her. Probably wouldn’t even like being in a dark movie theater with him or have dinner in a good restaurant with him where he’d order wine. Wouldn’t even want him to pick her up to go to a movie or restaurant. Certainly no lovemaking. He wants so much to make love to her. From behind, from in front. Hold her from behind in bed and just kiss the top of her head and be kissed back like that. Wants to go to sleep with her and wake up with her and have her say “Oh, it’s so wonderful waking up to you.” Wants to go to Maine with her in the summer. But first to some hotel on the Eastern Shore, easy car ride back and forth, and go to a bird sanctuary there and seafood places to eat at and walk along the beach with her and so on. So on. He knew if he suggested any of those, he’d look ridiculous to her. So it would never work. It won’t work. Get it in your head: not even for a weekend or entire day. It’d just be lunch after lunch, every second or third week. And only maybe a movie — maybe she wouldn’t be a little anxious about sitting in a dark movie theater next to him. And maybe dinner out once or twice. But where they’d each drive to the restaurant in their own car, and lots of emails between them and he’d get depressed, but more depressed than he is now, because he’d want to be with her more. But it would have to come from her, but it won’t and it never will, and he’d be sad or just glum when he’d see her and because of it she’d say “Maybe our get-togethers aren’t good for you anymore, or as much as we’ve been doing,” and he’d say “It’s not the way I’d like it to be with you.” He’d say it, he knows he would. He’s always had a hard time holding in anything like that. “To be honest,” he’d also say, “as long as we’re talking about it, I’d like to see you a lot more than I’ve been doing — a lot lot more — but I guess it can never happen. You’re going to be annoyed at my saying this,” he’d go on. “Or alarmed or put off, or let’s just say it’ll scare you away from me and you won’t want to see me again once I say it. But you know what I’m going to say,” and she might say something like “Not exactly. It could be a number of things,” and he’d say “Name one,” and she’d say “Just say it, although now I’m thinking we should definitely not meet each other, at least for a couple of months if not more.” Or she’d say something close to that, but eventually in their conversation — their last one — he’d say “I’m going to say what I’ve been thinking to. What the hell, by now everything’s lost, so it can’t make things worse with you than they already are. And it’s probably wrong for me to say it and possibly for me even to think it, but I’m in love with you. Deeply, deeply, deeply. And want to be tender and loving and cozy and close and open and everything else like that with you.” She’d say “I thought it might be that. But you have to know I like you very much but not that way.” Or something. She’d say something that would trounce, or dash, or a better word, his fantasy with her. And if she did, and he has no doubt she will if he does say those things, it’d be something gentle and which she’d think would hurt him the least. He’d then say “Is it the age difference?” and she might say “For the most part, yes.” “So when you look at me you see an old man?” and she’d say “I have to admit it, yes.” “Oh, no,” he’d say, “that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” “About yourself?” and he’d say “Yes. It sort of dooms me, not that I didn’t see it coming and couldn’t foretell almost everything you said.” “No it doesn’t,” she could say. “You need, if you want to love someone, a woman much older than I.” Anyway, he didn’t email or call her again. She didn’t email or call him again, either. Had she ever called him? Once. To say, an hour before their lunch date, that she’d be fifteen minutes late. “How did you get my number?” he said. “I know I didn’t give it to you. I took yours, that day we first bumped into each other at the restaurant when I was with my friends, but didn’t give you mine.” “The phone book,” she said. “Like the few people I know who haven’t given up their landlines, you’re listed.”

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