Promised Land

Chapter 28

The Shepards went home after a while, uneasy, uncertain, but in the same car with the promise that Susan and I would join them for dinner that night. The rain stopped and the sun came out. Susan and I went down to Sea Street beach and swam and lay on the beach. I listened to the Sox play the Indians on a little red Panasonic portable that Susan had given me for my birthday. Susan read Erikson and the wind blew very gently off Nantucket Sound. I wondered when Powers would show up. Nothing much to do about that. When he showed he’d show. There was no way to prepare for it.

The Sox lost to Cleveland and a disc jockey came on and started to play “Fly Robin Fly.”

I shut off the radio.

“You think they’ll make it?” I said.

Susan shrugged. “He’s not encouraging, is he?”

“No, but he loves her.”

“I know.” She paused. “Think we’ll make it?”

“Yeah. We already have.”

“Have we?”

“Yeah.”

“That means that the status remains quo?”

“Nope.”

“What does it mean?”

“Means I’m going to propose marriage.”

Susan closed her book. She looked at me without saying anything. And she smiled. “Are you really?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Was that it?”

“I guess it was, would you care to marry me?”

She was quiet. The water on the sound was quiet. Easy swells looking green and deep rolled in quietly toward us and broke gently onto the beach.

Susan said, “I don’t know.”

“I was under a different impression,” I said.

“So was I.”

“I was under the impression that you wanted to marry me and were angry that I had not yet asked.”

“That was the impression I was under too,” Susan said. “Songs unheard are sweeter far,” I said.

“No, it’s not that, availability makes you no less lovable. It’s… I don’t know. Isn’t that amazing. I think I wanted the assurance of your asking more than I wanted the consummated fact.”

“Consummation would hardly be a new treat for us,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“Yeah, I do. How are you going to go about deciding whether you want to marry me or not?”

“I don’t know. One way would be to have you threaten to leave. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t lose me,” I said.

“No, I don’t think I will. That’s one of the lovely qualities about you. I have the freedom, in a way, to vacillate. It’s safe to be hesitant, if you understand that.”

I nodded. “You also won’t shake me,” I said.

“I don’t want to.”

“And this isn’t free-to-be-you-and-me-stuff. This is free to be us, no sharesies. No dibs, like we used to say in the schoolyard.”

“How dreadfully conventional of you.” Susan smiled at me. “But I don’t want to shake you and take up with another man. And I’m not hesitating because I want to experiment around. I’ve done that. I know what I need to know about that. Both of us do. I’m aware you might be difficult about sharing me with guys at the singles bar.”

“I’ll say.”

“There are things we have to think about though.”

“Like what?”

“Where would we live?”

I was still lying flat and she was half sitting, propped up on her left elbow, her dark hair falling a little forward. Her interior energy almost tangible. “Ah-ha,” I said.

She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. “That’s one of your great charms, you understand so quickly.”

“You don’t want to leave your house, your work.”

“Or a town I’ve lived in nearly twenty years where I have friends, and patterns of life I care about.”

“I don’t belong out there, Suze,” I said.

“Of course you don’t. Look at you. You are the ultimate man, the ultimate adult in some ways, the great powerful protecting father. And yet you are the biggest goddamned kid I ever saw. You would have no business in the suburbs, in a Cape Cod house, cutting the lawn, having a swim at the club. I mean you once strangled a man to death, did not you?”

“Yeah, name was Phil. Never knew his other name, just Phil. I didn’t like it.”

“No, but you like the kind of work where that kind of thing comes up.”

“I’m not sure that’s childish.”

“In the best sense it is. There’s an element of play in it for you, a concern for means more than ends. It comes very close to worrying about honor.”

“It often has to do with life and death, sweetie.”

“Of course it does, but that only makes it a more significant game. My neighbors in Smithfield are more serious. They are dealing with success or failure. For most of them it’s no fun.”

“You’ve thought about me some,” I said.

“You bet your ass I have. You’re not going to give up your work, I’m not going to stop mine. I’m not going to move to Boston. You’re not going to live in Smithfield.”

“I might,” I said. “We could work something out there, I think. No one’s asking you to give up your work, or me to give up mine.”

“No, I guess not. But it’s the kind of thing we need to think on.”

“So a firm I-don’t-know is your final position on this?”

“I think so.”

I put my hands up and pulled her down on top of me. “You impetuous bitch,” I said. Her faced pressed against my chest. It made her speech muffled.

“On the other hand,” she mumbled, “I ain’t never going to leave you.”

“That’s for sure,” I said. “Let’s go have dinner and consummate our friendship.”

“Maybe,” Susan said as we drove back to the motel, “we should consummate it before dinner.

”Better still,“ I said, ”how about before and after dinner?“

”You’re as young as you feel, lovey,“ Susan said.