They May Not Mean To, But They Do

46

“Thank god it’s almost time to drive Mom Upstate, away from that man and into the bosom of her loving family in her own little house.”

“You’re a little prudish about your mother,” Freddie said. It just came out.

“I don’t want her to be taken advantage of, that’s all.”

“I’m not sure what you and Daniel think Karl is after. Her virginity? Isn’t it possible he just really likes her?”

Molly had assumed her sullen face, an expression so infantile and so obvious that Freddie was always tempted to laugh. Instead, she said, “You just don’t like it that your mother has a boyfriend. Admit it.”

“He’s not her boyfriend.”

“Whatever that would mean, anyway.” But Freddie was happy to drop the subject. She had her own relatives to worry about. Her brothers and sisters would soon be there, though not for long.

“They’ll be in L.A. for three days, that’s it, three lousy days. It’s probably the last time they’ll see my father, the last time we’ll all be together, and I can’t decide if I wish they’d stay longer or leave after one night or not come at all. I have a fucked-up family.”

“He’s not her boyfriend.”

* * *

“I’ll miss you,” Karl said.

He was wearing a cashmere blazer. Joy patted his arm. Aaron had favored hearty tweed. She’d always loved his custom-made jackets and suits. Now they called them bespoke. Aaron had looked like a country gentleman, what country she could not have said, but she would have followed him there, she knew that much. She had followed him there, she supposed. The sleeves of his sweaters and tweeds had always been rather itchy to her touch. She ran her hand along Karl’s arm again. “Soft,” she said.

Karl was someone you could call dapper and mean it as a compliment, not a suggestion of fussiness. Marta did right by him. He looked marvelous today, Joy thought, in the spring sunshine, his shoes polished, his blue shirt pressed, his tie a deeper blue paisley.

“It’s a little too wide to be fashionable,” he said when she complimented it. “But I’ve always loved it, so I just keep on wearing it.”

He had admitted to her that he kept most of his clothes for decades, that he had shoes from his college days. He took good care of everything. Shoe trees, cedar closet, sweaters wrapped in tissue. His wife had teased him about it.

“You look very good in blue,” Joy said.

“You look good in every color.”

Joy laughed. They were walking beneath the trees on Fifth Avenue, beneath the fresh new leaves, beneath the sweetness of the air. “The wreck of the Hesperus. That’s what I feel like. In every color.”

Karl pushed his red wheeled walker and Joy kept one hand on it to hold herself steady. In a few days he would be off to stay with his son in Rhode Island. She would be off to her house Upstate.

“I’ve been thinking,” Karl said.

Joy said, “Stop.” She had to catch her breath.

In the park, a group of girls wearing headscarves were playing softball. She watched while the banging in her chest slowed. She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if it’s pollen or my heart. Who can tell anymore?”

“It’s the exciting company you keep.”

“I used to love softball,” she said. The pitcher was winding up. A strike. “Brava.”

Karl laughed. “Is that what they say at Yankee Stadium?”

They started walking again. Joy wished that Marta had stuck around. She was feeling a little strange. She had hung two of her bags on Karl’s walker, but the third one, with Gatto peering out of it, was weighing her down.

“So,” Karl said, “I was thinking.”

“Karl, would you mind if we sat down for a minute? I’m feeling wobbly.”

They made their way to a bench, backs to a stone wall that separated them from the park, but Joy could hear the park sounds clearly, the high-pitched pleasure of children, the squeak of swings, dogs barking, the ping of bicycle bells, whoops and cheers and chattering squirrels. Gatto emerged from the bag and stretched out in a patch of sun on the ground. Joy closed her eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun reflected from the apartment windows across the street. Someone with a French accent asked Karl where the Guggenheim was. The smell of spring was everywhere. And the faintest smell of urine.

“Oh my god,” Joy said, her eyes open. Urine. “I forgot my court date!”

She began to dig frantically in the bag next to her on the bench. “Oh Christ. Oh, how could I do that?”

“Court date?”

“Nothing, nothing, a ticket, nothing…” The dog began barking and scratching at her leg. She pulled the other two bags from the handles of the walker and emptied them onto the bench.

“You’re sure? Can I help … But how did you get a traffic ticket? You don’t have a car.”

“Don’t ask. Gatto, shoosh, not everything is about you.” Joy pulled out lipsticks and applesauce containers. How could she have failed Ben like this?

“Well then, listen, Joy, as I said, I’ve been thinking—”

“Good. Thinking. Good, good.” She was pawing through papers and receipts now, candy wrappers, pamphlets.

“Look, we’ve known each other a long time.” Karl hauled the screeching dog onto his lap and stroked him. “Quiet, Gatto. That’s right. Good boy. A long time, Joy. Practically our whole lives, give or take a few decades when we lost touch…”

Joy saw a yellow piece of paper that she thought might be it. But Ben’s ticket was pink, it was pink. What if she had missed his court date? What would happen to him? Some awful permanent mark on his license or his credit rating. It was not as if they’d throw him in jail. Was it? But a fine, there would be a fine … He would never trust her again with something important. He would think she was old, senile, useless.

“… I think it could be good for both of us, and it just makes sense, don’t you think?”

In the inside zipper pocket of the largest bag — a black-and-white-striped bag she had gotten on a trip, which trip? Oh, it didn’t matter which trip, Joy, for heaven’s sake, all that mattered was the court date — she felt something, paper, wadded-up paper.

“Joy?”

She pulled it out. It was pink. She unfolded it.

“What do you think, Joy?”

“I found it! It’s not until September!”

“No, I mean about us moving in together.”

Joy folded the summons carefully and put it back in the zippered inner pocket. She put everything back in her bags, the thermos, the flashlight, the pads and adult diapers that were, thank god, in an opaque plastic bag. She was nearly panting. So much excitement. As she went to put her atomizer back in the smaller bag, she took a few puffs, just in case. And finally the dog, into the striped bag.

Living with Karl. What would that mean? The end of loneliness? The echo of another person’s footsteps in the house. Someone to pretend to listen to you as you read out loud from the newspaper, with whom to discuss what to have for dinner, someone with whom to chat about the weather, someone with whom to share a life.

“I’ve been in love with you for sixty-five years,” Karl said. “How corny that sounds. But it’s true. It’s not that I thought of you every day. I didn’t. But there was an impression of you, I suppose you could say that. An impression on my heart.”

Tears came to Joy’s eyes. She was staring blindly down at the pavement. She could not look at him. She wondered what Aaron would think when she told him. But she could not tell him. Aaron, Aaron, how can I know what I feel without you here?

“I’m sorry,” Karl said. “Bad idea.”

“No, it’s a wonderful idea, Karl.”

“But?”

She shook her head.

“Your children? I thought that might be a problem.”

“No, no. Not them.” Although they might not like it, he was right. In which case, she thought, they could lump it.

“It’s too soon,” Karl said.

“Well, yes, it is too soon.”

Karl made a disgusted sound. “I was afraid of that, I understand, but when you think about it, nothing is too soon when you’re our age.”

“It’s not just that, Karl. Although it is too soon for me, even if I’m old. But there’s something else. It’s my apartment. I can’t leave my apartment. I just can’t.”

“Too many memories, the place where you raised your children, yes, I see.”

“No, not that.”

“Well, what then?”

“The apartment is … rent-controlled.”

They both burst out laughing.

“I can’t give it up. I mean I just can’t,” she said, laughing still.

Then Karl took her hand, kissed it. “We are star-crossed lovers,” he said good-naturedly.

Joy took his hand now and squeezed it. “Star-crossed lovers.” She liked the sound of that. She liked the idea of being any kind of lover at all. She finally looked at him, his clean-shaven face a little pink in the spring air, his heavy eyelids and serious eyes, his fine silver hair shining. He loved her. He had loved her all along. She wondered if she loved him. A shiver of something that could have been love passed through her. Or it could have been simple pleasure. Or vanity. Or was it gratitude? She tried to remember what she had felt like when she had fallen in love as a girl. She remembered the sunlit giddiness, the dizzy confusion of falling through air without moving, the conviction that roared like an animal inside her. She remembered trembling and touching and knowing. She remembered Aaron scooping her up in his long arms. She remembered Karl, too, pushing the hair from her face before he kissed her. She remembered parties and dancing and being held close, her face against Aaron’s cheek. Unless it was Karl’s. But, no, it was Aaron’s, before he grew his beard, she could hear him singing along to the music, his breath in her ear. She could not remember the song. She wished she could remember the song.

“It was all so long ago,” she said. “And it’s still too soon.”