CHAPTER TWENTY
Planning
Ahead
The distance from
which I saw Iris’ expression after our very first kiss ten years
ago was no more than twelve inches. It might as well have been
twenty miles. Throughout the spring, though, that distance
continued to expand. I had never been entirely sure whether this
was a product of my imagination or if Iris was in fact as reluctant
to face me as I now was to face her. I felt a combination of guilt,
validation, and frustration over the events of that afternoon. Much
as I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t betrayed Chase in any
way, this was by far the most significant thing I’d ever done to
him behind his back. Before this, the most selfish act I’d
performed to his detriment was giving myself the largest slice of
pizza in the box. But at the same time, I took some consolation
from the fact that Iris had at least felt enough of the things
about me that I was feeling about her to allow the kiss to happen.
This spoke to me on a number of levels: I hadn’t imposed myself
upon her, she’d told me that I meant something to her, and kissing
her had been even more thrilling than I’d expected it to be. But
this was more disconcerting than the fantasies that preceded it.
Kissing Iris was so overwhelmingly powerful, so soul satisfying,
that it would forever change the meaning of the act or the
interaction that led to the act. Kissing Iris felt the way it did
because it was Iris. And yet Iris was inextricably linked with the
only person in the world who meant more to me than she did. As a
result, I was compelled to come down less often on weekends and to
spend less time with the two of them when I was in Amber.
Everything was easier that way.
At the wedding of my
mother’s goddaughter, however, I had little choice but to be with
them for an entire evening. I actually considered begging off with
the excuse of a term paper (I’d used the one about my “independent
studies” too often already), but Lisa’s family and ours had been
close since before I was born and at the time it seemed ridiculous
to change all of my plans because of my brother and his girlfriend.
So the three of us drove together in my car and I made as little
eye contact with Iris as possible without being
obvious.
That doesn’t mean
that I didn’t look at her. I found myself taking every opportunity
to glance over at her in the reception hall while I was engaged in
other conversation. Iris was wearing a strapless navy dress that
ended just below the knee and she looked spectacular. Though she
didn’t know many people at the wedding, she carried herself
gracefully through conversations with relative strangers on the
occasions when Chase was playing with someone else. Admiring her, I
found it impossible not to think about how we had been together or
the conversation that had led up to it. Just as it was impossible
for me to fool myself into thinking that what I was feeling for her
wasn’t real desire.
If Chase noticed any
of this, he didn’t acknowledge it. On the drive over, he asked why
I wasn’t coming down from Boston as much. But he never suggested
that he saw any change in the way I acted around Iris. And yet I
couldn’t help wondering how I was going to approach this as time
went on. Making my feelings go away didn’t seem to be a viable
option. Bringing the issue out into the open seemed
counterproductive. And competing with Chase for Iris’ affections
seemed disloyal and plainly absurd.
Halfway through the
evening, Chase and I found ourselves thrown together in the middle
of the dance floor during one of those group dances that were
obligatory at weddings. As a precursor to my “madman in the water”
episode later in the summer, I took this opportunity to act out of
character and behave even more outrageously than my brother,
dancing comically, suggestively, and utterly out of control. At one
point Chase, never one to surrender the stage to another easily,
stepped back and folded his arms in front of him to watch my
exploits. I’m sure most of the people in the room thought I was
drunk, which was fine with me, though I in fact found myself
uninterested in drinking at all. Eventually, Chase rejoined me and
as the song ended, we threw each other on the floor, rolling around
and laughing.
Afterward, I went to
the bar to get another Coke, dabbing perspiration from my face.
Iris was there. It would have been impossible (not to mention
ridiculous) to avoid her, though it was the first time we’d been
together without Chase since “the moment.”
“You should have come
out on the dance floor with us,” I said, quickly breaking eye
contact to get the bartender’s attention.
“I didn’t want to get
injured.”
I took my drink and
turned back to her. “I guess we looked pretty stupid,
huh?”
“You were funny.” It
seemed for a moment that she was going to reach up to move some
hair from my forehead, but then she put her hand back at her side.
“Chase loves playing with you.”
I nodded. “It’ll
probably look pathetic when we’re in our sixties, but I suppose we
can get away with it now.”
“I’ll still think
it’s funny when you’re in your sixties.”
“Then it’ll be worth
it,” I said, immediately regretting having done so. This kind of
comment would have seemed entirely innocent a few months before,
but now it seemed charged with innuendo. Iris brought her drink to
her mouth to cover whatever reaction I might have seen and then
looked off behind me. A moment later, Chase came up to us, punched
me on the shoulder, and threw an arm around Iris, kissing her on
the neck. I excused myself and went off to find someone else I
knew.
A short while later,
I was talking to Lisa’s sister Mia near the edge of the dance floor
when the band began to play “The Way You Look Tonight.” Chase and
Iris were slowly spinning in time with the music and she was
laughing and saying something to him that I couldn’t hear. He
pulled her close and they moved together, Iris’ head on Chase’s
shoulder, his eyes closed as he rested his face against her hair.
Iris pulled back from him for a moment and Chase regarded her with
a look of contentment I’d never seen on his face before. Then they
folded together again, barely moving as couples danced
nearby.
I tried to continue
my conversation with Mia, but this vision of the two of them
transfixed me. While I’d been obsessing over one moment of abandon
with Iris, they were becoming more and more completely enmeshed.
Never before had it seemed so obvious to me how absolutely in love
they were. I knew then that it was time to stop playing with my
illusions.
I’d been
unconsciously turning my body away from Mia and toward the dance
floor as I watched.
“Do you want to go
out there?” Mia asked.
It took a beat for
her question to register. “Nah,” I said. “Not my kind of
thing.”
For the first time
since I’d known Iris, I was feeling nervous as I approached her
house. I was certain that it had to do with the charged atmosphere
the last time we saw each other and the easy intimacy of the phone
conversations we’d had since. I’d left for Lenox that morning with
a huge sense of anticipation and I was sure this was what led to
the bubbling in my stomach as I turned up her street. If I believed
in intuition, I would have interpreted the sensation
differently.
I’d learned via one
of the dozens of e-mail newsletters I received that Richard
Shindell was playing in a club in Stockbridge a couple of weeks
hence. Shindell’s sometimes bleak, always passionate songs had been
favorites of mine for the past several years and he was one of the
first artists I’d introduced Iris to when we reconnected. I’d only
seen him in concert once and knew the experience would be a richer
one with another fan by my side. I bought tickets for the show
online and planned to surprise Iris with this news when I saw
her.
Iris offered me a
quick kiss on the lips when she opened the door and then hugged me
tightly. When she pulled back, she smiled up at me and then turned
to let me into the house.
“Good trip?” she
asked.
“Yeah, very
good.”
“Doughnut or muffin?”
She was referring to the pastry that accompanied my mid-drive
coffee break.
“Neither actually. I
think it’s finally gotten through to me that the combination of
caffeine and sugar isn’t necessary for the last hour of the drive.
I also think I’ve put on a few pounds.”
“I’d noticed,” she
said teasingly. “I’m glad you brought it up before I had
to.”
She walked over to
the couch and sat against one side with her arms wrapped around her
legs. I sat on the other end and faced her. We smiled at each
other.
“Stop,” she said,
laughing.
“Stop
what?”
“Let’s just . . .”
She made a flitting motion with her right hand.
“Let’s just be
natural?”
“Yes.”
“You and I might
interpret the term ‘natural’ differently.”
“Let’s just be
us.”
“Whatever that
means.”
“You know what I
mean. We don’t need to be weird.” She chuckled, offering a glimpse
of her girlish side and then turned to me with the most stunning
grin I’d ever seen on a human being. “What are we going to do
today?”
“I’m not sure what
we’re going to do today, but I can tell you what we’re going to do
on August second.”
“What? Planning
ahead? From you?”
“Only in this case.
Richard Shindell is playing in Stockbridge and I got us
tickets.”
“Really?” she said,
reaching over and squeezing my leg. “That’s so great. The second,
you said? Let me go write that down.”
She stood up to go
into the kitchen where a calendar hung from the refrigerator. While
she did, I put Shindell’s newest album on her iPod, thinking it
would be nice to sit together on the couch and listen to it before
we headed off for the day.
Iris was in the
kitchen for considerably longer than it would take to mark the
date. When she came back, she offered me a compressed smile and
then sat next to me on the couch. The smile didn’t say, “Let’s get
cozy.” It seemed to say, “Let’s not talk for a while,” though I had
no idea why. I put my arm around her shoulders, she leaned into me
a little, and we sat that way through the entire album. Shindell’s
complex, brooding melodies seemed appropriate for the situation,
though I couldn’t have possibly said what the situation was or how
the air in the room had so completely altered in such a short time
while seemingly nothing happened. A few minutes in, I asked Iris if
she was all right and she nodded. She’d gone from buoyant to
contemplative in the time it took to walk back and forth from the
kitchen and she clearly wasn’t ready to discuss it. I wondered if
this wasn’t in some way her response to what the last week had been
like for us and to the presumptiveness of my planning
ahead.
When the music
finished, we sat on the couch for several minutes more. Then Iris
patted me on the leg and said, “Let’s go for a drive.”
We headed up Route 7,
past Pittsfield, the iPod going the entire time (Green Day’s “21st
Century Breakdown” album, Iris’ choice). Eventually, we stopped at
a deli for sandwiches and ate them sitting on the grass at a nearby
park. The connection between us had recalibrated again, back to
what it was like just after Memorial Day. We were talking easily
about surface-level things. I’d expected that this day might have
some awkward moments. I’d even braced myself for the possibility
that Iris was going to tell me that she didn’t want our
relationship to go deeper. I was completely unprepared for what
came next, though.
As we finished lunch,
Iris lapsed into silence again, her eyes focused on the distance. I
put my hand on her shoulder and she leaned her head into it for a
moment before looking back out.
Without turning to
me, she said, “I had to flip the calendar to August. The first
thing I saw was the tenth.”
The tenth was the
anniversary of Chase’s accident.
“It’s not like I
didn’t know it was coming. But having it announce itself to me like
that when I turned the page was a real shot to the stomach.
Especially since I’d gone in there all excited about the
concert.”
She looked at me with
an expression that mixed sadness and something more unsettling. It
seemed like defeat.
“I always have a hard
time with that date, Hugh. An extremely hard time. It can sometimes
take me days to get past it. You won’t want to be anywhere near
me.”
“I’ll be near you,” I
said. “We’ll do it together. We should
do it together.”
She looked back out
toward the horizon and leaned her head away from me.
“I don’t know that
I’m ever going to be able to look at you without seeing him,
Hugh.”
For months now, I’d
believed that to be true. In many ways, it was true for me as well.
But it didn’t matter – it wasn’t real – until Iris said it herself.
And in doing so, she’d defined our future. We could continue with
the fits and starts. But we would never get past this absolute.
Every relationship comes to its insurmountable place. Ours happened
to be the foothills, in fact the very ground itself.
I took her hand and
stood up. “Come on, let’s head back.”
“We don’t have to.
It’s a nice day out. Maybe we could go for a walk.
“No, I think we both
really want to get back to Lenox.”
I didn’t stay that
night. In fact, I didn’t stay for more than forty-five minutes
after we returned to her house. I told Iris that I thought it might
be a good idea for me to leave and she only made the slightest
attempt to disagree. She was sitting on the couch when I kissed her
forehead and said good-bye.
Ten years ago, I’d
considered it a cruel act of destiny that the first woman to ever
inspire me was committed to the person I loved more than anyone in
the world. But this was exponentially harder to deal with. I knew
more now. I’d been through more now. And I knew Iris better and she
captivated me even more. For the first time in my life, I truly
wanted someone and I was ready to make a life with her. I was
willing to climb whatever mountains I needed to climb, including
the several considerable ones I’d already scaled.
But I wasn’t willing
to cause Iris pain. And what had become heartbreakingly clear to me
that afternoon was that loving me was simply going to be too hard
for her. If she were ever going to have a romance that stood the
test of time, it was going to have to be with a person who could
finally walk her beyond the events of August tenth ten years
ago.
In other words, it
could never be me.
I wasn’t supposed to
be at the store the next day, but since I’d come back from Lenox
earlier than I’d planned, I went in anyway. Ironically, I’d even
made contingency plans in case I wound up staying an extra night
with Iris if things moved forward as they seemed they
might.
When I walked in the
door, Tyler looked at me quizzically and I simply said, “You don’t
want to know.” He didn’t push it, the store was busy, and we didn’t
get back to it. But still, I found Tyler’s presence comforting. He
wouldn’t be around much longer and I wasn’t anxious to see him go.
And even though I couldn’t confide in him on this day, the very
fact that he was around seemed to help.
When I returned to my
parents’ house that night, my mother was in the kitchen and my
father was on his usual perch. I called in to him and he waved
back. I went to sit with my mother while she prepared
dinner.
My mother was an
earnest cook. Her meals neither offended nor dazzled the palate,
but they were rich with intentions. She’d always seemed to enjoy
cooking for us and I think she found a considerable amount of
satisfaction in our responses. Chase had of course been the most
vocal respondent, regularly suggesting she put a dish in “heavy
rotation” or, occasionally, “drop it off the playlist.” I’m not
sure how she was finding the inspiration to put in the effort these
days. I only ate with them three times a week and my father’s most
enthusiastic reaction to any meal might be, “Good, Anna,” while he
focused on the television. Still, she refused to descend to a level
of preparation that would have been more appropriate to my father’s
ennui. Tonight, she was putting together a salad with arugula, red
leaf lettuce, walnuts, mangoes, and grilled chicken.
I kissed her on the
cheek and reached around her for a piece of mango. She slapped me
on the wrist playfully.
“I assumed you’d be
home for dinner,” she said, “though you didn’t tell me you would. A
less thoughtful mother would have you eating peanut butter and
jelly tonight.”
“And don’t think I
don’t appreciate it, Mom.”
“Why are you here,
anyway?”
“Things came up with
Iris.”
While still chopping,
she looked up at me briefly, looking back down at the mango when I
didn’t say anything more.
“How are things at
the store?”
“Really busy again
today.”
“Anything new from
that guy from Westchester?”
“He’s asked for a
bunch more information. I guess now that we didn’t agree to just
give the store away to him, he wants to make an informed bid. His
daughter seemed to like the place, though.”
“I suppose that’s
progress. And it’s very good news that the store continues to be
busy.”
“Certainly makes the
hours go faster.”
She looked up again
to offer a faint smile and then began putting together a
vinaigrette for the salad. As she was doing this, my father
appeared in the doorway. As always, he was wearing his robe, but
he’d cinched the sash snugly around his waist.
“Richard,” my mother
said when she saw him.
“I thought we’d have
dinner in the dining room tonight.”
“That would be good,”
my mother said, whisking her dressing briskly. “We’ll be ready in a
few minutes. Hugh, would you set the table?”
There was an unusual
level of conversation at dinner that night. My father talked about
the day’s news events. My mother talked about things going on in
and around town, information she’d gleaned from her hours out. I
told them about the customer who’d bought two Mexican tiles and one
of the handmade mugs I’d purchased. My father even suggested an
outing for him and my mother the next afternoon and my mother
graciously agreed without asking where this was coming
from.
It had been nearly a
year since we’d last shared a meal together like this. Back then,
it was hard to imagine that I’d ever consider something as casual
as this to be momentous. But at the same time, I was only partially
aware of what was going on. I couldn’t help but think that I wasn’t
supposed to be here tonight or that the reason I was here to
witness this watershed event was because of another that had
happened the night before.
I certainly didn’t
intend to talk to my parents about this. But then there was a lull
in the conversation and I found it unnecessary to retreat into my
own thoughts.
“Listen,” I said,
“you know that I’ve been spending a lot of time with Iris lately,
right?”
My mother nodded. My
father looked at me as though it was the first time he’d heard
Iris’ name in a decade.
“We’ve become really
good friends. You know, we were friendly when she was with Chase
and all, but in the last couple of months, we’ve been doing a lot
of things together and having a good time.”
“Is something
happening there?” My mother asked me this the way she might ask how
a critically ill person was doing.
“Something happened.
For me at least. For her, too, I think. I fell in love with her.
Even with all of the reasons why I knew I shouldn’t, even with all
of the weird stuff going through my head about it, I did. I just
find her incredible.”
“But something went
wrong,” my father said.
“Something went
wrong. She just can’t do it. As I said, I’m fairly sure that she
feels a lot of the same things that I’m feeling, but it isn’t
enough for her. She can’t overcome the fact that I remind her of
Chase, and she can’t be with me what she was with him. And on top
of everything else, I’m wondering how I can possibly get past this
when she can’t. Does it mean that Chase meant less to me? That I
wasn’t as destroyed by his death as she was?”
My father took a deep
breath and looked at my mother. Then the two of them turned to
me.
“Chase died ten years
ago, Hugh,” my father said. “We all lost him and none of us will
ever fully recover from losing him. But it was ten years ago. We’ve
been waiting a long time to hear you feel about anything the way
you feel about Iris.”
I looked down at my
plate. “Not that it matters, as it turns out.”
“Of course it
matters,” my mother said sharply. “Don’t be stupid. It might not
get you Iris and it might not even be right for the two of you to
be together anyway, but it definitely matters. You have to get on
with your life sometime, Hugh. God knows, we know what we’re
talking about.”
I looked over at my
father. He let out a small chuckle.
“Yes, I heard that,
too,” he said. “Your mother knows what she’s saying. Usually does.
I hope it works out with you and Iris. You don’t like doing
anything the easy way, do you? I always liked her. She might just
need to come around to this in stages. And none of us are as clear
about this kind of thing at this time of year as we are at others.
I hate August.”
My father looked out
the window, and for a moment, I thought he was going to stare out
there indefinitely again. But then he inched forward and set his
elbows on the table. “And if it doesn’t work out with her, think
about what’s happening right now. Think about how you’re feeling.
Don’t think about this as a defeat or as an excuse to go
backward.”
I looked down at my
plate again. Nearly all of the food was gone and I didn’t remember
eating any of it. I took a last bite of chicken before looking up
at them again. I wasn’t sure how to tell them that I would try to
keep what they said in mind, so I simply made eye contact with each
of them. This seemed to be enough.
“Do we have dessert?”
my father asked.
The next afternoon I
got a call from Iris begging off from our plans for the next
Wednesday. She said something about the Ensemble, but the only real
question was who was going to make that call first. Still, I found
the conversation deflating and was ready to end it moments after it
began. But at least a bit of what my father said had gotten through
to me.
“Maybe the Wednesday
after next?” Iris said. I was certain she was doing it to make the
separation easier.
“Let’s not set up
anything formal,” I said. “I’m here. If you want to talk, just call
me. If you want me to come up, I’m there. And it’s okay if none of
it happens.”
She didn’t say
anything and I wasn’t sure if she was upset, confused, or relieved.
I said good-bye to her and hung up the phone.