get through the Midtown Tunnel, it was an easy ride east along the Long Island Expressway.
The bright sun told the truth today as September fought hard to claw its way back to summer and not surrender to the calendar. It was good to ride with the windows rolled down and to let myself be fooled by the warm breeze that summer could return. In spite of the sun, the trees along the sides of the expressway denied the heat of the day and knew better than to pretend. They were still green enough, even very green, but there was a kind of exhausted yearning in the downward aspect of their leaves. I knew that downward tilt well. My shoulders had been slumped like that in surrender during the cancer.
Maybe it’s cultural, or maybe it’s part of the reassuring magic show we put on for those who will survive us. Even now, having gone through the horror, it’s hard to know. I still wonder about the things I said in the face of my prognosis and treatment. How, after Sarah’s wedding when I finally told everyone how ill I was, I went on about fighting and winning and beating the cancer as if I had a say in it. When I think back, I laugh at how I must have sounded like a losing coach’s halftime pep talk to an inept high school football team. Why do we so value the magic show, the putting on of brave faces? Inside, I was just like those leaves on the trees along the expressway. All I wanted to do was give in when I knew death was coming. I became impatient for it. I wanted to tap my watch crystal with my finger and say, “Come on already. I’m here. You’re late.”
I found Nancy where I thought I might, out by the pool. If I had been a swimmer, it’s where I would have been on such a false summer’s day. She was wearing a bathing suit this time, a red Speedo one-piece that accentuated the curves she had so carefully crafted. I thought back to when we’d first met, and how she would never have dreamed of wearing such a bathing suit. How, instead of her curves, it would have highlighted her weight and rolls of fat. And for the first time since we met at the El Greco, maybe for the first time since I’d seen her thirteen years ago, I gave her a break for wanting to be an object of desire. I remembered what Sarah had said about the world being tough on girls, even the pretty ones. And I recalled what Anna Carey had said about the kinds of roles offered to Siobhan: the friend, the sister, the nurse. Never the lead. What was wrong with Nancy wanting to be the lead in her own story? Maybe it hadn’t brought the happiness with it she surely hoped it would, but that wasn’t for me to judge.
Her face lit up when she noticed me, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a jolt from her smile. Men, even old ones like me, enjoy having an effect on women. Sometimes being old was like being invisible to women. Better to evoke pity or disgust than to evoke nothing at all. And since Pam’s death, I’d been a little dead inside myself. It felt nice to have a flutter, even a passing one. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter much to me how Nancy, or anyone else for that matter, had achieved their good looks. I guess I had held onto the ugly old Nancy very tightly and hadn’t been willing to relax my grip.
I grabbed her towel up from the edge of the pool. “We’ve gotta talk.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Might be.” I waved the towel at her. “Come on up outta there.”
She frowned and swam to the steps. “It
is
serious.”
I threw the towel over her shoulders. She hesitated for a second, hoping, I guess, that I might do the honors of drying her off. I was tempted. Instead, I sat down at the table near the cabana. She excused herself as she walked past me and said she’d be out in a few minutes.
Nancy returned as promised, that thick terry cloth robe cinched snug around her waist, her hair up in a towel. She stopped at the bar, poured herself a few fingers of twenty-one-year-old Glendronach.
“Want some?”
“Sure, but a
The bright sun told the truth today as September fought hard to claw its way back to summer and not surrender to the calendar. It was good to ride with the windows rolled down and to let myself be fooled by the warm breeze that summer could return. In spite of the sun, the trees along the sides of the expressway denied the heat of the day and knew better than to pretend. They were still green enough, even very green, but there was a kind of exhausted yearning in the downward aspect of their leaves. I knew that downward tilt well. My shoulders had been slumped like that in surrender during the cancer.
Maybe it’s cultural, or maybe it’s part of the reassuring magic show we put on for those who will survive us. Even now, having gone through the horror, it’s hard to know. I still wonder about the things I said in the face of my prognosis and treatment. How, after Sarah’s wedding when I finally told everyone how ill I was, I went on about fighting and winning and beating the cancer as if I had a say in it. When I think back, I laugh at how I must have sounded like a losing coach’s halftime pep talk to an inept high school football team. Why do we so value the magic show, the putting on of brave faces? Inside, I was just like those leaves on the trees along the expressway. All I wanted to do was give in when I knew death was coming. I became impatient for it. I wanted to tap my watch crystal with my finger and say, “Come on already. I’m here. You’re late.”
I found Nancy where I thought I might, out by the pool. If I had been a swimmer, it’s where I would have been on such a false summer’s day. She was wearing a bathing suit this time, a red Speedo one-piece that accentuated the curves she had so carefully crafted. I thought back to when we’d first met, and how she would never have dreamed of wearing such a bathing suit. How, instead of her curves, it would have highlighted her weight and rolls of fat. And for the first time since we met at the El Greco, maybe for the first time since I’d seen her thirteen years ago, I gave her a break for wanting to be an object of desire. I remembered what Sarah had said about the world being tough on girls, even the pretty ones. And I recalled what Anna Carey had said about the kinds of roles offered to Siobhan: the friend, the sister, the nurse. Never the lead. What was wrong with Nancy wanting to be the lead in her own story? Maybe it hadn’t brought the happiness with it she surely hoped it would, but that wasn’t for me to judge.
Her face lit up when she noticed me, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a jolt from her smile. Men, even old ones like me, enjoy having an effect on women. Sometimes being old was like being invisible to women. Better to evoke pity or disgust than to evoke nothing at all. And since Pam’s death, I’d been a little dead inside myself. It felt nice to have a flutter, even a passing one. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter much to me how Nancy, or anyone else for that matter, had achieved their good looks. I guess I had held onto the ugly old Nancy very tightly and hadn’t been willing to relax my grip.
I grabbed her towel up from the edge of the pool. “We’ve gotta talk.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Might be.” I waved the towel at her. “Come on up outta there.”
She frowned and swam to the steps. “It
is
serious.”
I threw the towel over her shoulders. She hesitated for a second, hoping, I guess, that I might do the honors of drying her off. I was tempted. Instead, I sat down at the table near the cabana. She excused herself as she walked past me and said she’d be out in a few minutes.
Nancy returned as promised, that thick terry cloth robe cinched snug around her waist, her hair up in a towel. She stopped at the bar, poured herself a few fingers of twenty-one-year-old Glendronach.
“Want some?”
“Sure, but a
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