Dream Girl(9)

He falls asleep as the sun sets, enjoying the happy sliver of time when he is alone in his own apartment.





1983




“HOW DID YOU FIND THIS?”

“I have my ways.”

A minute ago, Gerry had been trying to mask his disappointment at the Tiffany box that emerged from the silvery gift wrapping. A pen, a fancy pen, he guessed. He was surprised that Lucy would stoop to such a cliché, that she would waste her—their—money on such a generic gift. True, he kept a notebook and a pen on his person at all times, jotting down observations about the world as his characters would see them. But he often lost his pens, so he never invested in nice ones. Besides, a pen such as this, one that had to be refilled—certainly that was more likely to stain the breast pocket of his shirt.

Except, it wasn’t a pen. Lucy had tricked him, probably knowing that all these thoughts would rush through his mind before he opened the box and found the old letter opener on a little bed of cotton.

“How did you—”

“Okay, okay—” She was almost dancing around him. The kitchen in their duplex was large but plain, and he sat at the wooden table where they ate most of their meals, his mug of postdinner tea warm in his hand, the late-summer sunset shooting streaks of orange-gold across the old black-and-white linoleum.

The letter opener was bright red. His father had this letter opener. Not this letter opener, of course, but one like it. His letter opener went with him when he finally left. Or did it? For all Gerry knew, this could be his father’s letter opener. After he had been gone a year, his mother had swept all his things into boxes and dropped them at Goodwill. Gerry imagined the letter opener’s life—someone buying it at Goodwill, then maybe taking it to one of the antique stores on Howard Street, or putting it out on their own little lonely card table of cast-off things at a yard sale, where Lucy—

“Don’t you like it?” Lucy asked, no longer dancing.

“I love it,” he said. It was the truth. You can love something that makes you sad.

She knelt beside him. Lucy was petite, put together. Her style icons were Barbara Stanwyck and Myrna Loy, but she adapted their trim, sophisticated looks to the 1980s, so she didn’t look like one of those campy girls who shopped in vintage stores and treated every day like a costume party. She wore her hair in a simple, smooth bob, always shining and neat. Her lipstick was dark, her brows arched and slender. Even on a summer night, in shorts and a blouse, she looked polished, soigné. The shorts were crisp linen, the shirt a sleeveless gingham. Add a scarf and a pair of platform heels and she could have walked straight out of one of the old movies they loved. But, again, Lucy was too tasteful to veer into camp. He should have known she would never give him something as ordinary as a pen to celebrate his first book deal.

Lucy was a writer, too. They had met in the Writing Sems, as the MFA program at Hopkins was known, where Gerry still taught. She was the acknowledged star of their class. She was so talented and full of promise that she was capable of being without envy, which astonished Gerry. She had been publishing her stories in the best literary journals since she was an undergraduate, yet here he was, with an offer for his first novel, a good one, from one of the top houses, and there was no doubt that she felt only joy. What would it be like to have so much confidence in your ability that you could celebrate someone else’s success?

“It looks brand-new,” he said. “As if it’s never been used.”

“Well, you’ll use it, right? You have to get serious about your archives, after all. Universities will be bidding for your correspondence one day.”

“They’ll need an entire wing for the rejection letters.”

“Stop.”

She jumped into his lap. He loved her size, the lightness of her shape and spirit. He loved her.

“Let’s drink to a deeply wonderful life,” he said, a toast taken from a short story they both loved. They clinked their tea mugs. They weren’t much for alcohol, for anything that distorted their senses. Lucy had never even tried pot and Gerry had used it only to hang with the jocks at Gilman, the boys who let him write their English papers for them, then paid him with their precious company.

“It’s so sharp,” she whispered, pressing the point against her fore-finger. For a second, he thought he saw a drop of blood, imagined Sleeping Beauty at the spindle. But it was just the Bakelite’s red glow reflected on her skin.

She was straddling him now. The best thing about Lucy was that she was, beneath her ladylike looks, a wild woman when it came to sex. It was so easy to rise, propping her on the table to remove those crisp shorts, then stand. She was the only woman he had ever done this with, have sex standing up. She weighed 101 pounds.

The blinds were open on the south side of the house. Old Mrs. Pemberton sat in her folding chair, staring at them. Like that scene in Peyton Place, Gerry thought. He liked to teach that novel in his course on the pulps. Lucy was too far gone to notice, and even if she had seen Mrs. Pemberton, she probably wouldn’t have cared. Gerry made sure to stay in the frame, give the old woman the show she clearly wanted.

He felt Lucy’s nails rake his back, or maybe it was the letter opener. Get a good view, Mrs. Pemberton.





February 14




THE PHONE TRILLS, the double ring that signals a call from downstairs. Gerry used to ignore such calls, but Victoria is out and he is bored. He never used to be bored. He lived by his mother’s maxim, Only boring people get bored. He considered this doubly true for writers.