At a Loss For Words Read online

  I said, Nobody has ever helped me get dressed before.

  You said, I’m just doing what comes naturally.

  You helped me put on my bracelet. It had belonged to my mother, a souvenir my father had brought home for her over sixty years ago from the war in Holland. He was a radio operator in a tank. The bracelet consisted of nine Dutch ten-cent coins with Queen Wilhelmina on the front and the year 1941 on the back, soldered together with a series of intricate filigreed links. I held out my wrist and, with some difficulty, you did up the tiny tricky clasp. Your fingers were large and the blue veins in my wrist were pulsing. Your gentleness made me tearful. I had already told you how much it meant to me that you had known my parents when they were, if not young, at least both still alive and well, before my mother had cancer, before my father had Alzheimer’s and no longer knew who I was.

  I took the three stalks of purple freesia from the little vase on the bedside table, dried off their stems, wrapped them in Kleenex, pressed them carefully between several thicknesses of newspaper, and tucked them into my suitcase.

  We stood in the doorway of the hotel room kissing for a long time before we left our castle. Before we walked back into the real world.

  You said, This has been the most romantic and erotic night of my life.

  I said, Me too.

  You said, They really should put a historic plaque on the door of this room to commemorate the occasion!

  I said, No matter what happens, we will always have this.

  Write about rain.

  Write about a doorway.

  Write about a crystal chandelier.

  Write about skin.

  Write about the word desire.

  Write about the word destiny.

  Write about an argument between two people that begins in bed.

  There was no argument.

  At least not then.

  At least not in bed.

  Write about the first encounter between two people who will eventually destroy each other.

  Write about the first encounter between two people, one of whom will eventually be destroyed, while the other will go on with his life much as he always has.

  (Do not be so melodramatic. Do not resort to catastrophic language. Do not use the word destroy.)

  Write about the first encounter between two people who, after a time of great drama and intense distress, will both go on with their lives much as they always have.

  In a nod toward the time-honored notion of spring cleaning, I’d been looking through a box of old papers and notebooks in the basement. I found a diary I’d kept when I was only thirteen. From it, I sent you this quote: I have always wanted to have a book written and published. I just don’t know how many I’ve started but I haven’t even finished one.

  I said, The grammar may be a little rough but the dream is clear. And I’m happy to say I’ve now finished a few!

  You said that yes, you could concur that, from a very early age, writing was all I ever wanted to do. You said you remembered the very first conversation we ever had thirty years ago. I had to admit that I did not. We’d met in a bar where I shouldn’t have been in the first place because I was underage. You said I’d told you then that I was going to be a writer someday.

  You said, I remember you there, amidst the smoke and the crowd and the loud music, telling me with absolute clarity that this was what you wanted to do.

  We were both young enough back then to be still making ardent declarations about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

  Now you said, And here you are! A writer. A great writer! I am so impressed with all you have accomplished.

  I said, I don’t want you to be impressed. I just want you to love me.

  You said, I do.

  When I first met you in that bar in my hometown thirty years ago, I was eighteen years old, in my last year of high school, still living in my parents’ house, still a virgin. You were new in town, recently graduated from university elsewhere, hired to work in my city after applying for similar positions all over the country.

  We danced together all night that first night and ignored everyone around us. Although I don’t remember now what we talked about, I do remember that the band in the bar played a song called “Dancing in the Moonlight” and we declared it ours. In the following months, we went to that bar many times, usually with friends of mine from school or friends of yours from work. I remember that each night the last song the band played was “Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones.

  We fell in love.

  Although I’d been intensely infatuated with several boys who didn’t know I was alive and had then progressed to much kissing and groping in cars with boys who did know I was alive but weren’t much interested in talking or going steady for more than a week or two, still I’d never been in love before. I was entirely swept away.

  You’d been in a long-term relationship before you came to my hometown. It had ended badly. You said you’d thought you were in love with her, but it was only now that you’d found me that you understood what love really was. We agreed that we had neither one of us ever felt this way before. (Now that I’m older and allegedly wiser, I know that people say this to each other every time they fall in love. Each new love cancels out all the old loves and each new love is the best love, rendering all previous loves delusional and counterfeit, sorry errors in judgment.)

  We quickly became inseparable, always kissing, touching, whispering, gazing into each other’s eyes while the rest of the world swirled on around us, unacknowledged and uninteresting.

  You came to my house for supper every Sunday. My mother was not much of a cook, but you devoured every single thing she served and complimented her profusely on her culinary skills. No wonder she loved you so much.

  My father loved you too. Every Sunday, he would move his tiny black-and-white television set from the bedroom to the kitchen and there the two of you would watch the hockey game after supper while my mother and I watched something else on the color television in the living room, a large brand-new console set that you called “the Cadillac.”

  When we weren’t at my parents’ house or the bar, we were in the room you were renting in a basement downtown. The bathroom was across the hall. There was a small black dog that was always looking in the window at us. There was something about oranges too: we were always eating and appreciating them.

  Sometimes I helped you with your work, the two of us side by side (thigh by thigh) at your tiny kitchen table, you transcribing your notes while I did my homework or organized your index and your footnotes. It was hard to concentrate because we always had the music on and you were always rummaging in the fridge looking for a snack and the phone rang frequently and sometimes your friends dropped by with beer or burgers and your tidy single bed was always there, just five steps away on the other side of the room.

  You were the one, the first one.

  When you came back into my life, I had not had a date, let alone a romantic relationship, for more than ten years. I explained that this hadn’t been for lack of opportunity. My celibacy was a choice I’d made, a decision to give up on love because I was so bad at it.

  Laughing, I said, Not bad at the sex part, but abysmally bad at the romance part!

  I said, I am a born-again virgin!

  You said, Ten years?? With the knowledge that such a backlog of energy is stored up there inside of you…well!…I must say…images abound!!

  And then you were the one…again.

  I teased you about this afterwards. I said, What a truly remarkable man you are, taking my virginity twice in a lifetime!

  I said, You were the first man I ever slept with, and now I hope you will also be the last.

  Later: I realized this could play itself out in more than one way.

  Still later: I sent you a paraphrase of a line from a novel called Surrender, Dorothy by Meg Wolitzer: Sex leads to crying: this is a universal truth.

  You said, I keep all your books on my bedside table.
At night, when I can’t sleep, I enjoy being able to open one of them at any page and read what you have written.

  At the time, I said, It’s very touching to know that you keep my books at your bedside…how sweet you are!

  Now I say: Lately I find myself frequently opening one of my own books at random and reading what I wrote five, ten, or even fifteen years ago. I don’t do this out of vanity. I do it out of the need to remind myself that yes, I am a writer. To reassure myself that yes, I’ve been doing this for years. Yes, I do know how to string a series of words together to form a sentence and then another sentence and another, to form a paragraph and then another paragraph and another and another, and the pages pile up, and sometimes it all turns out pretty well.

  When I dip into my own earlier work like this, sometimes I discover that I was smarter then than I am now.

  Now I say: If I may be so bold as to quote myself, here’s a sentence I like: It is only in retrospect that I understand that obsession has nothing to do with love and everything to do with anxiety, insecurity, uncertainty, and fear.

  I said, Several years before you came back into my life, I had an idea for a novel to be called Beginning Middle End. The story of a man and woman who fall in love when they’re young and have a passionate romance, but it doesn’t last (Beginning). They go on to live their separate lives (Middle). Much later they are reunited by accident. The last few sections would be alternate endings: happily ever after, unhappily ever after, ambiguously ever after (End). I cannot honestly say I consciously had you in mind when I made notes for this idea over ten years ago now…but the subconscious is always with us!

  You said, Didn’t most of the great writers of the last couple of centuries plunge headlong into the realm of romance? Great fiction has often been created from the tumult and, at times, the tragedy, of those writers’ real lives.

  I said, Yes, many great writers have been known to throw themselves on the mercy of their passions. So much great literature is about love, but why so seldom with a happy ending? All the tragedy that so often results from unleashed passion does indeed produce great literature, but not necessarily great lives. Personally, I prefer romantic comedies in which everything works out perfectly in the end! I’m longing for a happy ending myself…

  You said, Me too.

  I said, There seem to be a lot more happy endings in movies than there are in books. I’ve been watching so many romantic movies lately that I’m fairly swooning with the rapture of it all.

  Maybe I should take up horror movies or action thrillers instead, just to give my poor heart a break!

  You said, Last night I saw the most wonderful movie called Before Sunset. You really must see it. Their story is so much like ours. They were young lovers for just one night in Vienna, and then, ten years later (only ten years!), she shows up at a book signing he’s having in Paris. I’ll ruin it if I tell you more.

  I said, Does it have a happy ending?

  You said, I don’t want to give away the ending.

  I said, I won’t watch it unless it has a happy ending!

  You said, Yes, it does.

  I said, Last night I did something I’ve never done before in my life…I painted my toenails red! The color is called Fever. My friend Michelle always has her toenails painted, so I decided to try it too. I’m so glad I did! Isn’t it funny how sometimes a silly little thing can give such great pleasure? Every time I looked down at my feet today, I just had to grin. They do look very cute!

  You said, I can literally picture your red toenails…and they look magnificent!

  A couple of weeks later we were sending e-mails back and forth about my next visit. I was scheduled to do some more book promotion in your city.

  I said, I’m counting the days.

  You said, Me too. I’ve been missing you so much. I’ll call the hotel and instruct the staff to have the rose petals ready…I’ll tell them to strew them throughout the lobby to herald your arrival. I’ll be waiting there with baited breath.

  I did not say, If your breath is baited, you need to brush your teeth and break out the mouthwash. (I already knew you didn’t always appreciate my sense of humor.)

  I said, You are so romantic!

  You said, When I see you again, I may just have to fall at your feet…and start kissing from there on up!

  I said, Good idea! I’ll wear the pretty red polish on my toes as it is very bewitching and sure to drive you crazy. (It isn’t called Fever for no reason!) I’ll also wear some of that Obsession perfume…and nothing else!

  The following morning my computer would not cooperate. Before rushing it in for repairs, I managed to send you a quick note to warn you that I would be without my e-mail for a couple of days.

  You said, Your poor computer! Perhaps that stunningly hot note you sent yesterday melted some microchips…or at least steamed them up a little??

  When my computer was duly fixed and returned to its rightful position on my desk the following afternoon, of course I wrote to you immediately. I said, Oh, you are so smart…yes, the technician quickly determined that it was indeed that sizzling e-mail of Tuesday afternoon that caused my machine to melt down less than twelve hours later!

  I said it first.

  I said, We are soul mates.

  You said, I like that idea. Yes…soul mates…we always have been and always will be…I have always loved you…and I always will.

  I said, Yes.

  You said, You’d think that by this stage of my life, I’d be able to articulate my thoughts and emotions clearly and forthrightly!

  I did not say, Yes, you would think so.

  I said, You’re doing just fine.

  We were kissing at the time. In fact, we were kissing in an elevator at the time, an elevator in the building where I was going to do yet another interview about my new book. When we reached our floor and the doors opened, all the people waiting to get on grinned at us. I giggled, giddy with the excitement of both the kissing and the getting caught. You looked down at your shoes, but I could feel you smiling.

  As we stepped out of the elevator, I slipped my arm through yours.

  I said, I don’t think I’ve ever kissed in an elevator before.

  You said, Me neither. I feel like a teenager!

  I said, Me too! (As if this were a good thing.)

  You said, It’s so gratifying to discover these feelings can be rekindled at any stage of life. I never would’ve believed I could feel this way again at my age!

  I said, Me neither!

  You said, I would do anything for you, my dear soul mate…

  I said, I would do anything for you too. How can I tell you how much you mean to me? I hope you know.

  You said, I am amazed at how in sync we are with our mutual feelings.

  I said, We are so good for each other!

  You said, Yes, we are!

  I said, As my friend Kate would put it, you are the star in my firmament! (She is a brilliant poet, my dear Kate, so of course she has a way with words!)

  After the first time we spent the night together (I mean the first time this time, not the first time thirty years ago), I came home on the train and immediately sat down at my desk and wrote you an e-mail. It was Friday evening.

  I said, I hardly know where to begin. For once in my life, I don’t know if I can find the words. Every moment of our time together was astonishing, amazing, incredible, heavenly, exquisite, miraculous, glorious, magical, rapturous, wondrous, unforgettable, and utterly divine.

  I said, On my fridge I have a small magnetic calendar of fortune cookie sayings. Today’s says, Your first love has never forgotten you.

  I said, Do you know how happy I am? I’ll be riding around on the love train here all weekend. I’ve got a silly grin stuck on my face and I’m always thinking, He loves me, he loves me!

  I said, Do I adore you? Yes, I do!

  I said, When I was there, you said you wanted to make me feel loved. Do I feel loved? Yes, I do! So very very much!
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  I said, Every night before I go to bed, I’ll spray some Obsession perfume on my pillow so I can remember every single moment of being there with you.

  After I wrote to you, I called my friends Kate and Michelle to tell them what had happened.

  I said, He loves me, he loves me, he loves me!

  Being all too familiar with my dismal relationship track record, they were cautiously delighted. They were both thrilled and worried at the same time. They said they didn’t want me to get hurt again.

  I knew they meant well but, determined to head off their ambivalence at the pass, I said, Please don’t tell me to be careful. I hate it when people tell me to be careful. I’m a big girl and, for once in my life, I know exactly what I’m doing!

  They said, We just want you to be happy.

  I said, I know.

  I said, I am happy.

  The next day I mailed you one of the postcards I’d taken from the desk drawer in the hotel room. On the front a photograph of the hotel in springtime: turrets and chimneys, a hundred small windows in the limestone walls, copper roof gone green, the sky a deep cloudless blue, and beds of red and yellow tulips all around. On the back I said: Once upon a time there was a fairy-tale castle. It was raining. The prince and the princess took shelter in a room with a blue velvet love seat and a crystal chandelier. All love and the meaning of life were revealed.

  I am thinking about the first time you told me you’d been sick with the flu, and I said I was so sorry I couldn’t be there to take care of you. I said that, in my incarnation as nurse, I would offer cool cloths for your forehead, clear chicken broth, flat ginger ale, unsalted soda crackers, weak tea with or without honey, gentle temperature-taking, and frequent pillow-fluffing with fresh pillowcases every hour on the hour. I said I would provide hand-holding, back-rubbing, and sponge-bathing as required.