He said, “Not really.”
I knew right away that both the conversation and our relationship were over, but the situation seemed to demand that I persist.
“Even though we’ve been dating for almost a year?”
“I don’t know if I believe in marriage.” He put his glasses back on. “It seems like a doomed institution. But I do know I definitely don’t want children.”
I’m not sure what expression I made in this moment (as much as I felt disappointed and caught off guard, I also felt just plain stupid—shouldn’t I have found this out about him months earlier, shouldn’t I have done my research?), but Simon said, “I take it you do want kids.”
“Simon, I’m a teacher. I wouldn’t work with them if I didn’t enjoy being around them.”
He set his hand on mine. “Let’s talk about this another time.”
Two weeks later, over the phone, he said, “I’m not sure we’re compatible in the long term,” and I said, “I think you might be right.” In this way, we completed perhaps the most bloodless breakup of all time. When I was home next, my grandmother said, “I know in my bones you made the right decision.” Because I didn’t want her to see me as pitiable, I simply nodded, never revealing that the decision had hardly been mine.
WITH CHARLIE AT
my apartment until late the night before, I had gotten so little sleep that by the time I arrived in Riley early Sunday afternoon, I was giddy and guilt-ridden and exhausted; a headache had formed in a band above my eyes.
I noticed that my mother’s car, a cream-colored Ford Galaxie, wasn’t in the driveway. When I let myself in to the house, my grandmother was seated on the living room couch—my skinny, ageless grandmother, sustained on a diet of nicotine and literature—and she offered her cheek to me to kiss. “I think your mother has a secret,” she said.
“A good or bad one?”
My grandmother’s features formed an expression of both concentration and confusion, the sort you’d make if you were tasting a spice whose name you couldn’t remember. “I believe she might be having a romance with Lars Enderstraisse.”
“Mr. Enderstraisse the mailman?”
“He’s a decent-looking fellow. A bit portly, but he probably doesn’t eat right, living on his own.”
“You think Mom is
Mr. Enderstraisse? Since when?” Mr. Enderstraisse had worked at the post office on Commerce Street since I was a child; he was a kind-seeming man with a walrus mustache and a rotund midsection.
“There’s no need to work yourself up,” my grandmother said. “Your mother is a mature woman, and she deserves to enjoy herself.”
“But how certain are you?”
“She’s been having lengthy phone conversations that she takes upstairs—to thwart my attempts at eavesdropping, I can only assume. And she runs mysterious errands. When I ask where she’s been, she’s quite vague.”
“How does Mr. Enderstraisse figure into this?”
“That’s where she is now. He has shingles, or so Dorothy claims, and she’s taken him some cold soup.”
“But if you know where she is, that’s not a mysterious errand.”
My grandmother frowned. “Don’t sass me.”
“I just meant—” I paused. “Granny, I might be having a romance, too.”
She perked up immediately.
“But Dena had dibs on the guy first, so I have no idea what to do. I really like him, even though I just met him last night.”
“Oh my word.” My grandmother crossed one leg over the other. “Bring me an iced tea, if you would, and then you can tell me the whole story.”
I poured iced tea for both of us from the pitcher in the refrigerator, carried the glasses back to the living room, and summarized the events of the previous night, skimming over Dena’s intoxication and Charlie’s extended visit to my apartment; I tried to imply, without saying it out-right, that we’d bade each other farewell after he’d walked me home. I was genuinely uncertain what my grandmother’s reaction would be, given her fondness for Dena. Never a particular Dena fan when I was growing up, my grandmother had developed a soft spot for her the summer I’d graduated from college. This was 1968, and my grandmother had announced to me one afternoon that she’d like to try marijuana; she was hearing a lot about it. I hadn’t previously tried pot myself, and without enthusiasm, I’d approached Dena when she was next in town—as a stewardess, she could fly free into Milwaukee, then come to visit me in Madison or go home to Riley—and the time after that, when my parents were at a fish fry, the three of us sat in my grandmother’s bedroom, smoking a joint. “While I’m having trouble seeing what all the fuss is about,” my grandmother said, “I’m very grateful to you girls for satisfying my curiosity.” When the joint was gone, she lit a normal cigarette.
After I finished my description of meeting Charlie, my grandmother took a sip of her iced tea. “That certainly is awkward for you and Dena.”
“Do you think I shouldn’t see him again?”
She set the glass down on a cork coaster on the end table. “I wouldn’t rush to a decision. See how the situation evolves.”
