apples to apples.

thislovesong — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 14:12:49 GMT

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I had no idea myself how to do it

My brother's first serious boyfriend was five years older - twenty-five to his twenty. His name was Dominic, and Elijah introduced him to us in early June. They drove from the airport in Minnesota down to our cottage on the Washburn shore. When his red Ferrari, his pet, pulled into the driveway, Dom was behind the wheel. My mother and I were watching from the kitchen window. I said, 'He lets Dom drive his car.'

My brother and his boyfriend were dressed alike, coloured shirts and jeans, except Elijah had a tan jacket on over his.

Dominic had dark eyes, stubble, and good skin, ruddy, like a man in good health. His hair was messy, a streaky brown-blond.

I thought maybe he'd look older than Elijah, but it was Elijah who looked older than Elijah. Standing there, he looked like a man. He'd shaved his head, for starters. His face was thinner, and, not yet affected by the sun, it was as pale as if bleached.

He gave me a kiss on the cheek, as though he always had.

Then he messed up my hair, while his boyfriend and mother shook hands. They were clasping fingertips, curiously dainty, smiling as though they were already fond of each other and just waiting for details to fill in why.

Dominic turned to me and said, 'You must be Anna.'

'Most people call me Hannah,' I said as solemnly as I could, making myself sound even younger than eighteen.

'Hannah,' he said, possibly in the manner of an adult trying to take a child seriously.

Elijah unpacked the car and loaded himself up with everything they'd brought.

As he started up the driveway, his boyfriend said, 'Do you have the wine, Elwood?'

Whoever Elwood was, he had it.

Except for bedrooms and the screened-in porch, our house was just one big all-purpose room, and Elijah was giving a jokey tour of it: 'This is the living room,' he said, gesturing to the sofa; he paused, gestured to it again and said, 'This is the den.'

Out on the porch, Dom stretched his legs in front of him. He wore navy and white sneakers. I wondered what he would call them in his rough English accent.

Dominic tried to sip his iced tea and asked my mother how long we'd been coming here.

'This is our first year,' my mother said.

Zach was out playing tennis, and without him present, I felt free to add a subversive, 'We used to go to Debuque.'

'Debuque,' Dom said. 'Sounds nice and exotic.'

'It is nice,' my mother conceded, but went on to cite drab points in Washburn's favour, based on its proximity to our house in Iowa.

In the last of our Washburn versus Debuque debates, I'd argued, forcefully I'd thought, that Dallas was even closer. I'd almost added that the trash dump was practically in walking distance, but Zach had interrupted.

I could tell he was angry, but he kept his voice even: there was no shore in Debuque, he said, and being at the beach would help us to be a closer family.

'Not so far,' I said, meaning to add levity.

But my brother looked at me with his eyes narrowed, like he wasn't sure I was his sister after all.

My mother smiled at me and said that the house was right on the water! I'd be able to walk right out the door and go swimming!

Only then did I understand that they'd already chosen a house; they'd put a bid on it.

'It's on the ocean?' I asked.

'Close,' she said, trying to maintain her enthusiasm.

'The bay,' I said to myself.

'It does have a spectacular view of the bay,' she said, but, no, our house was on a lagoon, a canal. 'Like Venice,' she'd said, as though this would mean something to me.

Now Dom asked if we swam in there, and my mother said, 'Absolutely.'

I didn't want to acid rain on my mom's parade, but the lagoon had oil floating on the surface and the bottom was sewagey soft.

I was surprised how long Elijah sat with us on the porch, as my mother turned the topic to summer, touching upon such controversial issues as corn on the cob (Choclo was best), mosquitoes (pesky), and tennis (good exercise).

Finally, Elijah did get up. He went outside as though on a mission. He might be going to check my crab traps or to see if we'd brought the bikes; he could do whatever he wanted. Zach was the same way: a houseful of guests, and my mother's duty was to provide food, drink, fun and conversation, while my brothers was to nap or read.

While Mom hostessed and Boyfriend guested, Younger Sister stood up. When there was a pause in their nicing, I made my mouth move smileward: I'd love to stay and talk, but I have to go shoot some heroin now.

-

For dinner, we had crabs I'd caught off the dock. My mother covered the table with newspaper, and we all got print on our arms. As a surprise, she served preseason Choclo, little nuggets of mush. Elijah ate his like a normal person, instead of typewriter-style; usually, he'd tap the cob at the end of a row and ding.

Dom spoke quickly about nothing in particular, and I gave up the effort of listening. It didn't matter. He wasn't speaking to me.

However fast he talked, he opened his crabs faster, and I asked how he did it. He showed me the crab on the belly side and how to pull it so the shell lifted right off. Elijah leaned over to watch, too.

Zach asked about the theatre company where Elijah and Dom worked. Dom kept looking at Elijah as he described their director as an exquisite professional and true gentleman. Elijah had a laugh-smile on when he said, 'Every morning when we get on the stage, McBride comes into the stalls and says, "Are we ready to make some dough, babies?"'

I'd met this exquisite professional and true gentleman myself when I'd visited Elijah, and I repeated now that Mr McBride had told me my brother 'Andrew' was irreplaceable.

Zach said, 'Andrew Elwood,' almost to himself.

Then I asked my question: 'Do they know about you two at work?'

Zach shot me a look; and I looked back at him. Why is everything I want to know wrong?

Elijah changed the topic: he'd auditioned for a movie. I could tell he expected Mom and Zach to be pleased, and I saw right away that Zach, at least, wasn't. It was harder to tell with my mother; she wore the mask in the family.

The issue, I knew, was college. Zach still wanted Elijah to settle.

Elijah had talked about college before. He'd started twice, and given up each time. The reasons he gave for dropping out each time were always sound and logical, like 'I've been offered this show and I think it's my big break.' I wondered about the reasons he didn't say.

-

Zach and Elijah went to look at sailboats to buy, though I suspected talk about college.

My mother, Dom, and I took a walk on the beach. Dom said he knew nothing about sailing, except that it was wet. I walked behind them, in and out of the water, looking for sea glass. My mother was describing the exhibit we'd gone to see the last time we were in New York - black and white photographs of movie stars - and Dom had seen the exhibit himself, by accident.

The museum was like the house of a rich old woman who didn't want you to visit; everyone had whispered and stepped lightly, as though trying to pretend they weren't really there. The guest book requested comments, and my mother, who never missed a chance to compliment anyone, had written how finely curated the exhibit was. I'd written, 'Bored nearly to death.'

I experienced this anew listening to them talk dead people. They loved the same stars for the same reasons with the same enthusiasm, and I thought, Elijah is going out with Mom.

-

When I told Elijah, he said, 'My sister the Freudian.'

Dom was doing my jobs in the kitchen, setting the table and helping his soul twin prepare an early supper.

I was sitting on Elijah's bed while he packed to go back to New York. He always did something else while we talked - changed the station on the radio, smoked a cigarette, flipped through a magazine. He didn't have to look at me; he knew I'd still be there, with my next question.

'You should read Freud,' he said, and went to his bookshelf to see if he had any Freud handy. He didn't, but went on saying what a great writer Freud was, as though this was what I wanted to talk about in our only moments alone all weekend.

I remembered to thank him for the last book he'd sent to me from New York, a history of theatre, and he said, 'Did you try it?'

'Yeah,' I said, 'I spent about a month reading it one afternoon.'

He turned to me and said, 'Do you know your IQ goes up and down about fity points in every conversation?'

I didn't know if this was a compliment or an insult, but I didn't like how he was looking at me - as though from the great distance of his new life. I said, 'No one likes being talked about to their face.' Then I felt bad. 'Anyway,' I said, 'E=MC².'

Elijah smiled and opened a drawer. He told me that he'd gone to hear the author speak. 'Imagine trying to understand all that history through the thickest accent you've ever heard,' he said. 'Now add a harelip.'

But everyone was pretending to understand the speaker, he said, and he imitated serious note scribbling. Then he interrupted himself - he'd spotted Freud on the bottom shelf.

He flipped through the book for the passage he wanted me to hear and found it. 'Okay, Freud says: "In sending the young out into life with such a false psychological orientation" about sex, it's "as though one were to equip people starting out on a Polar expedition with summer clothes and maps of the Italian lakes."' He shook his head. 'And that's a footnote,' he said. 'A footnote.'

I said, 'You look like a mugger with your hair like that.'

He touched his head, absently, the way shaven men do. Then he handed the book - Civilization and Its Discontents - to me.

'So,' I said, 'does Dominic talk about dead actors when you're alone?'

He told me to go easy on Dom; he was nervous about meeting Mom and Zach. 'Try to think of it from his side.'

I decided I would later.

He picked a green shirt out of his closet. 'Want this?' He tossed it to me. 'I bought it at a thrift store back home,' he said, referring to Iowa.

I said, 'I saw you more when you lived there.'

He told me that he and Dom would come to the shore again in a few weeks.

'I might not recognise you by then,' I said. 'You'll probably show up with a briefcase.'

'What are you talking about?'

'You seem older,' I said.

'I am older.'

'Three months shouldn't make this much of a difference,' I said. 'Your whole personality has changed.'

Finally, he stopped and looked at me.

'You're Elwood now,' I said. 'You bring Mom wine.'

Then he sat down on the bed with me. 'I might be growing up,' he said. 'I'm probably not, but let's say I am. Is that a reason to get mad at me?'

I looked at the green shirt in my lap. It had a big ink stain on the pocket.

Then Dom called us to dinner.

'Come on,' he said.

-

On the ride home, I thought about Dominic. I calculated what a five year age difference would mean to me - a thirteen year old boy - and thought of the one next door. I said, 'It's like me going out with Danny Stein.'

My mother pretended not to hear.

I could hear the smile in Zach's voice when he said that the important thing was that Danny and I were happy.

'I was dubious at first,' I said. 'I thought I might be just another baby-sitter to him. But then, one night -'

My mother interrupted. 'I think I'm going to be ill.'

I never talked to any of my family seriously about love, let alone sex. The closest we'd come was talking about drugs, which I wasn't interested in.

-

When graduation passed, I realised I had no plans for the summer. Instead of looking forward to Debuque in August, I'd be at home in the suburbs and at the shore in Washburn, just dreading college in September.

I said goodbye to friends I might never see again. We traded addresses and each time I wrote mine I felt the impending responsibility of the months to come. When one friend asked what I'd be doing at home, I found myself saying 'I might get a job.'

I told my family at dinner.

My mother said, 'I thought you were going to have a break before college.'

'I could get a part-time job,' I said.

'What about an internship,' Zach suggested, 'in something you're interested in?'

I reminded him that I didn't have any interests.

'You could be a waitress,' he said.

My mom said, 'Practise by clearing the table.'

-

Dom and Elijah finished rehearsals on Thursday and were already at the shore when we arrived. Dom had made dinner, and seemed more relaxed. Elijah seemed hardly to have aged at all.

After dessert, they invited me to go with them to the arts centre for a French film with English subtitles.

I said, 'I don't like to read during movies,' and once Dominic laughed it became a joke and made me feel that I was irrepressibly witty. So I went with them.

It was the bleakest movie I'd ever seen; everyone died of heartbreak or starvation or both. At home, Dom threw himself on the sofa in Slavic despair and said, 'Please to get me some wodka.'

They didn't kiss or hold hands in front of me, though once, at lunch, Elijah sort of rubbed my foot under the table, thinking it was Dom's. I leaned over to him and whispered, 'You're really turning me on.' I was a teenager still, after all, an expert in the art of mortification.

-

At the beach, we left our sandals and our sneakers on the path with the other shoes, and spread our towels on the sand, facing the ocean. Elijah stood a minute looking out, then bounded into the water.

The ocean was rough, and as the waves rose you could see clear jellyfish and green popping seaweed. Up where we were, clumps of seaweed had dried almost black in the sun. The wind blew so strongly that the seaweed whipped loose and rolled down the beach like tumbleweeds.

Dom was wearing a neon pink t-shirt and long, faded shorts. He slathered himself in sunscreen, though he didn't look like he'd burn. He was reading a script.

'You seem to really like your job,' I said.

He shrugged. Then he winked at me and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I smiled. 'I'd like to be an opera singer,' I said solemnly.

'Maybe you will,' he said.

'I won't,' I said.

'How do you know?'

'Wrong metabolism,' I said.

He shook his head. 'It's a curse,' he said.

I sat up on my elbows, watching Elijah in the ocean. The water was just getting warm, and he was the only one in for a while. He waited for his wave in a standstill crawl position, his body facing us, but his head turned back to where the waves formed. Then he swam hard, caught the wave, and rode it all the way in to shore. I loved how he looked the last second of his ride; his face pure joy. Sometimes he would actually laugh out loud. When he stood up, he'd look towards us, but he didn't wave.

I joined him in the ocean. It was cold, but I kept up with him and went under when he did. I stood beside him, and he pulled my arms out in front of me. He'd been trying to teach me to bodysurf for years. 'Now wait for your wave.' He looked behind him. 'Swim hard,' he said suddenly. 'Now!'

But I missed that wave, and the next one. Then Dom came in. The two of them swam beyond where the waves broke, and I got out.

On my towel, I watched them bob with the swell of the wave just forming. Then Elijah dove under. He pointed his hand out of the water, like a shark fin, and went after Dom. I saw arms flailing as the two of them went under.

The next time I looked up, Dom was coming toward me. Before he put on his shirt, I got a good look at him. He was thinner than I suspected, and paler than I was.

That year, all of a sudden it seemed, there my breasts were. I was a late developer all right, but my body rushed to catch up and I kept having to go to Lord & Taylor for bigger bras. Men gave me more attention now, and it made me nervous. My breasts seemed to say something about me that I didn't want said.

My theory was that if you had breasts, guys wanted to have sex with you, which wasn't exactly a big compliment since they wanted to have sex anyway. Whereas if you had a beautiful face, men fell in love with you, which seemed to happen almost against their will. Then the sex that you had would be about love.

I'd told my theory to my friend Sarah, who was going to college to be a social scientist and was always coming up with theories herself. I'd concluded that breasts were to sex what pillows were to sleep. 'Guys might think they want a pillow, but they'll sleep just as well without one.'

She'd said, 'Guys will sleep anywhere if they're really tired.'

-

A few weekends later, the sky was white and the air moist; the forecast was rain, but my mother kept looking up at the sky and saying it was sure to clear up.

In the afternoon, Dom sat at the table, frowning over another script. As he finished a page, he passed it to Elijah to read. 'Come and sit with us, Hannah,' Dom said.

I was a little afraid to; I thought I might reveal that I wasn't as smart as Dom might think. But I took the seat next to Elijah, and read his discarded pile.

I liked the pages I read. It was about a girl whose parents were getting divorced; it was more real than I would've expected.

When I looked up, Mom was watching the three of us and smiling.

I told Dom how much I liked the script and it made him really excited. Mostly he read for plays, but he was starting to try for small, independent movies, which he called films or pictures.

I told Dom that movies for my age group always seemed to be about what your life was supposed to be like, instead of what it was. 'Beautiful girls falling for the geek,' I said. 'Caricatures and stereotypes when what you want is reality and emotion.'

He didn't seem interested.

-

They had other places to go, and the weekend they visited friends, I brought Sarah to the shore. We slept in the lower bunks. I told her about Dom and Elijah. She said, 'Do they have sex in here?'

I heard my mother and Zach talking near the bathroom and wondered if they could hear me. I whispered, 'Can you have sex without making any noise?'

'Who knows?' she said.

-

On the beach, Sarah became her social-scientist self and said, 'At the top of the social hierarchy is the blond man on the elevated white chair. The symbolic throne.'

'I believe the common term "lifeguard" signifies his desire to copulate,' I said, 'i.e., to guard the perpetuation of the species.'

'Note that he paints his nose white,' she said. 'Not unlike the chiefs of many sub-Sarahan tribes.'

The lifeguard stood up and blew his whistle.

I said, 'Mating call.'

-

My mom and Zach loved Sarah. That night, when we said we were going to see the moon on the ocean, they said 'Fine,' in unison, even though it was passing from late to early. Once we were out of the door, I imitated myself saying, 'We're going to rob a liquor store!' and the two of them saying, 'Fine!'

On the beach, there was a big crowd sitting around a bonfire, and Sarah walked right up and sat down in the circle. I sort of followed her.

There was a keg, but when someone asked if we'd like a beer, Sarah said, 'I wish we could.' I didn't find out what she'd meant until a joint was passed to her and she handed it right off to me, saying, 'Remember the three Ds from detox: don't, don't, don't.'

I passed the joint, as though exerting heroic self-control.

She said, 'You still get flashbacks?'

'I think I always will,' I said.

'Remember,' she said, 'never say "always".'

'I really appreciate your support,' I said.

She said, 'It helps me stay strong.'

I said, 'Every day is a gift.'

-

Dom and Elijah showed up at the beach after lunch. When I introduced Sarah, Elijah's expression reminded me how pretty she was, and for a second I wished that I hadn't brought her.

She was as good at riding waves as Elijah, and they stayed in the ocean a long time.

I went in the water and out. Dom sat in the sand, looking through a brochure of paint colours. Every now and then he would mark a square, and other times I'd seen him looking through it, I wondered if we'd ever be close enough for him to ask my opinion. But now I worried that the commitment might make him look old to Elijah. My mom looked at paint samples.

He and Elijah left to see if Zach had bought the boat they'd been considering. After they'd gone, Sarah put on her social-scientist voice and said, 'A form of nest-building, decorating signals readiness to mate.'

'Please don't say that,' I said. 'I like him.'

-

Zach had bought the sailboat, and back at the house, Elijah asked if Sarah and I wanted to try it out.

We'd sailed before, but Dom was a better sailor by a million knots, despite his apprehension. He moved around the boat as though he'd sailed all his life. Maybe he had.

We had to tack out of the lagoon. He told us to come about, and then when he said, 'Hard a-lee,' Elijah imitated him and laughed. It reminded me of Zach kidding my mother, except Dom didn't seem to like it and that didn't make Elijah stop.

It almost hurt not to laugh along with my brother, but I didn't, and neither did Sarah.

-

Before dinner, while Sarah showered outside and Dom inside, Elijah and I sat on the porch, waiting for our turns. The house across the lagoon had walls now, and we couldn't see the sunset on the bay. Still, it was the end of the day, the only time here that reminded me of Debuque. The light was warm and pink - it was like seeing everything through a fond memory.

I asked Elijah if they'd had a good time with their friends.

He said, 'It was okay.' He told me they'd stayed at the youth hostel, as though this explained something, and I waited to hear what.

Then he told me he'd decided to start college in the fall. He said it importantly, and I wondered if he thought starting school meant breaking up with Dominic. Maybe he was already seeing himself on campus, and thinking Dom wouldn't fit in.

I said, 'You'll still be in New York?'

He nodded.

Zach was glad, of course. He probably wouldn't relax about it for a while, though, maybe not until he actually saw Elijah in a gown and mortarboard.

-

My grandmother came down on Sunday. It was raining. She asked questions like, Deborah, why are you wearing those shorts?

Zach retreated to his bedroom for a nap.

When she said her standard, 'Remember the haircut you had the summer you graduated?' my mother faked a yawn and said she was going to take a nap.

Once my grandmother and I were alone, I said, 'I think my mom likes her hair now.'

'It looked better then,' my grandmother said. 'You should brush your hair, Hannah. You could be pretty if you tried.'

I didn't even fake a yawn, just went to my room. On the way I passed Zach's room, and heard my mom talking to him inside. I went in and sat on the bed with them.

'She's obsessed with that graduation haircut,' I said. 'What did it look like, anyway?'

'I have no idea,' my mother said.

'She's obsessed with hair, period,' I said. I told them that my grandmother seemed to believe that hair was the window of the soul, instead of eyes.

My mother giggled. Around her mother, she became my age.

My brother said, 'Hair is the roof of the soul.'

-

We were finishing dessert when Elijah and Dom showed up.

Right away, my mother acted like we were all in on a big surprise for my grandmother - Look! Here's Elijah! He didn't even seem to notice. He let my mother introduce Dom, who was trying to smile and not quite pulling it off.

Maybe my grandmother could see Dom was older, or she might have disapproved of any boy Elijah brought home; she gave her grandson a big hug - like he was still a boy who belonged to us - and gave Dom a freezing, 'How do you do?'

Elijah sat in the farthest seat from Dom's. He didn't look at him, and a few minutes later he went to his room.

I waited a while for him to come out, and when he didn't I went in after him. 'What are you doing?' I asked.

He didn't answer. He was holding a book in his lap, but it wasn't open.

'Dom is out there alone,' I said. 'With Grandma.'

'He can take care of himself,' he said.

I said, 'He shouldn't have to take care of himself,' and went back to the kitchen.

I imagined that we were in wartime Paris, and my job was to distract the Nazi hausfrau from Dom, the Jewish man we were hiding until he could escape; I was his only chance.

It was Mom and Zach who escaped to their rooms, even though it wasn't yet ten o'clock.

Dom was waiting to go into Elijah's room to talk. But I knew my grandmother would stay up as long as we did. When I suggested a walk to Dom, my grandmother protested, but we left anyway.

In the driveway, Dom said, 'I could do with a drink.'

I told him I knew somewhere we could go.

'Just a stab,' he said, 'but I don't think your mum would want me to take you to a pub.'

'That's true,' I said. 'It's not just a bar, though.'

I ran back inside and asked Elijah for the keys to his car. I said, 'Dom and I are going out drinking and to meet men.'

He just pointed to the keys on his bureau.

When we got to the restaurant, I took out my cigarettes, and he asked if he could have one. But he looked guilty, like it was his fault that I was smoking in the first place.

After he ordered his beer and was drinking it, I asked him what had happened.

'I wish I knew,' he said. He said there had been a party, and all the friends he had in this country were there. 'Lij didn't seem to like anyone, though,' he said.

He said that maybe it was hard for Elijah not to meet his family. 'I mean, even though it's not practical. It feels like a refusal.'

He looked at my cigarettes, asking if I minded if he took another, and I nodded. He laughed hoarsely. 'I always get at Lij for smoking these,' he said, and crushed his out.

Then he was quiet. He wasn't crying, but he kept on covering his eyes with his hand like he might.

I thought he was upset about Elijah again. So, I told him all of the nice things my brother had said about him, every compliment I could remember, and every comment that could be interpreted as a compliment. Then I listed all his positive traits, and all the things I'd seen him do well.

'It doesn't work like that,' he said, and I was hoping he would tell me how it did work.

Maybe he could see that, because he went on. 'Sometimes you're loved because of your weaknesses. Sometimes what you can't do is more interesting than what you can.'

For a second, I felt hope for myself. But loving for weaknesses seemed like a weakness itself. 'I think Elijah does love you,' I said, and then realised that I didn't know. 'How could he not?'

He looked tired.

I told him the truth, that Elijah was different with him than with others he'd brought home. With them, he'd acted like they just happened to be there. As I said it, though, I remembered them not sitting together at dessert. That was how Elijah had been before.

Dom looked right at me. 'He doesn't say he loves me.'

'Did you ever tell him?'

His face smoothed out and looked new again, and he was nodding, like maybe I had a point.

I tried to go backward and talk about what I did know. I told him about one girl Eiljah had brought home; I'd asked if she was his girlfriend, and he'd said, 'When you define something, you limit it.'

Dom smiled as if he could feel sorry for the girl.

-

When we got back to the house, only the hall light was on, and Dom said, 'I'm going to talk to Lij for a little while.'

'Good luck,' I said, and just as I did, my grandmother came into the hall, and Dom was forced back to the prison cell of bunks.

-

I woke up late. My grandmother had already left. 'She didn't want to wake you,' my mother said. 'She has a function to attend.'

'Party animal,' I said.

My mother smiled. 'I wish you'd seen how pretty she looked.'

It made me remember my grandmother saying that I might be pretty if I tried. I hadn't told my mother, but I felt betrayed by her spirit of forgiveness. I said, 'Isn't beauty an accident, Mom?'

'She puts herself together so well,' my mother said.

I asked where Dom and Elijah were. They'd just left to play tennis, my mother said. 'Why don't you get your racket and join them?'

I was surprised they were playing tennis instead of talking about their problems. But maybe they had already talked. Maybe everything was fine now. In case it was, I got my racket and walked over to the courts.

They were still warming up and didn't see me. Dom was wearing shorts and a shirt, and looked clean and tanned. Elijah had on cut-offs and high-tops, which you weren't supposed to wear on the courts.

'Let's play,' my brother said.

Dom spun his racket. I heard him say, 'Rough or smooth?'

Elijah said, 'Rough,' like it was a joke.

Then they saw me. Elijah asked if I wanted to play, and I said that I wanted to watch.

He lost that first game, and Dom went up to the net.

Elijah said, 'What?'

Dom said, 'We switch sides.'

'Okay,' Elijah said.

As they passed each other, he tapped Dom's butt with his racket, just softly, but it didn't seem affectionate.

He won that game and walked up to the net, without collecting the balls for Dom.

'We don't swap sides,' Dom said.

'I thought you just said we did.'

'On odd games,' Dom said. He seemed subdued.

The rules weren't new to Elijah, and I stared at him. I didn't know what he was doing, but I didn't want to watch.

-

Back home, Zach asked how the tennis was, and I told him that Dom was a great player.

'How about Elijah?' he asked.

I imitated Elijah's serve, and he laughed.

Then I said, 'Something's wrong between them.'

'That happens,' he said. He wasn't dismissing me; he was saying that their problems didn't belong to us.

Then he said, 'Want to go out to lunch with me now?' And we went.

-

So, I didn't get to say goodbye to Dom. On the mail table, I found a package he'd sent my mother. The card was a watercolour of a sailboat. Although the note began 'Dear Deborah', I read it to see if there was anything about Elijah. Or me. But he'd just written about sailing and the beach, and how much he'd enjoyed getting to know us. There was no P.S.

-

I knew that Dom and Elijah had broken up, but I thought maybe they'd get back together. I was hoping he'd come to the shore with Elijah as a surprise.

But Elijah arrived alone. His hair was growing back to be the same as it always had. Still, I had trouble getting used to it.

No one mentioned Dom.

-

It was warm on the beach. Indian summer. Elijah told me that he'd started to write a screenplay.

'Maybe Dom could help,' I said. 'He knows about scripts.'

I could see how hurt he was, and I apologised. But I told him that I liked Dom, and I wanted to know why they'd broken up.

He told me about the party without telling me anything. Still, he seemed to blame it all on Dom. Not in words - there was nothing I could point to or ask him about.

I could see how hard it was for him to tell me, and I tried to be gentle when I said, 'But that was just a party.'

He didn't answer. I started to say, Didn't you love him? but I remembered Dom saying, He doesn't say he loves me. Instead, I said, 'I thought you really liked him.'

'I did,' he said. 'Dom's great.'

'I loved him,' I said.

He nodded. Then he said, 'There was too much of a difference.'

It sounded to me like 'I think it's my big break', and I gave him a look to say so, but he pretended not to see.

-

At dinner, he ate his corn typewriter-style and told us funny stories about New York. He'd gone out with a dancer from the Midwest. He said that when she'd first arrived in New York, the dope dealers around Washington Square had said 'Loose joints, loose joints,' and she'd said, 'Thank you.'

At dinner, he stayed out on the porch and talked to my brother about the courses he was taking and which credits would transfer from the other colleges. He said that he was going to graduate from this one, and Zach said, 'Good.'

My mother and I were clearing the dishes, and she smiled when she heard that. She was caught up in our being together. It was a celebration. And when she said to me, 'What's wrong?' it was in part a reprimand.

-

That night, alone with all those empty beds, I couldn't fall asleep. I looked out at the lagoon, hoping to see a green light. But nobody's dock was lit up. Only one house had any lights on, and the light was just the blue of a television set.

I tried to understand what Elijah had told me. But I worried about that, too. Other people might not try as hard as I did to understand him. I was always on his side, no matter what. Mom and Zach were, too. All he really had to do with us was show up. More had been expected of him as Dom's boyfriend and at that party. More would be expected of him everywhere. I didn't know what had happened between him and Dom. It scared me to think that my brother had failed at loving someone. I had no idea myself how to do it.

ana
december 2003

thislovesong — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 10:56:39 GMT

Q. If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

A. You are already an animal.

thislovesong — Fri, 28 Nov 2003 08:28:25 GMT

The Reason Is Because
An exercise in other worlds

For Amy

'Look up when you walk,' Orlando told me, the summer I stayed with him in London. 'Tilt your chin,' he said, tapping the soft underneath of mine. I was eighteen, and I listened to him because he was beautiful. He was tall, but small-boned, delicate, with curly black hair.

It was my last night with him, and we were going to the theatre. I was already dressed in a shirt and jeans, and I lurked in the doorway to the bathroom, watching him remove the last of his black stubble. He noticed me then and looked me over, and his eyebrows shot up at my Nikes, the dirty white sneakers that were the fad of my high school.

Following him into the bedroom, I heard my sneakers squeak on the polished wood floor.

He shook his head.

I said, 'They're all I have.'

He handed me a pair of shiny black shoes. They looked to me like shoes a lawyer would wear and were a size too small, but I squeezed into them. My feet began to hurt even before we left the apartment.

'That's better,' Orlando said.

During the first act, he sat perfectly still and silent, enthralled.

At intermission, he saw an acquaintance and swerved across the lobby. I waited for him to return. My feet throbbed, and I shifted my weight, giving one foot a rest and then the other.

I scanned the crowd, thinking in placards: These Are The People Who Attend The Theatre In London.

One older woman smiled over at me, spoke to her husband, and he turned to look in my direction, too. Then another woman did. I didn't really know what I looked like yet, and my face flushed with the possibility that I could be more attractive here than at home.

Then I realised they were staring behind me, and turned around to see.

You noticed her limbs first, long and toned, and then her eyes and cheekbones and lips, perfect, like in movies. She had on a red silk minidress with straps as thin as string. He was older, a tall man, bulkier than Orlando but slim, with blue eyes and lined skin. He wasn't handsome exactly, but his looks carried. He was teasing her, and she said something like, Okay, and she flexed her arm. He squeezed her biceps, and I saw, and faintly heard, him whistle. She laughed, but he did not leave his hand there, around her beautiful arm.

When I spotted Orlando, I waved. He had a broad smile on his face and seemed thrilled to see me. This was his party face. I knew because he'd told me. 'When you're out,' he'd advised, 'try to appear ecstatic.'

He handed me a cigarette, lit mine and then his own. While he catalogued the flaws of the first act, I kept an eye on the famous couple, trying to learn something.

Orlando was asking my opinion of the play.

'Uh,' I said, and just as I was taking a last, loving look at the couple, the man caught me. I turned away fast, but I saw him say something to the woman and head toward us.

'Oh,' I said, and I heard the man's voice rumble, like a growl, right beside me.

'Orlando,' he said.

Orlando gave him his standard two-cheek air kiss, but he said, 'Now, now.'

They kissed right on the lips.

When Orlando introduced me, I was too surprised to speak. After all, he was young enough to be this man's son.

-

His name was Ian McKellen, and he made Orlando smile genuinely. That was rare. In the cab home, I asked him if Ian was famous.

'More famous than a stage actor ought to be,' he said. 'The best are invisible - known as the character, not the actor.' Orlando himself was in movies.

'I bet his girlfriend is famous,' I said. 'A writer, maybe. Or an actress. Somebody.'

'She's not his girlfriend,' Orlando said.

I looked at him. 'Ian McKellen kissed you.'

He reached over, squeezing my hand. 'Did you have a good time?'

When we got home, we took beers out to his little terrace. There was a bigger one below us, and as we sat there, a couple came out and shared a cigarette. The woman stood against the wall with her arms crossed.

'Who lives there?' I asked.

'Sean Astin,' he said. 'He's in films. His mother is the actress Patty Duke. If you were staying a little longer I could introduce you. And there's a wrap party I could take you to tomorrow night.' He swirled the beer in the bottle. 'But theatre people are so boring nowadays,' he said. 'I wish there were more Ian McKellens.'

I wanted to know about him, but I couldn't ask outright. 'What did theatre people used to be like?'

'They say they were livers,' he said. 'Big livers.'

I pictured the organ, and assumed he meant hard drinkers.

Orlando said, 'Now all they are is talk.'

-

I was twenty-three before I saw Ian McKellen again. It was at a party on Old Merl Street, which I attended as the guest of a guest of a guest and the youngest person at the party. I was spending a year studying in London, staying in a friend's apartment and trying to write a play.

I nodded to him across the room, and as he came toward me, I saw that his hair was completely grey.

'What are you drinking?' he asked me.

'Beer,' I said. 'Any kind.'

A moment later, he returned and handed me a glass of milk. 'Someone needs to take care of you,' he said, and disappeared.

My friend left. I stood by myself, trying to appear ecstatic, until only a few people remained.

Ian came up to me. He took my elbow and said, 'Let's get you something to eat.'

I assumed he knew who I was, but when I mentioned Orlando, he said, 'Good heavens.'

Over supper, I asked him about the play he was appearing in. He didn't want to talk about that.

-

I met Ian at an Italian restaurant for supper before the theatre. After the waiter had taken our order, I mentioned that my boyfriend, Dominic, was probably in Rome right now. Dom had been in Europe for a month, trying to figure out what to do with his life - which was what he was doing with his life.

'Who is this Dominic person?' Ian asked.

'I told you,' I said, and didn't meet his eyes.

'Does he make you happy?'

'Sure,' I said.

He told me I didn't know what real happiness was. 'You have to shrink yourself to fit into this little life with him.'

I raised my eyes. 'You don't know what you're talking about.'

He told me I was made for something bigger. He said, 'You're old enough to know better.'

I said, 'Don't you think you're a little old for me?'

'No,' he said. Our drinks came and he downed his Scotch and soda in one long gulp, his Adam's apple rising and falling. He put money and theatre tickets on the table and stood. 'I think you're too young for me.' Then he walked out.

-

He didn't apologise, or even mention it, when he called to invite me over for dinner.

He lived alone in a penthouse apartment south of the river. I asked for a tour. Every room reminded me of a study - dark, heavy wood and leather, a little shabby, books and records everywhere.

Only his study was uncluttered. It was plain, just an ancient telephone on a mahogany desk.

I followed him down the hall. 'This is the guest room,' he said, and I peered in. It was dark and small and clean.

Two doors down, he said, 'I'll assume you'd like to skip the master bedroom.'

'Mm,' I said.

He said, 'Excuse me,' opened the door and pretended to speak to someone inside. 'I'll be up soon, darling,' he said. He paused as though listening to a response. 'Don't be silly,' he said. 'I'm merely feeding a hungry child.'

In the kitchen, he cut up a lemon and apologised for not having wine to offer me. He said, 'I don't keep any alcohol in the house. I haven't had a drink for two years.'

I almost said, You must be pretty thirsty, when I saw how he was looking at me, and he looked at me like that for a long time to let me know the importance of his words.

-

At the Cafe Reine, Ian asked me if I knew Dante's definition of hell.

I sipped my coffee. 'Give me a minute,' I said.

'Proximity without intimacy,' he said.

'Listen, Dante.' I was going to remind him about Dom, but instead I said, 'I just don't feel that way about you.'

He said, 'Spare me the juvenalia.'

-

Dom left a message on my answering machine, telling me how much he missed me and that he was delaying his return another week or so.

I called Ian. 'You want to go to the movies?'

I couldn't imagine his response. 'No,' he said. 'All right.'

-

In a cab home from a jazz club, he said, 'You behave as though I only want to sleep with you.'

He said, 'I want to everything with you.'

Which was when I touched him for the first time. I slid my fingers underneath his sleeve and touched his forearm.

He took my other hand. 'But if you only want to sleep with me, that's all right.'

The cab pulled up in front of my building. 'Do call if you change your mind,' he said.

I nodded and got out.

He leaned out of the cab window. 'Do call. Any time of the night or day.'

Upstairs, Dom was asleep in my bed.

-

I had forgotten everything nice about Dom, and especially the main thing. His fingertips swirled like smoke on my skin, and my body gave in right away, before I told myself, You can't be blamed for what you do in your sleep.

We had breakfast in a diner around the corner.

'So,' Dom said, 'what have you been doing?'

'Nothing,' I said, and coughed. 'Thinking.'

He nodded, spreading red jam on his toast.

I said, 'I've been thinking we shouldn't go on like this.'

'Like what?' he said. 'I've been away for two months.'

I said, 'I feel like I have to shrink myself to fit in with you.'

'Cut that crap out,' he said, and grinned. 'I missed you.'

'Look,' I said. 'I think there's somebody else.'

'Fucking hell,' he said, and his voice was a little mean with exasperation. 'There is nobody else.'

'There is,' I said.

That made him sit up. It was the first time he'd sat up in a long while, if he ever had, and I admit I was glad to see it.

-

I called Ian, but the phone rang and rang. I kept my hand on the receiver in case he called back, and I was still like that when I woke up.

In the morning, I took a walk over there. I knocked on his door, waited, and knocked again.

The door opened. 'Well,' Ian said.

His hair was sticking out, and even though he was smiling, he didn't seem glad to see me.

I wondered if he already had a guest over.

'Come in,' he said.

The house seemed big and dark and formal. We sat down at the big mahogany table in the dining room.

I told him about finding Dom in my apartment and breaking up with him the next morning.

He said, 'I see,' and came over to me. I stood, I held him, and we kissed, but it was not what I expected it to be.

-

He lit a cigarette for me and lay back. He was quiet, so I was; he was thinking, so I did.

We lay there in the dark.

I said, 'What?'

He didn't answer for a long time, so long I thought he wouldn't. Then, finally, he said, 'Everything.'

I didn't say anything after that.

-

Each time, Ian was mystified. Each time, he told me it had only happened to him once, years ago, when he was blind drunk. He'd light my cigarette and lie there, staring straight ahead.

'It isn't you,' he said one night.

I nodded, as though consoled. The thought had never occurred to me.

-

He couldn't believe all the great old movies I'd missed. 'Your entire generation is culturally bankrupt,' he said. He set about trying to educate me.

After watching the original Thin Man, he said, 'You're like Nora, and I'm like Nick. We're like Hepburn and Tracy.'

I said, 'More like Bogart and Bacall.'

He told me that while Bogart was dying, Lauren Bacall slept with Frank Sinatra. 'Don't you ever do that to me.'

I said, 'I don't even like Frank Sinatra.'

He put on a Sinatra record. 'Don't tell me you don't think that's beautiful,' he said.

I said, 'You're scaring me.'

-

I gave up my apartment and moved in.

-

I had to tell my family then.

My mother was very quiet.

My sister said, 'Can't you find kids your own age to play with?'

Orlando was very famous by then, and I hadn't seen him for a long time. After I told him about Ian, he closed his eyes, and I thought maybe he'd forgotten I was there. Eventually he said, 'A young man does a lot for an older guy.'

I said, 'It's not like that.' I wanted him to believe me. I said, 'We think alike.'

'Oh, mate,' he said. 'You should know. A man thinks with his dick.'

-

At home, Ian read a screenplay, lying on his leather sofa, sweet black tea on the end table. He would read snippets out to me.

I didn't reply.

He refilled his tea and said, 'What is it?'

'Nothing.'

I listened to the sound of him walking back to the living room.

In bed, he said, 'I don't know who you are, but I want Elijah back.' He started kissing me. 'What have you done with my boy?'

I laughed.

'Ah,' he said. 'Any port in a storm.'

-

I heard him talking to his ex on the phone in his study, and his voice was low and intimate. After he hung up, he found me in the kitchen. 'Nicholas is in town,' he said. 'He'd like to meet you.'

'Goody,' I said.

He ignored me. 'Do you know what he said when I told him I intended to spend my life with you? 'Well, old dear, I guess love is the real suspension of disbelief.'"

I said, 'I heard how you talked to him.'

'Lord,' he said. He told me he hadn't so much as looked at another man since he'd met me. Then his voice changed. 'Which is more than you can say.'

I said, 'What are you talking about?'

'Why, the night you found Dominic in your apartment,' he said. 'Your final fuck.'

I stood there.

'I thought so,' he said.

-

He wouldn't speak to me. He slept in the guest room, and he was gone when I woke up.

Trying to write was like trying to swim through steel.

I called Hannah. 'Cut the guy a break,' she said, and reminded me that I got jealous of men he hadn't seen in twenty years.

'It's different,' I said. 'I think of the sex he used to have.'

She said, 'It's the same for him.'

-

I brought home shrimp and bread and an armful of flowers. The hall was dark. 'Honey?' I called.

I thought, He's up there with Nicholas.

Still carrying the flowers, I went upstairs. The bedroom door was closed, and I opened it slowly. The room was dark. It was empty.

I saw the light coming from the study and smelled cigarette smoke.

He was sitting at his desk, wearing an unpressed shirt and jeans. He didn't turn around.

'Hey,' I said, and then I saw the martini.

I couldn't breathe right.

I stared at the glass until it was just the glass and me, and then he swivelled around in his desk chair, and I saw his eyes. He squinted at me, and it was his voice, but it wasn't him when he said, 'What are you looking at?'

-

After a week, I packed my stuff.

I went up to his study.

He didn't turn around. 'You're the one who did something wrong,' he said, 'and you're punishing me for it.'

'Look,' I said, and my voice was thin and weak. 'The reason I'm leaving is because of the booze.'

'Good grief,' he said. 'The reason is because?'

I realised I was waiting for his permission to leave.

-

He called me sometimes, late. I'd listen for the alcohol in his voice. It was always there. After a while, I didn't answer any more. I let my machine pick up.

Once, in the middle of the night, I did answer. He told me he was killing himself, and I took a cab over there.

The door was unlocked and all the lights were on. He was up in his study.

'Well, hello,' he said. He smiled.

I told him it didn't look like he was about to kill himself.

'I was being figurative.' He said, 'Listen to this,' and he picked up a page from a manuscript, and read.

It took me a minute to understand that he was reading his own prose. It was a novel, and it opened with the party on Old Merl Street.

When he'd finished, he said, 'Do you see?'

'No,' I said.

'The man you say I am could never have written that page.'

'I never said anything.'

He said, 'People wait their whole lives for the kind of happiness we have.'

-

The publisher called me into his office. He told me that he'd just received a novel by Ian McKellen, an exclusive submission. 'I don't like Ian,' he said, 'and Ian doesn't like me.'

I nodded and stopped myself.

'He'll sell it to us on the condition that you edit it.'

I didn't move.

'Take a look at it,' he said. 'It's a fast read.'

He held out the manuscript.

'I'm no editor,' I said.

'You wouldn't have to change a word.'

I said, 'No.'

He looked at me for the first time. 'I completely understand,' he said.

-

I read the book as soon as it came out. Everyone did. It was published in the summer, and I would walk on the beach and see people reading it.

I still look for the paperback in stores. I open it up to the dedication page to see my name. Sometimes I turn to the first page, and I remember the night he read it to me, and how he leaned back in his chair and said, 'See?'

The writing is clean. I really wouldn't have changed a word. Most of it is true, too, except that the hero quits drinking and the boy becomes a girl, who grows up. On the last page, the couple get married, which is a nice way for a love story to end.

ana
november 2003

thislovesong — Sun, 23 Nov 2003 06:48:57 GMT

urban scene: setting

i.

She watches the blue electric numbers on the microwave stutter noon and midnight. It is neither. Somewhere in the city, a woman in white is stealing her brother while men traipse up her path and telephone wires to sell her windows and religion. Somewhere in the city, in a house of God, someone asks after her: is lied to. She watches the numbers flicker as lives go on.

ii.

In the flat to the left, with the view of the river, two men are arguing to inspire the passion they have misplaced. They are fighting over lovers while the river steals a body beneath their balcony. Later, when the men are in bed, feigning exhaustion from sex and lies, it will wash up under a bridge forty miles away. Under the cover of night, one man will leave his bed for a new home; elsewhere, a man with no home will make a lucky find and eat meat for the first time in a month.

iii.

Four miles away, on his twentieth birthday, a student is distracted by the shout of a monstrously tall superhero across the street. He is still looking at the billboard as the car hits him. He flies like a superhero on impact and hits the ground wearing a red mask all his own.

iv.

In the church opposite, one pew is occupied as a snivelling woman's mother is carried through a curtain. No one else attends the funeral, avoiding the spectacle of the living rather than the dead. Across town, a friend of the deceased describes her passing as a 'relief'. She does not specify from what. In the best seat in the house of God, a daughter lifts her hands to her face and weeps on.

v.

In the suburbs, a girl too gaunt to be pretty listens to rap music as she sits in her bedroom. In the room below, her mother is ironing as she listens to the words and suffers the beat. She worries about what ideas her daughter is being fed, unaware that her daughter has been feeding from nothing for a very long time.

ana
november 2003