“Good God, is that you, Charlie?” he cried. “Good grief, come on over. What’s new? Lord, it’s been years! Why are you—”
I told him what I was calling about.
“Sally? Haven’t seen her in years. Hey, I hear you’re doing okay, Charlie. Salary in five figures, right? Pretty good for a guy from across the tracks.”
There hadn’t been any tracks, really; just an invisible line nobody could see but everyone felt.
“Hey, when can we see you, Charlie?”
“Give you a call soon.”
“She was a sweet girl, Sally. I’ve told my wife about her. Those eyes. And hair color that didn’t come out of a bottle. And—”
As Tom talked on, a lot of things came back. The way she listened, or pretended to listen, to all my grand talk about the future. It suddenly seemed she had never talked at all. I wouldn’t let her. With the sublime dumb ego of a young man I filled up the nights and days with building tomorrows and tearing them down and building them again, just for her. Looking back, I was embarrassed for myself.
And then I remembered how her eyes used to take fire and her cheeks flush with my talking, as if everything I said was worth her time and life and blood. But in all the talk, I couldn’t remember ever saying I loved her.
I should have. I never touched her, save to hold her hand, and never kissed her. That was a sadness now. But I had been afraid that if I ever made one mistake, like kissing, she would dissolve like snow on a summer night, and be gone forever.
We went together and talked together, or I talked, rather, for a year. I couldn’t remember why we broke up. Suddenly, for no reason, she was gone, around the same time we both left school forever. I shook my head, eyes shut.
“Do you remember, she wanted to be a singer once, she had a swell voice,” said Tom. “She—”
“Sure,” I said. “It all comes back. So long.”
“Wait a minute—” said his voice, being hung back on the receiver hook.
I went back to the old neighborhood and walked around. I went in the grocery stores and asked. I saw a few people who I knew but who didn’t remember me. And finally I got a line on her. Yes, she was married. No, they weren’t sure of the address. Yes, his name was Maretti. Somewhere on that street down that way and over a few blocks, or maybe it was the other way.
I checked the name I the phone book. That should have warned me. No phone.
Then by asking questions at some grocery stores down the line, I finally got the Maretti address. Third apartment, fourth floor, rear, number 407.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked myself, going up the stairs, climbing in the dim light in the smell of old food and dust. “Want to show her how well you’ve done, is that it?
“No,” I told myself. “I just want to see Sally, someone from the old days. I want to get around to telling her what I should have told her years ago, that, in my own way, at one time, I loved her. I never told her that. But I was afraid. I’m not afraid now that it doesn’t make any difference.
“You’re a fool,” I said.
“Yes,” I said, “but aren’t we all.”
I had to stop to rest on the third landing. I had a feeling, suddenly, in the thick smell of ancient cooking, in the close, whispering darkness of TVs playing too loud and distant children crying, that I should walk down out of the house before it was too late.
“But you’ve come this far. Come on,” I said. “One more flight.”
I went up the last stairs slowly and stood before an unpainted door. Behind it, people moved and children talked. I hesitated. What would I say? Hello, Sally, remember the old days when we went boating in the park and the trees were green and you were as slender as a blade of grass? Remember the time that—well.
I raised my hand. I knocked on the door.
It opened and a woman answered. I’d say she was about ten years older, maybe fifteen, than me. She was wearing a two-dollar basement dress which didn’t fit, and her hair was turning gray. There was a lot of fat in the wrong places, and lines around her tired mouth.
I almost said, “I’ve got the wrong apartment, I’m looking for Sally Maretti.” But I didn’t say anything. Sally was a good five years younger than me. But this was she, looking out of the door into the dim light. Behind her was a room with a battered lampshade, a linoleum floor, one table, and some old brown overstuffed furniture.
We stood looking at each other across twenty-five years. What could I say? Hello, Sally, I’m back, here I am, prosperous, on the other side of town now, here I am, a good car, home, married, children through school, here I am president of a company, why didn’t you marry me and you wouldn’t be here?
I saw her eyes move to my Masonic ring, to the boutonniere in my lapel, to the clean rim of the new hat in my hand, to my gloves, to my shined shoes, to my Florida-tanned face, to my Bronzini tie. Then her eyes came back to my face. She was waiting for me to do one thing or the other. I did the right thing.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “I’m selling insurance.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t need any.” She held the door open for just a moment as if at any moment she might burst open.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” I said.
“That’s all right,” she said.
I looked beyond her shoulder. I had been wrong. There were not five children, but six at the dinner table with the husband, a dark man with a scowl stamped on his brow.
“Close the door!” he said. “There’s a draft.”
“Good night,” I said.
“Good night,” she said.
I stepped back and she closed, the door, her eyes still on my face.
I turned and went down the street.
I had just stepped off the bottom of the brownstone steps when I heard a voice call out behind me. It was a woman’s voice. I kept walking. The voice called again and I slowed, but did not turn. A moment later someone put a hand on my elbow. Only then did I stop and look around.
It was the woman from apartment 407 above, her eyes almost wild, her mouth gasping, on the point of tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and almost pulled back but then gathered herself to say, “This is crazy. You don’t happen to be, I know you’re not, you aren’t Charlie McGraw, are you?”
I hesitated while her eyes searched my face, looking for some halfway familiar feature among all the oldness.
My silence made her uneasy. “No, I didn’t really think you were,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who was he?”
“Oh, God,” she said, eyes down, stifling something like a laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe a boyfriend, a long time ago.”
I took her hand and held it for a moment. “I wish I were,” I said. “We should have had a lot to talk about.”
“Too much, maybe.” A single tear fell from her cheek. She backed off. “Well, you can’t have everything.”
“No,” I said, and gave her back her hand, gently.
My gentleness provoked her to a last question.
“You’re sure you’re not Charlie?”
“Charlie must’ve been a nice fellow.”
“The best,” she said.
“Well,” I said, at last. “So long.”
“No,” she said. “Good-bye.” She spun about and ran to the steps and ran up the steps so quickly that she almost tripped. At the top she whirled suddenly, her eyes brimmed, and lifted her hand to wave. I tried not to wave back but my hand went up.
I stood rooted to the sidewalk for a full half minute before I could make myself move. Jesus, I thought, every love affair I ever had I ruined.
I got back to the bar near closing time. The pianist, for some obscure reason, hating to go home was probably it, was still there.
Taking a double shot of brandy and working on a beer, I said,
“Whatever you do, don’t play that piece about wherever she may go, wherever she may be, if no one wants her now, please send her back to me … “
“What song is that?” said the pianist, hands on the keys.
“Something,” I said. “Something about … what was her name? Oh, yeah. Sally.”
Nothing Changes
There is this truly wonderful bookstore by the ocean where you can hear the tide under the pier, shaking the shop, the books on the shelves, and you.
The shop is dark and has a tin roof above the ten thousand books from which you blow dust in order to turn pages.
And it is not just the tide below but the tide above that I love when storm rains shatter that tin roof, banging it like orchestras of machine-gun-cymbal-and-drum. Whenever it is a dark midnight at noon, if not in my soul, like Ishmael, I head for the storm beneath and the storm above, tambourining the tin and knocking silverfish off forgotten authors, row on row. With my smile for a flashlight, I linger all day.
Pure hyperventilation in storms, I arrived one noon at White Whale Books, where I walked, slowly, to the entrance. My anxious taxi driver pursued with his umbrella. I held him off. “Please,” I said. “I want to get wet!”
“Nut!” cried the cabbie and left.
Gloriously damp, I ducked inside, shook myself like a dog, and froze,
