Ordinary People by Judith Guest
“I suppose,” Cal says, “because I left it up to you to handle it. I’m sorry. I know I do that to you. Cop out. I never know how to tell somebody, ‘Hey, you’re just not making it.’ I don’t know why.”
Ray shakes his head. “No problem, Cal. I don’t mind that. It’s just—well, I like to be let in on what’s happening with you off and on, you know?”
“With me? What d’you mean?”
“You haven’t been around the last couple of months, that’s all.”
“Around? What are you talking about?”
“Jesus, Cal, I’ve known you for over twenty years, you think I can’t tell when something’s wrong?” He looks down into his cup. “You’re not yourself.”
“I’m not myself,” he says. “Okay, Howard, who am I, then?” But Ray doesn’t answer. The waiter approaches with their corned-beef sandwiches. He refills their coffee cups.
“What do you want me to do?” Cal says. “Stop by your office, hum a few bars from The Sound of Music every day? Everything’s fine, Ray. Nothing to worry about.”
“Why are you worrying, then?”
He laughs. “I’m not. In fact, I’ve been thinking about taking a couple of days off in March to play in the lawyers’ tournament in Dallas.”
“Well, great. Why don’t you do it?”
“The middle of the month—I’d be leaving you with all this crap—”
“Don’t be dumb, I’d do it to you in a minute.” He takes a bite of his sandwich. “Beth going with you?”
“Probably, yeah. We’ll stay with her brother and his wife. They have a place in Richardson.”
“I think that’s good,” Ray says. “I think it’d do you both good to get away for a few days. That’s the answer.”
The answer to what? Life, reduced to the simplest of terms. Formulas. Get away for a while. Everything works out for the best.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ray says. “It’s none of my business. But, you worry too much. You’ve been on the rack about him long enough. It’s a habit, now. You got to let go sometime, buddy.”
“Ray, I’m not on the rack about him.”
“Thing is,” Ray says, “in another year he’ll be gone. Off to Michigan or Harvard or wherever the hell he gets it in his head he wants to go. Maybe he’ll decide to take a tour of Europe for a year, not even go to school, who knows—”
“How come all of a sudden you know so much about him?”
“I don’t. Look, I’m giving you the benefit of my experience.”
“Thanks,” he says drily.
“I mean, with Valerie, it’s more than her living away from home. She’s gone, Cal. She’s got her own life, her own friends, she breezes in for a few days of vacation —maybe girls are different, I don’t know. Or maybe she was too aware of the stuff that happened—I mean, between Nance and me. But they leave, Cal. And all that worrying doesn’t amount to a hill of crap. Just wasted energy.”
“I’m not worried about Con,” he says.
“Who, then? Is it Beth? Is something wrong between Beth and you?”
“No!”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure!”
He turns. Ray is wearing an uncomfortable look.
“Well, you gave me some advice a long time ago, on that business with Nancy, and you know what that lets you in for, don’t you? Getting it all back someday, whether you want it or not. So, how do you want it?”
He gives a snort of laughter. “I don’t want it.”
No mistaking the look of discomfort, now. Ray has something on his mind. “Listen, Cal, Nance and Beth had lunch together, last week—” He breaks off, staring down into his coffee cup.
“Next time,” Cal says, “try for more directness. Make an appointment. What are you supposed to tell me?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you anything,” Ray says unhappily. “I’m just telling you. They had lunch together. Beth is pretty upset. She thinks you’re out of focus. She says you’re obsessed with Con’s problems. You can’t think about anything else—”
“That’s ridiculous,” he snaps. “She can’t think about them at all. Now what does that say to you?”
“It says nobody’s normal,” Ray says. “Nobody’s got it together, not anybody in this frigging world. Look, I’m sure as hell not setting myself up as some example, Cal, I’m just—I just didn’t know if you knew how she felt.”
“I know.”
He feels sorry for Ray. This is not a pleasant role. Counselor. He remembers that from seven years ago, wants to tell him he sympathizes, wants to ask, How are things with you and Nancy now? How would you describe your marriage, in terms of knowing each other? In terms of being friends? Of understanding that hopelessly intricate network of clash and resolution that has been woven over the last twenty years? Two separate, distinct personalities, not separate at all, but inextricably bound, soul and body and mind, to each other, how did we get so far apart so fast? How can she believe that? Is it true? She believes it, or she never would have said it to Nancy, and even saying it is unlike her; she has never given so much of herself away. God, he is wandering tonight, his mind dealing in irrelevance. It is always this way when he is overtired.
“Listen, forget it, will you?” Ray takes a swallow of his coffee. “None of our business, anyway. And I’m feeling very existential tonight. People are born. Then they die. In between, they perform a lot of pathetic and more-or-less meaningless actions—”
“Ray, Jesus! You don’t believe that.”
He grins. “Oh, yeah, when I’m sober, I believe it a lot.” He looks at Cal. “How about you? What do you believe, buddy?”
“I believe I’ll go to Dallas,” Cal says. “Play some golf, maybe get blind one night with my crazy brother-in-law, and raise hell.”
“Do it,” Ray says. “My blessings.”
On the subject of losing people, Ray is bitter. So much of the worrying you do, he tells Cal, is about losing your kids. And, in the end, you lose them, anyway. So, what’s the point? He feels he has lost Valerie forever. But things change, situations change. She could come back. She probably will, someday, through a husband, some children.
The fear behind the fear of losing people is that there might have been something you could have done to prevent it. Last Christmas they had lost Con in Florida, at Miami International. Standing in the underground garage, the dirt and the oppressive heat surrounding them, the rental convertible parked at the curb, his heart had jolted in terror as he waited. Conrad had disappeared when they deplaned. He was gone for forty minutes, while Calvin Jarrett, world traveler, champion fence-sitter, had waited, finally getting hold of the Airport Police (how did you explain “losing” a sixteen-year-old in an airport?), and, as they were taking down a description, he had suddenly appeared, walking toward them from the escalator, and through the glass exit doors. He had gone to look for a men’s room. He had gotten lost. End of explanation.
And then had come the telephone call from Howard, two days later. They had gone to play golf. They had left him on the beach with some kids he had met down there. Nice. He had found some friends. And, after they left, he had gone upstairs to the room, called Lake Forest to ask if his grandfather remembered how many strings of lights he and Buck had put on the outdoor tree in front of their house last year? The telephone had been ringing when they walked in. Howard was frantic. “Cal, don’t do that again, don’t leave him alone down there, something’s wrong. I know it. You’d better have a talk with him.”
And so he had. He went immediately next door, to the connecting room, and Conrad was lying on the bed in his bathing suit, reading a magazine, calm and relaxed. Yes, everything was fine. Yes, he had called them, to wish them a Merry Christmas, why?
And, for some reason, he had bought that, too. Even though, like a single frame of film, flicked on the mind-screen and off, it had been there that day. The knowledge of the thing that he would do to himself someday.
Out of focus, she said. Obsesse
He looks around the dim interior, at the knots of heads, nodding purple flowers in the dark. How about it? Illusion versus reality? All those in favor. He could poll them, but they are not representative, they are a bunch of hotshot lawyers, what do they know?
20
Standing on the front porch of her house, he nervously shoves his hands in his pockets; pulls them out again. Too casual. Wouldn’t want her mother to get the wrong impression. He takes a quick glance at his watch. Eight-thirty. He is right on time. Her mother is strict, she says. Maybe she has a rule about her not being out after midnight. He hopes so. A series of five-minute telephone calls over a two-week period does not establish much precedent for the evening that now stretches lengthily ahead. Too long between the asking and the actual event. Like having to think in advance about going to the dentist. But she had been busy that first Saturday, and Friday nights she works. What is the problem? No problem. He is in great shape for this event. He has just been cut down to once a week by his analyst. He finds on waking each morning no terrible urgency to escape his thoughts. They are harmless. They concern a report he has to write, a section of tenor melody he is learning, small goals to purify his days.
Berger yesterday had grinned lecherously at him over a sugar doughnut. “Psychiatry has its advantages. I expect to hear all about it on Tuesday.”
He had laughed. “Yeah, well, I didn’t hear all about how it went with my father, did I?”
“I’ve told you before, kiddo. I’m the doctor, you’re the patient. Sooner or later all you cats start pulling out of line.”
“What did he want anyway?”
“He wanted,” Berger said, “the name of a good allergist. Listen, you want me to tell you what he wanted?”
He had thought it over briefly; decided he didn’t want that, after all. Respect for privacy was what he wanted. He had let it drop. And now he is on a Tuesday only schedule. “Gee, coach, I hope I make it,” he had said on his way out the door.
Berger had sighed. “And I just ordered a couch, how’m I gonna pay for it?”
With a start, he realizes he has forgotten to ring the doorbell Nice beginning, Jarrett. He rings and the door is opened seconds later by a pleasant-faced woman with red hair, a wide smile. Her eyes are on a level with his. She is much taller than Jeannine.
“Hi. C’mon in. You’re Conrad, right? I’m Jen’s mother.”
She ushers him into the small, tidy living room, where a small boy sits, cross-legged on the couch, watching television.
“Mike, this is a friend of Jen’s. Conrad ...?” She looks at him.
“Jarrett,” he supplies. “Hi, Mike.”
“Hi.” The eyes do not move from the screen.
“Sit down. Jen just got home from work. They asked her to stay late tonight. Let’s see now, you’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Me? No. You mean to the city? No, we’ve lived here for about ten years.”
“Oh.” She is puzzled. “Aren’t you the one that works at the music store in Lake Bluff?”
“No.” He smiles.
“Well, then, did she meet you at the Evanston symphony concert?”
He shakes his head, wishing he could help her. How many are there anyway? “I go to Lake Forest,” he says. “I gave her a ride home from school once.”
“Oh, you’re the tenor!” she says.
“I can’t hear the TV,” Mike says. “You guys are talking too loud.”
Relieved that she has nailed him down at last, she feels free to go on with the more serious, motherly questions: Where does he live? What does his father do? Is that civil, or criminal? What grade is he in? A junior? And he’s how old? Eighteen? He endures them in an agonizing fit of nervousness. He couldn’t even think of the words “tax attorney,” almost forgot the name of his own street. As for his age, let her think he is stupid, it is infinitely preferable to whatever else she might discover about him.
He gazes about the room. Plants everywhere—on tables, in the windows, in corners—one of them, a tall, slender tree, supports huge, fantail leaves, and is nearly touching the ceiling.
“You must like plants,” he says. Oh brilliant Jarrett. Brilliant.
She laughs. “Well, they make nice pets. They don’t bark, or jump up on you and tear your stockings.” She jumps up herself. “I’ll just hurry her along.”
He is left with the small boy, who sits, scratching his leg, glancing over at him appraisingly. He is blond and thin. His voice is a low rasp.
“I’m gonna take guitar lessons.”
“Are you? Good,” Conrad says politely.
“But I might take karate instead. Ten lessons for four bucks. After school at the Community House.”
“Sounds great.”
He goes back to the TV, chewing a corner of his lip. The room is warm. Conrad takes off his jacket; holds it across his knees.
“I’ll probably have to take the karate,” Mike says. “Because I don’t got a guitar.”
“You got a karate?” Conrad asks.
“Huh?”
He laughs. “Nothing. Just a dumb joke.”
“What’s your name?”
“Conrad.”
“You look just like the guy who was here last Saturday.”
“Yeah? What was his name?”
“I forget. There’s too many.”
Jeannine appears in the doorway. Behind her, from the end of the hall, the command is issued: “Don’t be late!”
“I won’t!”
She grabs her coat from the closet, on their way out. Settled beside him in the car, she sighs. “I heard her grilling you. I’m sorry. I tried to hurry.”
“That’s okay.”
They drive in silence for a few minutes.
“I’d better warn you now,” she says. “I’m a horrible bowler.”
“That’s okay.”
“Well, it’s not, really. You haven’t seen me.”
“Look, we don’t have to go bowling if you’d rather not.”
She glances quickly at him. “No, I’ll go. If you want.”
“What would you rather do?”
She shrugs.
“Do you want to go out at all?” he asks.
“Do you?”
“I asked you, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t talk to me all week in choir. I thought you might have changed your mind.”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” he says. “Have you?”
Abruptly, she laughs. “This is dumb. I haven’t changed my mind, I want to go, but I just hate to go and do something that’ll make me look silly—”
“You won’t look silly,” he promises her. “I’m a great teacher, you’ll look like you belong to a league in twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
And it is all right after that. She is right, she’s a lousy bowler but a good listener, a quick learner. He gives her all the tips he can, and she absorbs them easily, trying very hard. And besides she looks terrific up there, no matter what happens to the ball. He notices that she is wearing the blue skirt, the one she wore the first day he saw her at school. And he notices, how she sits with her legs tucked back, half on the seat, her hair a smooth river of silk.
“You were a natural,” he tells her, across the table at McDonald’s, afterward.
“Oh, sure. I’m also a gemini, so be careful.”
“Why?”
“Because. We are two-faced and unpredictable. And what are you?”
“January tenth.”
“Capricorn. Good. That’s a good sign.”
“Is it?”
“Sure. Dutiful. Responsible. Serious. Capable.”
“Boring.”
She grins. “Late-bloomers.”
He laughs. “For sure.” He looks aroun
“Uh uh. That’s not her daddy,” Jeannine says. “Sugar daddy, maybe. Okay, my turn. There’s a couple. It’s their first date. She’s afraid of getting fat, so she just has a burger, no roll, and a cup of coffee, but he’s not, so he has two Big Macs—” she rolls her eyes “—what a pig! And he’s been dying to ask her out. For months he put it off. Finally he got up his nerve. He called her on the phone and said, ‘Say, I was wondering—’ ” She giggles.
“Oh, all right.” He mimics her soft soprano. “And what did she say? ‘Who, me? On a date? With you?’
“Well, I was shocked,” she says. “You took long enough.”
“I thought I was pretty swift.”
“September to February? Is swift?”
On the way home he allows his hand to slide across the seat, encounter hers, and hold it lightly while she talks: about her parents’ divorce; about her father, who lives in Akron and manages a department store; about her mother, who is a nurse at a small, private hospital in Glenview.
“My uncle is on the staff there,” she says. “He helped her to get the job. That’s why we came here. And there were some other reasons, too.” But she does not elaborate. They pass the library on the way to her house. It sits, hunched, waiting for him. So many things he does not know. His body, under touch from all stimulation tonight, leans toward it, yearning.
In front of her house, they talk some more, and he smooths his palm around and around the steering wheel, staring out at the street light, diffusing the yellow bloom of its rays through the windshield.
“Well, what d’you think?” he asks. “Did this work out okay? You want to try it again?”
“Sure.”
So they set up the following Saturday night. A return engagement. And, as casually as the earth one day spun itself loose from the sun and off into whirling space, he kisses her, his hands on her shoulders, her mouth under his, cool and firm. And an unexpected sensation, then, causing his groin to swell with warmth; her hand at the back of his neck.