Sylvan Tale

They sat outdoors under a gingko tree. The leaves had begun to turn so that some of them were pale yellow. These interspersed, with those that remained green, invited her to remark, “Look, it’s as if the sun was shining on them.” The younger man looked up, twisted in his seat, and agreed. He then turned around completely, noting the sun was dropping below the line of the buildings. He continued to gaze up the narrow, cobblestone street, observing here and there, little things that were neither unusual nor interesting. His glance darted up and along gingkoes and down to London plane trees further down the curb before it returned to the woman who sat opposite him. He was a comely young man, with the bounce of a young boy still in him.

The woman was smiling. Her whole face was bright with her happiness and her hands jumped playfully from her cup to the corner of her pretty mouth, to the ash-blonde pompadour that rolled away from her tanned forehead. Alice Wright was forty-five years old, almost twenty years older than the man she now loved.

“It’s pretty little things like that,” Alice went on, “that make me love this place.”

Hector Simon didn’t care for the one-way street. Alice’s ice cream parlor chair sat only inches from the curb, and he was haunted by the recurring thought that a car would come barreling down and hit her. Alice picked away at her pastry, amused by her Hector’s skittishness, confusing it with some vague lover’s turmoil.

“I’m thinking of Paris this Christmas,” she told him.

“It’s not a very nice time to visit. Cold and dark. The natives are restless.” He was thinking about the Christmas he was obliged to spend with his own family in Chapel Hill. A trip he felt compelled to make in spite of his recent celebrity.

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” she conceded, “but then it’s pretty cold and dark here, too.” She might have added lonely. She didn’t like the idea of his going away. Their love was still new, and he was so young, so susceptible. She knew it was absurd to follow him, but she nevertheless entertained the thought of taking a hotel room and almost made the arrangements. Show some dignity, she scolded herself. It’s only a week.

He stirred his hot chocolate and turned his attention to her. He wandered over her face, down her neck, along shoulders made taut and broad by the padding in her leather jacket, and down into the loose weaves of her sweater where the jacket opened at her breasts. He fixed on her breasts, their weight and warmth and how they fit her body. He contrasted her clothed and coiffed with her naked and sprawling. Then, a perfumed heat rose from her that was as intoxicating and torpid. Wilde was right, Hector thought, it was a kind of genius. On the street she was as hard and lean as a mirror, but in bed she was so slow and luxurious, almost viscous, and she exerted a gravity that threatened to pull him completely out of the world and into her flesh. She was aware of his thoughts and reddened a little.

“Look at this,” she pulled from her pocket a postcard. “It’s Monet.” He didn’t need to be told; wasn’t he the youngest person ever to curate a show in the history of the Modern? Wasn’t that where they met? He gave it back to her with a snort.

“It’s from Jill. You remember Jill, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, suddenly bored.

“She’ll be in Paris at Christmas and has invited me to stay with her.”

“Isn’t that sweet of her.” He loosened the chocolate that had collected at the bottom of his mug and watched as the dislodged pieces swirled, caught in the upwelling made by his spoon. He licked the utensil and puckered his mouth. “Bitter,” he scowled. “I prefer it sweetened.”

“Shall I send it back, darling?” she asked, concerned that something she’d done had upset her little prince. She wanted to smooth down his hair, touch his soft skin, but held back, remembering her dignity. Instead, she asked, “You do remember her?”

“I recall that I don’t like her. She was the most narrow-minded, most intolerant woman I’ve ever met.”

Jill Van Itallie had disapproved of their liaison. A thing of the movies, not of life. A textbook case of the not-so-young and the restless, she called it. She thought it was fine in secret, but in public it lacked dignity. She felt it her duty to warn Alice, “He’ll leave you in a week, or maybe after a month, for some Slyph whose tits stand up like the flame on a candle. Find a man your own age, somebody rich, but self-made, who’ll worship you.”

“She’s envious, that’s all.” Alice smiled again, deeply for herself, settling, as into a bath, in some pleasure that was hers entirely.

A terrier, tied to a broken grating at the base of the tree, began to cry. A young woman rushed out of the café calling, “Baby, sweet baby,” and freed it. “Don’t cry baby, don’t cry.” She took out of her jacket a tiny red ball and tossed it in the air. The dog caught it and brought it back to her. They played for a few minutes and then she tied it up again. The waitress returned and asked Alice if they’d like anything else.

“Yes,” he told her, “Another, and some water, too.” This was the third time he asked for water. He did not believe the waitress would ever bring it.

“Go to Paris,” he told her. “It’s settled.”

“Is it really?” Her smile had changed to one slightly condescending. She was flattered by his pouting.

“We can’t have you unhappy.”

“Well, we could both stay here,” she suggested.

“No, no, no, no, no. We’ve been through this a hundred times. I have to go home.”

They set a rendezvous and said goodbye with a friendly kiss under the tree. She to run some errands, him to wander the streets until he attended a gallery opening on 11th Street and Avenue C, where he would be interviewed for a segment of All Things Considered.

He walked and looked and walked and looked but something was wrong. He felt sour and sluggish. He paused to window shop, flirt with pretty girls, read menus posted outside restaurants, and to admire the restoration of a Federal Period townhouse. As he walked, he practiced the observations he would repeat for a national audience, but he couldn’t shake whatever oppressed him. He called her up and caught her just as walked in. “Meet me for coffee?” he asked.

“Of course.” Of course, she would indulge him. He was her cupid; it was necessary to spoil him. Besides, it would give her the chance to give him the slender, gold fountain pen she had bought that afternoon.

The same table was waiting for them.

“Sorry,” he began and then turned away.

“I don’t mind. I really don’t mind in the least,” she told him.

“Something’s very wrong.” He felt like crying but held back.

She flattered herself to think it was their impending separation. They had spent nearly every night of the last month together. “Wrong, with what? What could possibly be wrong?” she asked sweetly, as if to her child, not her lover.

“With me.” He was looking faraway, much further away than the street ran.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Her thin-lipped smile returned, and her breasts rose as she sighed. She was growing impatient with him and his need for reassurance.

“I’m afraid,” he told her.

She laughed. “Afraid of what?”

He thought again about the car coming up the street the wrong way and hitting her. He could almost see it happen. “I’m afraid all the time.”

“Afraid of what?” This was getting silly, but he was her first genius — coming after a lifetime of forgettable love affairs and a disastrous marriage to a very conventional lawyer.

He was looking very far away. “Afraid of the flesh sagging under your arms. Afraid of the weight of your breasts…”

Alice said, “Enough,” and sat up, red and erect. Her hands gripped her cup; her eyes were fishing for something there. Then she was conscious of her hands and put them on her lap.

Hector just looked at her and told himself, not another word. He looked at her and pleaded, don’t answer me, just take me back.

“Look at the leaves,” she said, pointing to them. It was dark, but the yellow was lit by a streetlamp. “I just can’t get over them. It’s just like the sun was shining through the tree.” The waitress asked if she could bring them anything else.

“You know, the last time I was here, I sat over there,” Alice nodded toward a table that abutted a window. “I could see my reflection in the glass, and through the glass again in the mirror above the bar. I could see myself twice at the same time. I had my camera with me and snapped a couple of pictures. It didn’t come out the way I saw it.”

The waitress put down the check in front of her. Alice quickly handed some money and the bill without looking at the girl. They said goodbye for the second time with another friendly kiss. Hector said he’d see her after the show. Alice coughed a little laugh and her voice, cracking in a strange way, asked, “In heaven’s name, why?”