Afterward, when it was all over, I thought back, tried to think back, to when it had all started. My Moments of Grace – they're what I have now. Fragments I take out, review when I'm alone, turn over in my mind, then put safely away on a shelf hidden behind many doors.
What about those confrontational exchanges? Such confusion of feelings then, not at all acknowledged in my mind, infuriation disguising infatuation? But more than that. Deeper. Realer.
What was the turning point? I don't think I realized, at the time, that there was such a point, that there was any turning. But with the heightened vision of hindsight, I can see it now. It was going to happen, it did happen.
Maybe it was listening to Linda together, the ease. Grace. I just liked to say her name out loud, and looked for excuses to do so. Without realizing, for a long time. Or what seemed like a long time. Things should have stayed in my head, everyone would have been happier, healthier, safer if they had stayed in my head. Not made their way to my heart. Because when the heart takes over, reason fades. The heart searches for reciprocity.
Maybe it was after hearing the CD she had burned for me, impressed by the cleverness of finding songs that so perfectly matched those I had chosen. It made me smile. Grin. And I even liked a lot of the songs. Part of my musical education.
Maybe it was the time I did actually play Orlando. Briefly, so briefly, on that chaotic, uncomfortable Thanksgiving.
Only the second time I had not gone to my parents' in St. Paul. Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. My sisters and I would always congregate at my parents' house, regardless of where we were, except for that year I was in India. Sometimes we'd bring along girlfriends, boyfriends, sometimes not, and half a dozen cousins would show up too. The dinner was casual, a turkey and whatever anyone felt like making.
But this year Mom called and said she and Dad just didn't feel up to it, and April said it was easier to have it her house now, anyway, with three kids of her own under 7, travel at Thanksgiving was really hard. Time the next generation took over. June and Sal were coming from Boston, with their baby, Lia. Except then they got snowed in. Wouldn't make until Friday. It never snows in Boston in November they kept complaining, but they wouldn't be here. Starting at 7 instead of the usual 4 because April underestimated the time it would take for the turkey to cook, and Mom and Dad got a late start driving down from St. Paul. They'd be going straight to my house, then we'd drive over together to Wilmette.
The snafu with electricity on Wednesday, with losing the rehearsal space on Thanksgiving, leading us to Grace's house, and my feeling of anticipation, as I drove a carful of kids, following behind Grace's carful of kids, at seeing where she lived. Curiosity, seeing her actual home against the one I'd seen these past few months in her journal.
Orlando – I – kissed her hand then. Now part of my graceful memories, then an intentionally wooden gesture as we went through the movements of the scene for the tech people. Kept it brusque, had to, for my sake, thoughts I didn't yet know I was having. Her mother there, distracted, behind me on my knees before Grace. "To you I give myself, for I am yours," Just heard them as Shakespeare's words, then, but memory now turns them into hers, for me. Absurd, but an indulgence I allow myself, now, alone, far away from that dark November afternoon.
Afterward, driving home, getting ready for the family holiday, with a stack of student writing beside me on the seat.
Left on my kitchen counter for anyone to discover. Accidentally on purpose?
I came down the next morning to find my mother, for years a copy editor, reading through the stack of stories. She looked up as I came into the room. "You've got some good writers, this year, August," she said, holding up Grace's story. Draft 3 of "What You Need to Know."
The three friends sat around the floor of Sondra's room. It was their Saturday night sleepover, the one they'd been having every other week, alternating houses, since they were 10. They were 14 now, and sat in a triangle, brushing and braiding hair. Blond, brunette, and the tight light-brown curls of Roxanne's Afro, which Charlotte loved to flatten down into corn rows with beads, a technique Roxanne's mother had taught her.
"So, my Dad's moved out," Charlotte said, casually, concentrating on stringing a bead onto Roxanne's hair. The bead fell as Roxanne swung her head around.
"What?" she exclaimed. "I thought you were one of the other ones whose parents had a perfect marriage!" Roxanne's parents were always lovey-dovey around each other, hugging and smiling and holding hands when they walked down the street. Roxanne would roll her eyes, but Charlotte knew she was happy about it. Though she complained, sometimes, as an only child, that she felt like a third wheel.
"You're kidding, right?" Sondra joined in. Sondra, whose parents had been divorced since she was two, who saw her father twice a year, a week at Christmas, a week in the summer, when she had to fly by herself to visit him in Houston. "They've always had my model for marriage!"
Charlotte retrieved the fallen bead from where it had rolled under Sondra's bed. She kept her face flat, empty, which is how she had felt since Wednesday, when her parents had sat the family down to "make an announcement." She expected she would cry, but the shock was so unreal tears didn't seem available. She knew it was her mother's fault, though. She was always after her father to be home more, when everybody knows restaurant work is at night, he had to work late to make it successful. And then she complained there wasn't enough money, what was he doing all that time?
But nobody saw those arguments, heard those complaints. They happened late at night, behind the closed door of her parents' room. Charlotte heard them, though. Her room was next door, and the sound carried through the heating vent. Her younger brother Bobby, only 9, never woke up. But she did, and her heart would go out to her father when she'd hear the defeated tone of defense in his voice.
"So did I," she answered Sondra. "I think my mom's going through some mid-life thing, or something. I know my dad didn't want to leave, but she couldn't shut the door behind him fast enough."
"Man." Roxanne shook her head. "Your dad's always been so cool. Like that time when we were 12, and he took us all to see the New Year's fireworks, even though our moms all thought it was way too late, but he said it was just once a year."
"That was cool," Sondra agreed. "And that time three years ago he took us camping in Wisconsin, and the mosquitoes kept going for him and he got all bit up, but we got hardly any? And your mom was all like 'Camping? Wait till they're a little older. It isn't safe, what if there are bears?'"
Charlotte listened to her friends gratefully, glad they were confirming her impression of her father, and of her mother. Just thinking of her mother made her face feel less empty, made it feel hot, angry, resentful. A place for blame. She didn't work, had never worked since Charlotte was born. She liked living in a nice house, liked going on vacations, how could she complain all the time? She was so unsupportive. If she ever got married, Charlotte swore she'd never do that. And she'd be working too, anyway. Maybe her husband would be the one to stay home.
It was strange to go to bed in her house knowing her father would not be there in the morning. He was rarely home in the evenings, Charlotte was used to that. But, no matter what time he came home at night, he was always up to see Charlotte and Bobby before they left for school. Then he'd go back to bed for a couple hours before heading over to the restaurant. Mornings without Dad there had been tense, tenser each day as Charlotte's anger toward her mother grew, each time she looked at Dad's empty place at the breakfast table. It was a relief to spend the night at Sondra's, away from the house. Away from the empty space.
"I don't want to go back there," she said suddenly.
"Where?" Sondra asked.
"My mother's house. She's such a bitch."
"So stay here. You're here practically all the time anyway."
It was tempting. Charlotte wondered how long it would take for her mother to even notice. Eighth grade ended in two weeks, high school was almost three months away. Charlotte was going to work in the restaurant this summer and take art classes at the community center. Maybe she could get a regular babysitting job. If she kept busy enough, she'd never have to be home at all.
Compartmentalizing. How I got through those weeks, those months, when Grace graced my thoughts.
In college I once dated a woman who asked, second date, before we had kissed more than good night, "What are your fantasies?" This was at the peak of sexual revolution, every woman in college was on the Pill, it was before AIDS, VD was a concern, but only mildly so. You couldn't die from unprotected sex. Even the term unprotected sex was not yet coined. There was, really, too much talk of sex, too many expectations of having it, doing it, getting it, because as far as we all thought then, 1980, there were no costs, there was no price, if it feels good do it, if you have an itch scratch it, never mind if you're ready or not, here you come. I was young in high school, young in college. When I was a junior at 19 and the very experienced K from Miami asked me what my fantasies were, I was embarrassed, stutteringly unable to answer, which turned out to be a turn on for her. Apparently 19-year-old male virgins were a rarity in her experience.
Experience. What I thought I wanted, when directly confronted, and K gave it to me, but tired of me quickly. But I, like a duck, was imprinted with her, fancied myself in love, wanted to be with her all the time, share my discovery of John Barth and Elizabeth Bishop. And she was premed, applied mathematics, took no English other than the required freshman, literature bored her, and she dropped me after a month.
I think my fantasy, had I told her truly, was love. Making Love with a capital L, rather than "doing It," with a capital I. I had images of sitting in bed scribbling in a notebook while she gently slept beside me after passionate lovemaking, but sex seemed to give K huge bouts of energy – she never spent the night, barely spent the hour.
When Grace started invading my thoughts, fantasy is not the word I would use. I just, I wanted to be with her, I wanted to see her, I anticipated her reactions to the books we would cover in class. It wasn't even being alone with her somewhere. And I managed to keep it innocent, if that's the best word, for a long time. But the problem with any affection, is you want to know – do they feel the same way? Does she feel the same way? I didn't get that crush "vibe' from Grace. Which was good. I told myself. I could teach her, guide her creative writing, direct her in plays. And it would be enough. Because I knew that thinking about a 16-year-old student, a girl, a girl, was inappropriate. Was wrong. Which is why I censored myself, cut off thoughts that might have drifted to the more traditional meaning of fantasy realm. Would not admit such thoughts of this person had any significance on a level beyond the professional.
***
"You know, some of her turns of phrase, and the maturity of her writing, remind a little bit of you in high school," my mother continued. "What's the name? I expect I'll start seeing it one of these years in those literary magazines.
"Grace Manning," I said. Saying the name. Just liked being able to say the name.
"What did you do to him?" Charlotte demanded, looking at her mother that Sunday night, after her grandparents had left, after that encounter with Amber, after another breakfast without Dad, without the pancakes and eggs he'd make them on Sundays. Amber. The name still made her shake. She knew her father would not simply start something with another woman if her mother hadn't made him feel so unhappy. If she hadn't always been after him.
Her mother cowered in the corner of the sofa, looking suddenly small, but not defenseless. A steely core Charlotte knew better than to try and bend.
"I didn't do anything," her mother said, her voice shaking.
"Dad wouldn't cheat on us – on you – if you hadn't driven him to it. You made him feel so, so inadequate -- "
At that her mother stood, no longer cowering, and Charlotte realized she herself had grown in the past six months; they now stood almost eye to eye. Her mother's eyes were wet, her lip trembled, but her mouth was set. The tears did not move Charlotte – there had been too many tears from her mother these past six months But it was the realization that that were no new tears coming, the dryness now behind those dark brown eyes, the only trait she seemed to have inherited from her graceful, fine-boned mother. She saw, perhaps for the first time in her life, that her mother had a strength, had strength, was strong. And, despite her newly realized height, she felt much smaller against her mother, against the years of her parents' marriage. A sudden awareness of the complexity of a marriage, of her parents' relationship, a complexity that went back deeper into years than she, at barely 14, could hope to comprehend. Fairness, justice, blame, who was right, who was righter, she, Charlotte, could judge, but could never really be certain. And at that moment, when she no longer felt certain, when she felt both much older and much younger, she reached for her mother as her mother reached for her, and they stood, in a locked embrace, neither moving, neither crying, neither speaking, letting a hug that had gone empty for too long, speak the words they could not say.
Outside, the cold November rain slowed to a drizzle, stopped, The clouds drifted into mist, and the full moon reflected in the dark puddles.
"The ending needs work, though," my mother added.
"That's what I've been telling her," I said. "She's been working on it."