Chapter 19D

Saturday. Rain.

Saturday morning Martha and I took a shower together. When she shut off the water I put my arms around her and we stood hugging in the shower stall.

She said, "We can't start anything right now. I have to see my gynecologist at ten."

"I'm not starting anything. Just hugging."

She snuggled closer. "What are you going to do today?"

"Pack some. I guess."

"Sounds depressing. Why don't you wait, and let me help you?"

"I have to get used to the idea."

She pressed her cheek against mine and her hand on the back of my neck hugged my head closer. "I have to get used to it, too."

Sullenly, while she was gone, I gathered clothing and articles that I knew I wouldn't need before Monday, and I packed them in the two suitcases. I realized as I went through my possessions that I was taking few new belongings back to Memphis. Anything new that I might bring back home was all in my head, and in the toned body Fiore had helped me build.

While I packed, the phone rang.

It was Ronnie. "Hi. Martha there?"

"She went to the gynecologist."

"Mm. Almost as much fun as the dentist. You gonna be up there for a minute?"

"Sure."

"Be right up."

Within a moment she knocked on the door, and I let her in. She wore a white blouse and a black pleated skirt and loafers. Even in casual, almost girlish dress, she looked very womanly. She always looked so damn appealing and womanly. When I first met her she seemed younger, almost girlish. But now my eyes and my body knew the woman in her.

She handed me a big, tan kraft envelope. "I won't be around much today, but I want to give you these before I forget. This is your chart. And Martha's. And mine."

"Oh, thanks. Ronnie, thanks so much."

"Know any astrologers in Memphis?"

"I'll find one."

"If you can't find any of the books in Memphis, I gave you the addresses for a couple of mail-order places. And... I guess the best way for you learn is to do charts yourself. I'd tell you more myself, but... I'm an interested party, you might say."

I looked at the envelope, and then at her. "I'm gonna miss having a lunch buddy."

She looked back at me. "Me too."

I looked down. There was a lump in my throat. I thought: you just control that damn lump, dammit.

She smiled. "I'll be out most of the day, and I have a date tonight. But I'll see you and Martha tomorrow."

"Good."

We were quiet for a brief moment.

She said, "Think you'll have time to watch birds tomorrow morning?"

"I'd love to."

"Call ya, then."

"I'll be bright and bushy-tailed."

"That's the ticket." She bit her lip, looking at me. "Steven, you're not the same person you were when you came here."

I winked at her. "You mean it shows?"

She grinned. "Shows all over you."

"Thanks."

"Well..." She started for the door. "I gotta get goin'. See you guys tomorrow."

I said, "Hey, didn't you forget something?"

"Huh?"

I walked to her, my lips puckered.

She smiled. "Oh." She puckered up and gave me a kiss. Then she gave me a big hug, and she left.

I stood in the middle of the living room, listening to the silence in the place. I looked around, my eyes scanning the room, then the dining room and the kitchen, and the door to the small hallway leading to the bathroom and the bedroom, and I memorized everything. One of the walls in the living room, crooked seams where it joined the next wall. The steam heat pipes under the right-hand living room window. Ronnie's Fire Island drawing in a frame on the wall near the kitchen door. The yellowing, glossy white on the bare kitchen wall, the shower stall. The GE refrigerator, scratches in the white paint on the door, a shelf missing inside, the tiny freezer compartment with the door nearly falling off. I memorized all of it.

When my eyes fell on the telephone I remembered that I had to call home, as I did every week, twice a week, for the past several weeks. I sat on the sofa. I remembered when Martha and I screwed on that sofa after we came back from a play one night. I took in a deep, deep breath, and I dialed the long distance operator.

Later in the morning, the drizzle continued. The apartment was muggy. I turned up the window fan. I looked at the two suitcases sitting against the wall near the living room window. I went into the bedroom and put on my workout clothes and started a calisthenics routine in the living room. Within a few moments I knew I was overworked. I rested, lying on my back on the floor, listening to my mother's voice over the telephone, over and over. I had talked about the weather. I told her I had gone here in New York, there in New York. Nothing about the ideas, the fucking, the emotional changes. Mom mentioned the weather, who was sick, who got married, who had a baby. Nothing down there had changed. Mom still called me Speedy.

I put one of the small Hunter fans on the window sill and aimed it at myself on the floor. I took my glasses off and I resumed the workout. I said aloud, "Just take it in moderation, the way you were taught. Do it right. Do it right. Don't push so hard. Let it work."

When I finished it was still drizzling outside. I went out anyway, in my jogging clothes.

I kept telling myself, "Do it right. Do it right." It turned out to be a good run. I felt much better when I returned. I was dripping wet. My shoes squished noisily as I entered the living room with a smile on my face.

Martha was sitting at the dining table. Her eyes popped open. She exclaimed, "You ran anyway?"

"Yep." I pulled my sopping t-shirt over my head.

She rose and hurried toward me, glaring, her jaw set. She pointed at the floor. "You're dripping all the over the floor! Get in the kitchen to do that!"

I smiled, but said obediently, "Yes, ma'am," and I started for the kitchen, my shoes squishing all the way.

Martha kept after me. "You're soaking wet!"

"Yes, ma'am." I dropped my wet t-shirt into the sink.

"Are you crazy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She put her hands on her hips, frowning at me. "Get out of those clothes and dry off."

I pushed my shoes off with my wet feet, and started pulling off my socks. Martha walked to me and stood by, huffing away. "Don't you dare come down with a cold. We're going to a concert tonight, and we're going to have a nice time, and I don't want to hear any sniffing and coughing."

I said sweetly, "Yes, ma'am." I pulled down my shorts.

"Come on, get those off and we'll hang them in the laundry room."

I pulled down my jocks, still smiling. "Yes, ma'am."

"Stop that!"

I stood naked and smiled.

She shook her head impatiently and walked to me and put her arms around me and hugged me tight.

I said, "Watch out, I'm all wet."

She said softly, "Be quiet." She hugged me tighter. "If you promise to stop saying yes-ma'am like that to me, I promise I'll try to stop acting like a cranky mom."

There were some things, I figured, that wouldn't change. One was the Martha Jane in Martha that kept seeing the Speedy in me, and another was the Speedy in me that saw a mother in Martha.

After I dried off and got dressed and hung my wet clothing in the laundry room downstairs, I went back to Martha's and relaxed in bed with the book Ronnie gave me.

Martha had been talking briefly on the telephone with Ronnie. In the living room she hung up the phone and came into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed in her jeans and checkered shirt and loafers.

She said, "You're going to do nothing all day?"

"Sure. It's raining outside. I did some packing, I called home, I had a workout in the living room, I ran. And I'm gonna finish this book so I can give it back to Ronnie. And I'm gonna take a nap. And then go to dinner with you, and then go to the concert." I closed the book and set it on the bed beside me. "Doesn't sound like 'nothing' to me." I yawned, and I stretched, and I smiled at her. "Wanna take a nap with me?"

"Now?"

"You and Ronnie wore me out last night."

She smiled. "You and Ronnie wore *me* out." She slipped her loafers off. They plopped to the floor. "I guess I should rest a bit."

"You never rest."

"No. Not never. Seldom."

She took off her shirt and lay next to me in her bra and jeans, and she put her head on my chest. She said, "I guess you better get some rest while you can. Ronnie and I are gonna wear you out again tomorrow night."

"Mm. I might not be able to get on that airplane."

"Yes, you'll get on it. You'll get on it and go back and do what you have to do. And you'll be good, you'll do well, you'll be able to do things you never thought you'd be able to. You'll know how to learn for yourself and build your skills. You'll know how to keep yourself up and look good and how to find people you'll like, people who'll like you." She sighed. "And New York and places like New York will be a lot easier, next time."

"Next time."

She nodded against my chest. She yawned and relaxed.

I whispered, "I love you." It was so easy. It was so easy to say now.

She hugged me. After a moment she asked, "When does your plane leave Monday? Two thirty?"

"Yes."

"I have the day off, for Labor Day. And Ronnie does."

"Good."

"Ronnie loves you, Steven."

"I know."

"A lot of women will love you. If you let them. If you don't hide."

"Two's enough." I kissed her hair. I said, "One's enough."

She rubbed my arm. "You've been a wonderful student, hon. All summer. Stubborn. But wonderful."

I gazed toward the window. The day was moving along, Monday getting closer. "Class is just about over, though."

Against my chest she shook her head no. "You still have a little time. A little. And a long way to go."

I stroked her hair. "A long way to go? Still?"

"You'll always have a long way to go."

In the darkened concert hall Martha held my hand in her lap. I let the orchestra's music flood over me. I kept thinking there was nothing like this in Memphis. I did have a long way to go; all the way to Memphis, and back again.

Fingers gently caressed my hand. I glanced at Martha. She gazed down at my hand in her lap, and for a long, long moment her eyes didn't leave her fingers caressing me. I saw her swallow, and her eyelids blinked, and she continued to watch my hand. Then she noticed me and she glanced up, and her eyes met mine, and she smiled. She squeezed my hand, and she looked out at the orchestra. I wondered what she was thinking.

After the concert we walked aimlessly through the teeming, brashly lighted streets of midtown Manhattan. Martha conducted an impromptu class, a class of one: how to handle my mother and step-father, how to handle my aunts and uncles. How to study for the best grades at Christian Brothers, how to make contacts at Memphis State, how to work with counselors, how to keep my spirits up, how to meet people, how to talk to them, how to manage my time. And more about dating and more about fucking and more about fitting in with my peers while maintaining my independence. How to get money for school, how to save up for college, what to expect, what courses to take. And plans for graduate schools and new movements in thought and the arts, and where the good colleges were and how to contact them and plan for them. And more. And more.