The Book of Marie Read online

  Forgive me. I shouldn’t speak ill of someone I’ve never met. I’m sure she’s a saint. She’d have to be to endure you. Holly has nothing to do with my irritability. It’s the drive through Overton. Forgive me also for being negative about your hometown, Cole. Maybe I’m jealous because I don’t have one. We moved around too much. If I had a hometown, I think I might enjoy visiting it. Going home must be wonderful.

  But I’m glad I have my memories of you, and of those special moments we shared when we were playing our game. If you were a landscape, a piece of geography, I would think of you as my home. There are times when I wish we had not made the pledge to refrain from sending photographs to one another. (But that was my doing, wasn’t it? I think of it as the Period of My Rebellion. Dear God, how did you ever tolerate me?)

  Love to you.

  The second letter had been included in her Christmas card for 1974. In early December of that year, shortly after they had begun dating, he had taken a train trip with Holly to New York City to do Christmas shopping and to attend offerings of the theater.

  One of the plays they saw, at the Greenwich Village Theater, was The Fantastics. Ironically, Marie had been at the same performance, yet neither knew the other was there—not then, not on that night.

  Her letter read:

  Dearest Cole,

  I have just returned from New York, one of the most glorious weeks I’ve had in years. Joined some friends from the Harvard days (and, no, there wasn’t an old lover among them—damn it). Just girls. We shopped and dined in the most wonderfully snobbish and expensive restaurants we could find, and in honor of my dear mother—who is fifty-eight now and managing poorly after my father’s death—I went to the theater on Friday night to see a production of “The Fantastics.” It was as grand and as silly as I knew it would be, and I thought of you, especially when they sang “Try to Remember.” I wished you were with me. As sentimental as you are, you would have been putty in my hands. (Curiously, as we were leaving, I saw a man across the lobby who reminded me of you. He even looked the way I imagine you must now look—a grown-up, bearded version of that little testosterone-afflicted boy who used to tag after me on the school ground of Overton High School, drooling with passion. I even thought of elbowing my way through the crowd to speak to him, but he was with a gaudy woman wearing fake fur and the most ridiculous red hat I’ve ever seen.)

  Someday, Cole, we really should have a reunion. We should mark a day on the calendar and declare it the annual Marie-Cole holiday. We could meet in exotic locations—New York, Paris, Rome, London (for me), Chattanooga, Birmingham, Memphis (for you)—and spend the day having wild, uninhibited sex and telling outrageous lies to one another, like that couple did in the play “Same Time, Next Year.” I think that would be lovely, don’t you? Don’t you believe we deserve at least one day a year? We could make it happen, if we tried, you know. As they say, timing is everything.

  Merry Christmas, my famous friend.

  He never shared with Marie that he was the man she had seen in the lobby of the theater. He couldn’t. It would have been cruel. On that night, he had proposed to Holly sitting in a coffee shop. She had nodded yes under her red hat.

  He awoke early and it surprised him, surprised him also that he felt vigorous. He reasoned it was from the soundness of his sleep, one without dreaming—or if he had dreamed, he could not remember it. He showered and dressed and then left to have breakfast at Arnie’s Place of Gathering, where a group of men met daily to discuss the affairs of the world during the twenty-four hours bridging their last get-together. The men jokingly called themselves The Superior Court. He liked them. They were hail-to-you friendly and they always motioned him to sit with them, pulling him into their back-and-forth opinions. They called him Doc, saying it in a respectful way.

  Among them was a pharmacist, two retired attorneys, the owner of a heating-and-air business, an insurance salesman, a real estate agent, and the proprietor of an antique shop having more junk than antiques. The owner of the shop—called the House of History—was Wilber Etz. He was their leader, only because he was the natural talker among them, a gift that carried over into his business. If he could not verify the history of an item—from armoires to spools of thread—he would simply make it up. It had taken Cole many years to realize Wilber Etz was a master storyteller.

  Arnie’s Place of Gathering was small and as rustic as a log cabin—which, in part, it was: the inside back wall. It was decorated in scenes and objects of Vermont’s Green Mountains, and it had the odor of oven-baked bread and tableclothes that had been starched and steam-ironed. In daytime it was bright and cheerful and noisy. At night, Arnie kept the lighting dim. Candles flickered on tables. Instrumental music, as subdued as the candle flames, played from hidden speakers at low, barely audible volume. For people who wished to carry on dinner conversations, it was as inviting as any restaurant in the world.

  The men of the Superior Court met in Arnie’s because it was located in the center of Raemar, on the corner of the two main roads crossing in the middle of town, and they could sit at the up-front window table and watch the comings and goings of townspeople. To Cole, Raemar had the look and the feel of Overton. Small, personal, neighborly. On the surface, a good place to live. Still, in the backrooms of politics and business greed, the town had its villainy, its darkness. And there were drug-pushers and drug-takers causing tragedy, and petty crime and assaults rising from temper and the dragging-down of poverty or addictions.

  And fear. There was also fear. Fear of change. The same as in Overton.

  Yet, on Friday, December 24, 2004, the meeting of the Superior Court was festive, as merry as the greetings of the season. As he had his breakfast—eggs benedict and coffee—Cole listened to the men’s banter. The presidential election was still contentious among them, the war in Iraq a head-shaking worry. And then there was the quarrel over having a Nativity scene on the courthouse square in a town in Minnesota, with Wilber suggesting that all of them—if they were real men—should load up in their automobiles and head to Minnesota to join the protests against the three or four radicals spouting off about separation of church and state.

  They need horse-whipping, said Elton Dewberry, the heating and air man. Any son of a bitch that wants to keep Jesus out of Christmas, after the way this country was founded, needs his ass kicked.

  They asked Cole’s opinion on the subject. He said, I’ll be glad to lend a boot, and the men laughed.

  Wilber said, Doc, what’d you get us for Christmas?

  He answered, That’s why I came in this morning. I’m picking up the check. Merry Christmas.

  Well, be damned, said Wilber.

  The breakfast with the Superior Court invigorated him and also reminded him that he had not purchased a gift for Tanya and Mark, though Tanya had warned him against doing such.

  In Paige’s Jewelry and Gift Shoppe, he selected a yellow silk tie for Mark, knowing Mark’s pride in his public appearance, and for Tanya, a cameo. He would not tell her the reason for the gift, still it pleased him that it was more personal than he could admit. The memory of her sitting at his kitchen table, gazing outside at the show, her face lovely in profile, warmed him. He wondered if it was lust, or simply the gladness of having her as a friend. Both, maybe. But if was lust, it was as much for her presence as her sensuality.

  He left Paige’s and made a leisurely drive through the town, to the neighborhoods surrounding it. Snow quilted the yards, sculpted plants. Christmas decorations dangled from porches, some lighted in small white lights, like glowing snowflakes. Wreathes marked doors in large green Os, the bows of wide red ribbon dressing them.

  He needed to get his camera and take photographs and send them to Amy and Rachel, he thought. Once, years earlier, they had visited him during Christmas, tugging their husbands with them, and they had been in awe at the sights.

  The drive back to his house left him jittery with energy.

  For lunch, he had a turkey pot pie taken from his
freezer and baked in his oven. He considered it emergency food, knowing its contents were too calorie-and-fat rich, yet he liked the taste of it.

  After eating, he returned to his office and turned on his computer and checked his email messages, finding only one—from Tanya. I assume you’re still alive and still writing. I’m sorry I asked you about making love to Marie. Knowing the answer dulls my anticipation. I wanted something so steamy it would send shivers through me. My fault for being nosey. Remember tomorrow. And screw your goose. We’re having leg of lamb.

  He laughed, returned a message: My goose is offended. See you tomorrow.

  He opened the MARIE document, read his last entry, then began writing. He would not move from his chair for many hours.

  December 24, Christmas Eve day, afternoon

  It is true that aging toys with memory. Inexplicably, some moments, completely unimportant, remain vivid while others, far more significant, are forgotten. One of the vivid moments for me was dressing for the prom. Perhaps it was because of what happened that night, or because proms are seminal events in the lives of young people—as much ritual as party, the ritual celebrating some mark of growth, somewhat like the pencil line on a door showing height year to year.

  I remember wondering if the orchid I had chosen was too small, too pallid for the quaint, erratic girl who had become a surprising fixture in my life.

  I remember this, also: pulling a trough in the burgundy silk tie, under the knot. Remember standing in front of the dresser mirror, thinking myself as decently handsome as clothing could make me. The soft-gray suit seemed tailored. The lavender shirt was the color of early morning when the sun first dims the clouds—if the clouds are right. I remember admiring my new wing-tip shoes, remember lifting one foot, wiping the face of the shoe across the back of the pants on my opposite leg, and then lifting the other, repeating the motion.

  In the kitchen, my mother’s eyes filled with delight. She hugged me, declared me more striking than movie stars and princes, then made me do a full turn as she checked for price tags. Even my father seemed pleased. “I had a suit almost like that one time, son,” he said. “Courted your mother in it.”

  Toby, my brother, was amused. “That’s a trouble suit,” he advised.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “Means it’s gonna get you in trouble,” Toby answered. He winked at me. “Wish you was big enough to be a real man. I’d borrow it from you.”

  “Leave him alone, Toby,” my mother admonished. Then, to me: “Make sure you tell Mrs. Fitzpatrick that you want a couple of the pictures she takes. You need to send one to Rachel and Amy.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  I knew Marie would not be ready to leave when I arrived at her home. My mother had advised that being late, staying in their bedroom for the final fussing over the final, out-of-place hair, was part of the Junior-Senior Prom ritual for girls. For boys, it meant small talk with fathers. Awkward, throat-clearing small talk. Or it meant the irritating gawking and giggling of younger siblings, believing that a Junior-Senior Prom was little more than an occasion akin to Halloween. And they were not far from the truth. Photographs would prove it. Photographs that, years later, would look childish and humorous. I had watched my sisters, Rachel and Amy, through their prom nights, doing the expected gawking and giggling. Girls turned into girl-women, their dates turned into boy-men. There was little difference between a four year old appearing from the bedroom in her mother’s high heels, baggy dress, swallowing hat, her face smeared in lipstick, than in a teenage girl dressed in a gown. Both were pretending.

  The small talk with George Fitzpatrick was about football. George had played for the University of Maryland. Offensive left guard and linebacker. Once he had intercepted a pass against Clemson and had returned it for a touchdown. “Greatest moment of my life,” he assured me.

  “You thought about playing college ball?” he asked.

  “No sir,” I said politely. “I don’t think I’m big enough.”

  “Lot of good small colleges around,” he advised. “You’re fast. Got a good arm. I think you could make it.”

  “I’ve thought some about it,” I said. It was a lie. After my last football game, I had rejoiced secretly that I would never again have to play football. The boasting I had made to Marie about being a football coach had been nothing but that—boasting.

  The small talk about football ended with a nodding from George Fitzpatrick. He cleared his throat, glanced at his watch, cut his eyes toward the door leading from the living room to the bedrooms.

  “Girls,” he said. “Never on time, are they? My Laura was the same way. Still is. I can get ready to go somewhere, and I have to sit around half the day, waiting.” He glanced at his watch again. “Why don’t I go back there and hurry them along?”

  “Yes sir,” I said, then wondered if I had answered too quickly. “But I’m fine,” I added. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “I’ll just check on them,” he said. He left the room in a rush.

  I remember the moment as one without equal, a sensation that chilled me then and does still with each memory-visit I have of it.

  I was standing in the living room of the rented home of George and Laura Mullen Fitzpatrick, the home with the wraparound porch, and I was looking out of the window at the lights of early night glistening on the waxed hood of my parents’ Chevrolet, and I knew that someone was gazing at me. I could feel it, like people who feel the paralyzing presence of ghosts.

  I turned.

  Marie was standing in the doorway leading to the dining room.

  She had not lied.

  She was astonishing.

  Not girl-pretty.

  Woman-beautiful.

  Her long hair had been cut and was swept like the break of a dark wave to one side of her head. She had never worn makeup. Now, she did. And the makeup—tan from the magic of liquid and powder—was flawless. Eyeshadow of lavender, the orchid’s color, barely visible over eyes that seemed also lavender. Lips of pale, melon-red gloss. The gown she wore was a brilliant white, riding low on her breasts and fitting snug over her body to her knees, and then yawning open in the mouth of a short train that was edged in lace. The dress was topped in a matching, but more delicate lace cloak, a netting that fastened with three pearl buttons at her throat. Her neck and the rising slopes of her breasts teased beneath the netting. She wore white pearl earrings. The orchid was clinging to her wrist like a remarkable piece of jewelry.

  “Do you like it?” she asked softly.

  I could not speak. I remember that, remember being speechless. I think I nodded.

  “Do you know what it is, Cole?”

  Still, I did not answer.

  “It’s a wedding dress,” she said.

  I blushed.

  “Am I beautiful?” she asked softly.

  “Yes,” I told her. “You are.”

  “Am I the most beautiful woman in Overton?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled prettily. “I told you, Cole Bishop.”

  George and Laura Fitzpatrick appeared in the doorway behind her. George waved a camera in the air.

  “All right, young people, get to posing,” George cried happily. “I’ve got a whole roll to shoot.”

  We were an hour late arriving at Kilmer’s Recreation Hall, which had been decorated by the junior class in purple and white balloons and streamers and dimly lighted with colored gels clothes-pinned to the hoods of small spotlights. Some of the sophomores, dressed as waiters, strolled the dance floor, blowing soap bubbles from small bottles of liquid soap. The bubbles floated in the air, took the color of the gels, popped on the heads of dancers. The song playing from DeWitt Kilmer’s jukebox was Three Coins in a Fountain.

  “Behave yourself,” I whispered at the door.

  “Not a chance,” Marie said.

  We entered the room to a gasp that rippled across the room. The dancing stopped and the dancers parted, shuffled back, gazing i
n awe at Marie Jean Fitzpatrick. She stood under the canopy of one of the spots, a soft straw color that covered her like mist from the moon. Straw-colored bubbles rolled like delicate, transparent planets around her face.

  I heard Lamar mutter, “Damn,” in an astonished voice.

  “Make it mine, make it mine, make it mine…” the jukebox serenaded.

  She had said it not as a prediction, but as a warning, and I understood immediately that Marie had known exactly the reaction she would receive at the Junior-Senior Prom of Overton High School.

  The boys—the men—were like whimpering servants around her.

  The girls—the women—hated her.

  Or envied her.

  I could hear them hissing, could hear their snarling, their bickering, their sniping. All of it in whisper.

  “Art Crews, you remember who you’re with!”

  “Pull your eyes back in your head, Hugh. You’ve got all you can handle.”

  “If you think those things are real, you’re crazy. She’s just got them pushed up.”

  “My God, that’s a wedding dress. That joke’s a little old.”

  “I wonder who did her makeup—a house painter?”

  “I swear she dyed her hair.”

  If any of the boys—the men—listened, they did not show it. Their eyes feasted on Marie, undressed her, danced naked with her, stroked her body with their hands and with their mouths.

  “I’m gonna dance with that woman before the night’s over,” Art confided to me at the punch bowl. “And I don’t give a damn if Sally kicks me in the nuts for doing it.”