Looking for Mr. Goodbar (16 page)

It was almost a year before he got the courage to do it. That morning, when she told him to go, he’d asked where he was supposed to go, and she’d said without hesitation, to his mother’s, which of course wasn’t really leaving at all. In that year they had counseling from the rabbi. Rachel’s father. The less said about that the better. He went to various forms of therapy and tried to get her to join him. He went to a psychiatrist in New York, a psychologist in Nyack and a group upstate where you stripped to your underwear and did exercises to get in touch with your feelings. He spent a great deal of time and energy trying to figure out how he could get Rachel high; he felt if he got her past that initial barrier he might be able to make some headway. He considered lacing her orange juice with acid because that would be easier than getting some grass into her, but it didn’t seem morally right. Besides, it was powerful stuff, and how did he know what her reaction might be? She might go totally out of her mind and stay there. He was just beginning to realize, anyway, what with the reading he was doing and the people he was talking to, what a disturbed person lay under Rachel’s drab, stable exterior. He was afraid of driving
her over the borderline. For a while, when he’d given up all hope that the situation between them could improve, he stayed purely out of the fear that she would go berserk or even kill herself if he left. Then one day when he’d been in that phase for maybe three months he’d said to himself, “Wait a minute. She may go crazy or kill herself if I
leave,
but I might do it if I
stay!
”

They’d reached Greene Street, which was dark and ugly and littered with garbage. St. Marks Place had begun to get too crowded for her taste, with kids and other strung-out types, and too dirty, but this was much worse in its stillness. They climbed onto a huge cement platform to enter the building, which had a strange, musty smell. Then he used a key to open a grate in front of the elevator doors which then opened vertically, or which he pulled apart vertically, bringing to mind guillotines and other unpleasant images. The elevator itself wasn’t like an elevator but like a huge warehouse room that moved slowly. After what seemed an interminable time they reached the third floor and he again pulled open the doors.

They stepped into a huge room that was almost empty. There was no light on but the wall at the far end didn’t go up to the ceiling and there was a dim light from the other side in addition to the light from the street. In one corner was a mattress with a madras spread and some old pillows; in another some unglazed pots were resting on racks. Here and there a newspaper or magazine looked as though it had been flung on the floor.

“Welcome to the palace,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll make some tea.” He went through the door at the far end.

She took off her coat and sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress but then she was cold and put the coat back on. A few minutes later he came back with the tea and sat beside her on the mattress. They sipped in silence for a while. He seemed suddenly shy, maybe because he had handed her his whole life.

She asked him if there was any chance he’d ever get to see his kids. He said he didn’t think so and he didn’t want to talk about it, it was too painful. She said she was sorry, that she didn’t even
know why she’d asked. He took out a plastic bag of grass and some papers and began rolling joints on his leg. When he’d rolled two he lighted the first one and offered it to her. She inhaled deeply. He asked her how she felt and she said she felt fine, which was true. She didn’t even feel the need for a joint; she was loose with the wine and with having gotten away from Katherine. She inhaled again. She was getting high very fast.

She wondered if he would try to make love to her and if he did, whether she would let him. It was hard to refuse if someone really wanted to. She tried to remember how she had refused someone in the past and then realized that she couldn’t remember because she’d never actually done it. This was unsettling; she looked at Ali suspiciously, now that he briefly seemed to hold her fate in his hands.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just . . . who’s in there?” Gesturing with her head over the top of the wall.

“The friends I stay with.”

“How many?”

“Three,” he said. “It’s this woman and her two kids, actually. Her husband left and she’s letting me stay here.”

“Letting you stay here.”

He nodded. “She’s a really good friend.”

Theresa dragged again. “She doesn’t care that I’m here?” Why was she asking? She herself didn’t really care if that woman cared.

He shook his head. “She’s not that way. She’s not at all possessive.” He passed her the joint again. “Why don’t you lean back against the pillows? You’ll be more comfortable.”

She looked back at the wall, then at him, and smiled. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s too far away. It’s sooooooo far.”

“I’ll help you.” He helped her back and then stretched out beside her and they smoked the second joint, smiling at each other. He asked if she wasn’t too warm with her coat on. She asked if he wasn’t too cold with his coat off. He said maybe he was and they took off her coat and stretched it over them.

“Now you won’t be cold, Ali-Eli,” she said.

“Hey,” he said, “I like that.”

“What do you like, Ali-Eli?”

She felt like the naughty princess in one of her old fantasies. When she closed her eyes she could see a beautiful girl on ice skates twirling around on her blades while twelve handsome men in tuxedos and Norwegian stocking caps chased her gracefully over the ice. She closed her eyes so she could see them better. Ali kissed her.

“Mmm,” she said. “They’re making figure eights but there are twelve of them so they don’t all fit.”

“Mmm?” He was massaging her breasts, now lifting her sweater. He was so big and soft and cuddly. Like a teddy bear. Once there’d been a teddy bear at the ice show; now she could see a hundred of him holding a hundred little girls who were her in his arms as he whirled around on the ice. She let Ali undress her, too limp and relaxed and absorbed in her pictures to do more than help. He grunted as he took off his own clothes. He was so big and white. A white whale.

“Moby-Ali-Eli.”

He parted her legs and before she knew it he was in her, but it was all right, she was ready. It felt fine. He came very quickly, and that would have been all right, too, except that instead of staying in her and waiting, he rolled off and lay on his back. She got cold and went under the covers. It wasn’t comfortable; the sheet was wrinkled up and full of crumbs and you could feel the mattress buttons right through it. Not nice. But not important. She’d have liked him to stay in her for longer but that wasn’t important, either. He was really nice. Lovable. A teddy bear. Moby-Ali-Eli-Teddy Bear. She drifted into a sleep full of teddy-bear images and then he was kissing her. In her sleep she turned to him.

“Terry. Wake up.”

“Hmm?”

“I want to take you home.”

She opened her eyes, disbelieving. The heaviness that was pleasant when you were making love was awful if you wanted to wake up.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to go home alone, I’ll walk you.”

If he was doing something for her why didn’t she feel as though he was doing something for her?

“I’m so sleepy,” she murmured.

“Mmmm,” he said. “You look beautiful when you sleep. A perfect little
shiksa,
fast asleep.”

She sort of liked that. She knew the word from Martin but when he used it there had always been a more ironic tinge.

“You want me to get up?”

“It’s better. It’d be uncomfortable in the morning.”

“Your friend?”

“Mmm.”

“I thought she wasn’t possessive.”

“She isn’t. But you know how it is.
I’d
be uncomfortable.”

“What time is it?” A delaying action.

“A little after four thirty.”

“How come you’re wearing glasses?”

“I took out my contact lenses.”

Slowly she forced herself to get up and get dressed. He was dressed already. She was cold. They went back through the big empty room and the triple locks and the awful elevator. She felt as though she were running a nightmare in reverse—too fast and light for it to be really scary but quite unpleasant nevertheless. Only the fact that she was still a little high kept it all from being worse. Downstairs and out again. He lifted her down from the cement platform. There was no one else in the streets until they got to Second Avenue, where a few spaced-out kids stood almost motionless on the corner. In a doorway two of them sat huddled together. Homeless. She shuddered. Imagine if you were always having to leave. Out of one doorway into another. Out of . . . she
had the beginning of a thought but it eluded her. She felt lucky to have a nice cozy apartment to go to. It was really cold out. As a matter of fact, she was really glad he’d gotten her up. She wouldn’t have liked to wake up in that cold ugly loft in the harsh daylight and make conversation with Ali and his friend.

He came in with her and seemed reluctant to leave. She thought maybe he wanted to be asked to stay and that would be nice, getting into the cold bed with someone to put your cold feet against. She told him he was welcome to stay and he said he wanted to but he’d left his contact lenses under the ashtray and if he didn’t get to them before the kids woke up he’d be in trouble. She said okay. He took her number and she waited to hear from him for several weeks and then concluded that he wasn’t going to call. This bothered her, not in the way that Carter’s disappearance had—she was to be deprived of another marvelous time with him—Ali-Eli didn’t particularly even turn her on. But he was a nice, big, cuddly, amusing man; surely they could have seen each other once in a while. Had some fun. Nothing serious. Coming to the conclusion that she didn’t really care about hearing from him didn’t stop her mind working over the experience like a dog at a bone, though. Looking for some new shred of evidence to explain what was wrong with her that he, that Carter and Martin, that anyone could leave her so easily.

When she wasn’t thinking
about Ali she thought of Brooks and Katherine. Katherine had moved out. She kept trying to bump into Brooks, who never seemed to be at home, thinking she would tell him how she felt, that she considered him a close friend no matter what, but she couldn’t find him to tell him. If she tried to go to sleep at a reasonable hour she would lie in bed, her mind bouncing back and forth between Ali and Brooks. If the phone rang she grabbed it eagerly, hoping it was one of them, although it always turned out to be one of the people she was friendly with
at school. There was talk of a big strike the following term, largely over the issue of community control. Sides were shaping up already and the older teachers, who with one exception were fervently with the union and against the community, talked in small groups in whispers.

Finally one night as she lay staring up at the ceiling, worrying about Brooks, she heard a door open and footsteps overhead. Impulsively she got out of bed and got into jeans and a sweater. She almost ran out of the apartment without her key but then at the last minute she ran back, combed her hair, got the key and ran upstairs.

Her heart was beating wildly and she was out of breath, so she waited a moment, then knocked at the door. He opened it without asking who was there. Her heart was still pounding furiously. He looked awful—ten years older than when she’d last seen him.

“Hi, Brooks.”

“Hi, Theresa,” he said casually. “What’s doing?”

They were both embarrassed.

“Brooks, I just . . . I wanted to tell you . . .” He’d lost a lot of weight and lines of exhaustion cut deep into his face. His tan sweater hung limply on his frame. She couldn’t speak. Finally he asked her if she wanted to come in for a moment. She nodded.

The only light in the room came from the light machine that was mounted on a shelf facing the sofa. In the moving light she could see that the apartment was neater than it had ever been when Katherine was there. In a strange way the neatness made it worse; while it was messy you’d assumed it would look all right if someone would just straighten it out. Now you could see how little concern had been there from the beginning.

“I’ve been worried about you,” she said. And she hadn’t even known what he would look like. Maybe in the back of her mind she’d even thought he would look better because he’d really be better off without Katherine. “I wanted you to know . . .” What had she wanted him to know? “. . . that I still love you like one of my own family.” She’d gotten it out.

“That’s sweet of you,” he said. He was smiling but as though she were talking to him long distance from California. “I really appreciate that. You’re a sweet kid.”

Kid. That was a strange thing to be calling her. She felt a little put down by it, as though he were saying she’d offered him something less than an adult could give.

She said, “I’m not sweet and I’m not a kid, I just—”

“Don’t you be mad at me now,” Brooks said.

“I’m not mad, I just . . . I’m almost twenty-five years old. I’m not a kid.”

“Anyone who’s sweet is a kid,” Brooks said. “That’s all I meant. Someone who’d never hurt anybody.”

It didn’t satisfy her but she felt a little relieved.

“Anyway,” she said, “please come down and have dinner one night if you feel like it.”

“Sure,” he said. “Sure I will, Terry.”

She turned to go and as she did a motion at the back archway caught her eye and she turned toward it. In the arch, leaning against one side, wearing a big floppy T-shirt and nothing else, was a very small, slim and beautiful girl with shiny black hair that came down to cover her breasts. She might have been eighteen but fourteen was closer. Terry stared at the girl, who was not the least bit uncomfortable, then at Brooks, who looked the same as he had two minutes before. Tired. Not caring.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know you had someone here.” She felt unreal.

“Don’t make no never mind,” Brooks said with a fake Southern drawl, raising his hands in a gesture that told her not to leave worrying but to leave. Who was she kidding, he was a part of her family?