Truths of the Heart (36 page)

“Shall I call you Dr. Zannes again? Shall I write you a note, lie to
truth and let you read my lie?”

She put her hand on the door knob. “I have to go.”

“You are a false spring.”

She stopped.

He looked out at sunlight breaking through the clouds. “The sun is
coming out.”

In her life she had never felt this genuine, pure, alive.

He quoted: “'Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and
the act falls the shadow, For Thine is the Kingdom.'”

She knew the poem,
The Hollow Men
by T.S.Eliot. She walked to
him, touched his shoulder.

He turned to her and took her fingers and kissed them softly and held them
to his face. He looked into her moist eyes.

She withdrew her hands and looked away. “Seth, you have such a promising
future.”

“I have a theory Doctor, about the future: there is none, it's all a
myth, we are living in an unseen myth, someone's imagination, like a story, a
novel, and the writer has no boundaries and things simply go all over the
place, planes crash, people die, doltheads win. Whatever the writer decides, we
do. On the other hand, in a lesser book, call it 'The Good Book of Life', minor
writers have to be somewhat logical or their readers will be suspicious of plot
manipulation.”

“But Seth, you know what I mean, find a young person to live your life with.
Not someone who can only cause you pain.”

“Listen to you, that is not you talking. That is some phony person
inside you.”

“Seth....”

“If you don't want me that's one thing, but don't lie to me with egg
roll slogans.”

“Seth, I….”

“'Truths of the heart', remember the lectures, Doctor Zannes?”

She knew. She didn't know what to say. She had never thought of her growing
fondness for Seth as a life relationship.

Or had she. Yes she had. But …
come on Doc, who are you kidding.

He said, “You know Dr. Zannes, there is in the artist's world an object
called a reducing glass. It shrinks subject so that the rough edges appear less
evident than when viewed normally.”

He paused, “Some people do that with truth.”

“Thank you Dr. Trudow.”

He started toward the door, “I'm sorry, Dr. Zannes. It was foolish of
me. I'll not bother you anymore. You can go off and create new knowledge and
find truth. Please feel free to stay as long as you like.”

“Where are you going?”

He opened the door. “Please show yourself out when you're back in disguise.”

“Seth, wait. Let's talk.”

“I have some things that I must do.”

“Wait.” She went to him. “Seth, Please, don't be difficult. Let's
reason this out.”

“Reason it out, null the hypothesis, science a proof.”

Frustrated, “Yes, yes, who is the teacher here?”

“Some third person.”

“Seth, please....”

“Why are you here? You could have brushed me off long ago. Why didn't you?”

“But Seth, can you imagine. In ten years I'll be fifty....”

“Oh my, old granny.”

“I'm also married.”

“To what?”

She said nothing.

“Tell me to buzz off, get lost Trudow. But please don't play this silly
game with me.”

She looked into his eyes and that said it all. He took her face in his
hands and kissed her lips.

“Oh Seth....”

“Let it happen.”

She stepped back, “Seth, no … this will only hurt you and I so much
don't want to do that.”

“I have to go.”

“No, not yet.” She held his hand.

He released her grip, paused, “Rachelle, you're right, we should take
some time to reason this out.”

“You sound like the professor.”

He said, “You know that favorite spot of yours along the Red Cedar,
what was it, your Rodin spot. I'll meet you there, let's see, time to think it
over, today is Friday, say Monday night, that'll give you time. We'll meet, say
the bewitching hour, midnight. If you can change the law of gravity, dear
Professor, you won't be there, and I will see you no more. Good day.”

He left.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After leaving Seth, Rachelle drove around. She drove around just driving.
She drove around. She drove to Grand Ledge, past her childhood home. Her father
vivid in her memory, she drove around. After two hours of driving around,
finally home in Lake Lansing, T.S. greeted her with a long “Meeeooow,” and an
even longer once-over.

“I know, I know.” She threw her baseball hat on the counter along with
her sunglasses.

The kitchen phone blinking, two messages, ID, Carl. She played them:

“Rachelle, you there? Pick up. Did you reconsider coming over for the
weekend. More lawyer meetings on Saturday, or I'd come over there. Call me.” BEEP.

“Rachelle, you there, pick up. Your cell phone is on messaging forward
too. Call me.” BEEP.

Her mind in shadow, doubt, excitement, with both hands she squeezed her
hair back over her head. Should she call Carl or not? She was getting better at
it but still a terrible liar. No. She erased the messages, left answering on,
and poured a glass of white merlot.

Evening coming on, the sun setting, the hours, the minutes, the earth seemed
to move more slowly on its axis.

Even the rays from the sun mosey. Mosey? And who can say not. Who cares?
The tides care. He has never done more than kiss me, and I am even now
exploding. God help me, I love him. This is insane.

She ate nothing, drank another glass of white merlot. T.S. avoided her.
In bed, she tried to read, fell asleep just after three A.M.

Dream grabbing images of Seth at her face, the phone rang. She had
turned the kitchen answering machine on. After the second ring she heard Carl's
voice booming up the steps like a tidal wave: “JESUS CHRIST RACHELLE. YOU
THERE? PICK UP. RACHELLE, PICK UP. HELLO. WE'RE LEAVING FOR D.C. SUNDAY
MORNING, HEARINGS START ON MONDAY, SHOULD END COUPLE DAYS, THEN, CORKY AND I
ARE GOING ON TO BARCELONA, GAME ON SATURDAY. CALL ME.”

She looked at the bedside clock. 3:20. She thought about calling just
so he’d stop but instead rested her head back in the soft pillow. T.S. snuggled
up by her side, she closed her eyes and, who knows how long after, dreamed:

The phone rang. The message machine on, she yawned at the prospect of
talking to Carl. She picked up. It was Seth. She said, Hi there, why don't you
come over. Sure. We can go for a boat ride. She turned to a rustling and Seth
stood by the side of her bed. She threw back the covers, pulled off her night
shirt, reached for his hands, began kissing his fingers....

She awoke to a real ringing, the bedside phone. She picked up. The answering
machine audio playing, “No one is available….”

She said sleepily, “Hello.”

Carl: “Where the fuck you been!”

She hung up. The phone began ringing again. After two rings, she heard the
downstairs machine's audio playing then a click. No message.

****

Up at six, Rachelle did her calisthenics, went downstairs and made some

hazelnut cappuccino.
T.S. stressed, he wouldn't eat.

She said, “I'm sorry, we'll just have to work this through.”

She decided to go shopping, went to the mall and walked around. Then
she walked around. Then she got in her car and drove around. Then she went
home, took T.S. and sailed around Lake Lansing in
Percy Bysshe Shelley
.
Came back, took a swim. Cajoled T.S.

And everywhere there was Seth.

His touch floored me. And when he kissed me … try to be adult. If you
were adult, you would not be in this pickle. How juvenile and unscientific.
Scientific! You! Call 911! Call Elisabeth! Somebody. It's a sexual attraction
that would be over after the first union. For him or you?

She found herself angry for thinking of their relationship at such a visceral
lever. She wanted it to be on a higher level. She wanted it to be beautiful.

Do you hear yourself Zannes, this is mad.

Remembering his tenderness, she was weak, sweaty, she had never been sweaty
before over a male.
It's obscene. Oh, really. Wait until Carl....

Sunday was more of the same. Wandering around shopping malls, sailing, swimming.
Unable to think of food, she drank a half-liter of white merlot. Dozen calls
from Carl, she didn't answer. T.S. was in hiding.

Sunday night warm, she put on white silk pajamas and, thunder and
lightning nearby, sat in the upstairs study nursing a glass of white merlot. A
window open, the curtains billowed from a heady breeze. Out of nowhere T.S.
jumped beside her and made big-time eye contact.

She said, “I know.”

She took up her journal and wrote:

Seth, Seth, Seth … this is stupid, idiotic, maddening. Grade school
nonsense … is it? I want to devour him, give him, mother him, love him,
everything. It is not a wanting from him. I want to overpower him with giving,
draw him into me and surround him, protect him. I can't do this.

She paused, said to herself, “Why can't you, Doc? Do an experiment. Hypothesis:
Young men and older women have more fun. Or the null, young men and older women
have less fun.”

T.S. purred.

“Thank you very much, I need you purring just now.”

He yawned.

She wrote:

It has happened. It is born. A living thing. Growing by leaps and
bounds. You're so very fortunate. Many people never know. Never realize what
you have found. Take it. Live it. The world will be better for it. The human
race will be more human. And don't be gumming, when you are seventy, “What
might have been.”

She thought a minute then wrote:

Molecules have rearranged themselves in a unique one and only one
pattern so that nothing in the future will ever be the same. Possibly never
again. I feel like I'm reaching a time when all the hours, the time of the past
is speeding together like sand in an hour glass, rushing to pass through the
tiny passage through which all the grains must pass. Rushing, longing,
grasping, and then calm. If not the calm then what? Love or a battering of
regret? Whatever happens, let it not be the tragedy of a moment gone. The wink
not winked. The hello not said. Seize it, relish it, live it … be his summer
sun, winter warmth. I want him in me all over me, and we will grow a forest of
love.

As if he had read her thoughts, T.S. jumped off her lap.

“That bad huh.”

Just then the bedside phone rang. Thinking it must be Carl, she went to
the phone. Caller ID indicated anonymous.

Seth?
Her heart
skipped a beat. She picked up. The recorded message ended. She said “Hello.”

No response but she sensed that someone was there.

“Hello.”

Nothing.

She hung up. The phone began ringing again. She picked up, “Hello.”

Recorded message ended, a moment of silence, then a long shrill hyena- like
laugh.

She hung up. Her immediate thought, “Kids, pranks, wrong number.”

Later than night, in bed with T.S. by her side, lightning and thunder, steady
rain, she thought she heard someone on the deck. She looked, nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY

For Seth, the time since he left Rachelle in his apartment passed like
a long flight over endless seas. Saturday morning he drove Jude to the airport.
An emotional send off, they would write, keep in touch; he would keep her
posted on his apparition. He then delivered her car to Ron's Ford dealership
and took a bus home.

Beneath the sickness at the loss of Jude, every thought, everything he
touched, every place he looked—Rachelle. Her smell, her freshness, her face,
her touch, her voice, her teeth, everywhere. Rachelle, Rachelle, Rachelle.

Damn!

Sick is easy, he thought. I have never been this whatever-it-is before.
Who are you kidding? You know what it is. Say it. What started it all. Love
.

He couldn't work. He tried to paint but the thought of living with her,
sleeping with her, eating with her, breathing her breath destroyed his
concentration.

Then another ill set in on top of what-started-it-all:
she might not
show up Monday night.

That thought melted into endings:
Why now, her, this way? What is
this? I think they call it tragedy or melodrama or who knows, who cares. How
about sappy. Sappy, yes, knowing you, sappy. You know Seth-o, nothing is ever
really imprinted on you unless the ending comes up botched. Where did that
obscene pessimism come from?