From Comfortable Distances (11 page)

Neal waited for her at
the edge of her driveway. They walked up 66
^th
street and then
wrapped around 56
^th
drive.

“Have you ever been out
on the docks at night?” Tess asked.

“No,” Neal said.

“Come on,” Tess said
dodging across the lawn of the house they stood in front of. Neal watched her. “Come
on, Neal,” Tess called out. “Come,” she motioned with her hand.

“It’s okay,” she said,
making her way through the backyard and up onto the dock. “We’re not doing
anything wrong,” she said in response to Neal’s face. “Don’t worry. We’re just
going to look out at the water, right? It’s not private property.”

Neal nodded.

Tess climbed the stairs
of the wooden dock and moved out to the edge that jutted into the water. Once
they sat down with their legs dangling over, the water below their feet, Neal
sighed.

“The water is beautiful
at night.”

Tess saw her image
bobbing along the water’s surface. There was always a moment when she stared
into the water’s surface that she felt as if the Tess in the water was going to
pop up and pull her in. Little sparkling images of her glowed in the faint
moonlight, so that she looked like a candle’s flame blowing in the wind.

“Sometimes when I look at
the water, I think there’s a message for me imbedded in it,” Tess said.

“What do you think the
message is?” Neal said.

She bit the inside of her
top lip. It was sore. Her mother had always told her that she would have
bruised lips if she didn’t stop biting her top lip.

“I’m not sure,” she said.
“I used to believe that if I returned to the water every day, the message would
seep into me.”

“Did you stop believing
that?” Neal said.

“No,” Tess said. “I don’t
think so. It’s just that life seemed to get in the way of me going to the water
each day. Other things became more important, I suppose—work, my son.” Tess
shook her head. “There are years in my life in which I didn’t seem to exist,”
Tess said.

“I think we all have
those years,” Neal said. “Life just seems to happen.”

Neal leaned up towards
the sky as if he were basking in the sun. His reflection bobbed in and out of
focus on the water’s surface. He took out a pen and little pad from his blazer
pocket and jotted something down. He folded up the written-on piece of paper
and closed his eyes to the sky, breathing in deep, as if he were sealing in a
wish.

Tess wanted to ask him
what he wrote, but she didn’t. He turned to face her now. There was a quality
of his face that was always shifting. His moods were unreadable to her.

“What’s your passion in
life, Tess?”

The water danced under
the moonlight. The breeze was getting crisper and Tess shrugged her shoulders
and let them fall. She liked feeling cold right now. A pigeon toed the
shoreline and then skirted backwards. Tess was passionate about selling houses,
but it wasn’t the actual selling she loved so much as the chance to connect
with others that it gave her. She was passionate about being a businesswoman.
Only that exhausted her, too.

“I don’t know anymore,”
she said.

In the distance, past the
water’s edge, she was able to see the glare of headlights on the Belt Parkway.
There was an eeriness to the traffic beyond, as if at some point she would have
to move past the water and travel that road alongside everyone else. She had
learned that no matter how much she crawled into her shell, she had to come out
at some point. There was an everyday-ness to the heart of life that scared her,
made her feel desperate to shake things up. While she could never articulate
it, would never need to, she was afraid that she would spend the rest of her
days traveling on roads alone without anyone ever knowing where she was, or
wondering for that matter, when she would be returning. She was beginning to
know an emptiness that she had never known, and while it would have been easier
to run from the emptiness, fill her days and nights with activities, she
believed that there was something for her to learn in the silence.

“What are you passionate
about?” Tess said.

“Writing, I suppose.
Gardening. I like seeing things bloom—playing a role in creation.”

The glare of the
headlights across the way shone on Neal right now, like a spot light. Tess
shielded her eyes with her hand.

“Do you believe people
can change? I mean really change, or do you think we’re all pre-programmed?”
Tess said.

“I think we’re all always
changing,” Neal said. “Like it or not.”

“Sometimes my life feels
like a game of musical chairs, and I just keep getting a chair.”

“Maybe what matters is
that you keep getting a chair,” Neal said.

She nodded. Her fingers
and toes had grown stiff in the cool air.

 “Should we walk a bit?”
Tess said.

They tiptoed their way
across the lawn and then walked quickly away from the house so as not to be
spotted.

“Do you trespass on your
neighbor’s lawns and docks often? Neal said.

“As long as they don’t
have attack dogs.” She winked at him.

The street was silent, as
if the breeze had scurried everyone home.

“Isn’t it amazing how
quiet it is here at night? It makes me wonder what everyone is doing inside
their homes.”

“In Canada, the nights
were so still that you could hear an animal moving across a field. When the
owls would come out and cry, their cries would echo so that it sounded like
they were screaming into a megaphone.”

“Up in Woodstock, the
nights were noisy. There would be dharma talks and laughter and chanting. We
had Satsungs a lot of nights that went on until after midnight.”

“What’s a Satsung?”

“It’s a coming together
with other spiritual people. Actually, it means associating with people who
help you to realize your truth. You sing spiritual songs together and share one
another’s energy.”

In her mind, Tess could
see the people sitting around the Woodstock living room, singing and dancing as
if waves were flowing through their bodies. She had never realized until this
moment what a beautiful thing it was—to be that free.

The church bells began to
ring in the hour.

“There they are again,”
she said. “The church bells. They remind me of the
Sound of Music
tonight,” Tess said.

“Is that the movie you
mentioned to me a few weeks back?”

“Yes,” Tess said. Then, she turned to him. “What
are you doing the afternoon of May 1
^st
? It’s a Tuesday afternoon.”

Neal shook his head. “I don’t believe I’m doing
anything,” he said.

“Would you like to be my
guest to go see the
Sound of Music
at the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan?
I think that you’ll love the movie.”

Neal squinted, as if he
were looking for something in the distance.

“If you can’t go, that’s
fine,” Tess said.

He looked at her and
smiled his sweet smile that made her smile back at him.                       

“It would be my pleasure,”
he said.

Tess was already thinking
about how she would arrange her work schedule so that she could get away and go
to the movie.

When they arrived in
front of her house, they stopped.

“Thank you for walking
with me,” Tess said. “And for the flowers.”

Neal looked at the floor
as if he was checking to see if his shoes were still on. There were moments
when she felt as if she was torturing him.

“Tuesday,” he said.

“Tuesday it is – say
around 11am? I can pick you up,” she said.

“I’ll come here,” he
said. “If that’s okay,” and she nodded. She still didn’t know where he lived,
but it didn’t seem to matter to her at that moment. A car passed in the
distance and the way that the headlights hit Neal and then vanished made him
look like a ghost on her driveway.

She smiled and he began
walking away. She caught sight of rose petals on her porch as she opened her
front door, and bent down to pick one up, rubbing its velvet against her
pointer finger and thumb as she inhaled its sweetness.

Tess screeched into her
driveway and let the car idle for a moment, catching a glimpse of herself in
the rear view mirror before she turned the ignition off. The pockets below her
eyes were puffy. She patted them with her fingertip. She could always have them
fixed. But that would be another thing to do. Besides, there was something
about looking all tucked, tapered and plastic that didn’t appeal to her. She
was growing older. Period. Her skin was going to sag. She turned the rearview
mirror away and sank back in her seat, allowing her eyes to close for a few
moments of precious rest.

She couldn’t remember
what time she had made it into the office this morning, but she knew that it
was dark out when she had left her home. It seemed to her that the more she
tried to accomplish, the more she had to do. She wondered what a day would feel
like without her to-do list. What would she do? 10:50 am.  She never even took
a lunch break, and now here she was back at home at 10:50 am waiting for a
strange man who she was taking to see
The Sound of Music
. Had she asked
him on a date? No. An afternoon movie was hardly a date. She laughed at herself
and let out a long, deep sigh.

Neal’s knock on her car
window startled her. He was on his bicycle, smiling at her through the glass.
The front basket of his bike was filled with a large cellophane bag.

Tess got out of the car.

“Good morning, Ms. Tess,”
Neal said.

“Good morning, Neal,”
Tess said. “What differentiates a bike day from a walking day?” Tess asked.

“There are days in life
when you need to go at your own pace, and there are days when you need to feel
the air rushing at you.”

“I see,” she said.

His dark denim jeans and
white polo shirt made him look like he was trying out for the glee club, only
his navy and yellow anorak, which he wore tied around his waist, added a
sportsman flavor.

“I’ve come with presents.
Ginger cookies, peanut butter cookies, and sugar cookies,” he said, holding out
the red and blue cellophane bundle to her. “You can share them with your
office.”

“Thank you. That’s very
thoughtful of you, Neal,” she said. She took the bundle from him and debated
putting it inside her house, before she opted against that and put it on the
floor behind her seat. She could imagine Michael’s inquisition if she were to
bring a cookie basket to work.

“Do you mind the windows
open?” Tess shouted once on the highway, her hair blowing helter skelter. She
hoped that his bike, which he had put in her backyard, was going to be safe.
There was no telling these days who was lurking around the neighborhood. She
thought about asking him if he had tucked his bike into the cul de sac, like
she had told him to, but didn’t. No need to put any more negative energy toward
it. If anything should happen, she’d buy him a new bike.

“Not at all,” Neal said. “I
like the breeze.”

She caught more than one
whiff of cologne.

“When I was a little
girl, I used to believe that the wind brought us messages,” Tess said. “I’d sit
on my bedroom balcony and try to decipher them.”

“Did the wind tell you
anything special?” Neal said.

Old Spice. He was wearing
Old Spice. Each time the wind rushed in, it drifted into her throat. She didn’t
know they still made the cologne! The sharp musky aroma reminded her of boys
she went to high school with who had just started to shave.

“I think that I heard the
messages I wanted to hear,” Tess said.

“Well then I have a
confession,” Neal said so that Tess glanced over at him; in the sunlight his
eyes were almost translucent blue. “In Canada I used to sit up on the roof at
night and have conversations with the wind.”

Tess laughed. “I think
you’re just trying to be like me,” she said.

“No, really,” he said.

“What did the wind tell
you?” Tess said.

“I did most of the
talking, I suppose, but it did send me things—leaves, pine cones. Actually, it
was the wind that told me to return to Mill Basin,” he said.

“Really?” she said. “Winds
like that would make a fortune in real estate. What did this persuasive wind
say?” Tess said.

“It whispered to me that
I had missed something last time I was here. That I had to go back and find what
I had missed,” he said.

“And have you found it
yet?” she said.

Neal paused; he focused
out the window now.  “I’m always finding things I’ve missed,” he said.

“How's your book coming
along?” Tess said.

“Okay, thank you,” Neal
said. “I'm working out a concept that I've been thinking about for a long
time—it’s about celebrating yourself.”

“As in throwing yourself
I’m
happy to be me days
? I think most folks in Brooklyn would have no problem
with that.”

Neal laughed. “I like
that,
Happy to be me days
.”

“Hallmark would have a
field day – cards, party favors. I can see it now as the next biggest thing.
Remember to think of me when you make millions.”

“You can be my partner,”
Neal said and for a moment he and Tess locked eyes. She wasn’t sure how to read
him—did he like her the way a man likes a woman or was he just friendly? Tess
pursed her lips. At her age, she wasn’t used to the guessing games, but she
supposed she wasn’t ready to make any commitments herself.

“I was thinking more
along the lines of people ordaining themselves what they are in life. So if you
were a grandparent, then you would ordain yourself a grandparent. If you were a
mother, you would ordain yourself a mother. A waitress could ordain herself a
waitress. The premise is that you should celebrate what you already are in life
instead of always trying to achieve something or aspire to be something other
than you already are. Not that people shouldn't aspire to be more, but they
should also remember to celebrate who and what they are along the way.”

“Sounds very empowering,”
Tess said.

“I see it as a form of
acceptance. It gives people a reason to acknowledge themselves and one another
for who they are.”

“What would you ordain
me?” Tess said.

“I ordain you my movie
friend,” Neal said.

“I ordain you my walking
friend,” Tess said.

They both jumped when her
phone started ringing; she pulled it out of her bag—Michael was calling—and
tossed it back into her bag. She didn’t feel like dealing with work stuff. The
minute it stopped ringing, her blackberry email alert went off.

“How’s work?” Neal said.

“People sell homes.
People buy homes.” When she put it in those terms, she felt ridiculous. Neal’s
windbreaker, which he had put on, puffed and the hood flapped in the wind.

 “Are you cold?” Tess said.
“You can bring the windows up a bit.”

“I’m fine,” Neal said. “What
do you like about your work?”

“Making money,” Tess
said. She had never really just come out and said that to anyone. She smiled.
There was more to it, but, she liked making money. Liked being
self-sufficient.  “And I like the action,” she said. “It makes me feel like I’m
a part of life—or other people’s lives, I suppose. I get to play a part in
people’s futures.” She paused. That’s what she was doing at the heart of it –
moving people into their future. “And it enables me to live the lifestyle I
want to live.”

“And what lifestyle is
that?” Neal said.

“I don’t know; I can buy
whatever I want for one thing, and go on vacation whenever I want,” Tess said.

“Do you shop a lot?” Neal
said.

“Well, no, I suppose I
don’t,” Tess said.

Neal nodded.

“Do you go on vacation a
lot?”

“Well, not recently.
Unless of course you count today—I’m on vacation today,” Tess said.

“I wonder if the people
who earn a lot of money aren’t bigger slaves than the folks who earn just
enough to get by,” Neal said.

“I’d hardly think of
myself as a slave, if that’s what you’re saying. I work because I like to work,”
Tess said.

“Sure,” Neal said.

“Oh, don’t think you can
throw the slave to work card at me and then get all smug on me,” Tess said.

Neal laughed a belly
laugh so that Tess laughed too.

“I believe that you love
what you do by the fact that you’re good at it. You’re successful,” Neal said.

“What I don’t understand
is what people who don’t work spend their days doing. I certainly don’t think
sitting around and watching TV or shopping or meditating or whatever it is that
people who don’t work do is the way to happiness or salvation for that matter.
If you want a meaningful life doing nothing, you may as well enter a convent or
a monastery.”

Neal started to choke, or
was he having trouble breathing? Tess moved her eyes from him to the road and
back to him.

“You okay, Neal?”

“Sure. Just…”

“Do you want me to pull
over?” she said.

And then Neal sighed and
caught his breath. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You let me know if you
need me to pull over, okay?” Tess said.  The last thing she needed was for this
guy to have a heart attack in her car!

“No need,” Neal said.

“You looked like you saw
a ghost,” Tess said.

Neal stared straight
ahead.

Tess accelerated and cut
across lanes and put out her hand in front of Neal to keep him from falling
forward in his seat. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't realize our exit was
approaching. Will you do me a favor and get my phone out of my bag to call the
movie theater? I didn’t know what screening we would make it out here for, so I
figured we would just buy tickets when we got there.”

Neal reached into Tess’s
bag and pulled out her phone. He looked at it as if it was a strange animal.

“Just dial 212-777-FILM.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw Neal fumbling with the phone.

“How do you turn it on?”
he said.

“You’ve never used a cell
phone?”

“No,” he said.

“God bless you,” Tess
said. “You may be the only person that I’ve ever met that doesn’t know how to
use a cell phone. Hand it over,” Tess said. She veered off the FDR at 42
^nd
street and when the light turned red, she dialed. Neal sat with his face
plastered to the window.

“When’s the last time
you’ve been in New York City?” Tess asked. She listened to the number prompts
and made her choices.

“Not for a very long
time,” Neal said. “Actually, not for over 23 years.”

“23 years!” Tess said. “Wow,
you really have been away,” Tess said. “Great,” Tess said zooming up Third
Avenue. “There’s a 12:30 show.” She tossed her phone back in her bag. “I envy
you for not knowing how to use a cell phone. I hate this thing and yet I can’t
seem to live without it.” She made a left on 61
^st
street. “Oh, I
think that’s a spot,” Tess said. They were on 61
^st
street between
Third Avenue and Lexington Avenue. “It’s a little bit of a walk, but we have
time and if you’re up for it, I am.”

Neal nodded. “Sure thing.”

“Just close the door,”
Tess said. “I’ll lock up.”

“New York City. I’d
forgotten how busy it was.”

They were making their
way down the street; the tall buildings shielded the sun so that the air was
cooler and a shiver went through Tess.

“What did you when you
were here 23 years ago?” Tess asked.

“My parents took me to
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and then to some Italian restaurant in midtown. I left
for Canada a few days after our city excursion.”

Tess pointed to the
Christ Church on the corner of 61
^st
and Park Avenue.

“See that church? It has
a quote board in its little alcove. Every few weeks, they put up a new quote.”
Tess led Neal to the quote board.

I cannot step into the
same river twice because I am never the same.
–Heraclites

They paused beside one
another taking it in. The church clock struck the hour—12:00.

“We should get going,”
she said.

I cannot step into the
same river twice because I'm never the same
. That was true enough—each day existed
independent of another; what she may have felt yesterday was by no means what
she may feel or think today. She closed her eyes and saw the words.
I cannot
step into the same river twice because I am never the same.

“My treat,” Tess said
when they came to the ticket counter. “I dragged you here.”

“Thank you,” Neal said.
He put away the money satchel that he had pulled out of his back pocket. It was
made of a thick fraying brown cloth. It looked like something a caveman would
carry his money in.