Losing Julia (4 page)

I walked over to the dresser, picked up my comb and tried to impose some order on my hair, which was light brown and unruly. Frankly, I hated being average-looking, especially since none of the women who appealed to me were average-looking, which meant I was always working with a handicap. And Julia? I thought of her full smile and the whiteness of her neck and the way her eyes were set deep beneath dark eyebrows. I imagined the fullness of her breasts beneath her dress and how it would feel to trace their gentle curves with my hands. But men like me could never touch women like her. Daniel, yes, not me.

I’d always been shy, my inborn confidence stripped by my ineptness at any and all sports, so that I took refuge in books, which helped neither my social skills nor coordination. And I’d always found girls—at least the ones that interested me—especially intimidating, certain they were acutely attuned to my every flaw. Altogether, high school was a disaster from which I still hadn’t fully recovered. I was, at best, seen as a “nice boy,” the kind that parents like to pat on the top of the head and teachers entrust with weighty missions to the office. When an attractive girl approached me, it was inevitably to confide how much she adored one of my strapping friends.

And yet, at the memorial, Julia had seemed attentive; interested even. I tried to imagine what she was doing in her room and how she felt about meeting me. The futile daydreams of a married man. Pathetic. My heart quickened and I stood in front of the mirror, staring.

Careful Paddy.

We met in the lobby at eight p.m. I was there early, sitting on a small sofa flipping quickly through a magazine.

“Oh there you are,” she said. That smile. I stood quickly. She had changed into a white shirt and burgundy-colored pants—Charlotte wouldn’t have been caught dead in pants—while her hair was pulled back in a bun and she wore a simple pair of silver hoop earrings. I had to keep from staring at the gentle curves of her hips, which suggested all sorts of other perfect proportions.

“You look… absolutely great,” I said.

She smiled shyly. “Thank you.” We stood in silence for a moment, then she looked down at her hands, winced and said, “I forgot my purse.” She bounded back up the stairs.

When she returned she held the worn brown leather purse up, as if to demonstrate that it was now securely in her possession, then said, “I’ve had a few days to look around and I know a wonderful little cafe just four blocks from here.”

“Lead the way,” I said, placing my hand gently against the small of her back.

Outside the air was cooler and laced with the earthy scent of fall, which always made me nostalgic. We walked slowly, brushing each other, and I tried not to think of how long we would have before we had to say good-bye.

I studied the buildings, noting which were old and which had been completely rebuilt since the war. When we passed the clock tower I remembered that I once drank at a bar around the corner in a building that now housed a bakery. Perhaps the town’s consumption of beer wasn’t what it was ten years ago.

“This has been such an adventure for me,” she said. “It’s such a beautiful country.”

“Oh yeah, it’s one hell of a place,” I said.

She gave me a strange look.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that when I was in Paris listening to all these tourists gasping over the culture and architecture and cuisine, as though they’d completely forgotten that… ” I couldn’t think of how to finish.

“Forgotten what? Tell me.”

“That the world damn near bled to death here, that’s what.” I pulled out a cigarette and lit it quickly.

She waited for me to continue.

“I don’t mean to sound so bitter.” I smiled to myself. “That’s the one thing my parents kept telling me when I came home, that I’d become cynical. The funny thing is, before the war I didn’t have even a hint of irony in me. I was so
simple.”

“I’m glad you’re not simple anymore.”

“Well if I sound too bitter, just shut me up.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to.” She gave me a longer look and a smile that made me want to kiss her.
What’s with me?

“How long have you been in France?” I asked.

“Two weeks, mostly in Paris. I’ve been here for a few days. It’s quite a lovely little town, not anything like it was during the war, I’m sure. Maybe we can take a hike tomorrow? I’d like to see some of the countryside.”

“Yes, I’d enjoy that.”

Another day together. That was all right, wasn’t it? Then I thought of Charlotte and felt a tightness in my stomach. Simple guilt? No, something more complicated. Charlotte. My wife. Mrs. Delaney. Sean’s mommy. I pictured her familiar face and gestures. Certainly I loved her. She was a good wife and mother; kind and dependable. Very solid. More than most men deserve. So why did I feel so drawn to this other woman? I’d hardly been with her an hour and already I felt entranced like some besotted schoolboy. I flicked my cigarette butt into the gutter. Was it all those months fantasizing about her in the trenches, only to find that she was better in the flesh? I looked over at her as we walked side by side in the easy silence of old friends and imagined what it would feel like to kiss her.

Again I felt a surge of guilt, followed quickly by desire.

We walked six blocks before Julia realized she was lost, then another three to the right, two to the left, until finally we happened upon the restaurant she had in mind.

“I knew it was here someplace,” she said, looking relieved.

“I never had a doubt.”

We sat at a small corner table, lit by long yellow candles in white ceramic candlesticks. The light played off the small windowpanes and made Julia’s face look warm and tan. I studied her lips and the shape of her delicate ears and how she crinkled her forehead when she smiled, giving her an appealing, innocent expression. She ate very little, with long pauses between bites, and I couldn’t tell if she was shy or preoccupied.

“Where are you and Robin living now?” I asked.

“Monterey, but I think we’ll move soon. Maybe Los Angeles.”

“You move a lot.”

“There’s a lot to see.” As she raised her wineglass to her lips I noticed her nails were bitten to the quick, which surprised me. A lifelong habit or did that start with the war? I couldn’t imagine her actually chewing on them, but it made her seem more human to me. More vulnerable.

“I thought I’d travel more myself, but after the war I just got bogged down with work and family,” I said, trying to smile.

“Do you feel bogged down?” she asked, smiling back at me.

“Only sometimes. You’re lucky you have a skill you can take with you anywhere.”

“Sometimes I only feel at home if I’m moving,” she said. “Then everything seems fresh and alive, the way it felt when I was a child.”

“And what is it you’re looking for?”

“What do you mean?” The question seemed to make her uncomfortable.

“When you move. I thought you must be looking for something.”

She was silent, looking down at the table.

“I’m sorry, I thought perhaps… ”

“I guess I’m looking for what I no longer have. That sense of being completely alive. I can’t really describe it. I just remember feeling it.”

As I watched her eyes well up I sensed for the first time the depth of her pain. Another war casualty, only all her scars were on the inside. But some of those were the worst kind, weren’t they, cutting off the flow of life with all the force of a tourniquet.

Completely alive. I thought about what she meant by that; about all the joy and wonder and passion that had slipped from her fingers. Then I thought of Daniel; of the power in his eyes and voice and his strong, handsome features and the way he listened to you so that you finally felt understood. Thinking of him made me feel tremendously inadequate again; plain-looking and ordinary and dull, with no business to be sitting across from this exquisite woman. Worst of all, I felt incapable of removing the sadness from her eyes.

She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “You said you were an accountant?” she asked.

“Rather boring, I’m afraid. I’m not even good with numbers.” My choice of professions was a constant source of chagrin to me.

“I’m sorry it bores you.”

“The truth is, I just fell into it. The firm is my father’s pride and joy.”

“Tell me about him.”

“His father was a coal miner in Pennsylvania. Died at Antietam at thirty-six, leaving six young children. My father was the oldest, so he went straight to the mines at fourteen, but he was too smart for that. So he taught himself to read and eventually won a scholarship offered by the mine owner.”

“What happened to the rest of his family?” She was still leaning forward. Staring. I lit a cigarette, concentrating on the way the flame climbed up the wooden matchstick toward my fingertips.

“The two youngest boys went into the mines and only one came out. My Uncle William died in a mining accident in 1902. My aunts went to work in the textile mills. Grandmother died in 1903.”

“What about you? What did you want to be as a boy?”

I wanted to be a man sitting across the table from you. The thought made me turn away from her. Then I said, “Well, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I always wanted to be some sort of artist. I wanted to be the first Delaney whose life was not totally consumed by the struggle to get ahead.”

“Why is that embarrassing?”

“Because I’m no artist.”

“Well, you don’t sound like an accountant.”

“Thank God.”

“You don’t even look like an accountant,” she said, smiling.

“Are you trying to butter me up?”

She laughed and cast her eyes downward.

“So what
do
I look like?” I braced myself as she looked back up and scrutinized me for a moment.

“An absentminded English professor.”

I frowned.

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked.

“Frankly, I was hoping for something with a bit more cachet. Famous author, that sort of thing.”

“A lot of women swoon over their English professors,” she said, smiling.

I blushed as I signaled the waiter for the check. Was she attracted to me? It seemed inconceivable.

When we stood together out in the street I asked her if she would join me in a nightcap. She nodded, standing close enough so that I could smell her breath, which was moist and inviting. I looked quickly at her lips and again felt a sudden burning sensation in my chest. The romantic heart does live in the chest, doesn’t it? Always that tight, burning feeling, like a warning or urgent demand.

We stopped at a small bar on the corner and ordered two brandies. The men stared at Julia but she didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t act beautiful; on the contrary, she didn’t seem concerned with her looks at all. As I sipped my drink I thought of how wonderful it would be to stay up all night talking, then watch the sunrise.

“Cheers,” she said, raising her glass to mine. After she took a drink she placed her glass down gently on a paper napkin, then ran her fingers along the rounded edge of the table. She had a habit of moving her hands a lot, not out of nervousness but as though curious about the texture and feel of things. Several times during the evening she placed her hand on my forearm or shoulder while making a point and I wondered if she knew how powerful that was. I liked people who spoke with their hands, so long as it looked natural. I looked down at my hands, which lay immobile on the table, and commanded them to join the conversation. Soon I was enjoying myself, telling funny stories just so that I could flail my arms in a certain way. When I knocked over my brandy glass, she burst out laughing.

“I’m not sure brandy is your drink,” she said, as she dabbed the brandy off my shirt with her napkin.

“It’s the Prohibition. I’m out of practice.”

She went up to the bar to buy me another drink. I watched her squeeze in between a row of men and then laugh with the bartender. No wonder she loved to travel; she seemed at home anywhere. “On me,” she said, returning. I took the glass from her and thanked her.

“Were you shipped home quickly?” she asked, sitting close to me. I glanced down at her forearms, which were lightly sprinkled with freckles.

“Five months after the Armistice. Five god-awful boring months.”

“You must have been glad to be home.”

I shrugged.

“No?”

“You’d think so, but it just didn’t feel the way I had hoped. We got our sixty-dollar bonus and a uniform, coat and shoes—they let us keep our gas masks and helmets for souvenirs if we’d been overseas—and that was it. After the parades and speeches it was like it never happened. There was no grieving, not like in other countries. Everybody just went back to work.”

“It’s not something people want to dwell on,” she said.

“Maybe they should dwell on it,” I said, feeling my anger return. I leaned back in my chair. “One minute you’re picking up after a shell has landed in a crowded trench, and the next you’re at a dinner party listening to people belittle someone for their taste in china. Hell of a transition, if you ask me.”

She nodded very slowly, as if she truly understood.

I took a long sip of my drink, enjoying the warmth of the brandy in my throat. “It felt like such a betrayal.”

“Of those who died?”

“And their loved ones and the wounded and everyone else whose lives were absolutely wrecked.” I squeezed my fists together, then let out a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m sorry… ”

“Don’t be.” She leaned toward me and placed her hand on mine. I looked down at it, at the smooth white skin and thin fingers and the small creases at the knuckles. Beneath her hand my own looked exceptionally large and worn.

I felt suddenly overwhelmed with the desire not only to touch and kiss her but also to tell her things I’d never told anyone since the war, things I’d seen and done and endured. Is that what Daniel meant, that you could say anything to her? And is that what the poets write about; about two souls who find each other and can live apart from the rest of the miserable, lonely world? Who wouldn’t give everything for such closeness?

“I hated Daniel for enlisting,” she said, sitting back in her chair with both hands wrapped around her glass. “He was so damn stubborn about it.” Her eyes reddened. “He was just doing it for his parents, to make them proud and win them back.” Then she tried to smile and said, “He didn’t like guns. I couldn’t even get him to shoot the wooden ducks at a carnival.”