Matecumbe (18 page)

“Tell me, Melissa, have you considered what we might do if I can’t get a job near Philly? If that happens, would you want me to move up here anyway? Would you want me to be a bum while you go to work every day?”

Hesitating for just a few seconds, Melissa then admitted, reluctantly, that she had never even given thought to the “Joe Gets No Job” scenario.

“I still believe, deep down in my heart, that you’ll find a job. And yes, you can move up here anyway. I can support you until you find work. Maybe that would be better anyway. If you’re living here, it will be easier for you to apply for work in this part of the country, a lot easier.”

“That is, truly, quite generous of you, Melissa, but I think you’re missing the point. You’re forgetting how uncomfortable I would feel if I had to live here while you pay all the bills. In that kind of situation, with you as the breadwinner, I just wouldn’t be the same Joe Carlton.”

“So what you’re saying then is that your career as a policeman is more important than me. It’s either that, or you’re trying to weasel out of marring a divorcee. I guess I’m just second-hand goods.

“You prefer the joys of being a traveling playboy, don’t you, stopping by, digging in, and then moving on again? Just tell me, honestly, Joe, are you trying to find an excuse for walking out of my life?”

“Now, try to calm down a little, Melissa. I know this is very serious stuff here, but really I don’t think I’m looking for an excuse. It’s just that I can’t see both of us being happy if I’m sponging off you while you take care of all the expenses. And please, Melissa, the fact that you’ve been divorced is immaterial. That has nothing to do with it at all.”

“You’re a man, so you must have considered it,” Melissa intoned, small tears now appearing at the edges of her eyes. “If I were single, even if I had had a dozen affairs, single would be easier for a man to take, wouldn’t it? To a man, getting married and limiting himself to one woman is enough of an ego shock. But if a man is getting himself married to a divorced woman, it’s even worse. It’s like buying a used car. Your male ego can’t stand being second in line, can it? This is your real insurmountable problem, isn’t it, Joe? Because ever since you were a little boy, you’ve been pampered into thinking you’re special, and no one who’s special likes to take second-hand goods.”

By now, Melissa’s tears were flowing steadily on her cheeks and down onto her chin. With her elbows on the table now, she had her head lowered. She used the napkin she had set for her coffee to dry the water on her face and eyes. When she had finished, the crumpled napkin had a distinctive smell, like the sudden opening of a makeup case.

“Melissa, I don’t know how else to say this, but you are not second-hand goods. You are lovely, you are precious to me, and I care for you so very much. I just ask that we postpone making any more plans until I’ve had time to think about my life and where I’m headed in this world. I’m not going to abandon you, Melissa. I just wanted to talk to you and tell you, as frankly as possible, how I really feel.”

Joe was standing now, right alongside a seated Melissa.

And though he may have appeared twice as tall as she, it was he who seemed vulnerable. By holding out his handkerchief like a defeated general waving a white flag, he tried to win her trust.

Melissa, turning her head ever so slightly toward Joe’s gaze, flashed the tiniest of smiles as she grasped the handkerchief.

With what seemed like a reactive motion, Joe placed his hand on Melissa’s shoulder as she dabbed at the remainder of her tears.

“Come, Melissa. Let’s go into the living room and sit on the sofa. I think we both need to relax.”

Within a few seconds, Joe was holding her tightly as they reclined on the sofa. The only light now shining came at an around-the-corner angle from the kitchen they had just left.

Then, for about half an hour, even though arm-in-arm, they said nothing to one another.

Melissa, with her legs now stretched outward on the sofa space to her left, immersed herself in cold, survival-like thoughts while Joe clutched her close to him.

As she lay resting, listening to the nearby grandfather clock tick away the minutes, Melissa realized she hadn’t said a word since her outburst about second-hand goods. And although she was experiencing a slight bit of guilt for having accused Joe of not valuing their relationship, the volleys she’d fired had left her feeling successfully purged of most of the fears she’d been harboring.

She really didn’t know what she wanted to say next. So, while she remained cuddled next to Joe, staring across the darkness of the living room, she forced herself to think logic instead of fury.

Hoping she was being realistic, she attempted, in her mind, to give Joe the benefit of the doubt, trying to ferret out the hidden plusses in his sudden resolve that “we postpone making any more plans.”

“It’s true,” she told herself, “that if he has been running around with some Florida floozy, he wouldn’t have had to give me his little speech at all. He could be shacking up with a woman like that every night of the week in Islamorada, and I’d never know anything about it.

“Also,” she realized, “Joe does deserve some credit for being an honest and up-front person. As soon as he walked through the door, he could have had all the sex he wanted and then dropped his bombshell. Instead, he got right to the point. I would be feeling a lot worse right now if he had had his fill of my body BEFORE he started talking.

“Of course,” Melissa continued, searching deeper for a reason, “perhaps all he wants is to have me available for steady sex—with no commitment on his part. I have to think of that possibility as his primary goal. Joe has been free of commitments for so long now that he probably thinks our charted relationship, with day-by-day plans that lead toward marriage, has sort of put him behind bars.”

Without realizing it, Melissa began talking aloud to herself.

“When I was a little girl, my stepfather took me deep-sea fishing in Ocean City,” she said. “He told me that when I hooked a fish, I shouldn’t pull hard right away, because the line might snap. I should let the fish swim away a bit with the line until he gets tired. Only then should I pull him in.”

Melissa suddenly sensed a silence, thinking that Joe might have dozed off while holding her in his arms. So, without any accompanying body motion, she started whispering his name.

“Joe . . . Joe . . . are you awake?”

“Mmmm, yes,” he answered, obviously groggy but moving toward consciousness after a brief snooze.

“I went fishing once in Ocean City,” he mumbled, while clearing his head, “off the 55
^th
Street bridge. Uncle Steve took me.”

“Should I keep the ring?”

“What?”

“Joe, should I keep it, the engagement ring?”

“Absolutely, Mel. ’Til death do us part.”

Outwardly, Melissa presented a cheerful appearance through the remainder of President’s Day weekend. But despite her smile and the warm feelings she experienced whenever Joe clutched her hand or held her body close to his, the magical moments could not be duplicated. Unforgettable memories were not in the making.

Physically, Melissa felt as though she had fallen victim to a constant, dulling toothache. Emotionally, however, it was her heart that had suffered a setback.

Melissa and Joe made love twice that weekend—on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday night. Happily, the erotic pleasure still existed for both of them.

Joe seemed thoroughly exhausted at the end of each of these sessions, just as he had earlier in their relationship. Once again his body had been spent, literally, in two highly successful physical efforts that pleased both Melissa and him.

And while she was making love to Joe, Melissa managed to forget completely about the new uncertainties of their immediate future. Pressing her naked body next to his and experiencing his strong, powerful technique left her as satisfied as ever.

Both of these bedroom encounters left Melissa with a warm glow that lasted long after Joe had recovered from his exhaustion. But part of what she felt was a hit-and-miss, fleeting pang of guilt soon after the conclusion of their sex. For though she had knowingly curtailed her foreplay, Joe himself showed no restraint, giving to her every delicious portion of all that she had been accustomed to receiving.

For the remainder of the time they spent together that weekend, Melissa and Joe joked with each other, watched a R-rated movie on cable television, and, in general, enjoyed the couples-only solitude of an extended domestic holiday.

Melissa was successful in preparing the dinners that she had planned in advance of his arrival. To Joe’s credit, he assisted—by grating some Parmesan cheese for the crab au gratin and by cutting mushrooms and onions for their bounteous salads.

The only time they ventured out of Melissa’s house was to take a long Sunday afternoon bus ride to the Philadelphia Art Museum. In the uncrowded confines of this majestic building, overlooking the Schuylkill River, they gazed at the works of the old masters and were treated to a special exhibit highlighting artifacts recovered from early “Pennsylvania Dutch” settlements.

Even some of the largest rooms in the museum were empty of visitors. In two such spacious areas, Melissa and Joe exchanged impromptu hugs and innocent, cheek-to-cheek kisses—just like a pair of preteens who weren’t sure exactly what they were doing but knew that it was fun.

As they exited the museum, Joe stood at the top of the outdoor steps, flexing his muscles à la that fictional film star, Rocky Balboa.

“You’re mugging, and there’s no camera,” Melissa commented, wryly. “Save it for the evening news.”

“TV news don’t mean nothing to me, Adrian,” Joe answered, mimicking Rocky’s punch-drunk drawl, “unless you’se the one who’s watching.”

Finally, when it came time for Monday afternoon and Joe’s departure, Melissa, as usual, wished that she could be in his company for just a little while longer.

The pain of being rejected, however, still smarted within her. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t offer to drive him to the airport and, instead, called a cab.

“Better he should leave the same way he got here,” Melissa reasoned. “Since I have this hunch that I may never see him again, I don’t want to have to remember the foolishness of chasing him to the airport. It’s bad enough that I’ll be haunted by the memory of how he arrived here last Friday, smiling and suntanned, and the realistic hopes I had when I watched him stride toward the house. For my sake, I hope I don’t cry, and I hope I don’t wish to go back in time whenever I look out into the street and see nothing, no one. The image I keep of his presence as he walked up my front steps will be balanced by the remembrance that I sent him packing.”

In their farewells, Melissa and Joe formulated no plans to see each other again on any definite future date.

“I’ll call you in a few days,” was all Joe could offer. “And I’ll keep sending out my resumes. Who knows? We might get lucky!”

When the cab arrived, idling noisily at the curb, Melissa followed Joe only with her eyes as he ambled through the cold and pulled open the rear door on the passenger’s side. The wind was at his back now as he looked up to throw her one final kiss.

Melissa responded by thrusting out her left hand to acknowledge his retreating salute, keeping the right one tucked tightly behind her—fingers crossed. And from his seat in the cab, Joe flashed that patented, shutter-like sparkle of a smile. Then, with one last wistful wave of his arm, he was gone.

As the cab approached the corner, Melissa couldn’t stand her restraint any longer. She dashed from the house frantically waving at the cab, but Joe never turned around. She stood there shivering in her jeans and sweatshirt as a light snow fell around her. The snowflakes mingled with the tears now coursing freely down her cheeks.

Unemployment was always on her mind. And although Mary Ann tried to busy herself with activity-type distractions, she couldn’t help thinking about her current status as a woman who was no longer a permanent member of the work force.

“Unlike in the past, when several eviction notices were tacked on my front door,” Mary Ann realized, “Paul’s financial help now has made it easier for me to adjust to being jobless. I realize that being out of work creates a certain state of mind, as well, aside from the money problems. Unemployment can be depressing, and I’m grateful for Paul’s emotional support. The last time I lost a job and couldn’t find new work, the kids helped me crumple up all of our overdue bills. Then we started a little fire on the sidewalk. That tiny protest had no impact on anyone else, but it was good for our souls.”