Summer Accommodations: A Novel (36 page)

But there was to be no sleep that night. No sooner was Ron quiet than the realization that Sarah was lost overpowered and engulfed me. The ache of the loss obliterated any contact with the loving feelings that had lifted me, weightless, to float through much of August. I hoped the pain would not last and would never be available for summons as more than a memory of suffering. I had sprained my ankles so often and broken enough bones to know the brain was so constructed as to protect us from the re-experiencing of such pain. We don't have to stand in the fire a second time to remember the burn. Was the broken heart subject to the same rules of protection? Sobbing into my pillow I saw her exit Harlan's car, her cigarette held aloft, over and over again, each time her smile wider, the fog and smoke no longer obscuring her joy at having been with him. Finally, the desolation drove me from my bed. Ron's snoring blanketed any noise I made while going through my dresser for a change of clothes.

Weak with grief I went into the shower and turned on the spray. The water went from cold to hot to warm as I adjusted the temperature. The sky was already gray at the window over the toilets. Another day was beginning. I thought, the judge, or whoever he was, was wrong about routine. Sure you may get up at the same time and reenact the routine ritual ablutions of the morning but that day is different: the light is different, and you are different. If you are living, not merely existing, each day alters you and makes you a little bit different, just as every tide alters the sands of a beach. In the two months at the hotel I had been changed day by day, imperceptibly on any given day but, on a signal day, an abrupt and startling event occurs and you are transformed. The night before had been such a transforming experience. I rubbed my stomach where Harlan punched me. It was still tender between the navel and the place where the rib cage parts, the solar plexus, the place boxers try to land their body blows. If not for that pain I might have tried to trick myself into believing it all had been a dream or a trick of the imagination, something to enliven a dull summer job. I know I wished it all had been a fantasy, that Harlan had never said more than hello to Sarah and that she thought he was an okay guy but just a little too slick for her taste, a pair interested in no more than the occasional courteous exchange. Then both might still be close to me. Now both were lost. The shit had found me.

S
ammy was waiting for me as soon as I arrived in the kitchen for breakfast.

“How would you like to be a waiter for your last week?”

“Working for you, Sammy, is like being a waiter all summer.”

“If my query makes you queasy do not become quarrelsome and querulous because there is a quid pro quo.”

“Shit,” I said, in disgust, “is this really the time for one of your dictionary games?”

“It's always the time for my dictionary games, you illiterate idiot. Ben told me Harlan left early this morning. If you take Harlan's station starting at lunch I'll collect your tips for the past week from our guests and let you collect what you can of Harlan's tips. His busboy can't wait on a whole station of tables, I know that and he knows that, and if you fill in for today you can have the station for the week and then come back as a waiter next summer.” He was beaming, delighted, promoting me well in advance of the age at which waiters were hired.

“No thanks, I'll stay with you.” I'd had enough changes and wasn't about to inform Sammy right then that I didn't intend to be back next year.

“Melvin, don't let me down, I know Hawthorne is gone and the employment agency only has drek available, come on, be a waiter for me.”

“I'm sorry, Sammy, there must be someone else you can ask, I just can't do it.” A disgusted look appeared on his face, a sneer that dilated his nostrils and pulled the corners of his mouth down.

“This is how you thank me, this is how you show appreciation for everything I've done for you?”

“That's not fair, Sammy, I've never refused you before.”

“I've never asked you for anything before, for godsakes, all I ever asked you to do was your job. This is the first time I ask you for a little something extra, and this is how you say thank you to me.” Despite his pressure I wouldn't change my stand. “I guess that's it. Okay, I'll find someone else. And you can be a busboy again next year.”

Leaving the dining room after breakfast I was accosted by Ben Braverman at the back door.

“Melvin, you didn't tell me Harlan left the hotel. Did you tell him about your meeting with Joe?”

“Never.”

“Did you tell him about a chute at the side of my house?”

“No. We had a fight about Sarah and then he left.”

“He left because you two fought about your girlfriend? Melvin, do you think I'm an idiot? Why would he leave over something like that? Did it have anything to do with my daughter?”

“In a way. He was getting involved with Sarah and,—listen, I'm still pretty upset about all of this and …” Ben grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face him.

“You told him about the trap, admit it, don't lie to me.” I looked away and nodded.

“I just wanted you to tell me the truth, Melvin. Harlan was seen trying to leave the grounds very early this morning. I figured he was going to beat it if he got wind of my plan so I had Joe on watch in the parking lot. Joe discouraged him from trying to pack it in and leave. Joe is very persuasive,” he said, with a knowing smile, “and Harlan got the message, but you won't be seeing him again. And by the way, Harlan was the thief we were looking for. He had a jewelry store in his toiletry kit. Someone will come by later to collect the rest of his things.” He gave my shoulders an affectionate tug then turned and walked away. It was a relief that in the end I was spared having to turn Harlan over to Ben. He had betrayed me, but I hadn't betrayed him; I hadn't violated the code.

I walked back to my room wondering about the things Harlan left behind. What were his things? There was the temptation, a strong desire to look into Harlan's dresser drawer. Who knows what's to be found there? As a child I had discovered pornographic pictures in the dresser drawers of Jerry and Steve. They were hard core black and white photos of couples engaged in sex, the men naked but for the black anklet socks they wore. Some of the men attempted to disguise themselves by drawing the outlines of eyeglass frames around their eyes, as if these pictures might fall into the hands of their friends and relatives who'd scrutinize the porn wondering, could that be Manny? Harlan probably didn't need any pictures. He didn't flip through copies of Playboy because he had women climbing all over him like grape vines on an arbor. For all of his womanizing, his seductions and betrayals, he never joined in the waiters and busboys sex talk about girls. In the end I shrugged off the impulse to search whatever he might have left behind knowing there'd be no money, or jewels, or answers to his mystery.

There was some time to kill before lunch but it was of no use to me. I was without strength or vitality. I felt as though my muscles had been detached from my bones. If I were to go to the basketball court my shots would never reach the backboard; if I went to the pool to swim I'd sink like an anchor and drown. There was nothing that appealed. It had been several weeks since I'd smoked a cigarette and even that held no temptation. It was as though grief had removed me from myself and the world of the every day. Ron was waiting for me when I entered our room. His promise to be chaste until he and Vivian were reunited had failed the test of Martha's physical allure and, like a compulsive masturbator, Ron would be guilt-ridden and self-loathing in the immediate aftermath of an episode only to be drawn back again by desire and the need to re-test his potency.

“So, what happened with you and Sarah?”

“Not now, Ron, it's just too soon, it still hurts too much to talk about.”

“Is that what you and Harlan fought about last night?”

“Who said we fought?”

“Nosy Abe. He said he heard a loud thud that woke him up. When he peeked into the room you were gasping for breath on the floor and Harlan was standing over you rubbing his fist.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn't call that a fight. It was just his one punch and that wasn't about Sarah.”

“That bastard. So what was it, you wanted switchies with Heidi and Mr. Cool took offense?”

“Listen! I don't want to talk about it! Let it rest. I'll tell you when I'm ready.”

“Bullshit, you can tell me right now. In a few days this will matter no more to you than judge Crater did, believe me. Remember how hard you worked to help me with that?” Because of or perhaps despite his sarcasm I wouldn't reveal what I knew about the judge.

“Another bad night with Martha, Ron, is that what you're taking out on me?” Whatever warmth he'd shown when I told him Sarah and I were through had cooled. Was it his struggle to abstain from luxuriating in Martha's spectacular anatomy that had him so tense or was he just mean by nature? Either way there was no time for this now.

“Even a bad day with Martha beats no day with Sarah.”

“Whatever you say.” I grabbed my towel and went to the shower room to get away from him.

Immediately I began thinking of Sarah and her demeanor just hours ago. She'd said I love you. It didn't make me feel any better then and recalling it in the midst of my pain only made it worse. Was it truly over? Was I too injured to let her back in? The pain of betrayal and loss is ineffable. You know it when you feel it. It can't be described or imagined; it is a unique pain that exists apart from language. Shakespeare wrote only “howl” for Lear when he comes upon the body of his beloved Cordelia, “howl” because the pain of that grief strikes one dumb, obliterates words and leaves one to wail like a wounded animal.

Once before in a circumstance of heartbreak I learned, completely by chance, that swimming a great distance under water grants you asylum from the pain. You become aware of everything but your thoughts then, aware of your breathing, aware of your surroundings, aware of your physical experience of buoyancy, of the temperature and pressure of the water against your body, of the quality of the light around you, of anything and everything but your emotions and your thoughts. Amidst the waterworks of showers and sinks and toilets I sought to submerge myself in an interior sanctuary but my tears would not hold back and as I started to cry Ivan Goldman and Spider Johnson came into the room. Pride could not suppress my pain but it could propel me into the shower and, still in the clothes I'd worn for breakfast, I turned on the cold water and stood under the icy spray as it washed the tears from my face. Ivan and Spider left without a word. They had witnessed my madness and turned away from it just as people do in the subways or the streets of New York City, as if to acknowledge it might somehow burden them with an insufferable responsibility for me. Better just to look away and leave.

2.

I sleep walked through lunch and dinner. Sammy did not chide me for being aloof and unsociable that night. Either he saw that I was totally incapable of any kind of friendly interaction or he was punishing me with indifference, his “eye for an eye” kind of justice. “Sammy, I don't mean to disappoint you it's just that I've had so many things change in such a short time I can't take anymore changes.” He shrugged and left me sitting near our side stand. The thought of Sarah was still too painful to dwell on. I had not tried to contact her and Heidi, who was completely undone by Harlan's exit, had not shown her face all day and was not available to bear messages between us. I caromed between longing and resentment whenever Sarah's face appeared in my thoughts. I was unable to make a plan, to think straight.

With Harlan gone and Ron off to see Martha yet again I had the room to myself. A visceral churning kept launching me off my bed and into the center of the room, but for what?

My restless pacing and mindless motion was like an awkward ballet performed to atonal music. Every thought felt ugly, discordant, wrong in some way. On the one hand wait for her to come to me and beg forgiveness, on the other hunt her down and make passionate love to her, let the lusty fires consume the awkward fumblings of the past and her betrayal as well, yes, even that, like a smelting furnace, so a new love might be cast from the molten remains.

By10 o'clock I knew Sarah was not going to come looking for me. I sat on Harlan's bed contemplating what I believed were my choices. Hadn't she said she loved me? Hadn't she sobbed and pleaded with me only hours ago? Why be so fearful of meeting her, why expect her to be other than as she was? But I had a feeling Sarah would not be as I had left her early that morning. Should I trust such a feeling? Was the old cautious Melvin back in charge? What happened to the Melvin who said even bad news is better than no news? What happened was he didn't get accepted to Columbia and had become wary of that attitude. Nonetheless, I knew it would be another sleepless night if Sarah and I didn't meet.

Once again, on the path behind the waiters' quarters, I stumbled on the old well's stones. For all I knew Judge crater was down there after all but this wasn't the time to ponder that possibility. Funny how things had proceeded since Ron and Lenny marched me to this place. I would have been laughing about how the summer had evolved if Sarah and I were okay; but we were not. This was not the time for laughter.

Sarah's roommate Barbara met me on the porch of the counselors' cabin.

“Sarah is at Heidi's house. You can imagine how Heidi is feeling.” It seemed as though Sarah had said nothing about our crisis to Barbara because her tone was matter of fact and chummy.

“Yeah, Harlan left early this morning. I bet he never said goodbye to Heidi.”

“Oh, but he did. He even apologized to her for flirting with other women.”

“Flirting! That's a laugh.”

“Well, it wasn't with other women,” she said, drawing quotes in the air around other women, “it was with Sarah.” I stiffened. “He said he didn't mean anything by it, just being playful, but he should never have done anything like that, however innocent, with Heidi's dearest friend.”

“How did you hear about this?”

“Sarah told me. She was with Heidi all morning and at lunch she asked me to cover her group so she could stay with Heidi and comfort her some more. That was when she told me.”

“Is she going to sleep there tonight?”

“Maybe, she didn't say.”

“Maybe I should bring her some clothes, you know, a nightgown, or pajamas or …”

“Heidi has plenty of pajamas, Mel, you don't have to bring her anything.”

“I want to see her,” I blurted out suddenly, startling us both.

“She doesn't want to see you, Mel, not yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mel, give her some time. She was almost raped by those two bastards last night. You saved her, I know, and she's very grateful to you for that, but she can't be around anything male right now.”

“Anything male? You mean roosters, and stallions, or just men?”

“Don't be hurt, it'll be okay, just give her a little time.”

“That's all there is is a little time. There's only a week left to the summer,” I protested in vain. Barbara shrugged and went back into the cabin.

When you come right down to it, the last thing you think at a time like this is that she's too embarrassed to face you. No, what you think is she doesn't care about you anymore and is deliberately avoiding you rather than say it to your face. I considered going to the Braverman residence and knocking on the door but it was late and Ben probably had exhausted his tolerance for my romantic travails. The late August cold enveloped me and made me shiver. Standing on the porch of the dormitory afloat in the murmurous sounds of girls preparing for bed, I wondered about my choices. Was I already forgiving Sarah for what I'd seen? Was I craving her so ardently I'd accept her on any terms? Should I simply leave and forget her, no goodbyes, no see you in the city, no expectations of anything? I didn't have to decide at that hour. It was only later that I realized it was not even my decision to make.

That night I didn't sleep at all but swam and swam in my internal refuge.