The Sea of Light (21 page)

I don’t respond, but don’t have to. She continues without pause:

“And the next time she came home she was impossible. Really. Just impossible.”

“In what way, Barbara?”

Now there is a silence; she is somewhat taken aback by my use of her first name, and, without really fully understanding why, both of us know it. Still, I’m glad. It has, somehow, given me an upper hand—which I need—because this, for all its careful disguise, is combat.

And for a moment I am this young, young woman, barely past adolescence, standing in shadows at the top of some stairs, about to do battle with my own enraged mother.

But that, too, is a way of connecting.

“Well, Bren,
you
know how it is—we take care of these children as if they’re pure gold—flying all over the country with them, or for that matter the world, and rushing them off long-distance to the best internists or orthopedists every time they suffer a sniffle or an ache or pain. Then there are coaches and teams to cope with. And the other parents. And special diets. And separations. Sometimes, to be honest, you find yourself wondering if you’re doing them a favor or a disservice—you wonder if it is all really worth it in the end. You worry: Are you neglecting the others? Being fair to everyone else, and true to your child’s talents and desires, and to your
own
desires and values, at the same time? And then one day they look at you with resentment. Because, for all your efforts, encouragement, support, you have failed to do everything
perfectly.”

There is anger in the voice. Disappointment. And a terrible suffering I cannot pinpoint.

I ask her, very quietly, if she thinks that children expect perfection from us, after all? If, given the choice, they might not choose love instead? It occurs to me, as I say this, that Chick would surely approve.

Oh, of course, she replies. But there is so much more they need to learn, to succeed in life! So much more than love.

It occurs to me that maybe she’s right.

There is success, there is winning.

And if I want Babe Delgado to win for me, insofar as I am able I must keep these people—these privileged people who gave birth to her, raised her, fed her, coddled her, drove her, loved her, punished her, supported her, came closest to her—completely off her long, thick back.

“Keep an eye on her, Bren. You will, won’t you?”

“From the point of view of her swimming? Of course. And her health? Well, as much as I possibly can. Sufficient rest, nutrition, healthy habits—these are all things we like to emphasize here—”

“Yes, good, but I mean her weight. Her weight. It is imperative, absolutely imperative, that she face up to reality and start to lose that weight.
You
know, and
I
know, that unless she gets her body under control again her swimming will never be the same.”

“Barbara,” I say, “what if it never
is
the same?”

“Her body?”

“Yes. Or her swimming. Is that something
you
can live with?”

Oh but it’s not me, she says, It’s her, don’t you see? It is all just for her, in the end.

This is a stalemate, and we both know it.

Still, I tell myself, stalemate is better than defeat. For all I know, Barbara Delgado is telling herself the very same thing. That, like me, she will live to fight again.

We chat about this and that. Weather. Massachusetts neighborhoods. She is being a
bachelorette
this week, she says. Bachelorette. The word sounds odd somehow, as if it ought not to really exist. Yes. Taking care of the kids. Going out with the girls. Her husband is away on business. In Los Angeles. Unfair, don’t I think? that husbands get to go away like that, develop splendid tans on some beach near the Santa Monica Pier, and do a little business in their spare time? But what about us ladies?

L.A., I think. But he said Miami.

Oh, I say drily, I suppose we all survive.

“Tell me, Bren. Are you married? Children of your own?”

“No.”

Ah, she says, I see.

And I think: Touché.

Okay, lady, send out your first range-finder. See what damage it does. But pick on someone your own size; send it out at me, not at your daughter—she’s been through enough, don’t you think? Even though, for all we know, Babe is tougher than us both. Even though, for all we know, you may love her more than your own sweet life.

*

There’s an extraordinary clarity, sometimes, to the sky along the Pacific coast. You can see the perfect outlines of cotton clouds, puffs as defined as human muscle, shift and keep pace with the wind. The graying of the sky will blur color, but not form, turning Bay waters slate gray, too; a monotony of tone broken only by the white-bubbling extremities of waves, or shadowless triangle of a human figure wind-surfing. And, not so far off, you hear the ships. Especially after twilight—when the pinks and beiges and pastel shutter colors of homes dotting each hill are gentled to slate tones, like the water and the land—you hear foghorns, too, cutting through the bright mutter of feet scuffing sidewalks and Golden Gate grass, traffic, voices.

I was here twice before with Kay. Once for a conference she had to be at, from which I kept my distance and just roamed. We flew back east a few days later, my mind filled with vague images of magnificent flowers, petals the color of salmon blooming in green oceanside parks, eucalyptus trees, salty air mixing with the smell of cedar chips on dirt trails, waves exploding against sharp cliffs, superb food, women.

It was for the women that I brought her back with me again, two years later. The city she’d seen dimly sifted through the pages of an academic conference—spiced by a single opera excursion, and dinner at some Chinese place—was different from the one I’d found in my meanderings. Once, that first time, I’d paused in twilight in a twisting nexus of hilly streets, watched women walking by arm in arm and hand in hand, casually, naturally, openly lovers, as if they walked like this every day. Which, I realized—with a kind of shock that traveled through me, leaving some dull deep ache of longing behind—was probably true. Smells came to me: wet salt, oil and metal and leather, something sweet. Men walked by, too, some obviously together, some alone and boldly evaluating the others. Handsome men. Muscular men. Sometimes a bare knee or glimpse of buttock poked through torn denim. Aftershave perfumed the air, key chains clinked. But it was the women I watched, not paying much attention to how they dressed, really, but intently scanning each face; and I noticed that some of them watched me, too, with grinning eyes that met mine, teased, invited, winked, before passing by.
Hey honey!
someone called from a rooftop cafe,
Come on up and party!
I glanced up to see two of them leaning over a railing, staring down, faces in the shadow too dark to tell whether or not they smiled, but I knew without seeing that they did.
Hey, my friend likes you! Come join us! Enjoy yourself.

For a moment I wanted to, but thought of Kay, and didn’t.

Later that night, though, we had a fight.

I don’t like the way you’re ignoring me here, I told her. There’s this whole terrific city out there and we could be seeing it together and you’re missing it, Kay, you’re missing it.

She turned her hands palms up, in that Jewish Mediterranean gesture that means, Well, so? Saying, What would you like me to do, love? Skip this conference? Not give the paper?

No, Kay. But we need more time together.

Oh, God. She rolled her eyes, crossed arms over her breasts and took this stance, like she was guarding some fragile trail between here and something terrifying, at the risk of her life; and no one—even I—was going to pass. Despite this, this inexplicable fear I sensed in her, she smiled. The way she smiled was with the fear, sure; but also with a kind of triumph.

Look who’s talking! Super Coach! Miss I’m-Too-Busy-Right-Now, Kay!

She was right.

Well, partly.

It shut me up, anyway, and I spent the evening sulking while she did some last-minute revisions of the paper she had to present the next day. Both of us went to sleep early, grumbling good-night. But I woke up in the dark to feel her running a hand along me, rolling naked hips into mine.

Don’t leave me, she said. And pulled me to her, flicked her tongue into my mouth. Then without thought of who we were in the world, or to each other, without remembering anything about gentleness or tenderness, or even love, I followed the natural course of the motion and rolled over on top of her and rocked full against her, pressing her down into the soft part of the bed, feeling her arch up again and again and push me along, like I was some rhythmically flexing bridge spanning her and myself, and we kept moving that way roughly, hot damp elastic friction, breathing very hard and panting sounds of pleading and of power to each other, until I felt her thighs and toes stiffen under mine, then pause, groan, then break open. I wouldn’t stop but kept sort of riding her, then, until I heard both of us half-laugh, half-cry, and felt her burst all over and through me, and then I surrendered control, gave myself up to her and to the motion, shook and dissolved into wet shattered pieces.

We fell asleep like that, without a word. In the morning she had her wake-up call early and hauled me into the shower with her, shampooed our heads and the hair between our legs, made me scrub her back thoroughly, leaned against a tiled wall in the full spray of water and steam, facing me, placed a hand along the backside of each thigh to urge me closer. We kissed until the water began to run cold, dripping into our eyes, spouting up our noses, so that we laughed, and almost drowned.

We stayed naked and opened a window wide. Sea breeze blew in. The weather was cool, shifting between sun and fog. We dried each other off with towels and the breeze, dressed for room service, drank a lot of coffee, ate muffins with jam.

Come here with me next year? I asked. But
not
for a conference.

All right, she said, In the summer.

Later she went off to give her paper. I kicked around the city feeling lazy, sated, drowsy, like a well-fed animal. It was there—near that hilly nexus of streets in the Castro, as I wandered in and out of shops smiling at people, at women and at men who were all naturally, casually, unquestionably gay—where I felt there was this dark cold thread inside me that might be broken, that could be changed to something resembling the nature of light. If only I could stay there somehow, in that city—with Kay, with my very own love—and wake up every morning to know how intrinsically, undeniably mine the city was, how at the core of it stood this still-unfulfilled offering of ecstasy and freedom, a self-contained world in which straight people mattered not at all. I could feel the bright sure power of that. Beyond the power, very close, lurked dignity; and beyond that, I knew, there was peace.

I thought all these things. But my life as I had made it was elsewhere, and we caught a plane out that afternoon. Kay’s presentation had gone well; on the way back home, she slept.

We had tentative plans to return next year, in the summer. But things piled up for her and for me—there were papers to write, reviews to edit, last-minute recruiting and funding and scholarship hassles—and, between one thing and another, it was nearly a full two years before we went back; this time into a dry California August out of which only the Bay area seemed to emerge unscathed: cool, calming, flourishing.

Walking up and down those streets again, jet-lagged, slightly numb, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d died and gone to heaven. That evening we went out together, into the part of town where you could live your whole life and never see a straight person. Kay looked dark and elegant, moving beside me, taking things in; you could hear the click of brain and heart wheels spinning, absorbing, theorizing but also enjoying; and I held her hand. Usually we did not walk hand in hand anywhere but through our own backyard—which was so carefully tree-shrouded—and to do it in public made me self-conscious at first. But after a while I relaxed, and I could feel her relaxing, too, sinking into the natural sweet solidity of it all: two lovers, together several years by now, out for a stroll in the evening. We ate Japanese food in a too-modern bright-lit industrial-looking place, where delicate wall prints softened the decor and everyone was gay—waiters, chefs, clientele—and women couples, in leather, or denim, or frilled skirts, or tailored executive dress, or combinations thereof, abounded. It was obviously nothing new for any of them. They were out on dates, or talking business. They did this frequently; it was no special treat, but a part of their everyday lives. And because of that, I imagined, they did not talk much about being gay, but about their natural human problems and joys instead. Later, we browsed through a bookstore. Kay bought things. She touched my cheek once, gently, leaning against the cashier’s counter, told me how nice this felt and how good it was that we had come here.

We got back to our hotel before midnight, stripped and showered, started to watch cable TV but soon turned it off and made love for the first time in weeks—loudly, enthusiastically. It was so tender and surprising, so well synchronized between the two of us, so pleasing and good and so much fun. Her coming always unhinged me in some way I never expected, catapulted me into this bright high-voltage place from which I emerged quivering, sweating, then sedated. Lying there, afterwards, I wondered why we did not do it every night—or every week—or, at least, more often.

Marry me, I mumbled to her. Jet lag had overpowered nearly every conscious sense, orgasm every other. Sleep was roping me in quickly, binding me first at the ankles, and my leg muscles twitched. Kay stroked my hair, fit my head perfectly between her breasts. Mumbled back that she already considered us married, and I ought to, too.