This Location of Unknown Possibilities (26 page)

Stepping toward the door, Marta thought of
A bang's better than a whimper
, one of Judy's mirthfully crude encouragements to get Marta—and others: Judy being just as fond of recycling coinages as Wilde—in touch with the teeming banquet outside of blinkered graduate student drudgery.

Unsure about the exact outcome she expected, Marta kept quiet. If asked, she'd have predicted that the distance between soaring erotic ideal—images deep-seated in everyone's minds: the meticulously choreographed and beautiful dance; the profound exploration of kama sutric spirituality; the grand mal seizure of besotted passionate abandonment, as though the ardent, ravenous participants wanted nothing except to tear away cumbersome layers of clothing and even flesh itself in order to gain access to the substantial core, something indisputably real, weighty, and essential in an otherwise shallow material existence of illusions and dispiriting evanescence—and the hobbled eventuality would be mammoth, the breathtaking difference between drunks bellowing off-key Elton John ballads with eyes glued to the cartoon-coloured screen of a pub's karaoke machine and Jessye Norman embodying the soaring tragedy of Jocasta in
Oedipus Rex
.

“Step right into my parlour.”

“I say, you're too kind, madam,” Chaz threw in a Foghorn Leghorn drawl. Picturing Miss Prissy's virginal bonnet and bottomless appetite for a husband, Marta chose against running with the routine.

In the realm of romantic intimacy—flirting, dating, intercourse, even sleepovers—Marta counted herself as being long out of practice, and never a seasoned vet to begin with. Hardly an impeding handicap, the lengthy “dry spell” (Dianne's recurring phrase, despite Marta's unmissable warnings: “This topic is really not appropriate for family discussion, Mother”) was not, in her estimation, the missing ingredient of a contented life. Nor permanent, not necessarily.
Celibacy happened naturally in the best of marriages, she'd heard, and romance could be found if and when she set out to accomplish it. The process would be akin to a job search strategy, more or less.

In reply to Dianne's occasional, increasingly sporadic, and uncharacteristically gentle outreach—“Your time will come, don't worry, dear”—and to her own brain's occasional
“What's up with that?” Marta murmured, “My career is my primary relationship; I have no time for anything else right now” with a bright attenuated laugh that meant
It's no big deal, whatever, let's move on
. Some circles placed brides of Christ on a pedestal, viewing them as paragons for a bygone commitment to self-denial and good works, so why shouldn't her enterprises be granted identical respect?

When on a rare day a colleague asked about her personal life outside the campus, or if an undernourished albeit out of sight and ordinarily quiescent chamber in her heart whispered lyrically of desire and lack, she would offer a placating line that suggested a short deferral of a low-priority item on an ever-growing to-do list: like repainting the kitchen and the two-week bicycling tour of the Amalfi Coast it would get done, perhaps not next semester but soon.

It wasn't always easy to brush aside cravings and generate neat compelling rationales. On the closed-in winter weeks of constant rain, Marta lamented her vocal sense of incompetence as well as the men who admired her CV but could not apparently perceive any romantic appeal; on cramped humid buses and umbrella-clotted streets, she rolled her inner eye at the notion of solitude being comfortable, fitting, and right. With clouds lifting and a clear day, however, she'd feel grounded and contented, and write off the blue episode as the kind of despondency even Hare Krishna celebrants would feel under the drab regime of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

4
.

O
ut of practice and by no means an Old Testament queen of carnality, Marta focussed on Chaz.

Though she'd known him for less than a week, she saw that her failure as a femme fatale was outclassed by his shortcomings. Chaz possessed little of Casanova's erotic artistry and charisma—and, more dismaying still, he felt self-conscious about the deficit: mentions of packed-on weight, low-totem status, and overall lack of expertise in diverse areas only left room for the belief that Chaz lacked whatever molecules his boss emanated from the fine pores of his flawless skin. Hyper-conscious of the fact that only an hour ago he'd needed woman's protection, Chaz's nerves abounded.

Once Chaz stood inside the room, Marta closed the door. As she secured the chain, he remarked,
“You might want to keep that open, just in case.” Marta didn't request clarification; plainly, the man planned to orchestrate a face-saving exit strategy for when—not if—things fell apart.

She sat on the bed facing the television and he followed, close but not touching.

Giddy and suppressing laughter, Marta imagined them as a photographic portrait of low rent North Americana: two lumpy, awkward figures in an off-highway motel room staring at a dead TV screen. She stamped down a related urge to pace, converse, and fill the silence with distracting, tension-shattering, and anti-aphrodisiacal scholarly verbiage. Facts, figures, asides: a definite pall.

They proceeded haltingly, insecurely—nervous jocularity followed by a self-deprecating assessment and a period of quiet concentration. There was earnestness and nothing bungled, and yet few moments could be described as artful or graceful: she helped when he fought to peel off the stubborn sweat-damp T-shirt and stood poised for a cue about the removal of her own clothing—shuck them off piece by piece, hips swaying, in halting reference to a burlesque dancer's routine, or would Chaz prefer to unbutton and unzip?

Aware of the need for an adroit intuition nowhere in the room and the avoidance of questions, Marta began by crouching to untie sneaker laces. Stripped to boxers, Chaz waited; feet bare, they embraced tightly.

Face pressing the bristle of his chest, Marta could detect the faint odour of canal water commingled with salty sweat. The kiss—their first successful one—felt comfortable yet reasonably intense; through closed eyes Marta yielded to the warm endearing tenderness and welcomed the urgency of Chaz's desires, for a instant conjuring thoughts of an alternate universe where a bear held a surrendering deer in a fervent, affectionate grasp.

Simultaneously fully-fledged participant and note-taking critic, Marta saw that if replicated on C-print and hung in an austere white gallery as “
1AM
, Room
#10
, Star-Lite Motel:
Un Couple Solaire
,” their ardency might not inspire a viewer to exclaim “My, what breathtaking eros!” Then again, neither would the majority of real world couplings.

The purity of the moment, not to mention the seamless coinciding of intent and outcome, waned quickly. Concentrating, Chaz soon replaced self-directed chiding evaluations—“Really smooth, man,” as though alone—with a different mode of reluctance, posing question after considerate question—“Is that okay?” “Alright?” “Is this comfortable?” “Do you want me to . . . ?”—designed to guarantee comfort and pleasure, but resulting in conversation that approximated a diplomatic negotiation, or a pair of dyslexics puzzling through the elaborate instructions for newly purchased some-assembly-required IKEA cabinets.

While the idealized lyricism of intercourse tethered the act to effortless transport and communion, they both understood they'd missed that ascension to mythic heights and fought against admissions of inadequacy and failure.

It could have been far worse
, Marta thought, later watching Chaz's heavy slumber, men being notoriously self-absorbed and unintuitive, quick-to-finish lovers.

“There is such a thing as trying too hard,” she said after a bout of queries that succeeded patience-trying minutes of effort during which fatigue pressed down and nothing else, no hormonal kick, thumping in the chest cavity, or weak-at-the-knees flowering of febrile desire. “Don't you think?” Marta had wanted to sound lighthearted, part of a comic scene in which they played actors and audience, co-conspirators in a forgivably minor folly.

When Chaz replied with “Sorry,” Marta realized he'd misunderstood her helpful phrase. Once mutual acute sensitivity of recognized shortcomings melded with paralyzing awareness of a looming fiasco—one that would recast the first literal misstep at the crash site as a portent they'd have been wise to heed—their movements slowed until they lay side by side.

Chaz had snuggled then—tentatively, the degree to which he made contact hovering gingerly between lover and companionate bed mate. A compromise gesture, Marta mused, and not a white flag of defeat. He did not sit up with an abrupt or defensively angry movement and mutter,
“Well, it's getting late,” unreeling further apologies while tracking down an errant sock. Nor had he persisted in the face of evidence informing him otherwise. He'd fallen asleep soon after, the sapping hours of the work day ultimately too powerful to resist.

5
.

M
arta had lain awake, uncomfortable in the oddness of the moment; she'd slipped in to the bathroom to change once Chaz began to sleep. The flannel nightgown—a birthday gift from her father that prompted Dianne's dismay: “George, why don't you just buy her a one-way ticket to a goddamned nunnery?”—wasn't sexy, and the fabric too heavy for the desert night. Even so, cream and patterned with pink rosettes, the tent volume comforted her, a billowing latter day security blanket.

When the birds and the farmer's noise guns had roused Marta completely, the only question loomed simple and momentous: “What next?” Moments later, short pulses of mechanical vibration on the floor sounded. Marta unfolded her arms and nudged Chaz awake.

“Your phone, Chaz,” she said in a loud whisper, noticing a moist patch where he'd drooled on the pillow. “I think someone's leaving a message.” Unsure of the proper degree of intimacy to assume—phrases to choose, tone of voice, or duration and pressure of touch—she jostled an exposed shoulder tentatively with a closed hand as she might a corpse or a drunk whose prone body blocked the path.

“What? Crap, oh crap, it must be Lora. What time is it?” Sliding over the edge of the mattress he reached toward the jeans and withdrew the phone. “I really gotta go, she's on the war path. See you later, okay?”

Comradely, jovial, and himself once again, on the surface Chaz was not knotted up over acts and implications. Marta smiled at that seeming canine ability to launch forward, free of a shackling past; fretful, she tended to move in the opposite direction.
Maybe
, she thought,
he's more experienced than he appears
.

“When you see her, please tell Lora that I'll be in within the hour.” She remained upright in bed.

Chaz, already stepping into his jeans, “Sure, no problem. Do you keep Scope or something in the bathroom?”

“Yes. It's there, you can't miss it.”

He rushed into the bathroom, emerging short minutes later toweling his hair. “By the way, nice outfit, Grandma Moses,” Chaz said, smirking. Seated on the bed to slip on shoes he stretched across to the opposite corner and kissed Marta's cheek. “You gonna rustle up some flapjacks and possum jerky before Jethro heads off to the barn?”

Saluting, he swung open the door and ushering in the day.

6
.

W
ith Chaz departed Marta showered and dressed. Keen to avoid picking apart scenes that had passed mere hours before, she allotted time for a quick breakfast before making an appearance at
Joan's. She rushed through tooth-brushing and sunblock application. If she had nothing to regret, neither did she feel a great need to speculate about consequences or ultimate meanings. Not before tea and a few bites of toast, at least.

Along the short drive she thought approvingly of the nimble pace and the absence of wobbly, tank-like RVs. In an hour the highway would be bumper to bumper with families who'd pulled up stakes in quest of another water slide five hours up or down the highway; by then Marta would be immersed in conversations with people she'd be grateful to never meet. Word was, the new Lizzie needed to be on a flight well before the sun set. With that acceleration came frayed nerves—and with them j'accusing and buck-passing from all parties.

Marta pictured the cool metal tanks and grapevine trellises of a placid winery tour. That wouldn't be right: Lora's wrath and the sheer unethical irresponsibility would be difficult to swallow.

At the O-K breakfasting farmers had departed for orchards. Luna, nearly completed clearing away the mess of plates and coffee mugs, waved. Marta wound through the tables and watched Luna from the back booth. The ceiling fan turned lazily, the air heavy with savoury smoky drifts from the kitchen.

“G'morning, doc, seems you're running late,” Luna said. “You're like clockwork, normally. So, want to break with tradition this morning? The cook has french toast on special, with your choice of fruit fresh off the tree.”

Marta asked for toast and ordered the special for Chaz. She'd offered to order a meal for Lora once and had been told, “Thanks, sweetie, but momma always skips breakfast.” As for Jake, she hadn't bothered: he struck her as someone who preferred to fend for himself.