Reunion 2: Talking
"Reunion 2: Talking" is an excerpt from "For Better or Worse"
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| Reunion Series (For Better or Worse)
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Reunion 2: Talking
Hearing snatches of conversation when Marsha had called her mother on the public phone in the store, knowing she was estranged from her husband, the older woman hadn’t asked many questions. Now, genuinely pleased at seeing these two together, coming from behind the counter and offering her hand, “Mitchell, I’m so glad to meet you! I’m Dotty.”
“Hi, Dottie.” Taking her hand, “I’m glad to meet you, too.”
“Dottie, I just wanted you to meet Mitchie…”
‘Mitchie’!
“...and thought we’d stop in and say hello before we went to the beach.”
“I’m glad you did… Hi, Mikey!” Reaching to the penny candy counter, taking a Tootsie Roll and unwrapping it she gave it Michael who stuck it into his mouth and immediately—Mitchell’s eyes rolling upward—began to slobber chocolate drool onto the head of his father.
“You’ve a lovely family, Mitchell.”
Looking at Dorothy, “Thank, you.” Smiling, rubbing his hand over his head, looking at the chocolate drool, “I know I do.”
“Oh, sorry.” Dorothy handed Mitchell a paper napkin.
****
Walking down the beach access, “Thought we needed sunscreen for Mikey.”
“Yeah. Well, guess I forgot.”
Smiling. “Yeah! Sure you did!” Looking at her. “You just wanted to show me off, didn’t you, Marcie?”
‘Marcie’!
“No. Come on! Don’t flatter yourself. Why would I want to do that?”
Off the access path. Beginning across the sand, once again Marsha had the urge to link her arm through Mitchell’s so that—‘Hey! See! I’ve a husband, too’!—the women on the beach would see them together. But seeing as Mitchell hadn’t made a physical move—because, after all, Marsha did have her pride— Until he made a move, neither would she.
Also feeling a possessive pride in this tall, beautiful, young woman that walked at his side, aching to put his arm around her waist, across her shoulder, or to take Marsha’s hand into his… If nothing more than holding her hand, Mitchell desperately wanted the feel of her flesh on his flesh. But, So she called me ‘Mitchie’ a couple of times; maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Afraid of rejection, along with lingering anger and a bit of pride also, Mitchell did not put his arm around Marsha’s waist, or across her shoulder, or take her hand into his.
Women on the beach, those whom had ignored or all but ignored Marsha, and all but forgot the weird scene with Gordon Nathanson, watched as she and the handsome young man she was with that carried her—their?—son on his shoulders trudged across the warm sand to Marsha’s self assigned spot.
****
After a first quick dive, washing the sticky Tootsie Roll glop from his scalp, taking him from his mother, “Hey, Mikey!” Holding him against his chest, bending at the knees, Mitchell dunked his son to the neck in the tepid water. Then again and, both the father and son laughing, again and again.
****
Sitting in the sand at water’s edge, with his son between his spread thighs, the father and son waited for the lapping waves that ran between their legs and splashed onto their cheeks.
****
“Hey, Mikey!” Pretending to chase him, “I’m gonna get’ch’ya!” The father followed at arms reach behind his son, who, with arms akimbo, toddled quickly on wobbly legs on the hard-packed, dark brown sand.
****
Walking, splashing in the warm, shallow water with the hot sun on his back. Walking between mommy and daddy with both hands held above his head, “Ollie-ollie-ooops!” Mommy and daddy would swing him into the air every few steps and with each swing Michael would giggle and laugh.
****
Exhausted by sun, water and exercise, covered with a light blanket to keep the sun off, asleep, Michael lay lengthwise at the head of the blanket.
Her head just below her son, well aware of the closeness of her husband, her hands crossed behind her head, Marsha lay on her back with her eyes closed.
Scant inches from his wife. About as close as they could be without actually touching, lying on his side with his head propped in his hand, looking at Marsha. Having a sense of déjà vu, the remembrance of another time such as this, long before their son was even a thought, long before marriage was even a thought, then, as now, looking at her chest, he saw the outline of Marsha’s ribs beneath the taut, tanned skin, and the gentle rise of flesh from where the mounds of her creamy-white breasts began and, Oh, God, now as then he longed to look at, to see Marsha’s breasts. To feel the softness of Marsha’s breasts. To taste her flesh. Closing his eyes, Mitchell could almost taste Marsha: The softness. The sweetness. The salt tang of her perspiration. Now as then, he fought the urge to kiss the breast of Marsha. To kiss the breast of his wife… To kiss his wife.
She, too, remembered that time. Long before their son was even a thought. Long before marriage was even a thought… Only that time their bodies had been touching, and when he leaned over and kissed her and told her, ‘Marcie, I love you,’ he kissed her deeply. And when she drew on his tongue, urging it even deeper, imagining it was not just his tongue in her mouth but his penis in her vagina and when she felt the press of his erection on the outside of her thigh Marsha remembered the flow of vaginal fluid then. Now, too, she sensed the flow of fluid that readied this wife for her husband.
However…
Unlike then; now Mitchell did not touch her. Mitchell did not kiss her or press his body closely upon her body and Mitchell most certainly did not say, ‘Marcie, I love you’.
And she desperately wanted to hear the words because she, as much as he, wanted the feel of his lips on her lips. She, as much as he, desperately wanted the feel of his body next to hers. She, as much as he desperately wanted ‘him’ within her body and the ultimate release their loving would bring... But also, maybe even more so than her desperate need, knowing Mitchell, Marsha knew that once they touched. Once he so much as touched her they would make love and the past would become the past and their lives, good or bad, ‘For Better or Worse’, would go forward.
Softly spoken, “Marsha.”
Though not touching, Marsha felt his breath on her face. Opening her eyes. Looking into his eyes she waited for him to say it, to tell her, ‘I love you’ so she also could say, ‘I love you, too.’
“Why?”
Why?
Through these near eleven weeks of loneliness and self-recrimination she’d asked herself ‘why’ hundreds of times and had yet to come up with a substantial answer… even to herself. Why? She knew he would ask. He would ‘have’ to ask! Only she’d hoped he would ask later, after they’d made love, when their communion would have forged a new commitment between Mitchell and herself, after she’d assured him that she did, that she really did love him… Why? She thought, Christ, I wish I knew why!
Pulling her thoughts together. ‘Having’ to say something! “At the time… ‘Oh, God’!” Marsha said emotively. “At that time I wanted to be away from you!” Words forming and unintensively coming from out her mouth. “I wanted you out of my life! I hated you!”
Sad softly, so those on neighboring blankets would not hear. “ ‘You hate me’? Why? Because I got drunk 'one' night?”
“No! Of course not!” Wanting a clear understanding. “I didn’t say I ‘hate you’! I said I hated you… Then.”
“Okay, so you ‘hated’ me! Why? Because you think I’m a coward?” Mitchell questioned, “You hated me ‘then’! So that’s why you walked out?”
Thinking, That was part of it. But, “No!” Marsha said.
“Because I didn’t make enough money? You packed up and left because you didn’t think I work hard enough?”
Yes, that, too. But, “No!”
“Why, then? Because of my parents? Because you think I’m a coward because you don’t think I stand up to them enough? Because you think that I don’t defend you enough?” Feeling a deep sense of guilt because, in his heart he knew that for all of these reasons, and quite possibly more, Marsha had left him.
Individually, Marsha knew these were not reason enough to break up a family of three. But taken together, in her frame of mind at the time. “Yes,” she said. “Not for any of those things by themselves, but putting them all together, at that time, ‘yes’. And I thought that…”
“You hated me!” Forcing himself to keep his voice down, “So you just walked out! Just like that!” He snapped his fingers. “You just took my son and every thing we own and left!” snapping his fingers again, “Just like that and told ‘everyone’ that knew us not to tell me where you and my baby are!”
Remembering that sad day. Recalling that other dark, stormy day when she’d forced him to leave because she felt he didn’t help her enough with the baby. Feeling a sudden, terrible depression. Afraid of crying, he stopped speaking and needing time to bring himself under control, sitting up, facing Marsha, he crossed his legs. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I got home that day and you and Mikey and all our stuff was gone? Do you have any idea how I felt when your mother, your brother, ‘nobody’ would talk to me? When ‘nobody’ would tell me where my wife and son were!” Choking up, he stopped.
“Mitchie, I…”
“Then, to top it off, about an hour after I got back from your mother’s, I’d just gotten off the phone with your brother when Paul came upstairs and gave me one day to get out of the apartment! One day to get out of my home!”
“No!” Having no idea. “Really? Paul did that?”
“Yeah,” swiping his hand across his eyes, “he ‘really’ did that! And did something else ,too. When he came up to tell me to get out, he saw that we had scuffed his god-damned hardwood floors and told me that if I’m completely out in two hours, he’d give me back our security deposit.” His voice rising, he noticed the lady on the nearest blanket looking at him.
“So?”
Lowering his voice, “All I had there was my underwear and stuff that you dumped out of the dresser along with my hanging clothes in the closed and all those rubbers that you threw all over the floor, so I drove over to the A&P and got a couple of large cardboard boxes, got back and threw everything into them and was out in just over an hour.”
“Mitch,’ truly feeling bad about this, “I, uh, I had no idea.”
“Of course not!” Thinking, A ‘sorry’ would be nice. “Even if you did know, you really didn’t give a shit how I felt, did you, Marsha?”
“Mitchie,”—it slipped out—“things were different then. I…”
“ ‘Then’? What’s different now? Because I’m not working at the studio anymore? Why, Marsha? Even if you thought I was a coward for not standing up enough for you with my parents! Even if I didn’t make enough money! Even if you were unhappy about my parents! These are reasons enough to take my son and disappear?” He asked angrily. “To tell everyone not to tell me where you and my son were? What in the hell did I ever do to you to make you hate me that much?”
Feeling the need to defend her indefensible position, “Maybe it was also never having enough money. Or your nagging about your parents. Everything started to pile up on me.” Sitting up, crossing her legs, she sat facing her husband. “Everyone else seemed to have so much more than us! Everyone else seemed to be so much happier than we were! No one seemed to have the kinds of problems we had!” Looking over his shoulder, towards the water. “I don’t know! It seemed like the right thing to do at the time and now…” she said just as angrily, “I just don’t know!”
Surprised… Or, knowing his wife, maybe not so surprised at the far-from-apologetic tone of her voice. “This was the second time you’ve walked out on me!”
“Well, I didn’t exactly walk out on you before, Mitchell.”
“Yeah, that’s true , Marsha,” forcing a weak smile. “Last time you threw me out. And you know what? I didn’t know why it happened then any more than I know why it happened now.” Looking intently at her. “And what I want to know is, what about us now? Where are we now?”
Returning his intense gaze, not saying what she really thought, what she knew she should very humbly say. Quiet… After a number of prolonged seconds, “I don’t know, Mitchell.” Stubborn pride overtaking common sense. “Where do ‘you’...”— apparently attempting to put the weight of their future squarely upon his shoulders— “... want to be?”
Their attitudes strained. Their eyes locked. The husband and wife stared at each other for one… two… three seconds, then, standing, Mitchell walked to the water’s edge, waded out till it reached crotch height and diving, swam underwater until he had to breathe. Surfacing, he swam outward till his arms began to tire. Turning about, he swam back, waded ashore, returned to the blanket, sat and…
“ ‘Where do I want us to be, Marsha’?” Picking up as though she’d asked the question a scant second ago. “Marsha,” his tone softening, “the only place I ever wanted to be, I think even, maybe, subconsciously since I first met you right here…” Thinking a moment, “When was it? Nine years ago?” Pointing to, but not touching her chest, “The only place I think I ever wanted to be was right here. I think that ever since that very first night I met you, the only place I ever wanted to be…” now, the tip of his finger lightly, momentarily touching the area above her heart, “was here.” Hesitating, “But right now, to tell the truth, I’m not too sure.” Again, he waited for her to respond in some way. But Marsha being Marsha…
The light, momentary touch of his finger going through her as sensual lightening. Positive that anything she might say would sound like an apology, or as though she were pleading for him to take her back. But Marsha being Marsha, apologizing or pleading was something she could not, would not do.
“And the problem is,” going on, “what has me scared is what happens if in six months or a year, or two years you should happen to decide, ‘Gee, I don’t think I love Mitchell anymore. As a matter of fact I think I hate him and I think I should, either... Pick one from Column A or one from Column B: throw him out, or just politely take the kid, or by then kids and run away’.” Sighing, “I don’t know where I ‘want to be’ Marsha.”
He waited for her to say or do something… When she didn’t, not knowing what else to say, laying down, turning onto his side facing away from her, he hoped she’d say something to give him a glimmer of hope. To say anything to encourage him. And more than anything he wanted Marsha to touch him, to physically touch him.
But Marsha didn’t. So after a few minutes he sat up, looked at the water, then at Marsha’s back as she, too, had turned onto her side, facing away from him. “Marsha…”
Rubbing her fingers across her eyes before turning around and, maybe, were it not so bright, or maybe, were he just a bit more observant, Mitchell would have noticed that her eyes were red and glassy.
“…I spend so much time working in the sun that lying out like this, sometimes gets boring real fast. Besides, I’m getting kind’a hungry. So unless you really want to stay here, what if we go back to the cottage, change our clothes and the three of us take a walk into Union Pier and go for lunch someplace.”
Reunion: To Be Continued
