Sex Again

I don’t think of Chuck in a sexual way, except he is a man and I am a woman, and sometimes there is something in the air that adds spice to conversation. Sex isn’t what I wanted from him, nor is it what he wanted from me, but it is something I’m aware of. Attraction isn’t restricted to sex. One thing doesn’t always lead to another. But it makes a nice hum in the background.

This morning I looked at an old photograph. It hangs on my wall, and it’s part of the woodwork, but today I took it down to examine. It’s a photo my daughter Jennifer took of our company softball team. There is Cork, a legend in publishing, and one day to be Catherine’s father-in-law; there is an old boyfriend of Jennifer’s, others I remember well. And Chuck.

Chuck can’t have been much more than thirty years old in this picture, if that. My god, he was good-looking. These are the words that pop into my head, I can’t help it: you’re like a great big candy bar. Did I know that then? I must have. But I never broke him down into components: I never thought, My god, look at that ass, or those shoulders, or that you-name-it, the way I did the ones I wanted to sleep with. When I looked at him I saw friend. I’m standing to his left, a mess of blond hair and a smile. Maybe we’d won the game. He has a Brooklyn T-shirt on, I am wearing my denim skirt. I always wore skirts.

Chuck was captain because he could do everything. Since I could neither throw, catch, hit, nor run, he made me the pitcher, betting that sooner or later the opposing team would be impatient enough to take a wild swing. One afternoon we used a couple of ringers, one of them an old friend of his. He wore a bright orange T-shirt, his hair was black, and he had dark eyes and a beautiful mouth. He came to my house at midnight a few nights later carrying a Sara Lee cheesecake. “I couldn’t think of anything else to bring,” he said.

“I fell in love after ten minutes,” I wailed. “What’s wrong with me?”

Chuck was most helpful.

“You don’t slide into love, Abigail, you fall,” he said.

Chuck says we made out once. He remembers it was after a Twelfth Night party and I don’t; I remember making out at a publishing party, he doesn’t.

We had gone together, as we always did, only this time he went off in pursuit of a pretty woman, and by that time he was my best friend, so although I didn’t want him to pursue me, I didn’t want him to pursue anyone else when I was in the vicinity. I don’t know how he knew I was upset, but he came looking for me, and what he said made everything all right for the next thirty years. Today I ask Chuck if he remembers that night, and he does, in great detail, minus that moment. He remembers me dancing with two men whose very existence I had forgotten. In the course of recounting the evening, he begins to wonder why he remembers it so well, since he hasn’t thought of it since.

“Do you remember talking to me,” I ask, “when I got upset?”

He doesn’t.

“Wow. That’s so interesting,” I say, but I don’t care. Once upon a time, when I was young, his forgetting might have rendered my memory meaningless. I no longer require so much from life.

“Maybe the thing I forgot is what makes me remember,” Chuck says, which is why I love him. An entire novel could be written around that one remark.

Here’s what I remember.

I remember a wide empty wall behind me. I remember lots of people dancing ten feet away. If I said I remember colored lights I would be making it up, but they were certainly there. And the music.

I think I remember seeing him walk toward me, but maybe not. I do remember him standing in front of me without saying anything, then shrugging his shoulders. I remember what he said. He said, “I love you. That’s all.” I definitely remember that, because of the “that’s all.” That was the part I loved. We kissed. Then he said, “But it’s better this way, isn’t it? This way we get to keep it.” And so we have.