39

AMANDA HAS A VISITOR
VISITOR AT THE
EMILY DICKINSON SCHOOL

Featuring a trailing blue cotton dress, a long lavender scarf and a tinker’s delight of necklaces and bracelets, Amanda waltzed into the classroom promptly at seven. Her attire evidently met with her students’ approval, for they applauded.

The class was in full attendance: Mrs. Mansolo, formerly of Naples and now of New York; Mrs. Lopez, formerly of Newark and now of New York; Mr. Krotzski, formerly of Warsaw and now of New York; and Mr. Williams, formerly of Riker’s Island and now of Manhattan.

It was their fifth class together and they were already on page 70 of the workbook, which, according to Margaret Whelan, was extraordinary.(“How,” she asked Amanda, “are you moving them along so quickly?—”It’s their doing,” Amanda explained. “I tell them what page the other classes are on and they simply refuse to leave until they are ahead of them. My students are fiercely competitive,” she added, not without a touch of pride.)

But it was Amanda who was learning so much! Amanda spent the first half hour of every class discussing some document or form that one of the students had been handed from the outside world. At the very first class Mr. Krotzski, with a deeply furrowed brow, had handed her a New York State driver’s manual. Since then, Amanda had been spending time with him outside of class deciphering it. Now, prior to this, the closest Amanda had ever got to learning how to drive had been learning the difference between broughams and carriages in Victorian novels. As a result, Amanda found the driver’s manual perhaps even more wondrous and enlightening than Mr. Krotzski did.

What else was she learning about? Green cards, American citizenship, vaccinations, the Iron Curtain, small business loans, parole regulations, transatlantic postage and on and on and on. And then, this evening, was Mrs. Lopez’ turn and guess what her forms were? Social Security! Hooray! Amanda dazzled the class with her wealth of knowledge, and not only did Mrs. Lopez fill out her forms, but the entire class now knew how this magnificent system worked in ways most Americans did not! (More applause.) (They clapped a great deal in this class.)

And then they got down to the nitty-gritty, and Amanda was explaining the difference between “there,” “their” and “they’re” when the door to the classroom opened.

It was Howard. “Sorry,” he said, his face coloring. “Uh, Mrs. Whelan said I could sit in on your class. I’ll be teaching too.” His eyes were pleading with Amanda.

After a moment she smiled. Broadly. “We would be very pleased to have you join us. Class,” she said, turning to them, “this is Howard Stewart. He is going to be a teacher too and would like to observe the brightest class in the school.”

They clapped (for Howard or for themselves, it wasn’t quite clear).

Howard took a seat in the back of the room. Mrs. Mansolo turned around in her chair. “You must telll the werrrld you ahre imporrrtant,” she said, waving him forward.

Howard laughed, his face turning an even darker shade of red. He went up and sat to Mrs. Mansolo’s left.

“Goot,” she said, bowing her head.

Amanda was nervous for about ten minutes, but then her attention slipped away from Howard and back to the students and soon she was thoroughly wrapped up in the lesson, forgetting his presence entirely. Howard sat there, mesmerized. Amanda’s color was high; her body was in high gear as well. When she wasn’t making sweeping gestures with her arms, she was wildly dashing off examples across the blackboard—slashing and underscoring left and right. She praised her students constantly; when they were reading out loud, she would walk behind them, pull their shoulders back, lift their books off their desks, and make them hold them up in their hands, whispering, “Be proud of how much you know!” And then, between points in the workbook, she would whirl around—dress billowing up and around after her—and deliver a quick lecture:

“To know how to read is to have the world open to you! If you can read, you can learn anything and everything you ever wanted to know. What does a lawyer do? Go to the library and find out! How do you fix a radio? Go to the library and find out! Is Clint Eastwood married?”

“Go to the library and find out!” the class chorused, Howard included.

“Yes!”Amanda cried, shooting her fist up in the air.

(They clapped.)

The class didn’t end until close to nine-thirty. They all walked out of the classroom together and at the front doors of the school the students said goodnight to Amanda and to Howard. “I just have to write a note to Margaret,” she said to him. He watched what she scribbled:

Dear Margaret,
Page 96!
Sincerely,
Amanda

She slipped the note under Margaret’s office door and let the custodian know they were leaving.

“Are you really teaching a class?” she asked him, walking down the hall.

“Yes.” Pause. “Rosanne told me—”

“Rosanne has been very busy, I must say,” Amanda said. Howard reached ahead to hold the door open for her. “Cassy Cochran appears to know more about you and me than you and I do.”

Howard followed her outside. “I don’t mind. I like Cassy.”

Amanda smiled slightly, glancing back at him. “I do too.” She waited for him to catch up and then they turned right onto the sidewalk. “Her husband is in the hospital.”

“I heard.” They walked another step and then Howard stopped. “Why do you think she’s stayed with him?”

Amanda shifted her books, bringing them up to hold against her chest. She sighed, raising her eyebrows. “Rosanne says no one who hasn’t been there can ever really understand.”

Howard frowned slightly. “What, like her and Frank?”

“Like her and Frank,” Amanda said. They walked on. “And there’s their son.”

“I don’t know”—Howard shrugged—”It just seems strange, a woman like Cassy...”

Amanda stopped dead, her mouth falling open.

Howard whirled around. “What?”

“Some people thought your marriage was a little strange, you know.”

“Okay, okay,” Howard said, raising his hands as if to defend himself.

“Oh, Howard,” Amanda sighed, “I’m sorry, that was a very unkind thing for me to say.”

“No, really, it’s okay.” He looked around and then up at the street sign: 95th Street. “I, uh”—he gestured down the street—”I live here now.” He ran his hand over his jaw. “You wouldn’t want to come up, would you? To see—hey, did you know? I’m an agent now.”

“I heard,” she said, smiling.

“Well—would you? Like to come up?” And then, more quietly, “It’s not too soon, is it?”

Amanda held out a hand to him. “It’s not too soon.”

Howard grinned, took her hand, and started pulling her down the block.

He apologized the entire way. It wasn’t much, wasn’t anything at all, Amanda would hate it, find it creepy and awful and...

“If it’s yours, how could I not like it?” she said.

While they walked up the stairs, Howard gave a running commentary (in whispers) about the various inhabitants of the building, pausing only to ask Amanda if she wished to stop and catch her breath. She didn’t and they soon reached the fifth-floor landing, where Howard groaned at Amanda’s inquiry about who was next door in 5B. “Later, I promise, later,” Howard said, unlocking his door.

She liked it, Howard could tell, and as he grew more certain of it, he grew more excited about showing her things in it and she, in turn, seemed to get more excited about seeing them. The bookshelves? She did? He had built them himself. Build some for her? Sure... The curtains? That was Rosanne’s doing....

“I love the desk too.”

“Look, see, my files. My stationery. You do? Sure, you can have all the cards you want... Yeah, I do get distracted—it’s kind of hard not to watch. No, he’s scooping ice cream. He always eats ice cream during the news. Over there? Some lady. She irons a lot. I washed them—hung upside down to do the outside. No wonder Rosanne would never do the windows. What? She washes your windows?”

He poured her a glass of white wine while Amanda tried out the chair at his desk.

He had made his first sale. Yes! His commission would be twenty-five hundred dollars. Had Amanda received a contract yet? Yes? Good, Amanda would need Mr. Thatcher. Explain it to her? Sure, he’d love to.

Howard came back in and handed her the glass of wine. Sipping his beer, he sat down on the edge of the desk, watching her. She was holding the glass in her lap, tracing the rim with her finger. Howard lowered his glass to rest it on his leg, took a breath, and said, “I love you, Amanda.”

She didn’t move for a moment. And then she murmured, “I know,” rose from her chair, and moved over to the window. Looking out, she took a sip of wine and put the glass down on the sill. “There were men before you, Howard,” she said quietly.

Silence.

Howard took a swig of his beer and put the glass down on the desk.

“I didn’t love any of them,” she finally said, bringing a hand up to rest at the base of her neck. “But then, I wouldn’t have seen them if I had.” She sighed slightly, lowering her hand. “I never wanted to fall in love again.”

After a moment Howard said, “I can understand why.”

“It’s funny,” Amanda said, nodding slightly, “but I think you probably do.” She picked up her glass, turned around, leaned back against the sill, held the glass to her mouth, and then sipped. Lowering it, “Whoever it was at the time would come every other Monday—”

“Amanda—don’t,” Howard said gently. “Look, you don’t have to explain anything about—”

“But I do.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, eyes moving away. “I do. Because I love you too, you see.” She looked at him. “And I’m so scared, Howard,” she murmured, closing her eyes, “I’m just so scared.”

He was over there in a moment, taking the glass out of her hand and putting it on the sill, and then taking her into his arms. “Amanda, don’t,” he whispered as she started to cry.

“I can’t help it, Howard. I’m just such a mess. You don’t know, you just don’t know,” she sobbed into his shoulder.

“No, Amanda, no,” he said, holding her tighter. “Darling, you don’t know what the world is like. We’re all a mess, we’re all just pretending to know what it is we’re doing, and the rest of the time...” He sighed. “The rest of the time, Amanda”—he kissed the side of her head—”we spend fantasizing about people we think can fix everything. And they never do. But we keep waiting for them to do it for us anyway. You know that—God, Amanda, in my book, you’re way ahead of the rest of us.” He kissed the side of her head again. “You’re writing a book—teaching—taking care of Mrs. Goldblum, of Rosanne. Amanda, you are not a mess. The world’s a mess, not you.” He stepped back to bring her head up. Her face was stained with tears, and he smiled, kissing her on the forehead. Then he reached back into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “Here,” he said, wiping her face. And then he held it to her nose.

“Oh, Howard,” Amanda groaned, swiping the handkerchief out of his hand. “I’m not that much of a child.” He laughed as she turned away to blow her nose.

Then he took her arm, and pulled her to the couch. He sat them both down. “Listen,” he said, taking the handkerchief out of her hands and throwing it on the table. “I have something I need to tell you.”

She looked at him, a touch of fear returning to her eyes.

He took her hands. “I didn’t leave Melissa,” he said. “She threw me out. She was also the one who filed for divorce.”

No reaction. And then, “Did you want the divorce?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did. But I didn’t want you to think I was able to come to that decision right away. It was made for me. And I’m glad, only...” He sighed. “I wish I could tell you I had been the one—”

“I know, darling,” she said, bringing up a hand to his face. They looked at one another, a bit sad, and then Amanda’s face came alive. “Try as you might, Mr. Stewart,” she said, sweeping her hand out to gesture to the apartment, “it will be very hard for you to minimize all that you are doing.”

Howard smiled, threw his arm around Amanda and pulled her in against his side. “Bet you never saw the Taj Mahal before,” he said, looking at the room.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Good,” he pronounced, “so now you know this is it. This is what all the hoopla’s about.”

She smiled and suddenly dropped her head to his chest. “I do so love you,” she sighed, holding onto him.

“I know,” he said, stroking her hair.

Her head jerked up. “Do you suppose I’ll ever be able to make love with you on Mondays—ever?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “God, Amanda!”

“Wait, wait!” she cried, scrambling to her knees, going up to hold his head between her hands. “Darling, Howard, you don’t know how hard it was for me to keep you away on Mondays! And for what? Ghosts!”

He closed his eyes, starting to laugh again.

She gave his head a little shake. “Don’t you know how I longed to be with you?” she scolded. “Whenever I could be?” She stopped shaking his head and simply held it, staring down into his eyes.

Howard reached up to take her hands. He kissed one and then the other. “I’m laughing because I thought you were seeing someone else while you were seeing me,” he said.

Her expression turned to utter amazement. She sat back down on her heels. “After you?” she finally said. She went back up onto her knees. “After you?” she repeated, slipping off his glasses and tossing them behind her. “Golly,” she said, holding his head, “you’re really quite as mad as I am.” And then she brought her head down to kiss him.

His arms slid around her and Amanda, still holding him, still kissing him, moved her leg over to straddle his lap. Once there, she raised her head from his mouth, looked in his eyes—smiling a mysterious smile—and slowly moved her hips down around him. He managed to move them both farther out on the couch and Amanda really smiled then, settling in and sliding her legs all the way around him.

She sighed, smiling, and touched his hair. “The only problem is,” she murmured, “I can’t tell if that’s you or the material of my dress caught between my legs.

He squirmed slightly. “Both,” he said, stretching his neck to kiss her.

And then they went reckless with each other, not caring at all for the welfare of their clothes. Amanda’s dress was off before her scarf, Howard’s pants before his shirt, and this went here and that went there and Amanda’s bracelets were rolling about on the floor and she was reaching down into his shorts and he was ready to rip her brassiere apart out of impatience and Amanda was laughing and he was laughing and then Amanda sat up and said, “I don’t have my diaphragm.”

They sat there. She hit him on the chest. “The diaphragm you made me get, thank you very much.”

And Howard said not to worry, he had something, and went off to the bathroom and came back and found Amanda completely naked, standing about the pillows she had pulled off the couch. “How does one operate such a thing?” she wanted to know.

They did not get it right. First Howard had to hold Amanda naked against him. And then he had to remember her breasts. And then Amanda had to do something about his Jockey shorts and certainly, certainly, offer a warm greeting to all that had been carried in them and that seemed so eager for her to do so. But they finally did pull the couch out into a bed and they did carry on about the condom Howard had brought from the bathroom. “What do you mean you never used one, Howard, don’t tell me this is left over from high school.”

“Yikes, it’s cold, Amanda.”

“Don’t be silly, it will be more than sufficiently warm in a moment” —and their sex was a great, urgent, noisy affair, and both came very quickly and quite happily so, and within a half hour Howard was padding back to the bathroom again for another condom and they started in all over again, all over each other, and this time there was no fuss over the condom but instead over who might expire first, Amanda or Howard, in this splendid game of trying not to come, of trying to hold back—teetering, edging back, edging forward but—oh-not-quite, edging back—and then Amanda said, “I am going to die if I don’t come,” and so she did—very loudly so—and then Howard didn’t stand a chance, not with the kinds of things that Amanda was saying, and so he came too, making a great masculine-moaning event out of it, and it was only when he was still that Amanda started laughing into his neck, quite unable to stop, and Howard said, “What is it?” and she whispered in his ear and then he sat bolt upright and looked to the window.

They had not gone unobserved.

Howard dove back down and hid his face in her hair, asking now what was he supposed to do—”some literary agency, this is”—and Amanda couldn’t stop laughing, but when she did she wanted to know how on earth were they ever going to get up with all those people there.