A DATE WITH LIZBETH
TWO YEARS EARLIER
November 14th 1995
San Miguel, Marin County 12:12pm
‘Aren’t you taking the dogs?’
She couldn’t take them for walks anymore, not with her leg so undependable.
‘Not this time,’ he answered. ‘Going to the store, and you know how they hate being tied up. Anyway, Scout can hardly walk these days, and Mackie always poops in the middle of the damn sidewalk.’
‘Well, okay. We need more milk.’
She was ironing. She still ironed his shirts as if he was going to the office every day. She ironed each one, and hung them neatly in a row in the part of the closet that was his.
‘Okay. Actually, I might go round to see Ernie and Bernice on the way back.’ Jack paused in the door frame, then stepped back into the house, made himself act relaxed. ‘Might be a while, honey.’
‘Okay. That’s fine.’
‘You know Bernice.’ He made the yackety-yack sign with his fingers, and she smiled.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So, see you when I see you.’
‘Toilet paper. We need toilet paper too, Jack! And canned dog food, not that dry stuff.’
Off he went. The sky was a clear winter blue, and the air was deliciously clean and cold on the back of his throat. Walking without leashes felt strange. Like when he gave up smoking but kept feeling the ghost of a butt between his fingers. He replayed a memory: Lizbeth and himself, dancing to a Benny Goodman song played by a local band at the Fairmount. She was wearing a green silk dress that left her shoulders bare, so he hardly knew where to put his hands. On the slippery fabric? Her skin? She was short, very slender, very young looking – eighteen, but looked about fifteen. Her breasts pushed up from the dress like very sexy marshmallows. He was only twenty-one, but he’d been a soldier for two years. Dancing with her, he felt older but still inexperienced. If only he could dance. It was nerve-wracking, concentrating on where to put his hands, as well as where to put his feet.
Her hair was red, the kind of red people stared at. It had a fancy name. Titian blonde. It fell in soft waves down her bare back, and a part of him wondered if she was aware of it. Did it feel nice to have one’s own hair caressing one’s back? Did it tickle? Someone asked them to smile, took their picture (which was the photograph that still resided in his desk drawer), and when the shutter clicked, he magically forgot to be clumsy, and off they’d danced in each other’s arms. He had one arm around her tiny waist and she had one arm around his back, and pulled him in close, close, till he could feel her heart beating and he blushed but did not pull away. Their free hands were entwined and raised, and her head nestled into that indent below his shoulder, so he felt tall. This was the most exciting thing to happen to Jacko MacAlister to date, including the war, including that wild camping trip with Ernie, including winning the cross-country that hot August in ’44. Her head right there, just below his chin, and her body curling into his. Damn! He could still taste the vermouth, smell her perfume. Something heady, and mixed up with her own sweet perspiration. The windows had been open, to let in the summer evening breeze. Acacias? No, more like gardenias.
And now, after all these years, after all those imaginings, he was going to see her. A postcard with a black-and-white picture of Market Street after the 1906 earthquake. Hey, stranger! Am in town for a funeral (old aunt Bethany), let’s meet up for lunch at Marin Yacht Club.
Milly was beautiful still, and he loved her, damn it, but she couldn’t make him feel like this. Same with Colette. They’d both seen all his less flattering selves too many times. They knew him. It almost made him hate them some days. And so Lizbeth remained the most beautiful girl in the world. (And the reason his daughter was called Elisabeth, but no one knew that but Jack.) Lizbeth was the original love of his life.
He suddenly felt his bowels clench. He ordered his intestines to freeze. To not even fart till given permission. The closer he got to the arranged rendezvous the faster his heart raced. It was not pleasant. Goddammit! This was why he’d decided to walk – walking always calmed him. He made himself slow down. A cloud scooted in front of the sun, and it was almost frightening. In less than ten minutes, he’d see her.
The first time was a September morning in 1947. They were both in freshman year. The GI Bill had given him an escape route from his past; he was the first MacAlister to attend college. (His father would have felt threatened, but his mother was proud. His sister, Ivy, too. She sent cards saying so. You are a genius!) Lizbeth been sitting behind him in English Lit I. He’d heard her laughter first. If laughter could sound intelligent and sexy, hers did. When she responded to the lecturer’s question about Dickens, he’d had an excuse to turn around and look at her. He’d only dated a few times in high school. Then there’d been the oddly moving prostitute in Japan. That had felt like a kind of love too. Her numb responses to his kisses, her blank face, had touched him, and he’d left her un-touched (and kept his money). But turning and seeing Lizbeth was the first time his heart had ever stopped. Then resumed like a marching band.
The last time he saw her, they’d met at the Larkspur Half Moon Hotel for a drink. She’d persuaded him not to pick her up at her parents’ house, and she rushed in twenty minutes late. He’d been on his second beer, half listening to the football game, nibbling on popcorn though he had no appetite. For three years, they’d been…well, Jack had called it going steady but Lizbeth called it just going places with a friend. Because she was also going places with other men, and she was a straightforward kind of girl. No secrets. No shame. They went dancing, walking, to parties, movies, picnics. There’d been kissing and holding hands and hours and hours spent simply clinging to each other, fully clothed. A time of blissful torture. An intensity of yearning that felt like it must culminate one day, must, and yet Jack had been strangely content with this limbo. It drove him wild sometimes, thinking of her with other men. But whenever she was with him, he felt utterly convinced he was the only one who mattered. None of the others would be able to bring out this confiding, cuddly side of Lizbeth. She was the most exciting girl he had ever met. But something had shifted, and all week she’d sounded different on the phone. Evasive. Now here she was.
‘Sorry, Jacko. Sorry, I couldn’t get here any sooner.’
‘No problem.’ He kissed her on the mouth, noticing her lips were slack. She tasted of garlic. She often did, but it never bothered him.
‘Smoke?’
‘Sure.’
He lit her cigarette and she sucked hard, pursed her mouth and blew a perfect smoke ring above his head.
‘Show off,’ he said.
‘Jealous.’
‘Drink?’
‘Coke. Oh, hell, a screwdriver.’
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Good.’
‘Actually, not okay.’
Then she blurted it out, before their drinks came. She was going to Paris. One of her less respectable, less discreet male friends frightened her father. He’d enrolled her on an art course at the Sorbonne. She’d take a year break from Cal.
‘He can’t do that. Just say no. Tell him about me. I’m every father’s dream boyfriend for their daughter.’
‘Ah, Jacko. I want to go, actually. I mean, imagine. Paris!’
Some team scored a touchdown on the radio, and as she stopped talking, the bar crowd cheered. Then the announcer started shouting about how incredible some footballer was. Jack could hear the crowd going wild, behind the announcer, behind this bar with Lizbeth perched on the bar stool next to him.
‘Sure.’ He inhaled his cigarette so hard, it burned his throat like scalding coffee. ‘I get it. Paris. Wow! When?’
‘Next week. I’ll miss you, Jacko. Will you write?’
