Stepping Read online

  “Nine months is too long,” Stephen said. “Nine weeks is too long. I don’t need to think any more. I know exactly what I want. I want you.”

  “Oh, Stephen, think of Ellen. Think of Charlie; he’s your friend. Think of all the children—”

  “They’d survive, we’d all survive. There’d be a month or so of crying and screaming, and then life would continue as usual. Can’t you see that it’s worse this way, living with Charlie and Ellen when we love each other?”

  “But I can’t do it now, Stephen, I just can’t. I have to have more time to think, I have to.” My wonderful warmth slid away. I wanted to cry, “Don’t make me plead, don’t make me beg, don’t make me ask yet another man to let me do what I want and need to do. You’re ruining it.”

  “I’m coming to Helsinki,” Stephen said.

  “What? What?” I screeched, and in the transatlantic time lapse our voices suddenly echoed and crossed over one another.

  “I said I’m coming to Helsinki.”

  “What? What?”

  “There’s a conference in New York I can say I’m attending. I know someone there who will cover for me. I already have my reservations. I’m arriving at eleven-thirty in the morning, your time, on BEA #270, on November twenty-ninth. Can you meet me at the airport, or arrange a hotel for me?”

  “Stephen, I can’t handle this! You can’t come here. Please.”

  I must have sounded desperate enough; there was a long expensive silence, and then Stephen said:

  “I promise I won’t make a scene. I won’t try to force you. I won’t even discuss the future. I just want to see you, be with you. I’ll stay only two or three days. We’ll eat together, hide in my hotel, talk if you want to. I just want to see you, Zelda, I want to touch you again. Low key. No pressure. Is that all right?”

  I was weak with fear and delight and sorrow. “All right,” I said. “All right.”

  “Goodbye then till November twenty-ninth. Write me, Zelda, here at the university.”

  “I will. All right. Goodbye.”

  “I love you, Zelda.”

  “Goodbye.”

  * * *

  “Oh, I love you, I love you, Chocolate eyes, Chicken Feathers,” I would say to my dark-eyed son, to my fine-haired, fair-haired daughter. “I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU!” I would shout at them in ecstasy, wrestling with them on their beds, nipping at their sweet flesh. “I could eat you up!”

  “I love you, Charlie,” I would say to my husband so many times during our lives together. And I meant it.

  I loved, too, three or four women who were important to me, who were more than friends or mentors. I loved my parents, I loved my two surviving grandparents, who sat blithering away in rest homes. I loved, in a way, my stepdaughters.

  But now, for the first time in my thirty-four years, I loved unmistakably, best of all, finally, at long last, ME. It was a great feeling.

  I wasn’t so sure about Stephen. Perhaps I loved him, perhaps not. That was one of the things I was trying to sort out. How much of it had been a challenge, how much of it was gratitude, how much of it was simply that I hadn’t slept with a man other than Charlie for over thirteen years?

  We had met Stephen and Ellen several times at university parties, and it turned out that Stephen was the new head of the English department. Ellen had—actually, of course, Stephen had, too, but one always thinks of children as what the mother has because she is home with them—children Adam’s and Lucy’s ages. Adam and Carrie, Ellen’s four-year-old daughter, even knew each other at preschool. Charlie, who doesn’t make friends easily anymore, finding books a more valuable way of using time, liked Stephen because Stephen knew so much about books. I liked Ellen because she was so beautiful to look at and because she was like me, a woman who had had “a career” but was now a dedicated mother, happy to have children but finding home life rather confining and dull in spite of the ecstasy. We started doing things together, we even spent one lovely Christmas Eve together, and the friendship of the whole Hunter family was a light in our family’s life.

  Then Stephen called one September day a year ago to tell me that one of their teachers had had a heart attack, and to ask me if I wouldn’t like to teach two courses at the university. Just freshman literature and composition, with mediocre pay, and he could easily get a graduate student if I wasn’t interested, but he had heard me say so often how much I missed teaching … I felt like someone drowning must feel when he’s suddenly caught and hauled up to the air.

  I taught Monday-Wednesday-Friday afternoons, and I loved it. It was terribly exciting, each day of it, walking around the classrooms, laughing with the students, trying to dance and jiggle and jangle up the air so that those kids learned something and had fun learning it. I was a good teacher. I had been before, years before, but I was older now, and it was good to know that my abilities hadn’t left me, good to know that even if the big, tall, cute basketball stars no longer tried to flirt with me they still paid enough attention to learn how to write a decent essay. I knew I was a good teacher, I knew it in my bones. part-time for the spring semester, and no one at home complained. My teaching somehow energized me for the rest of my life; I smiled through my housework, sang to my children, began to feel more creative in bed.

  I would have taught again this fall, but instead Charlie was awarded the Fulbright research grant, and here we all are in Helsinki. I keep telling myself that I’ll always be able to teach again, that this is a great opportunity to enjoy another culture, that we should travel while the children are young. But the desire to teach is yet another thing that flutters behind the locked doors of my mind and shakes me by the shoulders when I let it out. I once intended to be a university professor, to head a department of English. I am not sure now whether it’s Stephen I want or his job.

  It was exhilarating to teach again after so long, and Stephen was always there, complimenting me, reporting on my good work, helping me—it was easy to grow fond of him. And all the more delicious because he was a man that few people could touch. He was a slim, handsome, New England prep school type who had graduated from Yale. He had published a lot, in all the right places, and he moved through the world with the unruffable ease of a man who is thoroughly competent at his job and has money in the family as well. His wife was another jewel in his crown; she had been an actress on Broadway and now gave her advice to the university and little city theaters, although she refused to act because acting took too much out of her and she wanted to save her energies for her family. Stephen Hunter had everything, and he knew it, and now he wanted to create a great, unique innovative department of English, and he channeled everything into that. His smile for secretaries, professors, students, administrators, was charming but brief; he wanted to get on with it. He had a lot to do. People began to think him snotty or overly ambitious, icy, inhuman. I was only a lowly part-time instructor; I enjoyed the envy of others who saw Stephen stop to sit on my desk to chat and laugh with me. I thought he was joking with me on Monday about a new freshman text because we had all taken our children sledding on Sunday. I thought he spent time discussing the department with me because I had good ideas. Certainly many of them were implemented. I thought he was an intelligent man discussing work with an intelligent woman. I was as saddened as I was pleased when it all turned out to be something different.

  One March morning I had a frantic phone call from Ellen.

  “What am I going to do, Zelda?” she wailed. “Carrie’s come down with the flu. She’s really sick. Her temperature’s been over a hundred and three for hours now and she can’t keep anything down and all she wants to do is sit on my lap. And I promised Stephen I’d have an intimate little dinner party for whoozit—that big-deal critic who’s flying in today. I made a chocolate torte yesterday, it’s in the fridge, but I can’t possibly get around to making a whole dinner today. And no one would want to eat here anyway, the entire house smells like vomit.”

  “Surely Stephen can take whoever it is
out to dinner on an expense account,” I said.

  “No, no, not the first night,” Ellen said. “He’s really hot shit, and we’re supposed to treat him like a king. He’s some lonely old widower who lives alone in New York City and loves to be babied when he travels. Stephen really wanted his first night here to be a home spread.”

  “Ellen,” I said, “are you talking about Levin? Samuel Levin? Good Lord, Ellen, if it’s Samuel Levin, I’ll have the dinner here! Who all’s supposed to come? I’ll take the kids to a sitter’s and make a stroganoff and salad and you can give me your torte for dessert and we’ll all be happy!” I was thrilled at the idea of having Samuel Levin in my house and glad to help Ellen. And as it turned out, Stephen thought I’d done it to help him.

  My part of the dinner was a success. Marita Nyberg and Dan Smith, the two English department people other than Stephen, were as pleasant and complimentary as any two people could be. Even Charlie was his most cordial. But Samuel Levin had grown old and odd and bitter and cold, and after spending the winter hidden in his apartment writing diatribes against the critics who had criticized his work, couldn’t thaw out enough to act even polite. He was a wall of ice for the first half of the evening, until he had enough booze in him—all of our scotch and three bottles of wine—and then he began raging and railing vehemently, while the rest of us sat stunned, pretending to listen.

  “Jesus,” Marita whispered to me as she left, “he’s doing the Hall lecture tomorrow night and not leaving till the next morning. Who’s gonna take care of him and listen to more of that shit tomorrow night? Not me!”

  As it turned out, only Stephen and I volunteered to take Levin out to dinner Tuesday night after his lecture. No one else would go, not even for a free meal. Carrie was still sick, so Ellen couldn’t go, and on my side Charlie simply wouldn’t go.

  “That was enough for me,” he said as we did the dishes after my dinner. “I’ll babysit tomorrow night and you can listen to that old madman let off his gas.”

  I argued a bit, but could see Charlie’s point. It had been a boring, wasted evening. Still, I felt a little bit of rancor rise inside. How many nights had I spent being pleasant to Charlie’s not always pleasant colleagues? Was I not to get equal help until I became a full professor?

  Stephen and I took Samuel Levin to a small restaurant only a few blocks from Levin’s hotel. His lecture had been, to our surprise and relief, lucid and dense and memorable. He had really pulled himself together for the public appearance, and the applause was deafening. I felt proud being seen leaving with him; me, a part-time freshman comp instructor, next to him, a fine old man of letters.

  Levin’s successful talk seemed to mellow him; at dinner he was again talkative, but this time he dwelled on pleasant subjects. He reminisced. He told tales on Eliot and Stein and Pound, and drank and laughed and thoroughly enjoyed himself. Stephen and I could have been anyone else in the world; we could have been mannequins; Levin needed an audience only because it was not socially acceptable to talk out loud to oneself in public. Stephen and I had fabulous meals, courtesy of the Visiting Lecturer Fund, and we drank enough wine so Levin wouldn’t feel alone, enough wine to make us wiggle our eyebrows at each other each time Levin belched out his insane laughter.

  After the dinner we both escorted Levin to his hotel room. By that time we thought we’d better see with our own eyes that he got safely there.

  “Dr. Smith will be by to take you to the airport at ten tomorrow,” Stephen said. “Thank you again for coming to lecture for us, Mr. Levin. You were magnificent.”

  Levin swayed in his doorway, looking up at Stephen. “Don’t suppose you’d like to come in for a little nightcap, would you? I’ve got a bottle of the best in my briefcase. Never travel without it. No, I can tell you two aren’t interested in me and my booze and my old raggy tales. You’ve been making eyes at each other all night. I’m no dummy. You two can’t wait to get rid of the old fart and run somewhere and fuck like rabbits. Well, go on, you two, and bless you. Enjoy it. I’d be doing it too if I had anyone to do it with. I can get it up now as well as I ever could—”

  Stephen gently pushed Levin into his room, said good night, and closed the door.

  I leaned against the wall opposite the door and began to laugh quietly. “Oh, Stephen!” I said, shaking my head.

  Stephen took two steps across the narrow hall, pressed himself against me, and began kissing me. The effect of his lips touching mine was like a match held to kerosene-soaked rags: we went whoosh. We were ablaze. We stood together there in the hotel hallway, not six feet away from where poor lonely Levin was undoubtedly pouring himself another drink, and we kissed and pushed each other crazily.

  When a sensible thought could get through to me—most of my mind was crying, “Get these clothes out of the way! … Where’s the bed? … More, more, more!”—it was: “Why, he’s made us horny, that horny old man, he and all that booze.” Yet another voice was screeching, “Zelda! Hey! Stop! What about Charlie?” But I pushed the sensible thoughts away. Kissing Stephen was fun.

  “I’m going to get us a room,” Stephen said suddenly, pulling away. His mouth was swollen, and I knew mine was, too.

  “What for?” I asked stupidly. Then, catching on, “No!” I grabbed Stephen again, frantic. “No, Stephen, we can’t.”

  Stephen stared at me in disbelief, and seeing that I meant what I said, suddenly grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me through an open door into room number 256. He slammed the door shut behind us. My wits were with me enough to quickly survey the room; it was neat and impersonal, untouched. No coats on the hangers or flung over a chair, no sheets turned down expectantly.

  “Zelda,” Stephen said, pinning me against the door. “I’ve been waiting months for an opportunity like this. I want you. I want to make love to you.”

  He began kissing me, pummeling me again. He was so eager, so desperate, so excited—so different from Charlie, who now of course took our lovemaking for granted and moved slowly and assuredly through it all. All my instincts were aroused, in a wild rich mixture: sexual and maternal desires surged together. Stephen seemed both a full-grown man who could take me and a young animal, pushing demandingly at a mother’s breast for food and affection.

  Early in our relationship Charlie and I had agreed that we wouldn’t sleep with anyone else until we told each other that we were going to do it first. It had seemed a fair and logical agreement at the time, especially since I was sure I would never want to sleep with anyone else, and I had never felt any need to test the agreement in the thirteen years we had been married. Now I saw how absurd it was, and a chuckle started deep in my throat. I imagined me wrestling on the bed with Stephen, dialing the phone, pulling down my hose, and pulling up my skirt, saying, “Charlie? This is Zelda.” (Puff, puff, pant, pant, heavy breathing, loss of control.) “I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to make love with someone else now. Goodbye!” And then hanging up the phone, and turning to Stephen …

  But I pushed him away. Too weak to stand without a wall at my back, shaking all over, I found strength to push him away. I wanted him, but not really. I wanted the sense of romance, the sense of danger, the fun, the acknowledgment that I was desirable, but not the serious final commitment of joining my body to his.

  “Stephen,” I gasped as I stood holding him off with my hands, as we stood there panting and shaking and sweating and glaring at each other like two combatants in a battle, “Stephen, I can’t. I can’t.”

  “Zelda,” Stephen said, his voice aching and low, “you don’t understand. I love you.”

  Well, I was drunk. I had had too much wine. I drew my arm back and slapped Stephen as hard as I could on the cheek. We both staggered sideways in surprise.

  “You wiseass sleek New England phony!” I hissed. “You vain egotistical fraud. Don’t you ever use words like that so lightly. I’m from Kansas; words like that mean something to me. You don’t love me, don’t tell me you love me. You just want to screw me, tha
t’s all. You’ve ruined everything by saying that.”

  I burst into tears. I fell back against the wall and sobbed, both my hands hanging at my side.

  After a few moments Stephen said, “I’ll take you home now.”

  I went into the bathroom and washed my face in cold water and dried myself on the nice crisp hotel towels. I put lipstick and eyeliner on and smiled at myself in the mirror, trying to look normal, wondering if anything showed, just as I had done so many years ago after dates when I went home to be inspected by my parents’ eagle eyes. But it was Charlie who would be seeing me now. I knew I would tell him nothing. So far I still felt virtuous, only slightly drunk and embarrassed.

  Stephen went into the bathroom then, while I sat on the end of a double bed and tried to breathe naturally. When we left the room I couldn’t resist smiling. To think of all the passion that had gone on there, and we hadn’t even paid for the room. We passed Levin’s door, half expecting him to open it and leer out at us, but all was silent. No one looked at us twice, and we went down the elevator and through the lobby and out to the car.

  The ride home was absolutely quiet. We said nothing. I rehearsed scenes in my mind to tell Charlie: “Levin’s Hall lecture was wonderful, you should have been there, but he got soaked again at dinner. At least the food was good. I had escargots for appetizer, and—”

  Stephen pulled into our driveway, and without turning off the engine, leaned over and opened my door from the inside.

  I put my hand on the door and said, “Good night, Stephen.”

  And Stephen said, “I love you, Zelda. I’ve loved you for a long time.”

  I stared at him for one long moment in dismay, then jumped out of the car and called in my best old sorority voice, “Thanks again, Stephen. Tell Ellen hi. Hope Carrie’s better.”

  Then I walked to the house, slowly, normally, when I really wanted to run and hide, as if something would get me if I didn’t hurry.

  That was in March. The next day, on my desk, there was a typed copy of a tenderly coercive love poem waiting for me.