HUMIDITY

Variation on a theme by John O’Hara

Charles Deemer

 

            “How do you breathe in this city?” Ally asked.

            “Always the west coast girl,” I said.

            “You got that right.”

            She had a point, the humidity was oppressive even for August in Philly. We’d made love and showered and made love in the shower again, and already we were perspiring as if from the very effort of dressing. The open hotel window brought in no breeze, only the racket of afternoon traffic below.

            “You have time for lunch?” I asked.

            “Sorry, no. I’ll be late as it is.”

            “At least you called me.”

            She smiled.

            “When have I ever come into town without a quick fix?”

            “We’ve barely caught up.”

            “Are you complaining?”

            “No, I’d just like to know how you are.”

            “I divorced John.”

            “I didn’t know.”

            “Now you do. I turn 40 next month, and I’ve had three divorces. See what you missed?”

            I’d proposed to her when we both were undergraduates at the University of California at Berkeley. She said no. I’d proposed again when I was in graduate school in Oregon, and Ally was between her second husband and John. She’d said no. She kept insisting we had too good a thing to ruin with marriage.

            I said, “They say the third time’s the charm.”

            “What’s charming about divorce?”

            “I was referring to my proposal.”

            “Please don’t propose. This is the first unequivocally good time I’ve had since I can’t remember.”

            “I’m not. But I probably will again one day. When we’re old and decrepit, and it finally occurs to you that you can’t live without me.”

            “I already know I can’t live without you.” She moved close and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “The question is, what can I live with.”

            “You’re a whiz at your job.”

            “Public relations is like getting to be the actress I didn’t have the courage to become.”

            She’d been a theater major at Berkeley, and I think I fell in love with her the moment I saw her in Romeo and Juliet.

            “More money, too,” I said.

            “Money, money, money. How about you? How come you’re still not married?”

            “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

            “Damn you. I don’t want this ruined.”

            I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or playful. We finished dressing in silence.

            I said, “I wish you didn’t have to run off.”

            “If I had courage, I’d quit my job and spend the day with you. But I’m a coward.”

            “You don’t like your job any more?”

            “I never liked it.”

            “News to me.”

            “You only see what’s on the surface. You’ve always been that way.”

            “Are you mad at me or something?”

            “I’m sorry. It’s just you’re always so upbeat about everything. Sometimes it gets on my nerves.”

            “Half-full, half-empty.”

            It was our running argument through two decades of caring for one another: I saw the glass as half-full, and Ally saw the glass as half-empty.

            “More than half,” she said.

            She must have seen the change in my expression, a sudden flash of worry, because she quickly smiled and her tone took on the musical resonance of a public relations director.

            “You always have the glass almost full. Almost to the tip-top. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you down or depressed. Not once. You’re quite amazing actually.”

            I didn’t know what to say. Something in her had changed, and I was still trying to make sense of it in order to know how to respond.

            Ally said, “Listen, kiddo, I’ve got to get out of here. The sex was great, as usual.”

            “We have more than sex.”

            “Right.”

            “Let me make a quick pit stop. Wait for me?”

            “Of course.”

            “You’d better close the window in case the bats fly in.”

            Another old joke between us: in another city, on a night long ago, a bat had flown into the room through our open hotel window.

            I went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. When I came back out, Ally was gone. The window had not been closed but opened wider, and a rare breeze moved the curtains, which swayed as if to music of a frequency beyond human comprehension. I stared at the open window as the realization swept over me that Ally was not here, would never be here again, and I heard the shattering of all the half-full glasses in the world.

 

 

Charles Deemer

cdeemer@yahoo.com