It was just a matter of time before we became lovers. The first time, it was in her dorm room. She took her clothes off and lay down and turned her face to the wall while I undressed. Migod, to hold this tremulous being in my arms. After that she always rode her bike to my place.… And I remember when she woke me up one dawn, dragging me out of bed like an excited child, and pulling me stumbling up the stairs to the roof of my suite motel to watch the rising sun light the mountaintops. I doubt that my seduction technique had ever before been practiced in this country of cowboys. I had taken her out of her time, out of her place, and I was jealous even of the stray dog that she’d picked up to come with us on our trip.
So as I understand it, you were going to California with the girl of your dreams and what with one thing or another you managed to feel miserable about it.
We were off to see her parents. How would you feel?
Briony directed Andrew to a little seaside town about an hour south of Los Angeles. He turned off the Coast Highway to a street lined with small-scale homes in pastel colors. The predominating building material was stucco. In front of each home, a garden patch stuffed with ridiculously exorbitant tropical plants in flower. Perhaps he was tired from the two days on the road. Even Briony’s excitement as she pointed him to one of the narrow driveways that separated each house from its neighbor he found annoying. And who was this running up to the front door, flinging it open and disappearing inside — certainly not the spectacular spandexed handstander on the high bar, nor the lovely creature demurely submitting to a brain scan in the elementary cognitive science lab, nor the lover of an older man. Coming home for someone her age was a regression to childhood. Andrew stood by the car with his hands on his hips and looked over the neighborhood. It was shadowless. Heat shimmering from the white pavement. He couldn’t admit to himself how nervous he felt, how out of place, squiring this child like some vile seducer.
I can understand this was a difficult moment for you.
Yes. I didn’t want to follow her. The house was just a short walk from a retaining wall at the end of the street. I found myself looking down a vine-covered hillside to a beach covered with people — a brueghel of people, sunning themselves, playing volleyball, children picking up shells along the water’s edge. More of them were out in the blue water drifting patiently on their surfboards. Beyond was the Pacific, flecked with sailboats. Above it all, in a smoggy sky, was a bloodstained sun clearly intending to set over the sea. The whole scene seemed unnatural. Where I come from the sun sets over the land.
Briony was calling to him from the house, waving, smiling. He turned and noticed the parents’ car that he had parked behind, a red Morris Minor. You didn’t see many of those anymore. At the door, Briony took his hand. They’re out back, she said. And in the short walk through the house to the garden Andrew had the impression of — what to call it — a prosthetic house? The stairway to the second floor was made of shallow half steps, the upholstered chairs and sofa in the living room had attached footstools. The center island in the kitchen was stepped. Whatever needed to be used came with graduated access, handrails. And the place smelled very clean, antiseptic almost. All of this Andrew perceived peripherally as he passed through the house and to the garden where there, smiling and rising to greet him, and not crippled or maimed at all, were Briony’s parents. I’m Bill, he said. I’m Betty, she said.
The fact that I was a college teacher was in my favor. These were retired show-business people with great respect for the education they never had. And so loving of their daughter that they trusted her judgment. Never even a raised eyebrow for this man twice their daughter’s age. Gave me a hearty welcome. So I had worried for no reason. There were bottles and an ice bucket on a tea caddy. You name it we got it, Bill said. We had drinks, Briony sitting close to me on the settee, glancing at me for my reaction. But Bill and Betty were classy, they had the social ease of longtime performers. They were young-looking given that they were retirees. It’s hard to tell with Diminutives.
Diminutives?
You don’t want to patronize them. “Midgets” is beyond the pale. Derives from the insect the midge. And “Little People” is not much better.
You’re saying Briony’s parents were midgets?
Only out of their hearing.
My goodness. And “Diminutives” was their term of choice?
That’s my term. They didn’t speak of themselves descriptively. You just look at them and you go into the politically correct mode. To my credit I didn’t even blink the moment I saw them. Just an example of the brain’s synaptic speed. It had probably told me what I’d find as I’d walked through the house.
Why hadn’t Briony warned you?
I don’t know. Could she have been testing me? My reaction a measure of my character? But it couldn’t have been that. Briony was incapable of any kind of subterfuge. And she was too self-aware to act unconsciously. And why should she warn me? We were seriously together — why would something like that matter? They were her folks, who were in her sight lines from the day she was born. She loved them. And given their sociability with others of their like she was raised in an aura of normality, not being the only child in that situation. You don’t go around apologizing for your mom and dad.
But what young girl of even normally proportioned parents will not say something in advance by way of softening their effect? A parent is a person who embarrasses you.
Well, this was Briony. This was the girl who led me up the mountain. She was in all ways enigmatic. I was deeply in the world of her affections — why wouldn’t I know already, without being told, that her parents were tiny? What can I say that will satisfy you? En route to CA, she gave her dog away to some kid who worked at the motel where we stayed one night. At the time, I didn’t know why she would do that — after impulsively bringing it along, naming it Pete, and then giving him away to someone, and with a dollar or two to buy some kibble. She knelt and hugged the dog and looked on sadly as the kid walked him away on a leash. Perhaps that was the acknowledgment you’re looking for. When I saw Briony take her mother in her arms and hold her as you would a child, when I watched her kneeling to hug her father, I could see why she might have had second thoughts about Pete the dog. He was big. Had a tail on him that could crack your fibula.
I just remembered — she did tell me one thing, Briony. She asked me not to talk politics with her father. My last-minute instructions. We were just approaching the family manse. She kissed my cheek. Oh, and, Andrew, please, please, no politics, OK?
What was that about?
We were in Orange County, CA, the land of love it or leave it.
How did Briony know what your politics were? I can’t imagine new lovers talking politics.
Lovers live in each other’s minds. Briony found in mine a degree of civic intensity that she recognized from her father’s conversation. Except I was of a different era.
I see.
You don’t know everything about me, Doc, you’re only hearing what I choose to tell you. I’ve always responded to the history of my times. I’ve always attended to the context of my life.
The context.
Yes, as it ripples in concentric circles all the way out to the stars. Bill was a bright little man and I did honor Briony’s request, though it wouldn’t have occurred to me in any case as a guest in this house to tease out our political differences. But between Bill and me, I would say I was the truer patriot. If you keep the larger picture in mind you can’t be convinced of the permanence of this country. Not when you know who’s running it.