One winter’s day there was an urgent knock on my dormitory door and there she was.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came up for the big game.” She opened those miraculous black eyes even wider than usual. “Didn’t I? Isn’t there one this week? This is college. There’s always a big game going on!”
We stayed up late filling in the blanks of our lives for each other and laughing. She’d met so many people in New York and done everything I could imagine doing. But the irony was that, despite all the wonder and excitement of life in New York, she had a terrific time being a plain old college girl with me for a week.
She thought I was amazing because I understood what the instructor was saying in Russian class. She asked me so many whispered questions in art history about the slides of Renaissance paintings that we both got the giggles. The teacher gave me a look that would have frozen lava. Over my protests, Arlen insisted we go to a fraternity party. We didn’t have a good time and left quickly, but in the short hour we were there she managed to provoke two high-volume, go-for-the-jugular arguments with two pompous frat brothers. I would have called them fools and marched off after five seconds, but she enjoyed the confrontations and kept goading her opponents. She also held an unfair advantage over them because in each argument, the guy would be halfway into making his points, and then look at her and instantly get lost in her magnificence. All she had to do was give one of her you’re-quite-a-guy looks, and he was a goner. Her beauty could vacuum-clean a man’s mind in an instant.
Arlen knew this and used it to her full benefit. When we got home later and talked about it, she was cold as an arctic eel on the subject.
“Men want to go to bed, then maybe talk. Women want to talk first—a lot—then maybe go to bed. That much I’ve learned. So okay, if that’s the way of the world, then I’m going to use it my way.”
“You sound cold and conniving about it, Arlen. Like there are no nice men on the whole earth.”
“Sure there are nice guys. But I’ll give you something else to think about, Rosey, that’s been bothering me lately. Answer this. How many superb women do you know? I’m talking about intelligent, sensitive women; ones you like spending lots of time with because, among other things, they’re great company. They know how to talk, have a good sense of humor, aren’t just givers or takers.”
“That’s a hard question. I need time to think about it—”
“Beep! Time’s up. Wrong! You need about one minute because the answer is almost none. Neither of us knows many great women. They’re rare birds. Worse, generally speaking, we also know women are ten times more sensitive, thoughtful, et cetera than the male species… which leaves us in pretty bad shape when it comes to finding desirable men. How many real winners do you think are out there waiting to sweep us off our feet?”
Despairing, the innocent freshman romantic in me frowned at her. “This conversation is not lifting my spirits, you know. Why are you saying this? All those great times you’ve been having… It sounds as if the only trouble you have is that too many men want to sweep you off your feet.”
“Yes, into bed. But do you want them in your life the next morning, when your makeup’s smeared and maybe you’ve got gas from the ritzy meal last night? Do you want to spend the rest of the day with this man doing nothing? Just maybe read the paper or take a walk if the weather’s nice? Hold his hand or even pinch his ass not for any sexy reason but only because you like him? Or can you imagine spending the same day inside because it’s February and snowing outside, but you’re both so content and caught up in what you’re doing that for long stretches you forget he’s there? Except at the same time you know he’s there because he adds to the small bliss of the afternoon. It’s rare. The only thing I know, Rose, is be careful. Use what you’ve got, and don’t let the man get the upper hand. Not ever. Even when you love him with every cell of your skin, it can go bad really quickly. Even when you think you’ve got the relationship down pat. Even when you’re positive you know all his nooks and crannies.”
I couldn’t get out of her why she was so damned defensive and skeptical, especially in light of her recent triumphs. But she wouldn’t reveal any more, and then our week together was over.
One of the results of her visit was that we became devoted correspondents. Talking on the phone was nice and immediate and we did it often, but both of us loved getting mail and trying to put the best, most insightful, witty parts of ourselves down on paper for the appreciation and approval of the other. Arlen had discovered the letters of Frank Sullivan and sent me a copy of that wonderful book. We read to each other from it, saying how rewarding it would be to go through life with a pen pal like Sullivan. Let’s do it. Let’s make a vow that at least once a week from now on we’ll write to each other and try to make the letters as good as anything in our lives. It is an agreement I have cherished.
Arlen kept working at various jobs, continued her acting lessons and auditions, and finally left for Los Angeles after being invited to join the Swift Swigger Repertory Company. I was depressed that she would be moving so far away, but I’d assumed it would happen sooner or later. Also the sneaky thought existed that if nothing came clear in my mind after graduation, I might go out there and stay with her a while, take a look around, and see if it was the place for me too.
That spring she called to say she’d landed a very good part in a film, which turned out to be Standing on the Baby’s Head. Is it necessary for me to say more about Arlen Ford’s career? From the day the movie opened she was a bona fide star.
I went to see it with none other than Matthew Flaherty, the man I’d been waiting for my whole life and the same fellow who later tried to kill me. Although that sounds dramatic, it is true, but not an important part of this story. Except what Matthew did moved me to L.A. more quickly than I might have gone.
We met in the university library. I had been studying for an exam and took off to go to the bathroom. When I returned, there was a most handsome man holding my Russian history book in his freckled hand, looking at it with complete concentration. He was tall and virile. He worked on the railroad but came to this library whenever he got a chance in his time off to read and think. In his pants pocket was a collection of poetry by someone I had never heard of. Inside were lines like this:
I have left my breath with you
It is there, warm and secret,
By your ear, on your collar
against your throat.
EEYOW! Are you kidding? Bull’s eye! I was an indulged little patty-cake college student who thought I knew my way around because I was studying psychology and dark Russian novels. Ergo I was a perfect sucker for this noble railroad savage, who had poetry sticking out of his pocket and an obvious interest in me. That he worked as a laborer and had never gone beyond high school made him all the more alluring and heartbreaking. He was also the first lover I ever had who took care that I liked it and then made me like it more than anyone else had.
Life was rapture for a while. Until he began saying he didn’t like any of my friends. To please him, we saw no one else when he was around. Small sacrifice. We stayed locked away together in my place, in bed, or in his car going from wherever he wanted to wherever. I saw nothing wrong with it—we were in love and lust. It was only on the weekends.
The end began in a bar when a man a few stools away kept looking at me. Matthew threw a quart-sized beer mug straight at his head. Blood, broken glass, chaos.