Then she considered the idea that Carol was jealous of their growing closeness, because Jason had sniffed out Victoria 's excitement about him immediately, and began to circle in an ever narrowing spiral.
“Just because I like Jason and he seems to like me doesn't mean we won't still be friends,” she had told Carol.
Carol broke into a big belly laugh. “What a relief!” she had responded. “Gee, then I can be honest with you? You won't turn on me if I say something negative about him? I just hate friends that pull that kind of shit, loyal to the boy, even when it means sacrificing a sense of humor or perspective.”
“Just what is it you don't like about him?” she had asked one night after sharing a joint in Carol's living room.
Carol thought for a long time. “Jason's okay, running around with lightweights. But Vic, you're not like that. You're going to get in there and scratch his insides. It's you two together that feels dangerous to me. Somebody could get hurt.”
She dismissed Carol's worries right then and there. “Deep is good and right. Who wants a shallow life? People are emotional creatures. We've got to give that full scope, don't we?”
“See what I mean?” Carol complained. “Everything is so heavy with you. You go too far. Most people aren't cut out for high drama.”
She had shaken her head. “Hurt is human. How else do we know we live?”
“Vic, you drive me crazy, and I bet I'm not the only one.” Carol had left it at that.
When Jason and Vic finally went to bed together, a month after their first meeting, Vic was deeply, hopelessly smitten. In love, in the worst possible way. Awash in sexual chemistry, she felt satisfied beyond reason with his lovemaking, which later she might have called calculated. The tiniest touch of his fingertip sent gushers of hot blood flooding through her body. Sex synthesized her into an unthinking organism, which exploded fertility, big as a season, bursting with buds and pollinating the universe. She wanted to own him, possess his soul and every thought.
And Jason was an eager colluder. He wrote poetry and songs for her, oblique metaphors which were really all about him and not about her at all. But that was fair, in fact, because all her thoughts of him were really all about an idealized version of herself. She was in love with her own creation, a consummate specimen of humanity, and not with Jason at all.
This went on for quite a while, lots of letters, feverish phone calls in the dead of night, passionate meetings on a cold, sandy beach, on a roof still radiating heat after the sun went down, against the dirty wall of a garage. She didn't want to contain their lovemaking. She desperately wanted to be out of control emotionally, and so she was.
Jason, perhaps, came along for the adventure.
They wore out. Six months of mindless doggy happiness and two years of self-imposed blindness passed before reality began its inexorable drip, smearing her fresh, perfect painting of relationship bliss.
A weekend came and went without a letter. That Sunday night, her frantic worry had given way to a dark resignation. She called his house, even though he preferred to call her.
“He's not in,” said his mother. “Who shall I say is calling?”
As if she had no idea who Vic was. As if nearly three years hadn't registered with her.
When he did call, he was full of newsy gossip about his weekend. He had studied hard on Saturday, and taken on his brother's paper route for fun on Sunday. They did the route in his battered Karmann Ghia, high.
“So two hours kinda morphed into three.” Jason chuckled.
“Just you and your brother?” she had asked, unable to stop herself.
He changed the subject, and she knew, somewhere in the infinitesimal portion of rational thought still accessible to her, the colors in her mind began to blur, and the brightness toned down just a hair. She knew, but for a brief time, she ignored what she knew.
The fights began.
Victoria came from an argumentative family. She knew how to argue, how to wield sarcasm, how to twist facts. She had a terrible tendency, she was the first to admit, to bolster her opinions with specious facts.
Jason had a more subtle style. He opened his eyes wide, convinced with a guileless air of calm reason. Which made her crazy. And made her throw things.
Deterioration, particularly when he responded in kind.
He had another lover. She knew it. He knew she knew. The entire thing made her so tired, she spent days when she didn't have school lying on a couch with a blanket over her, moping and crying. He didn't call, just came by occasionally wanting sex. She gave him bitterness and grief.
After a few weeks of this, she came to her senses. She didn't wait for the usual call, the tentative plans that were dependent upon how cheerful she was willing to act. That morning the sun spread down the sidewalks and crept happily over the bushes and trees. Her usual place on the couch, in a cold, shadowy corner of the living room close to the phone, held no appeal.
Like a car in drive, inspired by the impulsive lurch of sunshine outside, she packed a bag with lotion, a paperback book, and a towel, popped sunglasses on her head, and hitchhiked to the beach. The day passed in a pleasant pageant of blue and white, with a touch of orange sun when she tilted her head a certain way. She swam out beyond the breakers, and had a conversation with a recovering heroin addict that made her glad to be alive and not addicted.
Jason was waiting on the porch when she came home. The ex-addict had taken her home on his motorcycle. When he saw Jason, he stopped short at the gate, gave her a wave, and jumped back on his bike and roared away.
She unlocked the front door, wondering what to say.
“Have a good time at the beach?” Jason said, and she heard caverns of unhappiness in his voice.
She let him inside.
“I've been trying to reach you all day.”
The accusation stood there naked for her to see. Seeing it, she didn't like it. “Want something to drink?” she asked. “I'm so thirsty.” She didn't wait for an answer. Tossing her things on the floor, she went into the kitchen and reached into the freezer for ice. “Beer?” she asked. He liked beer.
“Okay.” He drank the beer.
She put on some music, sat down next to him on the couch, and drank wine. While the music wound around them, tight as his arms around her shoulder, he drank another beer and another. Then he tried to steer her into the bedroom. She was surprised to discover she did not want to go there with him.
“Time to go, Jason,” she said, trying to disentangle herself from him.
He planted his feet in her living room. First, he flirted. She was lovely tonight, her skin glowing with the day's sunshine. When that didn't work, he pleaded. How far it was to drive home. He was tired. She didn't want him driving when he was so tired, did she? Then he got demanding and things got ugly.
He tried to force her.
She kicked him in the nuts.
He bellowed with pain and left enraged.
It being the end of the school year, she moved back home to San Francisco. Although her parents in Palo Alto offered her a safe haven, she checked the want ads in the Chronicle. Tom lived in a nice big apartment near Nob Hill with one other roommate, Luther. They needed another person to share the rent.
She liked Tom instantly. She even liked the way he answered the phone. “Whee!” he said. Later he explained that he was taking French, and she had misunderstood the word oui, but by then she was already captivated by his devilish smile and the cute room at the front of an old building fronting a Wayne Thibault-style San Francisco street, all flat planes leading straight up. She put a chair in the middle of the bay window and made that her power spot in the apartment, strewing newspapers, books, and dried coffee cups.