Chapter 25
The next morning, Ron drove down to see Robin. He had driven Zoe home about 11o’clock the night before and was exhausted by the time that he called Robin. They had agreed that he would drive down the next morning. But when he woke up, lying in his and Zoe’s bed, Zoe not there but the scent of her lingering on their sheets and on his body and in his brain, he decided that it was time for the difficult conversation.
As he showered, he tried to formulate what he wanted to say. The question really was “why had she done that to him?” Why had she utterly destroyed him that way and left him feeling so empty and then continued to torment him? What had he done to her? The answer came to him with stunning clarity as the water sprayed over his face. He had refused to leave New Jersey with her. He had dumped their cats on her. He had slept with other women while they were together. He had refused to stop smoking pot and staying stoned most of the time. He had told her that he was less interested in being romantic than she was. He had let her work a full time job while he lived off this scam or that scam.
True, he had always paid for his share of things. True, they had agreed to have other people in their lives. True, he had joined her in Minneapolis when his assistantship was up. True that he was completely straight when he was with her out there. True that she knew that it was supposed to be a fresh start away from their families, away from their friends where the two of them could just create a life for each other. True that he was now much more romantic that she seemed to be.
Ron tried to juggle the competing truths. Were they a wash? Did it just mean that between them they had beat the shit out of whatever it was that they once had and that now it no longer existed?
He had never been deliberately cruel to her. That was the thing that he could not shake. She had set out to break him into little pieces and when he was broken, she had enjoyed seeing him try to piece himself back together. That was the real question. Why had she been so deliberately cruel? If they had any chance at anything, he needed to have that resolved in his head.
He would do it carefully. Robin had a way of reducing him, making him feel silly and stupid. He thought about how she did it. She used, he tried to think of a phrase, reductive simplicity! That was it! Ron smiled, pleased that he had come up with a way to put it into words.
Robin met him at the door. She looked radiant and for that moment all of his resolve vanished into her beautiful face, the smile that was there for him and only for him. The way that she that she took his hand and slid it around her waist, as she kissed him so gently and molded her body to him. Then she said, “My mother is sleeping, can we just make a break for it?”
Ron smiled and said, “I have an idea. Let’s get in the car and drive to the ocean.”
She was thrilled with the plan and said, “I’ll get my camera.”
As soon as they got into the car, Robin picked up the scent of another woman. Zoe didn’t wear perfume. They hadn’t made love in the car. Robin couldn’t have said what it was that was informing her nostrils but it was there and it was unmistakable. She thought about Minneapolis and whether she could go back.
The ride down the shore was a straight shot down the Garden State Parkway. The road was almost deserted on this Saturday morning.
Robin said, “How was the dance?”
Ron laughed and said, “They love disco and those girls can sure dance. I wish I could dance that way.”
“Did you dance with them?”
“No, they would have lost all respect for me if they had seen me dance, but I did wind up taking two of them home.”
“Is that smart?”
“No, but it was late and their rides didn’t show up.”
That was the scent that she smelled. Robin relaxed. She was still very much in control with no competition about which to worry and then she shook her head to herself. “Competition for what?” she thought.
“Robin, I love seeing you. It feels so good to be spending some time with you but I have to ask you about something and I’m not sure that you want to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” she said automatically.
Ron stammered and felt flushed. Everything that he had been thinking disappeared from his mind like the lines of an etch-a-sketch that someone had shaken clean. “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
“Ok,” she said, “what did you want to ask?”
“I don’t know,” said Ron, and fell silent.
Long moments passed. Ron drove and tried to reformulate his thoughts. How was he going to put it? Was she right? Was it that he was going to work the conversation around to wanting to sleep with her? He didn’t think so. He thought about Zoe and their love-making last night. He thought about how she lay under him on her belly and squeezed her muscles like she wanted to suck the very life out of him through his cock. He thought about the way that he had such incredible control when he slept with her. They would fuck until she orgasmed and then he’d pull himself out of her and let her bring him off. He felt himself hardening.
“Do you want to eat?” said Robin.
They reached the shore town exit and pulled into an International House of Pancakes. The both were grinning. IHOP had been one of their favorite places to go for dinner when they were living together in Verona.
She had pancakes and he ordered an omelet. They emptied the bottomless pitcher of coffee and asked for more. She showed him her camera. They talked about how the ocean would look.
“I need to talk with you about Minneapolis,” Ron blurted.
“What about it?” said Robin, putting her elbows on the table and bringing her hands, in fists now, up under her chin.
Ron tried to ease his way in. “Why do you want to leave?”
“No place is forever,” said Robin.
Ron paused. He let that sink in. Maybe no relationship was forever either. He began again. “Why did things work out the way that they did?”
She met his eyes and said coolly, “Because you left.”
Ron was flabbergasted. What could he possibly say to that? He fell silent and felt defeated. He felt himself drawing into himself, curling into a little ball inside of himself.
Then she said, “Let’s go see the water.”
They walked along the beach in a steady drizzle. The water was calm and the gulls were diving down and making small splashes as they fed. The beach was deserted and the white foam of the small waves licked the sand with the gentle lapping of a soft tongue. Everything was shuttered closed and the breeze blew the rain into their faces. The summertime signs seemed old and lonely and forsaken. Ron wondered if they were like insects that had outlived their season and did not know enough to curl up and die.
Robin sensed the depression that passed over them. These were quiet moments that she no longer loved because they led to conversations that she was not ready to have, like the one over breakfast. Life should be bright and happy and filled with bounty and love. Regrets were just silly and more than that they were a trap from which she was determined to extricate herself. She thought to herself, “I can’t fight his sadness. It’s too strong and besides it is boring.”
Then he seemed to brighten and said, “After the holiday I am diving right into Shakespeare, Macbeth with the seniors and Romeo and Juliet with the 9th graders.”
She smiled and said, “That’s quite a combination.”
“When did you last read them?” he asked.
“Oh, I can’t remember,” she said dismissively. “I’ve been reading new stories. There is so much that is new that I really don’t want to revisit things that are old. Maybe when I am 40 or 50 I will want to go back and look at them.”