Anchors aweigh, my love,
Jimmy
HOPEWELL, KY.
August 21, 1967
Dear Ann,
That cat Whistle Britches got killed on the road in front of the barn. Your daddy found him when he got the tractor out. He threw him in the ditch. He was out mowing in the sun and nearly had a heat stroke. It come a scorcher. I cooked lima beans for dinner with scalloped potatoes and the rest of a shoulder I had been whittling at all week. All evening I set in the breeze on the porch and shelled beans. Then for supper I made a blackberry pie. I know how you love that. Wish I could send you some! Ha ha! Your little brother has been up to no good. He’s girlfriending already! One of the McKinley girls from school. He saw her at Ed’s barbecue joint and I think they’re sparking. Your daddy said he had to wait till he could drive before he could go on dates.
You didn’t say much about your boyfriend when you were here last. I hope he came back to you and you’re still happy with him. If he’s the right one, that is. If not, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. . . .
Love,
Mama
JIMMY RETURNED SEVERAL days before the exam. He had driven from Chicago in just under three days, crossing the Sierras at night. It was a long, lonesome trip, he said, and Ann thought about the melancholy stretch of desert she had driven across the previous summer. Jimmy’s car had a radio, though.
He had written to expect him sometime that day, and she was waiting, with her hair fresh and combed. It fell nearly to her shoulders now. She wore one of her new Indian tunics. When she spied his dust-streaked car from the window, she refrained from running down the stairs to greet him. But at the door, they flew at each other in a joyful embrace, like lovers at the end of a movie.
“There’ll be a quiz after,” he murmured, as they rolled onto her little bed.
They dug into each other, grasping and gasping. His hair was a blanket. She wrapped her face in it, a curl tickling her nose. He tasted of cigarettes and mint. He jerked her skirt down her legs and over her feet, her panties following. She unzipped his jeans, and in moments all of their clothes were on the floor.
Being with Jimmy again was like swinging on stars. His pliable, strong body moved like a healthy young cat—fluid, expert. Their hips locked together in a motion that made her visualize wheels. They both said “I love you” to each other. The bed was hard but noiseless. He stayed inside her for a long time, holding her tight, their bellies slapped together. They lay face-to-face, on their sides, holding each other quietly. After a while, when they sat up against the pillows, he told about the drive across the mountains, the songs he listened to, the way he had missed her. The summer with his parents was like an A-bomb test site, he said. He got out before the blast. His grandmother was better. He was glad he’d had the time with her. His parents, he had realized, would never change, and he gladly left them there in Suburb, America.
“My parents don’t know anything I’m doing,” she said. “I live in two worlds.”
“But your parents are authentic. I keep telling you that.”
“You haven’t met them.”
“But I know they’re real and true. Your dad has a tractor.”
“A neighbor got his foot cut off in a tractor accident. I guess that’s real.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s O.K.”
They showered together in the dim light of the burgundy bathroom. It was like being in a dark, cozy cave, bathing in a warm stream. They soaped each other and rubbed against each other. His penis, pink and sudsy, flew up, at attention.
“Not again!” Jimmy said. “Behave yourself!”
Ann greeted the intruder. “Hello, there!”
“He has been very excited about seeing you,” Jimmy said, “All across the Great Plains he couldn’t sit still.”
After the shower, Jimmy fumbled with the top button of his jeans. His striped summer shirt looked like something his mother might have bought him, Ann thought. She had noticed his new white underpants.
“Did your car really die? And you’re walking everywhere?”
“It’s O.K. Pixie gives me a ride sometimes. Or Sanjay, downstairs.”
Jimmy lit a cigarette, his first since his reappearance.
“Let’s go see what kind of shape my place is in.”
“Do you want to take the TV? I didn’t watch it much.”
“No, you keep it.”
Ann tidied her hair and stocked her bag with what she called overnighties.
“I wasn’t making fun of you,” she said as they went out the door.
“I know.”
CHIP HAD GONE away for the week so that Jimmy and Ann could have Jimmy’s house in private. He had dropped Amy and impulsively asked Pixie to go with him to the hot springs at Big Sur. After dark in the public pools you could get “nekkid,” Chip had told Ann, which made Jimmy laugh when she told him. Ann wondered why she and Jimmy had never been to Big Sur.
Jimmy unlocked the door and they went in. It smelled of lemon polish.
“He’s cleaned it up for you,” Ann said.
Jimmy opened the refrigerator. “Bacon, eggs, butter, juice, bread. Wow. Good old Chip.”
“I’m sure Pixie helped.”
“So they hit it off after all, huh?”
“I think Pixie was hot to go to Big Sur.”
Jimmy had brought only a small duffel bag of clothes and a few books. “I left War and Peace and all those big books in Chicago.”
“Are you ready for the exam?”
“I didn’t get through half the list. No, I’m not ready.”
She had heard that line before—about not being ready.
“I’ll take it later,” he said.
HE HAD SAID he loved her, but she knew something was different. It was strange that Jimmy was postponing the exam. He seemed to be clinging to her, as if afraid he would lose her. It wasn’t jealousy, she thought, for she had given him no reason to doubt her. It was likely his lack of self-confidence, that troubling emptiness inside him. He was reading a Hemingway novel, which was not on the reading list. But enthusiastically he helped her to study for the exam, quizzing her and reviewing her reading and encouraging her to articulate her views on Erewhon and Humphry Clinker and other abstruse works.
That week they spent all their time—when they weren’t lolling in bed—preparing her for the exam. They didn’t go out. He brought Chinese food and pizza. She stayed most of the week at his house.
“You are going to blow the mind of one Yvor Winters,” Jimmy said. “He is not going to believe how brilliant you are. He will be so ashamed of himself.”
“I’m not worried about Yvor Winters. He’s retired now anyway.”
“But he’s still around, casting his spell.”
“I’m still mad at him over Emily Dickinson.”
“They are going to waive the dissertation and offer you a professorship without blinking,” Jimmy said, tweaking her ear.
“That’s crazy.”
“I mean it. You’re good at this, a lot smarter than me.”
That wasn’t true. She didn’t know why Jimmy was being so attentive while withholding things about himself. In his letters he had warned her that he did that, but she was reluctant to probe.