Turns out I’m a little more sensitive than I thought.
Thank God for Johnny and his guys taking me out last night. Johnny sees things clearly; he’s thoughtful. We talked about Jerry Lee, “Killer,” as they call him, how wild he is, yet how much of a genius. “He’s like a rock ’n’ roll Mozart,” someone laughed. I cried a little on the inside, but I was grateful to Johnny for trying so hard to cheer me up.
I’m upstairs sulking in my room when Miss Mary brings me a bowl of cut fruit and a glass of ice water.
“Honey,” she says, sitting at the edge of my bed, “it’s alright to have feelings that aren’t always so understanding and stoic.”
I nod, still downcast.
“I don’t think you know how important it is to know yourself fully,” she continues. “You gotta feel what you feel, not just tell yourself how you oughta feel. You already are as good as they come, well,” she pauses, “most of the time, anyhoo. Now let yourself be free to experience the negative emotions too. You don’t always gotta be so understandin’.”
She touches my foot before standing again. Quietly, I begin to cry.
“You sit with yourself now, feel every bit of it,” she says gently. “You’ll know what to do once you done that. I’ll be downstairs to pick you up if you fall into the pain of it. It’s alright, darlin’.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. I already feel a little better.
“Now try to eat somethin’,” she says. “You’re skin and bones, girl.”
“I’m just a little down in the mouth, Miss Mary.”
“I know you are, baby girl. It’s alright.”
“I’ll come down in a little while.”
***
I hear the doorbell, and of course I think it’s the boy. I run down the stairs, forgetting all about being upset with him.
But it’s Mrs P outside.
“Mrs P, what’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you want Miss Mary?”
She nods, and I take her coat, hang it in the cloakroom, and lead her into the kitchen. For once, I’m the one making the coffee and offering slices of pie. I serve for Mrs P and Miss Mary, who are talking quietly at the table.
Mrs P is sorry about the boy flaunting strange women in front of me. She confides that he’s had a lot of different girls coming through the house lately, and she can’t quite keep up.
She tells the story of Natalie Wood’s visits.
“I tried hard to make it comfortable for her to stay with us, but I think she expected something different, that they could share a bedroom, for one. But I won’t have that kind of shenanigans under my roof.”
Her voice rises with indignation, then softens again.
“The boy called her crazy,” she says. “I don’t know if she is. But she wasn’t as nice as many of his other girls. I’m sorry, Birdie. But you know what he’s like.”
I do. “Can I get you anything else?”
I have only ever heard good things about Natalie Wood myself, and I doubt she’s suddenly changed into someone you can label as ‘crazy.’ I wonder if it might have more to do with the boy than with her.
I leave the pie out, but Miss Mary shakes her head and gestures for me to sit. Mrs P takes my hand.
“I don’t like all these new girls,” she says. “They’re after things that have nothing to do with my son.”
She wipes a tear from her eye.
“What do you mean, Mrs P?” I ask gently.
“You have the most wonderful son in the world. Most girls in the country would fall in love with him if they got to know him.”
I squeeze her hand and smile.
“You’re wrong there,” she says. “They’re after all the wrong things. And I’m nervous for him.”
I refill their coffee cups.
“I feel like my house is turning into a brothel,” she blurts out. “All the girls, all the time. They’re in the yard, out front day and night, and I suspect he lets them in during the night too.”
Miss Mary looks appalled. That’s not the boy she knows. She actually seems surprised, which makes me chuckle at the most inappropriate time. I cough to disguise it.
“Surely not. Not our boy?”
She looks at me; I shrug and pretend to be surprised too.
“He’s a pleaser,” Mrs P says. “He doesn’t want to turn them down. He gives too much of himself. That’ll be his downfall.”
She shakes her head. “I came to say hello and to tell Miss Birdie my son will be over once he’s sent Marilyn back on a plane later today.”
She gives me a hug. “He is sorry.”
I squeeze her hand gently to calm her. Miss Mary drives her home.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Miss Mary says as they leave. “I didn’t know it was this bad. Let’s work this out.”
Mrs P pauses before getting in the car.
“My dream for him was always just to make enough in this music racket so he could open a furniture store with you, Miss Birdie. You who like designing interiors so much, and my boy, who just needs something to do. Someone to love. Something to look forward to.”
She tries to smile.
“I just wanted you two to get married. For Vernon and me to have grandchildren. For you both to stay in town and be close to us.”
She starts crying again. Miss Mary puts an arm around her and leads her to the car.
“Now, now, Mrs P. Let’s not worry too much for one day.”
This boy’s fate is his mother’s worst nightmare, I think as I watch the car leave the drive. He’s growing apart from her at a speed she can’t navigate. It was only a moment ago he was her little boy. I feel heavy. Sad. As if everything has changed and there’s no going back. I can hardly drag myself up the stairs. Once in my room, I fall asleep on the bed, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon. I’m tired. I need to rest.
***
I wake up at dusk. The boy sits beside me on the bed, stroking my hair, watching as I open my eyes.
“Hey. Did I wake ya?” he asks.
“Mmmhm,” I mumble.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
He shrugs. “A while.”
He asks if he can crawl into bed so we can talk. I tell him he can.
He takes off his pants and lies down beside me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “There’s a lot goin’ on, things outta my control.”
He looks me in the eye, suddenly serious. “Everything’s happenin’ so fast. And you’re away at school. I can’t depend on you like before, and that’s on you, not me.”
I let him speak, even though I dread what’s coming.
“I don’t know what would’ve happened if you’d stayed here,” he says. “Maybe I wouldn’t even have started in this racket. Maybe just livin’ an ordinary life would’ve been enough.”
I chortle. We both know the truth to that one.
He sighs. “But life ain’t panning out that way. You don’t belong here.”
He starts to cry. “Your life’s up East in that world of elite people. That you even came here at all is a miracle.”
I wipe his tears away.
“In some ways,” he says, voice breaking, “I believe you willed your way here to be with me.”
“Me too,” I say.
“It feels like you’re this angel who comes down to sit with me,” he says, pulling me close. “I can call on you when I need you. You’re good at lookin’ after me.”
I stay quiet, stroking his hair.
“I love our little pockets in time,” he says. “They’re everything I could wish for, but I need to live outside those moments too. I want you with me, but I know your life ain’t meant to be lived in my shadow.”
I’m crying now as well.
We lie quietly in bed together, opening up to a new chapter that isn’t what I wanted, but maybe it’s what we need.
“You’ll always be the summer to my winter,” he murmurs, kissing my forehead.
“I know,” I whisper.
“But do you?” he asks. “Do you know the power of what we share?”
He tells me he’s seen psychics out West who’ve talked about our soul bond.I almost laugh, but I’m crying too, because it makes me happy to know he feels it too. That it’s not just me who sees us for what we are.
After we’ve showered and gotten ready for bed, he picks up his guitar and sings I’ll Never Let You Go, Little Darlin’ to me.
“I’ve got some time to hang out,” I hear myself offer.
He smiles. “Can we do that while you’re here? I’d love nothin’ more.”
“I’m here all of December,” I say. “I have essays to write, but otherwise I’m here if you need me.”
“Swell,” he says. “That makes me happier than you’ll ever know. I hope you need me too.”
***
As dusk turns into a sparsely moonlit night, we don’t sleep. We lie awake, talking quietly whenever one of us has something to say, drifting in and out of shallow dreams, waking because the other is still awake, watching, waiting. Between the rising crescent moon and its setting, we repeat this over and over, sometimes glancing up at the silvery dust scattered above us from some distant, enchanted place. We laugh, because we both feel it, that what we are living is extraordinary. There is joy in it, even amid the sorrow.
We kiss, we make love, we talk and laugh. This is the end of childhood and the beginning of a friendship that will always be a love story too. It will never not be one, it will only grow, changing shape and size but always holding us at its centre.
I look at this beautiful boy, and when I close my eyes, I see his soul clearly. We dance and play as we always have, and I know we’ll continue to orbit each other long after our time here is done. Somewhere, in another place, we’ll meet again. Our souls will still recognise the spark; they’ll dance and set each other alight.
We are children who play, but here we are slowly becoming adults, adults who will always see the child they first met in the other, who still tend the seed planted back in 1948, or perhaps in some earlier life, or time, or place.
We cry a little and say things we’ve never shared before, or perhaps never even known until now. He is my beautiful boy, and I am his wild, beautiful bird.
And through time I hear an echo reverberate, words drifting toward me from somewhere else:
I know I shouldn’t want to keep you
If you don’t want to stay, yeah
Until you’ve gone forever
I’ll be holding on for dear life
Holding you this way
Begging you to stay
My World of Interiors 