New Year, Old Year
Becca drove from Greensboro, where she was spending the holiday break with her family, to Zach’s apartment to spend New Year’s Eve and Day with him. She’d told her parents she’d be spending the time with “a friend.” That they’d not asked for further details indicated that they knew which friend was her destination. She was grateful to them for granting her privacy and freedom. Though she was twenty-one and ostensibly living on her own at school, she was still very close to and dependent on her family. The process of gradually establishing independence was a tricky one, with a long history of messy failures among her peers. Becca took pride in the fact that, so far at least, she and her parents had negotiated this perilous transition with no blow-ups or confrontations and few awkwardnesses. Today was one of those awkwardnesses—she felt guilty about telling only a half-truth—but it had been handled with smiling faces and a wink toward acceptance if not outright approval of her choice.
Now her older sister Sarah was another matter entirely. Becca told Sarah everything; and Sarah freely and liberally dispensed advice, as older sisters are wont to do. But Sarah’s advice when it came to boys and sexual relationships was tempered by the recent history of her unintended pregnancy and the resulting marriage to the father of the child. She was currently estranged from her husband and living with her parents while completing school. The product of that relationship, the ebullient and gregarious year-and-a-half old Katie, was a blessing to their family and the world; but she was also a conspicuous reminder of the permanent cost of a mistake.
So when Becca told Sarah she’d be spending two days with Zach, she gave a fairly neutral reply. “Have fun; be careful.”
But Becca thought she wanted more. “Tell me what you really think.”
“How do you feel about him?”
“I like him a lot. He makes me feel special.”
“You’re special to everyone, Bec. It’s your gift to the world.”
“He makes me feel more special than I’ve ever felt. He makes me feel like I’m all that matters.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I may be falling in love.”
“You’re already there, Sis. No point in denying the obvious.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“And?”
“You don’t want to hear my ‘and’.”
“Maybe I don’t, but tell me anyway.”
“Well, for one thing, he’s married.”
“Separated.”
“You don’t know anything about him—his family, his background, his goals.”
“I do know. He’s told me.”
“And you know it’s true?”
“Zach doesn’t lie, not to me.”
“You know that?”
“I know that.”
“And you think you fit into his world?”
“Sarah, I don’t know. I can’t look that far into the future. Right now I’m a big part of his world, and he’s a big part of mine. How all that plays out is way beyond how far I can see or even think about.”
“I told you.”
“What?”
“That you wouldn’t like what I had to say.”
“Maybe not, but thank you anyway.”
Sarah leaned over and gave her baby sister a hug. “Have fun; be careful.”
Becca mulled over Sarah’s words on the hour-long drive from Greensboro to Shefford. She had doubts about how she fit into Zach’s world, and he into hers, had had those doubts from the start of their relationship. But her attraction to him, and the white-hot attention and love he’d focused on her, had cancelled or at least buried those doubts under the weight of desire. And now she always wanted to be with him. While at school, she’d drive by his apartment several times a day—sometimes stopping, occasionally leaving notes, usually just coasting by without stopping, half-thrilled, half-ashamed of her schoolgirl antics. She’d never been quite so smitten. She was both enthralled and confused. The words Sarah had said that rang absolutely true were that she wasn’t falling in love, she was already there.
Zach looked down from the railing at the end of the second-floor breezeway as she walked from the parking lot to his building. He was dressed in black cargo pants, a white dress shirt with a red micro-stripe, and an open charcoal vest he’d picked up in a flea market. Other than a crisp wave as she got out of the car, he stood above her unmoving, watching her every step as she walked along the sidewalk and around to the stairs. With any other boy (or girl, for that matter), she’d be annoyed that he didn’t come down to greet her, or at least meet her halfway. But she’d gotten used to Zach watching her, was in fact thrilled by his earnest attention, knowing that he was not only watching her but adoring her through his watching, filling an empirical need that only she could sate. She knew this intuitively but also because he told her—in spoken words, in written meditations, and in poems. She’d drawn attention all her life, was familiar and comfortable with it; but she’d never experienced this level of attention, both off-the-charts passionate and eloquent. At first she didn't know how to take it, or if she could even bear it. Now she reveled in the gift and craved it when away, even as she sometimes wondered where the bottom was and what it would feel like when they touched it.
When she reached the second floor landing, he took the shopping bag full of gifts and clothes she was carrying, set it to one side, and wrapped her in his long and powerful arms. That embrace was all she’d been thinking about for days; and as she exhaled straight into his shirt, she felt like she was releasing her heart and soul and all parts of her that mattered into him. She’d maybe, barely, been an independent soul these last ten days; she was no longer. She melted in surrender, melted into him.
They exchanged Christmas gifts while seated together on his couch. Both were unexpectedly nervous, like kids on a first date, at this incorporation of an old tradition with all its old rules into their new and unfettered love. Becca gave Zach an expensive pair of basketball shoes (to replace his tattered pair of sneakers leftover from high school) and a paperback of the letters between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Zach gave her a nineteenth-century clothbound edition of Selected Poems of John Keats and a typescript of a long poem he’d written after seeing a high school portrait of her in a scrapbook at her apartment.
For all the forethought that had gone into the selection of these gifts, and the abundant thank yous and smiles that had accompanied their unveiling, the gifts, even the occasion—belated Christmas sharing—seemed a far cry, a distraction, from the world they occupied now. They sat a moment in silence amidst the crumpled wrapping paper and tangled ribbons and open boxes and heartfelt empty gifts. Separated by that clutter, across a space of a few feet in the fading light of an overcast dusk, they simply stared at each other, smiled shyly and tentatively, and shared more in that silent gaze than those presents—all presents: ever given, ever received—could’ve hoped to transmit.
Then Zach carefully moved his gifts and his wrapping paper to the coffee table. Becca did likewise. And he slid over to her and she leaned back on the couch and he lay on top of her with his arms to either side and they proceeded to exchange the abundant gifts of their abundantly giving bodies, these gifts in perfect synchronization with the world they now inhabited—a world unto themselves, no one else allowed.
Somehow Becca’d ended up on top in the new dark of their fading panting. Her sweater was on the floor but her shirt was still on though unbuttoned and her bra was down around her waist and her jeans clumped around her ankles—well, you get the idea. Zach too was still sort of dressed, but with his clothes in all manner of uncommon placement. They were for the moment actually entangled in their loose attire and not free to separate. That condition became justification (it didn’t take much) for another round of sharing, though this one briefer and calmer.
Becca, still on top, had to figure out the sequence of disentanglement in the dark, which she finally did after several false starts and much
giggling and laughter from both sides.
She stood beside the couch. Zach could see her but barely. She started to reassemble her clothing when Zach sat up and said, “Let me.” And from his seat on the couch and largely by feel but with a little help from dim sight, he dressed Becca. He slid her panties back into place (with just a few opportune kisses). He got her bra oriented in the right direction then slid the cups over her breasts and the straps over her shoulders. He buttoned her blouse—this all by feel and slow. He slid her jeans up over her calves, her knees, her thighs, her hips. He pulled them up to her waist and (after a few more opportune kisses) zipped them up, buttoned them, and buckled her belt. He found her sweater by feeling along the carpet and picked it up. He turned the sweater right side out (a fact he confirmed by feeling for the collar tag), rolled it up, then stood beside her. She raised her arms above her head. He slid the sweater sleeves down over her arms then pulled the neck opening over her head and pulled the sweater down over her chest and stomach. He used his hands to check all her body, starting at her face and neck and working all the way down to her shoes (which had never come off but the right one needed retying). Then he said out of the dark, “My rewrapped present.”
“Waiting the next unwrapping.”
“That can be done,” Zach said, and found unerring her belt buckle.
“Later,” Becca said, intercepting his hand. “Now let me try to rewrap you.”
She started this effort by kneeling in front of him and locating his pants and underwear twisted around his ankles. She loosed the boxers and raised them to his knees then paused. After a moment, her hands left the boxers at his knees and continued up over the backs of his thighs, gliding gently over his buttocks and stopping on either side of his waist. Holding on there, she then proceeded to express her own form of adoration of him and his body, a gift that could only have been offered in this dense dark, on this dawn of a new year. She’d not planned this offer or even dreamed it. In the midst she wondered if it were only for him or somehow also for her.
Then she finished pulling up his underwear, straightened and buttoned his shirt (much more proficiently than he’d buttoned hers), pulled up, zipped up, and buttoned his pants, found his vest (wedged behind a couch cushion), turned it right side out, slid it over one arm, looped it around his back, then slid it over the other. She reached up, kissed him, and said, “Good as new.”
He said, “Much better than that.”
She said, “Yeah, me too.”
“Ready to celebrate the coming of the new year at The Depot?”
Becca said, “You bet, but have to pee first.”
Zach reached out and switched on the floor lamp. The light was briefly blinding, and both closed their eyes. When they finally opened them, they were almost surprised to discover Zach and Becca standing there, dressed as before though with disheveled hair and faces flushed.
The Depot was an early twentieth-century train station on the south side of town that had been converted into a restaurant by Paul Hoffman, a friend of Barton’s and an acquaintance of Zach’s through Barton. The now unused tracks still ran past the covered loading platform that provided outdoor seating for the restaurant in suitable weather. Two old Pullman dining cars sat on a side spur at the end of the platform, cars that would one day be turned into a fine eastern-European restaurant called the Far East Express. Inside, The Depot retained the station’s original craftsman-style elegance and airiness, with polished hardwood floors, exposed roof decking and rafters and planed beams, tall windows on all four walls, and simple square tables widely spaced across the open room. The restaurant had not yet acquired a liquor license (according to Paul, it would be easier to move Mohammed’s mountain to North Carolina than push the license application through the byzantine labyrinth of the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Commission), but it did allow “brown bagging,” a regional accommodation whereby patrons could bring their own beer or wine in a plain brown bag and the restaurant would provide “set ups”—glasses, ice, and refrigeration as needed—for a nominal charge. Zach and Becca bought a six-pack of German beer at a convenience store they passed on the way to the restaurant and carried the beer into the restaurant in its brown bag tucked under Zach’s arm.
By the time they got there, the restaurant was fairly full with the lingering remains of the evening dinner crowd mixing with early arrivals of the New Year’s celebration crowd. It was a casual, family-oriented, jeans and flannel shirt kind of place, with patrons of diverse social and ethnic backgrounds and children scurrying around and between tables playing tag. Zach and Becca liked The Depot as a relaxed and inexpensive alternative to some of the finer restaurants in town, the kind of place where they could linger all night without running up a big bill or annoying the hostess. They also enjoyed escaping the students-only aspect of some of the cheaper restaurants and bars near campus. Here, on any given night (including this one), you could find patrons from toddlers (or even babes in arms being quietly nursed at the table) to retirees and grandparents. It was a perfect place to spend New Year’s Eve.
The smiling hostess sat them at a table near the center of the room, one of the few tables currently open. It wasn’t a private location, but none of the tables in the restaurant were; and at the moment Zach and Becca were comfortable being placed in the middle of this cheerful hubbub, in fact were pleased to be absorbed into this sprawling anonymous family. The hostess left them one-page hand-printed menus and said she’d return with glasses for their “refreshments.”
Two five-year-olds—a boy chasing a girl—raced around their table, trailed by a stumbling toddler. The toddler tripped and fell as he passed Becca’s chair. She stood and helped the boy back up, brushed off his blue overalls, and gave him a gentle push back toward his mother seated with her arms extended at a neighboring table. The mother nodded thanks as Becca sat back down. Becca laughed. “I’ve had plenty of practice this week with Katie.”
“How is she?” Zach had met Katie twice on visits to Becca’s home. He adored the exuberant little girl.
“Lively as ever. You’ve got to keep your eye on her every minute.”
“And her walking?”
“She still falls a lot, mainly because she tries to do too much. She has no fear.”
“Better that than the opposite.”
“Try telling that to Sarah.”
“How’s she?”
“Other than school and work and a kid?”
“I can’t imagine.” In fact, Zach could imagine, had long wanted a child and knew he would make it work if he were ever granted such an opportunity. But he assumed he was unique in this single-mindedness about raising a child while still in school.
“She’ll be fine. Sarah’s got the grit to match her impulsiveness.”
“And her sister?”
“I don’t have either, Zach. I’m soft and safe.”
“A lot tougher than you think.”
“I hope I don’t have to find out.”
“I’ll hope that for you, but life is rarely so gentle.”
“So I’ve seen.”
The hostess brought their glasses and a bottle opener for the beer. “Can I put the rest in the fridge?” she asked.
Zach shook his head. “Better at room temperature. But thanks.”
Zach opened one bottle and split it between the two glasses. Once the foam had settled he raised his glass. “In thanks for the past year, and hope for the next one.”
Becca nodded and clinked her glass against his. “So how was it being alone for Christmas?”
“I was only alone Christmas Eve. I went to Barton’s on Christmas Day.”
“Still, must’ve been strange—not your own family or your own traditions.”
Zach thought about that. “I don’t know that I have any traditions anymore. It’s been so long since I was home at Christmas, and I’ve changed so much, those traditions aren’t really mine anymore.”
“And no new ones?”
“Not yet. Every
year’s been different lately.”
“Sounds lonely, especially compared to the overdose of family I’ve had.”
“There are worse things than being alone.”
Becca nodded, though given her family and her background, she couldn’t imagine what those worse things might be.
The waitress stopped by their table and took their orders, with Becca getting the lasagna and a salad, and Zach ordering North Carolina barbecue with fries, slaw, and hushpuppies.
Zach suddenly perked up after the waitress collected their menus and left. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“I’m an uncle!”
“Really?”
“My oldest sister had a little girl—Caroline Noelle born on Christmas Eve.”
“That’s wonderful, Zach. Congratulations.”
“She’s my parents’ first grandchild. Here I was moping around all alone on Christmas Eve—.”
“I knew you were lonely—trying to pretend you weren’t. I know you better than that.”
Zach smiled—he’d been caught. “Anyway, the phone rings and it’s my brother-in-law calling with the news—washed all that loneliness right away.”
“A birth will do that.”
“So I’ve heard. So I saw.”
Becca raised her glass. “To Caroline Noelle.”
“And all new births.”
With that good news shared, they were content to sit back and rest in the warm glow of each other’s company and mutual understanding, a kind of love quite different from the one they’d immersed themselves in a few hours earlier. They watched the life of their adopted community unfold around them. By now the children and young families were gone along with most of the grandparents and retirees, and grad students and young professionals drifted in to take their places. A middle-aged folk singer—a local favorite—was setting up his modest amplifier and speakers on a platform where the ticket counter used to be. The lights were dimmed in stages and the hostess went around lighting votive candles on the tables and bar counters along the walls. The waitress brought their food and they ate it slowly, savoring each bite and the moment—the relaxed atmosphere, both homey and intimate, and most of all their unspoken union within this informal gathering that had so freely accepted them as an anonymous couple and a part of this spontaneous family.
They were just finishing their food when Paul, the owner, walked out of the kitchen, spotted them, and came over and sat at one of their free chairs backwards, his arms draped over the chair’s ladder back. Paul was a short, fortyish New Yorker with a square face, dark hair, and intense eyes. He always looked a bit on edge; he looked especially so now.
“How’s it going, Paul?” Zach asked.
“Like hell—chef stormed out on the busiest night of the year, left me holding the bag and slinging the hash.”
“What happened?”
“Some guy put his cigarette out in the lasagna and sent it back to the kitchen.”
“Not good.”
“You ain’t kidding. Told Lisa that’s what he thought of the food and to take it back to the chef. And she did! I asked Lisa why she didn’t just throw that insult in the trash, make up some story about how the chef regretted that he didn’t like the lasagna, and be done with it. But no, she takes it back and shows it to Larry. So Larry grabs a cleaver and heads for the dining room. Lucky Big Willy—he’s our fry cook—was between Larry and the dining room or we’d probably be dealing with a murder rather than a kitchen without a chef.”
“So what’d Larry do?”
“Said ‘Fuck this’ and stormed out the side door and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. So Lisa called me at home just as I was getting ready to sit down in front of the T.V. with a bowl of popcorn and a cold beer. So here I am, finally taking a break after a couple of crazy hours in the kitchen. How was your food?”
“Delicious.”
“That’s good, that’s good. I’ve worked in enough slop houses to know my way around a stove, but damned if I thought I’d be doing it tonight.”
“Buck stops with the owner, I guess.”
“Buck stopped before it made its way to my door, but what the hell you going to do? Hi, Becca—good to see you again.”
“Hi, Paul. Happy New Year.”
“Yeah, Happy New Year to you both. Hope it’s better than the last fucking one.” He stood up like someone just called to a fire. “Better get back to the kitchen. Enjoy what’s left of the evening.”
Zach and Becca watched Paul scurry back into the kitchen then burst into laughter. At just that moment, the folksinger did a brief sound check, then introduced himself and started playing the set that would take them all the way to the countdown for the new year.
With the music playing and the lights turned down low and the candles flickering all around and their fellow patrons fading to a soft blur at the fringes, Zach and Becca were free to slide into the realm of their best joined selves, a realm in which they were in public but not of it, simultaneously part of the real world and outside of it. By its very nature, this romantic indulgence defied examination. They slid into this world as one, enjoyed its seductive freedom from obligation as long as allowed, would emerge when forced to. Zach slid his chair close to Becca’s and occasionally brushed her hand or cheek or hair. But most of the time they simply sat close together, were united without touching, in their own universe with the rest of the universe—at least to the four walls of the restaurant—slowly revolving around them.
The singer finished his final song one minute before midnight. Then, following an acoustic-guitar version of a drumroll, began his countdown. “Ten-nine-eight.” Everyone in the restaurant joined in. “Seven-six-five-four.” Zach turned his chair to face Becca. “Three-two-one.” Everyone except Zach and Becca jumped up and cheered and embraced. Zach and Becca leaned together while still seated and kissed for long seconds.
When their lips finally parted, Zach said, “Best year of my life.”
Becca said, “Just ended.”
“With more to follow.”
“We hope,” she said, with a broad smile full of hope beneath those eyes set in that perfect face that was for Zach not hope at all but realization, in and of itself.
Lying in bed in the dark of the youngest hours of this new year, their bodies fully unwrapped and touching full length, Zach on his back, Becca lying atop him with her head on his chest, both tired but not quite ready for sleep, almost reluctant to surrender the gone year by falling asleep, Becca asked, “How can I live without you?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I mean away from you, outside your presence?”
“I go with you wherever you go.”
“I know. Sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes that’s the problem.”
Zach brushed her long hair in the dark. He loved the feel of her hair in the dark. If he could touch her hair, then she was there; if she were there, then he was completely content.
Becca continued, speaking into the dark. “I feel so empty when I’m away from you. It’s like I cease to exist. All I want to do is get back to you and become alive again.”
“I feel exactly the same about you. When I’m not with you, it’s like a part of me is missing.”
“You’re stronger, Zach. You can stand on your own.”
“You can too. You’ll find that strength. I’ll help you.”
“You can help with a lot. I don’t think you can help with this.”
He brushed her hair; he caressed her cheek. Intellectually, he understood what she was saying, saw her dilemma as an unprecedented challenge for her—a challenge he had caused, a challenge he could not solve. But at the moment he was enslaved by his heart; and what his heart knew was that the love of his life was lying full-length along his body, her hair on his fingertips. The absolute joy of that reality swept aside any and all warnings and concerns.
And soon Becca joined him in that joy, releasing her doubts to the night beyond their walls, easing with h
im into the oblivion of love.