It All Runs Together

I can never quite remember that day.

I flew to Washington, D.C. I was nineteen and he was thirty-nine and I still had the ring on my finger. I don't remember the flight. But I took the typewriter--that WWII steel grey Royal model that mom had given me, hoping I'd become the writer she hadn't--and I packed the set of Fiesta dishes, including the radioactive red ones, and all my clothes. Type, eat, dress. I had that much in the way of priorities. My mother must have driven me to the airport. I'd bet she didn't speak on the way. I don't remember the ride.

I took a taxi to his condo on C Street. I let myself in. Surprise! And since he wasn't expecting me, his voice sounded funny from upstairs but he flung me on the bed (or maybe not, maybe I just sagged) and there was sex and then he left. He made love the way a bee makes love to a flower. I'm sorry to say it wasn't very big. Not at all.

He left for work. He was a sportscaster at WTOP news. How he dressed for work usually: jeans and a NikNik shirt. (We had matching NikNik shirts; you'd have to have lived through the '70s to understand). When he went on air, he had a tie and dress shirt and blazer on. Only on top, though. From the waist down, under the broadcast desk, he was himself.

I cried all day. Or not. Maybe that was all night. All day I remember getting busy. Busy seemed good. I mowed the little lawn in back. I vacuumed. I changed the sheets. I found someone else's contraceptive packaging in the wastebasket. I found her barrette under the bed.

I also brought the article from The Washington Post. It was from that gossip column, "The Ear" and it was about us. I'd have to go really digging in the wayback of closets to find it now. Shortly after the article appeared we had lunch with an ex-astronaut's ex-wife at a fancy D.C. restaurant. She asked what we'd argue about when we got married. Everybody found something to fight over eventually. Best be prepared. I remember thinking she was awfully negative. Not much else. Maybe I had the Salade Nicoise. Something I couldn't pronounce: likely.

I watched him on the 11 o'clock news. One o'clock. Three o'clock. Five. He didn't come back. I started going through boxes of clothes he'd put aside for the Good Will. I didn't know the man in those boxes. All those perfectly good clothes. Maybe they didn't look right to him anymore above or below the broadcast desk. Maybe I didn't realize that I wouldn't be wearing the clothes I'd brought with me when I was thirty-nine. Mostly it was polyester back then.

At six a.m. I made reservations to fly back home. I don't think my mother answered. I think my father did. I can't be sure. Someone knew what flight I'd be on with the typewriter and the dishes and the clothes. And, oh, I stole a robe of his. Didn't I?

Also on the way out the door I think I put a pair of shoes I didn't like anymore on top of the Good Will boxes. But I accidentally left behind a Panama hat that I did like.

Somewhere between D.C. and AZ I must have begun thinking about what to do next. Where to go next.

When I heard my mother say at the airport, Well, are you ever going to let another man do that to you ever again? I was sure I'd have to go somewhere else. That's how I got to Utah a week later.

Dawn Marano