City of Girls

“I thought about that car ride for a long time,” I admitted. “Your words especially. It was hard on me. I won’t pretend it wasn’t. But I put it away some years ago, and I haven’t thought about it in a long time. So don’t worry, Frank Grecco—you didn’t ruin my life, or anything. How about we just agree to strike this whole sad event from the books?”

Abruptly, he stopped walking. He spun and looked at me, wide-eyed. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “Let’s chalk it up to people being young, and not knowing how to behave.”

I put my hand on his arm, wanting him to feel that it was all going to be all right now—that it was over.

Again, just as he had done on the first day we met, he yanked his arm away, almost violently.

This time, I must have been the one who flinched.

He still finds me repulsive was how I read it. Once a dirty little whore, always a dirty little whore.

Seeing my expression, Frank grimaced, and said, “Oh, Jesus, Vivian, I’m sorry. I gotta tell you. It’s not you. I just can’t . . .” He trailed off, looking around the park hopelessly, as though searching for someone who was going to rescue him from this moment, or explain him to me. Bravely, he tried again. “I don’t know how to say this. I hate like heck to talk about it. But I can’t be touched, Vivian. It’s a problem I have.”

“Oh.” I took a step back.

“It’s not you,” he said. “It’s everybody. I can’t be touched by anybody. It’s been that way ever since this.” He waved his hand in a general way over the right side of his body—where the burn scars came crawling up his neck.

“You were injured,” I said, like an idiot. Of course he was injured. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

“Yeah, that’s okay, why would you?”

“No, I’m very sorry, Frank.”

“You know what? You didn’t do it to me.”

“Nonetheless.”

“Other guys, they were injured that day, too. I woke up on a hospital ship with hundreds of guys—some of them burned even as bad as me. We were the ones they pulled out of the burning water. But a lot of those guys are fine now. I don’t understand it. They don’t have this thing I have.”

“This thing,” I said.

“This thing of not being able to be touched. Not being able to sit still. That thing I have about enclosed spaces. I can’t do it. I’m okay in a car as long as I’m the one in the driver’s seat, but anything else, if I have to sit still too long, I can’t do it. I have to stay on my feet, all the time.”

This was why he hadn’t wanted to meet me in a restaurant, or even sit with me on a park bench. He couldn’t be in an enclosed space, and he couldn’t sit still. And he couldn’t be touched. This was probably why he was so thin—from needing to pace all the time.

Dear God, this poor man.

I could see that he was getting agitated so I asked, “Would you like to walk around the park with me some more? It’s a nice evening, and I enjoy walking.”

“Please,” he said.

So that’s what we did, Angela.

We just walked and walked and walked.

THIRTY

Of course I fell in love with your father, Angela.

I fell in love with him, and it made no sense for me to fall in love with him. We could not possibly have been more different. But maybe that’s where love grows best—in the deep space that exists between polarities.

I was a woman who had always lived in privilege and comfort, and thus I had always been fortunate enough to skate quite lightly across life. During the most violent century of human history, I had never really suffered any harm—aside from the small troubles that I brought down upon my own head through my own carelessness. (Lucky is the soul whose only troubles are self-inflicted.) Yes, I had worked hard, but so do a lot of people—and my job was the relatively inconsequential task of sewing pretty dresses for pretty girls. And in addition to all that, I was a freethinking, unbridled sensualist who had made the pursuit of sexual pleasure one of the guiding forces in her life.

And then there was Frank.

He was such a weighty person—by which I mean, heavy in his very essence. He was a person whose life had been hard from the beginning. He was a man who did nothing casually, thoughtlessly, or carelessly. He was from a poor immigrant family; he couldn’t afford to make mistakes. He was a devout Catholic, a police officer, and a veteran who had been through hell in service to his country. There was nothing of the sensualist about him. He could not bear to be touched, yes—but it was not only that. He had no hedonic traces within him whatsoever. He dressed in clothing that was purely utilitarian. He ate food merely in order to fuel his body. He didn’t socialize; he didn’t go out for entertainment; he had never been to a play in his life. He didn’t drink. He didn’t dance. He didn’t smoke. He’d never been in a fight. He was frugal and responsible. He didn’t engage in irony, teasing, or tomfoolery. He only ever told the truth.