The development where I live is one of those unfortunate plots of land that once was a peach farm. In the eyes of a scheming developer, it held more value as a place to build than it did for the fleshy orbs it produced from rows of gnarled trees. I imagine the developer offering the farmer a chunk of money for the land and the farmer considering the money like a married person contemplates a tempting offer of illicit sex. Certain, beckoning, and difficult to resist, thoughts enter the farmer’s mind at random moments throughout his day. While he protects the trees from an impending frost, heaving covers over the treetops, chilled by the whipping wind, he might think, “I could be inside and warm. I could be, if I wanted.”
Perhaps the offer came after a particularly bad year for peaches and a particularly good year for real estate. I picture the farmer conflicted about the choice to sell and, ultimately, for economic reasons, unable to refuse the deal. The land developer is the bad guy the farmer is the fallen hero, his pickup truck disappearing into the sunset as the bulldozing begins. The name carved on the sign marking the entrance of the complex is all that remains of the lands‘ fruitful days, ‘Battle Road Farm’.
I suppose I am complicit in the act of evil against the farmer. I created demand; I own one of the white, manufactured homes - cute as a Monopoly piece - that rests on the defoliated earth. Surrounding the condominium development is a town, incorporated in 1754, spotted with farmhouses and taverns that witnessed the Revolutionary War. My pleasant unit with its hard wood floors and ‘farmhouse’ shape tries self-consciously blended in with the older, New England architecture of the area.
Odd and anachronistic as it is, the place is a culmination of my personal goal that by age thirty I would have my own home. Throughout my twenties while my friends spent piles of bills on lunches and drinks at happy hours, I abstained and ate my lunches out of Tupperware containers dreaming of the day I would contemplate paint colors for the walls of my first, real investment. Not getting drunk with my colleagues from work was not a large sacrifice and I never, ever pinned my hopes for a home on a man who would provide for me. I simply plodded along with the mentality that sacrifice was the way to achieve my goal. Perhaps my mixture of frugalness and independence formed my taste for being alone.
Meanwhile, my friends who spent their paychecks on outfits for bars filled with clinking drinks and preening professionals got married and moved to sprawling homes in tony suburbs like Scarsdale and Bethesda. It did not bother me that they achieved what I had and more simply by association and with little sacrifice. What bothered me was the sudden way they clung to their new lives.
Along the years, I went to weddings of women who walked down the aisle, the white dress transforming them into images of domestic purity. These were the same women I knew to have one night stands on their futons in their ramshackle, studio apartments where they cooked meals in their one tin pot. Now, they registered for plates trimmed with gold, champagne flutes made of crystal, and the entire line of Caphalon cookware. I suppose I saw them as phonies and opportunists.
I tell you all this to explain why Jerry appealed to me. I met Jerry one afternoon when I went to the Broadway Market to buy a muffin for lunch. (You see, I remained frugal even after I purchased my home). At the time, I worked as a receptionist in an architectural firm a short distance away. I decided to stroll the walkways of Harvard’s iconic campus to the market to get something to eat and because I needed to clear my head. I had fallen for an architect at the firm, Paul, who worked offsite overseeing the construction of the Peabody Essex Museum, and he had not called me back after several dates.
I was disappointed. He was dark and stunning with the demeanor of a brooding artist. He read only the classics insisting the timeless wisdom of Dumas and Shelly had cured him of the heartache he suffered because of a broken engagement. To me, he seemed to carry the significant weight of melancholy. He owned no furniture except for a bed with one white sheet. In any case, the literary-loving, furniture-eschewing architect, Paul, had not called.
I entered the store and made my usual pretense of looking around at all the food as if I were making a choice about what I wanted to buy. I walked by the triangular mounds of produce, pyramids of plum tomatoes and sickle pears specimens. I strolled past the picturesque prepared foods case looking at the plates piled with chicken cheese enchiladas and squares of lasagna.
“Hi,” said a voice. It startled me. I felt caught in my ruse of a customer considering her options when I was really going to walk out with one predetermined item.
I looked over and saw a man that gave an impression of a Raymond Chandler character, all that was missing was his Fedora. He had dark, sculpted hair and a presumptuous pose.
“Hi,” I said.
“I want your number,” he said.
I did not respond. I thought of the clothes I was wearing, a worn pair of jeans, a pullover fleece, the clothes of someone who could barely get themselves ready for work.
“What’s your number? I am going to call you.”
I told him. I suppose in some way I was as susceptible as the farmer, struggling and ripe for relief.
He didn’t write it down. “I’m Jay,” he said and walked away.
Jay called me the next evening. “Hi, it’s Jay,” he said.
“Hello.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Isabel.”
“Where are you from?”
“Well, originally I am from Washington, D.C. I moved her a few years ago.”
“You’re cute,” he said.
I said nothing.
“I want to tell you something,” he said.
I listened.
“I’m married. Well, I’m separated. I live with my wife in Lexington, but things are not going well.”
“So, are you separated?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I want to come over and see you. Where do you live?”
“In Lincoln.”
“Well, that’s perfect. I’m in Lexington, right down the road. Would you like to see me sometime?“
I was tongue-tied by the suddenness of his being in my life, still soaking in the reality of him.
“I want to come see you sometime. I’ll call you tomorrow.” In a sweet, upturned voice, he said, “Bye.”
“Goodbye,” I said.
Jay called the next night at the same time. “I’m coming over. Tell me where you live.”
I said nothing.
“I’m not a freak. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I heard Jay’s black Jeep pull up and I stood by my door to greet him. The screen door was open letting the papery, fall smelling air seep into my house. Jay came in the house and sat on my couch in the living room.
“Would you like a glass of water, Jay?” I asked.
He shook his head no and said, “Yes, I would. It’s just that my name is not Jay and I can’t stand to hear you call me that.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s Jerry.”
“Oh,” I say. I realize Jay, I mean Jerry, is not as separated as he claimed. He tried to hide his name.
Jerry stayed for a while and we talked about the area where we lived. We shared stories about where we shopped, local farm stands, and where we took walks, a trail that originated near his house and continues past mine. After a half an hour or so, he stood and told me he would call me tomorrow. Just like that, he wanted to be a fixture, a daily call.
I thought that evening about whether I would answer the phone when Jerry called. “He is married,” I thought. “I cannot do this.”
But when the phone rang the next night I suppose the dull memories of shopping for china patterns and the smug flickering of fingers showing off a new, diamond engagement ring swelled up inside me and I answered the phone.
“Hi,” I said knowing I would accept Jerry’s offer. I would accept out of spite. I wondered if I overlooked a reason the farmer accepted the money from developers. Maybe he wanted to show his more financially stable friends that he could have money just like them. Maybe the farmer gave up the one thing he loved, his peaches, just like I relinquished my integrity, to prove to others that we could have what others touted - money or, in my case, their husbands.
Jerry came over and we went down the road to a small place on Route 2 for sushi where the booths were divided by shoji screens. We sat in the back and Jerry faced the door scouting the entrance for any sign of someone he knew. He ordered for the both of us. I let myself be comforted by his presence, waited for the thoughts of Paul to diminish into tremors and then mere twitches.
When we arrived back at my house, I started to pour two glasses of water in the kitchen. “Come here,” Jerry said and patted the space on the couch next to him.
I went to him, mechanically, knowing the time had come for him to kiss me. I knew the act would push Paul and the pain of his rejection farther from my mind. Jerry took my hand and lifted my head to meet his eyes with a soft cupping of my chin. He had gorgeous, hazel eyes with bursts of yellow by his pupils mixing with mossy green and turning to sienna by the edge of his irises. Though I did not kiss back, I did not push Jerry away and he kissed me, his eyes closed, with increasing passion until my lips parted.
I sunk into his cushiony lips. The yielding physicality of him proved to be the emotional softness I sought. I offered no real resistance to being swept away by Jerry. I lay inert like a forgotten blanket on the beach laid out during low tide. I did not tie myself down or move to a spot above the high-water mark. I simply waited for the waves to reach me.
Jerry did call every day and sometimes met me for lunch, picking me up at the architectural firm. When he came for lunch, he appeared agitated and would tell me about a fight he had with his wife, Nancy. He seemed in those meetings to seek the reassurance he was still attractive and desirable, qualities his wife’s scolding had made him doubt. I never called him, he did not give me his phone number, but I could depend on his phone calls and found them an adequate substitute.
Jerry found ways to spend more and more time with me. His work in real estate, the need for him to be on the road checking properties and meeting with clients, allowed him a lot of flexibility. His wife called often when he was with me. He would ignore the phone if we were in bed and, if not, he would take the phone outside to his car and run the motor.
Jerry told me he felt pressured into marriage. His wife, he explained, had even bought her own ring. He told me how she criticized him, how they had come home early from their honeymoon in Hawaii because they were bored. “You wouldn’t bore me,” he said and pulled me closer. I had the faulty conceit many naïve, attractive people do, that Jerry would treat me differently because I was better than his wife. I had yet to learn that how people treat others speaks of what they think of themselves and not a whit about you.
He called and asked if I could get a few days off. Jerry told his wife he needed some time away. I packed lacey negligees, a few bottles of wine, and a container of a hummus dip I made that he loved. He picked me up and we drove west to the Berkshires, both of us vibrating at the excitement of our daring. He arranged for us to stay at a time share development with rows of apartments and a common area with amenities. The first day we did not stray far from the apartment; we soaked like otters in the hot tub and frolicked in the pool. The second day we went to the Norman Rockwell Museum where I saw the artist’s illustrious covers for ‘The Saturday Evening Post’. We ate lunch in postcard perfect Stockbridge at a cozy bistro. That evening, Jerry looked at me with a pained expression. “Isabel, I think I have to go back. I just feel so strange.”
“Okay,” I said. I turned to hide my face and began to pack my things all of which seemed foolish like a comment you blurt out without thinking and later regret.
He held my hand as we drove back. “I think it’s just too soon. I do love you.”
I smiled at him and patted his hand, not wanting to make a scene or upset him more, but I shifted in that moment. I realized I had been foolish in believing Jerry would leave his wife for me. It would not happen. He was just being immature, trying to delay the responsibility of having a wife and an extended family. His wife was not overly critical. He was just acting like a chastised child, hiding his head from the painful truth of her words by running to my side. I decided that the relationship had served its purpose for me and it was time to move on.
I thought it would be easy. After all, all I had to do was avoid Jerry’s phone calls. When he called at his predictable times, I ignored my phone. I stopped taking my cell phone with me everywhere on the off chance he may call. I walked the trail by my house with no concern about rushing or being interrupted by an opportunity for him to get away. A week later, Jerry came over, unannounced, while I was about to get in my car.
“Jerry,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi,” he said and opened his arms for a hug.
“Hi,” I said and offered him a cold side of me, avoiding the full frontal press. “What are you doing here?”
“I missed you,” he said.
“Well, I have to go,” I said. I tilted my head and gave him an intense, meaningful look of warning.
The next night after work I pulled into the parking lot of my health club and grabbed my bag from the back seat.
“Hi,” Jerry said.
“Jerry, Jesus,” I said. “You scared me to death.”
“Going to work out?”
“Yes. You know I am,” I said. “How is Nancy?”
“Same as ever. She doesn’t appreciate me. She takes everything so seriously. She doesn’t laugh at things like you do,” he said.
“Jerry, this isn’t fair. You asked to go back to her and I left you alone. You can’t come back just because it didn’t work out.”
“I’ll come work out with you,” he said.
“No,” I said. “Just leave me alone.”
With that inexplicable, inverse tendency we all have to want something we are refused, Jerry became relentless. He would leave flowers on my doorstep, call me all the time hoping to catch me off guard, and show up at my house. One day, he arrived as I was unloading my groceries from the trunk of my car. I did not even glance at him but he grabbed two bags and followed me into the house.
“Jerry,” I said when I saw him in my kitchen.
“What?” he said. “Can’t I help?”
I glared at him unwilling to be ensnared in his circuitous logic.
He looked back at me with those multi-color eyes, standing firm.
“Jerry,” I said.
“What?” he asked and wrapped his hands around my waist.
After Jerry left that afternoon, I felt furious. I was angry at myself for being so weak. I wanted to scream at him. It wasn’t fair that he could come and go as he pleased, become unreachable when it suited him. I felt trapped like a squirming child who waits to be released from his time out.
I got in my car and drove to Lexington. From the details he told me of his life, I knew he lived in a modest, ranch house near Wilson’s Farms, an upscale farm stand. I turned on the streets that sounded like the ones he had described to me and searched for his car in driveways. But the search was overwhelming and useless. I turned around and tried to calm myself down.
My head spun with anger, with thoughts of Jerry at home having dinner with his wife, an image I did not let myself visualize before this night. I pictured him squeezing her waist form behind as she prepared dinner at the stove and carefully avoided letting her come too close to him because she would smell my perfume. I thought of how tomorrow he would come back again while she was unsuspecting and I was vulnerable. My brain processed my memories, emotions, and predictions with the speed of a bullet projecting out of a gun’s muzzle. I was looking for something.
I remembered a story Jerry told me about his work in real estate. His office in Cambridge, he had told me, was next door to a company with an enigmatic name, ‘The Right Question’. One day, he went to their front desk, introduced himself, and asked what the name meant. The man at the front desk explained that their philosophy was that finding the correct question to ask was the solution to a problem. “You must determine what you must ask,” he said. “The right question will drive you to obtain information that will be helpful. The question drives the solution.”
I went online and looked up the address of ‘The Right Question’ in Cambridge. I cross referenced it with real estate companies also in Cambridge. I found a real estate company, City Real Estate, located at the same address as ‘The Right Question’. I went to the website for City Real Estate and found an agent by the name of Jerry Baden listed with a cell phone number to reach him. I thought for a moment about what I would say. I admit it, I was angry at the hypocritical marrieds with their thin veneer of settled bliss. I dialed the number.
A woman answered the phone, “Hello?”
“Hello,” I said. Then, I asked, “Are you Nancy?”
The solution to my problem was indeed the right question. But in relieving my anger my world lost some of its undisturbed beauty. Like the farmer with his beautiful orchard, perhaps the pressure to keep struggling alone was just too great.