Thinking about Alicia
Alicia, my only girlfriend in high school, was perfect: five feet four of cute, smart, and energetic. Next to my five feet ten of almost handsome, bright but lazy, and unconcerned, it was an unlikely match made on the airy heights of some Olympus. She liked to press against me, whisper into my ear. “Ricky,” she would begin. I inhaled the tantalizing citrus of her words, wondering if this was a long-haul kind of love.
We continued to date in college. She enrolled at Northwestern, I at the halfway house of our community college in Chicago, which I dragged myself to while doing some evening restaurant work at a copycat version of Charlie Trotter’s: white tablecloths and candelabra, tuxedoed maitre d’ and nice bucks.
“Ideal job for you,” Alicia said, leaning into me, her breasts warm against my ribs, as we stood in front of my place of employment on North State admiring the entry décor full of beveled glass and black marble. Elegant without being stuffy, exactly how I imagined my life with Alicia. “Free meals,” she said, grabbing at my waist, searching for a pinch of fat. “You need a little meat on those bones.” A student of nursing, she was always after me to eat better. She popped me on the arm with a wimpy punch that made me grin. “And get yourself enrolled full time next semester.” She smiled, a dimple showing in her cheek.
“I promise.” I gave her a quick kiss out there on the cold February sidewalk, half expecting her to shove me away, but she lingered. Stirred by the tart and sweet of her tangerine tongue, I pushed closer and floated, lost in the rhythm of our breathing. Could she feel the quickening patter of my heart against her chest? When a young man accidentally bumped us, I glanced up to see him lock on Alicia, envy in his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered as he turned in his pea coat and scarf and hurried down the crowded walk, an arm raised in apology. Alicia put her fingers to my cheek. I knew I was a lucky man. And I wondered if this kiss bound me to my promise.
When she graduated, I had managed a year’s worth of college credits. Of course this worried me—she had been after me to take more hours, had once called me apathetic, a surprise because we never quarreled—but my job was working out well, the money was good, and I couldn’t shift into that educational mode that excited her so much, though I’d always dreamed of someday becoming a lawyer like my uncle Jasper. Chimerical idea, I knew. I tried to blot out my concerns, hoping we’d celebrate her graduation later that week without a word about this small black mark on the resume of our relationship. I would return for a course or two in the fall.
She grew quiet during the walk across the grass on that breezy afternoon in May. Lincoln Park in late spring transforms into a thing of beauty, so it seemed natural, sitting with her on a bench watching whitecaps crest and dip out on the lake, for me to take Alicia's hand and bring it to my lips. When she turned to me I expected to see a smile, that dimple playing in her cheek. Instead, she withdrew her hand. “You don’t care about anything,” she said, as if continuing a conversation.
I tried my best to laugh but produced only a nervous little cough of a sound. “What are you talking about?” I stood, all of a sudden not knowing what to do or where to look. My heart began to pound. I felt a frown curl on my brow and tried to will it away. She had to be joking.
“Tell me what your plans are.”
“We’ve been together for five years. You know you’re a major part of my plans.” I wanted her to ask about my promotion at work, my better hours in the best room of the restaurant, my jump in salary.
“Planning to be a waiter the rest of your life, are you?” she asked. “You have no ambition, no passion.”
“That's not true, Alicia. I have plenty of passion.” I thought about pointing out the unfairness of her comment but decided on a different strategy. “I love you as much as my ’56 Chevy.” When she didn’t smile, I said, “More,” hoping to glimpse her dimple. She simply watched me.
I knew I was in trouble. Energy seeped down my legs like blood from a wound and left me wobbly. I sat back down and touched her arm. How lovely she was, heartbreaking in her white shorts and violet top, her body already tan. I imagined her arms around my neck, her body against mine, her fragrant words embellishing the air.
“I hate it that you lied to me, Rickie,” she said.
Of course. I knew exactly what she was talking about, but it seemed like much ado about very little.
“I’m going to double up on my coursework,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a few months now.”
Her glistening eyes met mine. “I’ve decided on the Master’s program at NYU.”
I'd always thought she would stay in Chicago.
The sun that had been painting strokes of rust and gold into her hair hid behind a cloud. The breeze died. Kids' joyful cries dropped from the sky like broken kites.
My graduation gift, a $100 tennis bracelet she’d admired a year ago through a jeweler’s window, bulged in my pocket. I placed the small case on the bench. “For you,” I said, but she only brushed the hair from her eyes and looked at me one last time—sadly, it seemed, though I wasn’t sure, my reality from two minutes ago now the stuff of memories and dreams. “Alicia, please take it. I love you. I do.”
I waited several long moments. When she didn't look up at me, I stood and turned away into a world I didn’t recognize. The beauty of the afternoon, the perfect breeze and sky and water, seemed to mock me.
I never told a soul how, two weeks later, from my hidden spot behind a boxwood halfway down the block, I watched her pull away from her apartment, the back seat of her VW piled high with clothes and books and whatever else young women take when they leave.
Two years later I graduated from college. I’d never worked so hard in my life, quadrupling my coursework and quartering my hours at the restaurant. But I didn’t know what I was pursuing. More money? Esteem? Or Alicia? Upon graduating I found myself wishing she’d stuck around despite the fact that I’d received just a single postcard from her since she’d left. Having heard she was back in town after her Master’s—a friend of a friend had provided her number—I toyed with the idea of calling her. On a Monday I decided to do so but waited until Tuesday. On Tuesday it seemed inappropriate, melodramatic, silly. The waffling continued for two weeks until I stopped thinking and picked up the phone. We chatted for a few minutes before I got up the gumption to ask her out. “I’m getting married, Rickie,” she said. “Wedding’s the middle of next month.”
When the dreams began a week before Alicia’s wedding, I didn’t know what to make of them. The first night I addressed a jury with final arguments as to how Alicia had erred when she’d thrown me over. I was brilliant. But she remained mute on the witness stand. Another night she became part of the jury deciding her own fate. How could she refuse my offer to take her back?
After every dream I awoke acknowledging my foolishness. If I finally fell into an uneasy sleep, a recurring idea disturbed my rest: Perhaps one more phone call. Why not try one more call? I woke, tossed, and dozed again, finally waking bleary eyed and exhausted in the morning. I never won the case.
The entire situation grew from silly to absurd. I hadn’t laid eyes on Alicia in ages. She ditched you, I told myself. Grow up, goddamnit.
What other choice did I have but to carry on? Recalling my infatuation with becoming an attorney—it now seemed a lifetime ago, those years with Alicia, those vague ambitions—I took the LSAT, and to my astonishment was admitted to law school at Northwestern. “Awful GPA,” the dean said, “but the top 10 percent on the test. We’re going to give you a trial semester.”
Three years slipped by, very slowly, very quickly, the way the earth revolves when we are young. I dated four or five women while in law school, graduates of the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Loyola, each one more clever and enchanting than the last, but my real passion, and one that required most of my time, was school. Later, over some glorious weeks of an especially breezy summer, a time just after I passed the bar, I thought I might be in love. But there remained an empty space in that relationship that I couldn’t ignore, so I had to let it go.
The last thing I expected on a breezy October morning was a beautiful woman leaning inside the doorway of my tiny Halsted Street law office. Her chestnut hair was shorter now, and the wind through the open door tossed some flyaway strands about her cheeks. A shy smile appeared, the dimple a bit softer than I remembered. She wore a navy skirt and a turtleneck the golden orange of falling maple leaves.
I couldn’t imagine why Alicia was here. Did she want my services? Maybe a good divorce attorney. Now that I might think about for a minute or two. I realized in a white-hot moment that I'd never come to terms with those events in Lincoln Park. What the hell is she doing here? Who does she think she is?
She shut the door behind her. “I heard you gained some weight,” she said, the awkwardness in her voice surprising me. “You look good.”
My heart rattled against my ribs. I wasn’t at all sure how to greet her. Finally I stood behind my desk and offered my hand. “Alicia,” I said.
Her shake was friendly. My eyes strayed to her ring finger. Nothing.
“How are you?” I said. “How long has it been?” I knew exactly how long it had been and was irritated I had asked.
A small smile. “I’m good. Working at Northwestern Memorial and like my job. Things are going along.” A pause, then, a beat or two longer than I expected. Was she adding up the years? “Are you free for lunch?” she said. “About one?”
I checked my watch and considered. An urgent piece of paperwork remained, and enough small items to occupy my afternoon. Did I really want to make the time for this woman from my past? “Well, today's busy.” I paused. What the hell. “One o’clock? Okay,” I said. “I suppose I can make it.”
She suggested a place we both knew and was out the door in less than a minute.
What had just happened? I attempted to put the moment aside but found a tremble in my fingers as I punched in the call I needed to make. The paperwork I completed, but only after a handful of lapses. Pay attention, damnit, I said aloud, feeling ridiculous as I heard my own words invade the silence of my office.
I asked for a quiet table when I arrived at the restaurant and studied the menu while I waited. What did Alicia have on her mind? Was her marriage finished in, what, a little over four years, or did she simply prefer not wearing a ring? Was this a business visit? Maybe someone had died. Alicia’s mother lived here in Chicago, but she had been diagnosed with breast cancer when we’d been together. When we’d been together. So long ago. And she had only grown lovelier over the years. Stop setting yourself up, I told myself. Don’t be a fool. You have no idea what she wants.
The clock above the bar read one o’clock and so did my watch. She would walk in at any moment, I knew. As I watched the door I recalled a night a few months ago at a bar on Rush with two attorneys I’d graduated with. “Never show your hand before you have to,” one said, and we had practiced those vacant looks over a second pitcher of beer.
Was this lunch with Alicia going to be a vacant-look occasion? Perhaps she would offer the explanation I had sought all those years ago, the one she’d refused as we sat on the bench in Lincoln Park, something that still bothered me in a niggling sort of way. Well, she had given me a reason—the broken promise is how I thought about it—but I’d always wondered if it wasn’t something more. I realized a part of me had wanted to enclose her in my arms earlier today, though a different part wanted to walk away, to turn in mid-stride and ask, “How does it feel?” A tingling of nerves surprised me. Stop this nonsense, I told myself. You're acting like a teenager.
At 1:05 I began to wonder if Alicia was going to show up. In all those years we’d been together she had never been late. Not once. I raised a hand to a passing waitress and ordered a draft. Don’t jump to conclusions, a voice whispered in my head. This is Chicago, where anything can happen and usually does. Maybe she couldn’t find a taxi. More likely, a traffic jam. An accident. A medical emergency. A bank robbery and hostage situation.
Or perhaps it came down to the broken promise. The lie.
During my first summer in law school I’d discovered a passion I never knew I possessed, something Alicia had never witnessed, and I’d broken no more promises. To myself, or anyone else.
Maybe her marriage was over and she needed some advice. But why me? There were plenty of attorneys in town, too many, for God’s sake, the city overrun with guys just like me, looking for, well, I still wasn’t positive about what I was pursuing, but I loved my job. Perhaps she was back because someone had told her I’d finally gotten my act together. Maybe she’d heard about the big case from a couple of months ago, my one and only very fine payday since I’d opened shop. But she was doing well, she had told me so. A nurse with a master’s degree, working at one of Chicago's best hospitals, she had to be raking in an excellent salary. Why would she care about my big payday?
At 1:20, I drained the last of my draft, dropped a five and three ones on the table, and looked around to make sure I hadn’t missed her. I pushed my chair back and stood. A shot of something electric sizzled through me. You’ve been stood up, Ricky. Played like a child.
At five seconds past 1:20, the door swung open and Alicia entered. I raised a hand. Seeing me, she glanced at her watch, frowned, and made her way to the table. I pulled a chair out for her, certain she would launch into a detailed explanation regarding her late arrival, but I was in no mood to hear it. We sat across from each other.
“As soon as I left your office,” Alicia said, “I wondered if I’d made a mistake by dropping in on you. You didn't seem very pleased to see me. I ran my errands and thought about it again and knew I’d made a mistake, so I found a taxi and headed back to my apartment.” She paused.
I wasn’t sure if it was my turn to speak, but I didn’t know what to say. How did she think I would react when she'd walked into my office? I watched her watching me and waited.
“Halfway home, I knew I couldn’t leave you hanging. That was just wrong. I felt like a fool, but I told the driver to head back to where he’d picked me up, just a block from here. So . . . I’m late. Sorry."
“I’ve been waiting years to hear you say those words,” I told her. Though I tried to avoid it, I felt a tiny grin force its way upon my face. “Is this your first time ever? Being late?”
“I really do want to congratulate you on your law degree. Are you the same guy I dated all those years ago?”
“I found something I love. My passion.” I paused. “Maybe I should thank you for that.” My words surprised me.
“You finally ended your love affair with that old Chevy of yours all in the name of practicing law?”
“Not really. I still have it.”
She chuckled.
A group of undergraduates walked past our table on their way to the back of the place, and one of the guys knocked into Alicia’s chair. “So sorry,” he said. “You okay?”
I remembered that bump on North State all those years ago. Not exactly the same, I reminded myself.
Alicia raised a hand to him to assure him that all was fine. When she reached up to brush back her hair, small diamonds from a tennis bracelet sparkled at the cuff of her sweater.
I could barely believe it, but I would not ask. Could not ask. She noticed that I had noticed, and a silence descended.
Then, as if steeling herself for a jump from a high dive into deep water, Alicia leaned forward and found my eyes. She touched my hand with her first two fingers. “I’ve been thinking about you, Ricky,” she said.
Something like a possibility balanced on the thread of air between us.