Verona in Spring

Chapter One

She hated when he was late—especially today. It's his pattern, Verona thought wearily; I can’t change it. But I expect him to come when he says he will, and I can't change that, either.

Impatiently twisting the curtain's white silk tassels around her forefinger, she stood at her bedroom window, watching the empty street below. A frustration made fierce by waiting flared up in her and she thought, I'm running out of time for this. After three sleepless nights, I need to talk to him—today.

Not completely sleepless, she reminded herself—no need to over-dramatize the urgency. But Tobias always came on Monday; he'd never missed even once, and now it's Wednesday. Did he somehow sense the ultimatum awaiting him?

Colling's letter—such a rarity, a hand-written note—had arrived Saturday, but she'd only picked up her mail Sunday morning. The short letter had immediately triggered a storm within her, for with admirable brevity he'd set the deadline she'd long dreaded. A job had opened at San Francisco International Airport, and his request for a transfer from Honolulu to SFO was guaranteed if he moved immediately. He'd been patient, but now it was time: either move back to Honolulu, or we'll get married in San Francisco. You're almost 30; what are we waiting for? Let's start making some babies.

As if we've been struggling not to, Verona thought wryly; I haven't been on birth control for years. It's Nature's way of saying we shouldn't have kids, Colling; your scanty immobile seeds, and whatever might be wrong with me.

With a deep, cat-like yawn, Verona thought, If Tobias doesn't come today, I may never sleep again. This is what comes of not making a clean break with Colling when I moved to San Francisco, she repeated to herself. This is what comes of stringing someone along just to avoid a decision.

Yet another log on the unsympathetic fire, Verona thought ruefully: feckless, indecisive, and selfish. Make that three logs, all perfect for the pyre.

She'd considered every permutation, turned every possible decision again and again in her mind for the past three days, and felt no closer to resolution. From the moment she awoke and readied herself for the shift at the day care center, all through the long afternoon and toss-and-turn night, and then through her duties at the housing office on Tuesday, she'd thought of little else but these same choices, turned and spun and sliced, all to no avail. Either leave Tobias and at long last marry Colling, or say goodbye to Colling and embrace Tobias—as either mistress or wife, whatever he chose. I've already tried cutting him off, she sighed, and that didn't work; so claiming the decision will be mine is a lie.

She could hear her Mother berating her again for not marrying Colling: such a nice guy who's waited so patiently; and who will you have when he gets tired of waiting for you? Who, indeed, Verona reflected; I can remain Tobias's mistress—but for how long? Until I get tired of it, she answered; and right now, I'm tired of it—at least the waiting part.

True, she fumed, but not true enough; if Colling never visited me again, I'd be relieved, but if Tobias never came again—what opens up then has no bottom.

Yes, breaking Colling's heart keeps me awake; but so does losing Tobias. There's no escaping one or the other, she told herself tiredly, except to lose both. And then what have I got? My freedom; yea for freedom, she thought sardonically. Freedom to be alone. Freedom to slink back to Hawaii with my tail between my legs, to listen to the same nagging lectures from Mom.

You think you're better than everyone else, don't you? What have you done with that college degree? You make less money than your sister. And San Francisco—Honolulu wasn't good enough for you, was it?

A familiar bitterness took her and she thought, All the crabs are so anxious to pull you back into the pot. If you're reserved, you're stuck up; if you're unhappy, you're ungrateful; if you're beyond their reach, then you're too big for your britches; and I'm all three.

The fresh breeze that usually wafted over San Francisco from the Pacific had died, and the hot afternoon sun glared brightly off the cars diagonally lining the curb beneath her apartment. The scent of the open sea had dissipated along with the breeze, and the shimmering air tasted of aluminum. Opening her wood-sash window had failed to relieve the heat, and the still air and cloudless sky raised a sheen of sweat on her smooth brown skin.

I'm tired of being unsympathetic, she fumed, and that only makes me more unsympathetic. I've always been the one who's easy to resent: the older sister, the stubborn child, the unhappy stepkid, and the pretty girl with boobs, good grades, and a deep dark desire to find somewhere she might fit in. No luck on that one, she sighed internally, but San Francisco is as close as I've come.

Recalling the snubs when she was the new girl in class, she thought, Is it my fault hapas are pretty? Mix up enough genes and you get my stepfather's description of me to his buddies : Hawaiian tits, Japanese ass, Chinese legs, haole face. I'm not showing off, it's just what I am; how come nobody resented my sister?

I am so tired of hiding myself, and yet here I am hiding myself again: from Mom, from Colling, and now, from Mimi—and maybe even from Tobias. I haven't told anyone about the letter, not even Mimi; maybe I should keep it a secret from Tobias, too.

He knows about Colling, of course, but I could end it with Colling and say nothing. Wouldn't that be hiding some part of myself? Yes, but would it be so bad? After all, my entire life is nothing but cover-ups. Because if there's one thing no one has a shred of sympathy for, it's a pretty young hapa girl who can't resist a rich good-looking haole who's already married.

I hate it, she sighed, but we don't choose who we fall in love with. If we did, I'd choose to be madly in love with Colling and be done with it. But falling in love isn't a decision; it's who to hurt afterward that's the choice.

I don't want to hurt anyone, not even myself; but I would gladly hurt myself if only that would free Colling and Tobias. But somebody has to be hurt, because one gets me and the other does not. Either way, I'm hurt, too.

I thought I had the solution, she mused wanly: the brick wall. All those feelings: shut them away. After all these years, I thought I was invulnerable; and yet here I am, trapped and broken by things beyond my control. And so Colling's deadline for me becomes mine for Tobias: will you leave your wife of 20 years to marry me?

And if he refuses, as I expect he will, she reflected, it doesn't end my feelings. At least God knows I've tried, but I couldn't stop my feelings. Everyone expects you to do the honorable thing, but no matter how hard I've tried to focus on something else, anything else, I think of Tobias. It's a curse I can't break; they don't tell you that in all those sappy love stories.

After months of agonizing, Verona had concluded adultery was like Prohibition: everyone righteously agrees it's a sin at the front door, as long as no one is watching the back door too closely. Would Tobias's wife be happier if he left her? Everyone sounds so upright and brave when pronouncing what's right and wrong, Verona mused, but most of the time they'd rather not know; it's not just easier, it's what they actually want. While they say they want honesty, they really don't, because the consequences upend everything.

Verona had been pondering how she'd feel in the shoes of Tobias's wife, and what deficiencies in their marriage had led Tobias to stray. The standard explanation was the deficiency lay in him. But if the worm grew only in him, why hadn't he strayed before? Or had he, and he's lying to me? Maybe, but I don't think so; he is such a poor liar, I'm surprised his wife hasn't squeezed a confession from him just by looking at his guilty expression.

Maybe his wife is like me, she reflected with a thin smile; maybe she really doesn't want all that intensity at home, and she's secretly happy he's found a relief valve in a mistress. Maybe that's why I'm afraid to give him the ultimatum; he'll say yes, and being married would ruin everything. Then I'd just be Wife Number Two, hoping he'll find a mistress to take the pressure off me.

I am the complete package, she thought with a bitter amusement, all the most unsympathetic traits a 29-year old can possibly have: not only am I in a secret triangle, I justify it by either blaming her for some imagined inadequacy, or imagining her happy acceptance of her husband wrestling down a young mistress. How fatuous can you get?

And if that isn't enough, I'm alienated from my family, a sure sign the girl's a mess. I'm quiet, which makes me distant; I don't have to worry about my weight, at least not too much; I'm unemployed, hopelessly so despite my stupid little internships; I like having two lovers, and tolerate the guilt because each one gives me something the other cannot; I have foolishly unrealistic dreams but keep them safely to myself; and I love flaunting my declining youth, for the one thing you can count on with men is their gratitude in bed.

Sweeping her long black hair over her shoulder, Verona glanced out her window at the torpid steel-blue waters of the Bay and then turned to the clock on her bedstand. He said one-thirty, so I left early, and now it's three o'clock; another stupid little poem of waiting, she thought disparagingly. But the waiting will soon be over: Colling's, mine, and whether he likes it or not, Tobias's.

God, how I wish I didn't have to decide, she thought yet again. Late at night, when magical thinking reached its most appealing apogee, she'd fantasize about Tobias's wife catching him, and ending it tout suite, or Colling meeting someone on the plane coming over and falling madly in love with her.

Here's another dumb little ditty for your journal, she told herself sourly:

I sit here quietly
on a powderkeg
playing with matches.

There's another thing everyone hates, she told herself: self-pity. I know, "poor me" doesn't fly; if Tobias refuses to marry me, then I should just marry Colling and be grateful somebody loves me and wants to have kids with me—even if we have to endure that whole artificial insemination mess.

It would have been so easy just a few months ago; after waiting years for "I've grown accustomed to his face" to ripen into marriage, I really wouldn't have minded having my hand called; it was inevitable that I would marry him, and I was just putting off the day as long as possible to dally in my fantasies. But now my hand is getting called on two tables, and all I've got is a pair of two's.

With great self-disgust, she thought, It would be just like me to recklessly throw away both lovers, just to spite myself. And nobody has any sympathy for the reckless, either; throw another log on the unsympathetic pyre.

Fixing her gaze on the short stretch of level asphalt where Montgomery and Vallejo streets abruptly met- , Verona willed Tobias’ Mercedes to labor up the hill into view. In her imagination, she saw him brake cautiously at the crest, wary of pedestrians on the Vallejo Steps' crosswalk, and then ease his green Mercedes into the parking stall beneath her window.

The heated gasp of a struggling engine announced a car climbing Montgomery, and her hopes rose with the approaching vehicle. An auto topped the rise with a fatigued cough; an ancient orange Volkswagen wheezed to a stop at the crosswalk, and then turned slowly down Vallejo Street.

Suppressing her disappointment, Verona turned to the glinting peak of the Transamerica Pyramid—rising from the narrow gap cut by Prescott Lane, it was her visible proxy for Tobias's redbrick office—and imagined Tobias hurrying to the padded freight elevator down the hall. Closing her eyes, she conjured an image of Tobias waiting for the doors to open: smoothing the boyish cowlick in his short brown hair, his lifeforce coiled tautly beneath his Italian suit, the inner concentration in his hazel eyes at odds with his self-deprecating smile; as if, she thought, he's remembering a joke a child once played on him.

Her slim brown shoulders tensed beneath the yellow sleeves of her sundress, and with redoubled effort she willed him to join her.

A squeal of complaint rose from an auto's brakes, and she opened her eyes to find the orange Volkswagen easing into the open parking slot beneath her window.

Just once, she thought bitterly, I'd like my will to work. Not just on Tobias, but on anything.

The tired engine stopped with a backfire pop of dirty exhaust, and a lanky young man with rudely trimmed blond hair emerged with an armful of brilliant white irises. Someone else's lover is on time, she noted resignedly, or maybe even early. Meanwhile I rush home to sit here agonizing on whether he's coming or not—not just today, but ever again.

The youth paused to tease his iris bouquet into fullness, and Verona's somber expression lightened at the comic contrariness of his arrival. The perfect opposite of what I wished for, she thought, shaking her head bemusedly; a battered Volkswagen and a young man in blue jeans. Maybe I if wished Tobias wouldn't come, he'd show up right away. . . but I'd have to be sincere for that to work, wouldn't I?

A hazy gray puff of oily smoke rose through the still air to her third-floor aerie, and she shoved the window down. In a screech of recalcitrant wood and leaden rumble of sash weights it descended six inches and then came to an abrupt stop. In the sixteen months she’d lived in the flat, she’d only managed to open the windows by rubbing beeswax on the paint-gummed jambs and laboriously working each stubborn sash.

Colling had suggested the wax on one of his first weekend visits from Honolulu; in her last note to Mimi, she'd made an ironic aside that his handiness was the chief benefit of keeping him as a boyfriend. Oh, for the simple charms of that ignorance; of course I'd told Mimi about Tobias, and before that, about Zack; but Mimi was hardly in a position to lecture me about sin.

Her exasperation mounting, Verona thought, This is still stuck; twisting her long hair into a thick braid, she knelt by the windowsill to raise the jammed sash.

Alerted by the sound of her window squeaking, the young man gazed up. Shielding the sun from his eyes, he asked loudly, "Excuse me, do you have the time?"

Verona considered him with a faint smile and replied, "Yes. You're late."

The young man hesitated and then chuckled. I can see why you've been invited up, Verona thought appraisingly; you have that casual look of someone who doesn't take himself too seriously.

Playing along, he asked, "Well, can you tell me how late I am?"

Toying with her dark braid of hair, she said, "Late enough to get in trouble."

"No doubt about that," he remarked laconically. "But can you tell me if it's three yet?"

"It will be," Verona answered. "In about five minutes."

He continued to eye her from beneath his shielding palm, as if hoping to conjure up another reason to engage her. I certainly wouldn't mind you coming to visit me, Verona mused as she returned his smile; you're early, and you brought flowers. You even remind me of my sophomore surfer crush.

"Do the meter maids make it up here?" he asked.

"Not too often," Verona replied.

Too bad we don't choose who we fall in love with, she thought as he looked at her quizzically; maybe I'd pick you. No, she thought with a twinge of regret, I'm not young enough anymore.

"Can you keep an eye out for me?" he asked.

"Sure," she said half-seriously, and thought, too bad we can't pick our crushes, either; it's so easy to hope, and so painful to lose.

The blond youth gave her a parting wave and walked to the turquoise-tiled steps of the Moorish building across the street.

The young man awakened long-dormant memories of Russell, and her mind returned to their small Manoa Valley room and the sweet tropic scent of ginger wafting in as she sat on her bed, her freshman textbooks open in half-hearted study, listening through the drip and drizzle of rain for the high-pitched whine of Russell's Volkswagen.

And ten years later I'm still waiting, she thought with a rising anger at herself. Now it's even worse; at least I knew Russell was coming, and I never had to worry about his moods. No, that's not fair, she added; Tobias has to worry about my moods, too. That's what happens when you love each other and hate the rest of your lives.

It had been a long time since Russell entered her thoughts, and the parallels of the young man's old car and her waiting aroused a peculiar presentiment in her. Recalling their freshman semester, her expression softened and she recalled, After living at home, just waking up in the same bed had seemed the height of romance.

And here I am again, still dreaming of having him for an entire night, she thought in acid self-mockery; not the one who does sleep over once a month, but the one who can't. And now all of that is going to change, one way or another.

Irises in hand, the young man waited in the Moorish-style tiled entry, and Verona imagined a woman hearing the security bell in the nervous excitement of a newly budding romance. Or maybe she’s like me, Verona thought dourly, waiting despite herself and all her admonitions, with a furious astonishment at her own craziness.

"A Furious Astonishment," she mused; that sounds like another schoolgirl poem about being surprised to find Cupid's arrow in my crumbly Christmas-cake okole. This summer is my last chance; if I still haven't married Colling before I hit 30, my Mom will make Hell look like the South Pole.

Opening her spiral-bound journal, she jotted down lines as they came to her:

My Mom's fondest dream
me, shafted by Cupid
a pincushion of love in a white dress
awash in pheronomes
hand in hand at the alter
with big-grin Colling.
And if his dream be granted
happily hapai—with twins.

Alas poor Cupid's aim was off—and how.
Maybe he was drunk
or playing a cruel joke.
My derriere's a pincushion, all right,
but for the wrong man.
Cupid, do you have any arrows left for me?

Closing the notebook, Verona pensively scanned the Moorish building's windows and thought, maybe the girl is dreading his visit because she has to end his hopes; maybe she's been sleepless for days, agonizing about how to tell him the obvious: I don't love you anymore.

To distract herself, Verona retrieved the letters from her mother and sister which had arrived the previous week. It wasn't unusual to receive an occasional letter from either, but the joint arrival of the large manila envelopes had unsettled her. Fearing the emotions which might be released by the contents, Verona had left them safely unopened.

But now, reckoning that anger could substitute for strength, Verona suppressed her dread and tore open the envelope from her Mom.

To her relief, the handwritten letter on half-sheets of paper was no more upsetting than usual: an appeal to return home and marry Colling leavened by barbs stealthily faced as compliments.