Tully

November 1978

‘What do you mean, you want to go to California with Tully?’ said Lynn. Tony stopped eating his steak.

‘I mean,’ said Jennifer, ‘just what I said. We want to go to California. We are going to California.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Tony. ‘You are going to Harvard. I thought it was all agreed.’

Jennifer shook her head. ‘We’ve applied to Stanford. That’s where we’re going.’

Lynn and Tony exchanged a long look. Lynn said, ‘Jenny Lynn, honey, whose idea is that? Is it Tully’s?’

Tony raised his voice. ‘Of course it’s Tully’s! Tully, Tully, Tully! I’m tired of hearing that girl’s name!’ He turned to his wife. ‘I kept telling you she was a bad seed!’ And then to Jennifer, ‘What do you want to do, Jennifer? What do you want?’

‘I want to go to California,’ Jennifer said stubbornly.

‘Goddamn it!’ shouted Tony, throwing his fork down on the plate. It made a loud noise that rang in everybody’s ears. ‘I will not let that girl make a loser out of you, Jennifer! I will not let that girl make another her out of you.’

Lynn asked Tony to lower his voice. Jennifer put her utensils down and laid her hands on her lap. ‘Dad. Going to Stanford is not a loser thing to do. It just isn’t.’

Lynn and Tony talked for a while, heatedly and passionately at first, then slowly, pretending to be reasonable. Jennifer withdrew completely and watched as her parents argued with one another about just who was responsible for letting this happen to their Jennifer.

‘You’re the one who is always here talking to her!’ yelled Tony.

‘Yes, and you’re the one who is never here talking to her!’ Lynn yelled back.

Tony said, ‘I told you and told you about that girl. And you wanted to bring her into this house. I told you: she is no good, Lynn. She came from no good and she will come to no good, and in between she will do no good for anybody. That’s Tully.’

‘That’s not true, Dad,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tully will come to good. She will. You watch. Tully wants to help kids. Be a psychologist, maybe.’

‘Help kids? Tully is not helped herself!’ Tony screamed. ‘A psychologist? Jennifer, to be a psychologist, one needs to like to talk! And your friend Tully is nearly a deaf-mute!’

‘Dad! What are you talking about?’ Jennifer said. ‘To be a bad psychologist, one needs to like to talk. To be a good one, one needs to like to listen. And Tully is not a deaf-mute, Dad. Just because you don’t hear her, she is not a deaf-mute. She’s not the one.’

Standing up, Jen cut her father off before he began again. ‘Dad, Dad! Besides! This is not about Tully, goddamn it!’ she screamed, backhanding her glass of Coke across the room. It smashed against the dining room wall and shattered loudly, echoing through the quiet house. Her parents sat there and did not react. Lynn finally said sadly, ‘Jenny, we thought you always wanted to go to Harvard.’

‘No, Mom,’ said Jennifer. ‘No. You always wanted to go to Harvard.’

‘Well, honey, there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with Harvard.’

‘Yes. And there is nothing wrong with Stanford either.’

How to tell them, how to explain just how much she wanted to go to California! How to explain to them that her poor Tully just wanted to be close to her. Alone upstairs, Jennifer laughed softly. They’d never believe it if I told them. They’d never believe that California is not Tully’s idea at all. How little it actually has to do with Tully. Jennifer strongly suspected that, left to her own devices and despite all her protestations, despite all the maps and all the dreams and all the talk of palm trees, left to herself, Tully would not go to California. Oh, Tull would certainly disagree with that, certainly. But Jennifer just had a feeling about it. Without Jennifer, Tully would never go. But how to tell her parents that? And how to tell them that despite a number of colleges nationwide wanting him to play football for them, Jennifer alone knew that Jack Pendel, nineteen years old this November, captain of the High Trojans for the second straight year, would be going nowhere else but Palo Alto.

2

‘…Take me now

Baby, here as I am

Pull me close

Try to understand

Desire and hunger’s the fire I breathe

Love is a banquet on which we feed…’

Robin was singing very loudly in the shower. It was Saturday night, and he was going to see Tully. Somehow – miraculously! – she made Saturday night happen. He booked the best room at the Holiday Inn three days ago when she told him she could make it.

Robin got out of the shower and toweled himself off in front of a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror. The mirror was all fogged up, but Robin ran a towel over it and then stepped back to look at himself. ‘Hmm, I look pretty good,’ he said aloud, and got dressed.

His great mood was marred only by the anxiety of leaving his family store’s money to be counted on the busiest day of the week by a nineteen-year-old assistant. I really need to relax, man, thought Robin, pulling on his best tan slacks and a Polo sweater. Look at my brothers.

Stephen DeMarco, Sr, too ill to get out of bed, left his store to be managed by his three sons, but Robin’s brothers were not at all interested in the family business. Bruce and Stevie were too busy dating and playing ball. Dating and playing ball was all Bruce and Steve wanted to do.

Stevie was a sophomore at Kansas State University at Manhattan, majoring in rugby, beer, and girls, while Bruce had been playing the guitar since his high school graduation five years ago. He was ‘trying to find himself.’ At present, he had apparently found himself in dairy products. Bruce became convinced that he could ‘self-actualize’ only through farming, and, with that in mind, he bought, with his dad’s help, a hundred-acre farm twenty miles north of Manhattan. Replete with horses, chickens, and corn. So instead of wearing Pierre Cardin suits and Polo shirts like Robin, Bruce wore overalls and got up with the cows. He played his guitar to the horses, and they seemed to like that; so did the girls.

That left only Robin to work the store. Before Tully, Robin worked the entire seven days the store was open. When he told Tully that he was off Sundays, he wasn’t telling the truth. The truth was that Robin hadn’t taken off a Sunday in seven years, but seeing that Tully could drag a dying Doberman single-handedly off the road, Robin figured he could also show some backbone and take off one day. He realized, though, that no one knew the merchandise as he did, no one could sell it as he did, no one could offer the customer exactly the right thing or know the customer’s style and size and price just by the way the customer dressed and talked, quite as Robin did.

And then, of course, there was the small question of cash. Not much was cash – mostly it was VISA and personal checks. But on a good Sunday, there could also be five hundred to a thousand dollars in small bills. Okay, okay, no big deal, he was insured against theft, and in any case what was a grand to a company whose annual gross sales were nearly $2 million? But theft! And there were plenty of ways to steal from him. There were some expensive Ralph Lauren and Pierre Cardin shirts in his store. Some pricey ties and belts, some $200 Bally shoes. Robin’s floor guys could just walk off with three or four $75 shirts, and that wouldn’t make Robin happy at all. So he methodically made note of the merchandise on display, and the following day matched what was missing to the receipts in the register. It was neurotic, he knew, but he just hated the thought of being taken.

Robin put on Paco Rabanne and blow-dried his hair. After a few months of taking off Sundays, Robin locked the supply room, locked away the inventory sheets, and began to take off Wednesdays, too. A couple of times he brought Tully to Manhattan on Saturdays to watch him play soccer in the afternoons. Playing soccer on Saturday afternoons felt to Robin like cutting school – wrong and slightly delicious. Usually he went back to the store after a few hours, but not tonight.

‘…Because the night Belongs to lovers…’

he sang, locking the house and starting up his car.

‘…Because the night Belongs to us…’

Even though Robin was fretting about work, he was thinking of Tully most of all.

He was stroking her hair after they had just finished making love.

‘Tully,’ Robin whispered. ‘Tully.’

‘What, Robin, what?’

‘You do this with many guys?’

She laughed. ‘Well, never in a Holiday Inn.’ She looked around the room. ‘Nice. Great bed. I’ve never been on a bed like this before. This big.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure you are.’ She smiled and sighed. ‘Not so many.’

‘Do you remember your first?’

She stiffened, and her body became lifeless. ‘Who doesn’t?’ she said evenly. ‘Don’t you?’