Disturb the Universe

DISTURB THE UNIVERSE
A Short Story


Do I dare          
Disturb the universe?          
In a minute there is time          
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.          
          . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,          
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?           
         
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot

         
I have had one and only one best friend for so many years, it is hard to remember when it was otherwise. Charles Rutledge Butler entered my life when he came to live with his grandmother in Savannah the summer before our senior year in high school. Charlie’s mother had died in an automobile accident the previous year and his father was moving to Italy to take charge of his company’s European offices. The original plan was for Charlie to remain at the Ivy League boarding school he had attended for several years, but his father ultimately conceded that it would be better for him to be with family so soon after losing his mother. His maternal grandmother, Millicent Barnwell Rutledge, lived just down the street from us and was a friend of my mother’s. A late in life surprise and only child, I was reared in a decorous world of arcane social practices by genteel parents who were a different generation than the parents of my friends. It was not unusual for my mother to drag me along on her visits with what I considered to be elderly ladies.

She would say, “Lauren, I have to make a visit and I need your help.” That usually meant there was an ulterior motive, a reason why my presence would be to her advantage, but sometimes it was just so I could learn how to conduct myself, watching her interact with her civilized and orderly society. Like any true lady of the south, Mary Chisholm Carson knew how to pass on her wisdom without making a fuss about it. This time the real reason for our visit was Millie’s grandson’s arrival. We took freshly baked blueberry muffins and walked down the street to their house, ostensibly to make a neighborly call on an old friend. Actually it was for me to meet the new kid so I could help him adjust to a new school and new friends when the fall term started in a few weeks. I was unabashedly unenthusiastic, but pasted a smile on my face and feigned high spirits. I had learned long ago if I simply did what the adults wanted me to do, I got stuff I wanted—it was a practical approach which has served me well ever since.
No way could I have been prepared for this meeting. He was beautiful—tall, sun-streaked blonde hair, blue eyes that were bottomless—and well-mannered as only the truly well-born, American boy of privilege can be. My reluctance melted away. Of course I would sponsor him into my close knit little group at Country Day. Hell, I would take him home and keep him under my bed, bear his children, follow him on a missionary trip through the jungle, whatever it took to know him better. The wonder of it was, he didn’t seem to have a clue how exceptional he was. Accustomed as I was to boys who thought they were gods because they weren’t homely and could toss a football, I just couldn’t believe the treasure before me. Well read, well spoken, witty, charming—I fumbled over descriptive phrases—and nice, so very nice. We clicked. Right away, we were like little magnets, always together, loving the same music, movies, books, TV shows, thinking the same thoughts. Before I could grasp what a magnificent catch he would be as a boyfriend, he was my actual friend—there is a huge difference, you know—and we went straight to rock-solid, eternal friendship without even getting to the sex hurdle. This was it, we were it, we were a couple—but not friends with benefits, as the kids say. My other friends faded to the background, props for our absorption with each other.

One morning soon after we met, he came by my house to pick me up for a day trip to Tybee Beach. Mom served us homemade sausage biscuits with honey and whipped butter and, as we stirred our honey around in the soft butter, he said, “That’s it—that’s what your hair reminds me of—honey with swirls of butter.” I’d never thought my thick, light brown hair with the perpetual sun streaks was anything special, but he thought it was and now I did, too. He also liked that I was tall with an athletic figure, even though I had often wished I was shorter than my 5’8” and had bigger breasts. I suppose we did make a striking couple, even when we were that young, but I didn’t think about that—we were what we were and the best of it was we were together, inseparable. My parents, especially my very old-fashioned dad, would have been concerned about my spending so much time with any other boy. But they trusted me with Charlie—or perhaps they trusted Charlie to be the gentleman he was brought up to be. His grandmother was so pleased with our friendship, I don’t think she ever considered the downside of a teenaged couple having as much unrestricted time as we did. Charlie’s father visited occasionally and Charlie spent some of his vacation time in the Italian villa that served as his father’s business base, but home for him was with Millie and, of course, my house.

After high school graduation and a summer of sailing, tennis and golf, we moved on to different colleges—he to Georgia Tech and I to the University of Georgia—sixty miles apart and close enough to see each other almost anytime we chose, close enough to still not really need anyone else. I lived in my sorority house and he rented an Atlanta apartment which I shared with him on my frequent visits, still as friends and not lovers. He continued at Tech for his Master of Architecture and I moved to Emory for my MBA, happy that we would be in the same city all the time—Atlanta was a magical place then, offering endless discoveries and experiences. People may have thought it strange that a young man and woman could truly be best friends without sexual involvement, but we were, for so long I almost thought it could be that way forever. Our social life was typical for attractive, bright, energetic people. I dated lots of guys and he had more girls chasing him than he seemed to want. He dated occasionally, but mostly we did things with each other, never happier than when we were together. At some point during our college years, I had taken a sober look as his relationship track record—he had nursed me through many brief liaisons and a few sad and comical break-ups, but I had never had to return the favor. Why not? Was he simply too cool, too self-controlled to become entangled in romantic problems? Why had he never had a serious girlfriend? Was it possible that he preferred men? Could that explain why he never made the moves that were second nature to every other man I knew, never showed the sign of passion that men cannot hide? As the questions haunted me, I finally realized why the answer was so important. I loved him in a way I had not acknowledged—romantically, passionately, insanely, exclusively.

For a while, I went into a tailspin of denial—the thought that he might be forever unavailable was unbearable, inconceivable, unacceptable. I was sophisticated enough to realize that gender preference has nothing to do with choice and no matter how I tried to manipulate the evidence, I knew what I felt was a sole, lone passion. My mind told me to walk away, but I couldn’t release the dream—I desperately needed to believe that one day he would turn to me and see me in a different way, as a desirable woman, not just a friend. But the years, ten of them, had slipped away and nothing changed.

Happy as I am with what we have, I can no longer convince myself it will be more. The time is drawing near when I must turn away from the dream and embrace the default path to the future. It is time for me to take the next step, to stop hoping and wondering and dreaming—he is not now mine and will never be. He loves me, not as I love him, but in his way and it is never going to be more than it has been and is. I have never asked and he has never said, but I believe, deep inside where I can’t dislodge the conviction, that his libidinal interest is not in any woman. I, who like to think I can change anything, cannot change that primary paradox—love has limits, not necessarily of our choosing. And he can’t change it either—or maybe he doesn’t want to—maybe the thought never even crossed his mind. I know that one day he will find the real love of his life and I will become extraneous to that couple—still there, still a friend, still a companion, still loved—but not essential. Years ago, I decided that before I let my youth slide past me, I must embrace a traditional relationship with someone to go with me through the endless days that will stretch beyond my time with him.

We are so perfect together, so matched and paired and aligned, we need nothing else. More than alike, we are the same. We can spend hours upon hours doing nothing but being together—we don’t require entertainment or the company of others—we are complete. And we can enjoy any space together, caught up in a tiny nucleus within the cacophony of the world, insulated from unwelcome intrusion, but with full pleasure in what we choose—a movie, music, food, wine, even work. It’s not what we do or where we are that fills us with contentment and joy, but each other.