Lucy Part I of III

In the days leading up to his death, my father was writing the story of  his affair in 1977 with one of his 19-year-old students. It remained unfinished and, in fact, the time stamp on the computer document that follows was just hours before his death. Fortunately though, he had already written the end of the story in a series of letters to me as the events were unfolding which can be read in the The Summer of 1977 and The Summer of 1977, Part II.  

I guess it’s time to write the story now that the story has become history; that seems to imply some sense of objectivity. The events have achieved a kind of staleness-of-time, though, on the other hand, I wouldn’t have even begun writing this if something wasn’t driving me. So I shall begin, as they say, at the beginning. Or at least the beginning I prefer. Lucy has her own vision of the beginning. While I accept her version, believing that it probably has a greater approximation of objective reality, I still think mine is the truer. Anyway, the one thing we both would agree on is that it began on January 18, 1977—the first day of the Spring Semester of that year, at the Ambler Campus of Temple University. It was my first class of the day, a Tuesday-Thursday class, at 11:30 am. I had come into the room about 5 minutes ahead of the normal class-starting time—and watched the students file in. Lucy was already sitting in the front row, on my far right, facing the class. The door was at the far left. I knew she was in the wrong class—in more ways than one. She had fashionable half-tinted glasses on, the ones with the large lenses, which equally suited her long high-boned face. But it was really her total presence; the way she sat there, legs crossed, in jacket-blouse-skirt, all poise, sophistication and beauty. “Too much,” I thought to myself, “too much.” Well, I’ve had them come in before, the wrong room, the wrong class. Actually, I thought to myself that she was in the altogether wrong university. But certainly she had to be in the wrong class. She looked like the Business Administration/Marketing major, who she turned out to be. She, I could see right away, had more class than every female student I’d had in 14 years to that date. I was already sorry to feel that I would quickly lose her . . . the Development of Science in Western Civilization clearly wasn’t going to be for her. I figured she was too polite to walk out once I had announced the course title, my name, etc.—the more so as she would have had to cross the front of the room, between the rest of the class and me. She was going to stay for the one and half hour lecture. So, I said to myself—already half in love—I am going to pull all the stops out and give an introductory lecture that will have them applauding at the end. And so I did. Lucy signed up for the course and so it all began. She knew she was onto something good—and, at the very least, interesting. Now Lucy, if she were around, would tell you a different story. She says she was simply shopping around, weeks before, for an 11:30 Tue-Thu class, and had asked an advisor about me and my course. She claims she got some kind of warning about me. I’m not sure exactly what it was, or even what it could have been—other than I was tough, disciplined, and down on dummies. It certainly couldn’t have been much else. She stayed, she would claim, because she had always intended to stay; she had no other choice regarding electives and the time slot; she couldn’t get into whatever had been her first choice. So, she had not been unduly ‘struck’ by my stellar opening performance. At least three weeks passed before we ever had a conversation. I certainly made it easy for her. When I found she never came early, so I couldn’t arrive early myself and get in a few casual words before class, I simply hung around my lectern after the class. I knew that someday, sooner or later, she would make some remark, as she put on her coat to leave, and that would be my opening. And I’ll be damned if, for the next 2 weeks, that’s just about all we did. I would damn well have to walk her out of the class, down the hall, and onwards to . . . wherever. But damn I was already ‘struck’ myself. I thought I wasn’t letting it show—unduly. That is, I knew clearly that my interest was showing; but the extent or implication of that interest, I was self-convinced was not at all obvious. But now I must digress . . . in order to provide relevant background. To say that things were not going well with Beverly and I is at the very least, gross understatement. At the beginning of 1969 everything was fine. At the beginning of 1970 there were the first intimations of unhappiness; but with a new child and a second fulltime job, I was too caught up in material considerations.
 So it went for 1971; but by the end of the business season, in November, I commented in my diary as to Beverly’s coldness, her lack of warmth, etc.
The year 1972 was busier, and more financially disastrous, than the previous year, and Jessica was born that September . . . but I wrote in my diary that “her undemonstrative insensitivity to my needs may destroy us.” In 1973 a brief flirtation with a lovely girl called Zena—which Bev heard vaguely about—made me realize that things were not right. I probably would have run off with Zena, had she been willing. My diary shows that, in the spring of 1974, I even plotted a spring holiday with her . . . but it fell through. By December 1974 I was referring to “the gradual dissolution of my marriage” believing there was a good chance it wouldn’t last out 1975. But it did. By September 1975 I had written the epitaph on my marriage. We agreed to put up the Dower House for sale the following summer; the other house had a tenant with a lease that would not be up until December 1, 1976. We were, in effect, backing towards a divorce then. The result was inevitable. It was during the summer of 1975 that Beverly asked me why I didn’t divorce her. And I responded in quasi-Rhett Butler fashion: “Frankly, Beverly, I haven’t got anyone or anyplace else to go to.” Which was certainly true. I couldn’t afford to maintain two households; nor had I the inspiration to even try. A call from Susan Smith, an old girlfriend, in early February 1976, resulted in two things. I applied to Temple Law School and I admitted to myself that, if Susan came up to go to Temple Law as well, I would leave Beverly. Susan didn’t come up, and I didn’t get accepted. Nor did we get an offer anywhere near our asking price for the Dower House in the summer of 1976. And so it went. I digress even further—during the first week of classes in September 1976, I met Barbara. Barbara was blonde and beautiful with a fantastic personality; 27 and divorced—but with two children, boys the same ages as Jenny and Jessie. She signed up for my class and it began between the two of us.
 Barb was a bit conventional and that slowed up my otherwise fast rate of progress. I had, in fact, agreed to be sent up to teach at Ambler, some 16 miles to the north, because Barb’s house lay halfway along the route there; and I had even lied and said to Bev that I would be teaching until 8 p.m. every night—and thus could hardly be expected home evenings much before 10 p.m.  Since I was through around 6:45 p.m., this—or so I thought—meant I could dine with Barb every Tuesday and Thursday evening. But Barb proved, in the end, just a trifle too plastic for me, and we never got past the beginning of December. Christmas in Texas was an enormous bust. The end was nearing. In February I discovered I’d developed high blood pressure; my psycho-emotional life was taking its toll, clearly. On Thursday, March 31st, I put it all to Lucy. Actually, I’d been building up to it on our little walks and talks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But it had up to then, been pretty general: about my having a summer home in England, allusions to my less-than-satisfactory marriage. Lucy had, in turn, listened intently and even suggested that she might be going to Europe in the summer after her graduation. That Thursday night I put it to her. I suggested that she should come over and visit me. I also volunteered to call someone I knew at TIME-LIFE in New York to see if I could get her a job interview. She was busy interviewing for a September job. I called Lucy on Thursday night, as a kind of follow-up; but she wasn’t home. Then I got cold feet, thought I’d been too forward, gone too far and regretted having called. Lucy didn’t call back, though I left my number. I noted in my diary of that night that I was worriedly anticipating facing her on Tuesday. My son Mark came out for an 11 day visit on Wednesday the 6th of April. That was the night I had my first date with Lucy. What a night that was! I shall never forget it. That was the night when, at 39, I turned back into a 19-year-old!
 Things had gone fairly well that Tuesday. Lucy seemed to be as interested in me as I in her; and it had clearly reached that point where we both felt a bit hampered by the limitations of time and place vis-a-vis on-campus meetings. We arranged to meet, after Lucy’s Wednesday night class, and go somewhere for a drink. I told Bev that I had been invited to Lucy’s house by her parents, as a gesture of thanks for getting her a good job interview with the International VP for Personnel Development at TIME-LIFE in New York. But it was just to be Lucy and me. I met Lucy in the Ambler library, and she looked beautiful. I can remember thinking to myself right then and there that this was clearly the woman for me! She had everything: looks, brains, personality, poise, class and it seemed as though she liked me! We drove to a small inn and tavern in Ambler and ordered a couple of drinks. I feel a bit like a drip merely trying to convey what happened on that date. All I remember is, after about a half an hour of small talk, I stammered out how attracted I was to her. And I can remember how, to my amazement, she confessed almost the same degree of attraction.
 We talked about so many things; mostly our separate hopes for the future, our wants, etc. I told her what I envisioned and that was that we could be together. Then I said something that I’d never said to a girl before under such circumstances: that I wanted so much to make love to her. And again she agreed that she felt the same!
 But it was already nearly eleven o’clock and we had to agree, however reluctantly, that it was too late that night. We adjourned to the car in the darkened parking lot and collapsed into each other’s arms. We were that way for at least an hour and a quarter. We both wanted each other so badly. But the soonest we could arrange to get together was the following Tuesday! I agreed to call off my classes so we would meet at the Ambler Library at 11:30 am, after her one and only class that day and we would go to a motel. This was a first for me; I couldn’t believe we were really planning this. It seemed so sordid, yet so unbelievably right! The next day Mark came out with me to attend my lecture and was very much struck by Lucy. I’ll never forget that day either. Lucy had to duck out of the day class to go to a job interview . . . but she did make it up by coming to night class that same evening. Class had already started when she arrived. I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye as she paused momentarily in the doorway, familiarizing herself with the layout of the classroom which she hadn’t been in before. Then she passed in front of me and in front of the class, into the only empty seat in the second row. She was stunning. She was already, it seemed, tanned, and this was offset by an off white linen suit, a beige silk blouse and wearing a simple set of gold chains. Like a page out of Vogue or Harpers! I couldn’t believe that this was to be my girl! Nothing will ever make me recall what I did between that Thursday and the following Tuesday when I pulled into the parking lot adjoining the Ambler Library for my assignation. I was in my usual half depressed state, figuring that she’d probably changed her mind in the cold light of day. But no, she was there, and ready to go. It all went quite smoothly, actually. It was a bleak and rainy day, but we had a nice big room with a lovely view of a wooded creek passing right by the picture window. The rain gave it a very special woodsy, cabin like flavor and we could leave the curtains open. I was impressed by the matter of fact manner in which Lucy took off all her clothes. Of course, she had been the mistress of a man of 31 at the age of 18 1/2, so she was clearly no beginner no matter what emotions I felt. I can remember her coolness in this respect. But what a day! I don’t think we went down for dinner until 8 p.m. It was delicious and I was deliriously happy. Not just for what was happening but because I felt I had been rescued—out of an empty life into a potentially full one. Finally, it seemed, life had caught up with my aspirations, my dreams.
 But something turned Lucy off that night—well, I don’t mean completely . . . something to do with the salad at dinner time . . . it’s funny because of course this didn’t come up until months later . . . and I can hardly remember what it was—something about picking up a tomato with my fingers, then, on deciding that I didn’t want it, letting it drop back into the public salad fixing trough—but it illustrates how the mind picks up and stores things, then brings them up months or years later. Anyway, it was a long drive home and I was really humming: it seemed as if I had found a life, or the possibility of one. I could live with anything now. But I can remember how, when the subject of Lucy came up at home, however casual, that Bev really went up the wall. I don’t believe she really suspected anything, just resented the subject. But she was quickly and viciously to tell me that she intended to call my department chairman, the dean, and even Lucy’s folks—if anything developed.
 It was a mean scene which Jennifer walked in on. And Bev told Jenny that I was “bad” and “evil” and poor Jenny didn’t know what to make of it. She couldn’t believe her mother was serious and, even more, she couldn’t accept that it was so. But I could see puzzle and frustration and uncertainty as Jenny looked back and forth between us. It was still quite warm out, so I decided to take the kids for a little walk.
 There were tears in my eyes, for I knew that the decision I had made that day was tantamount to saying good-bye to my two daughters. And yet I knew it I could no longer stand to live with Beverly. Jenny squeezed my hand lovingly and said, “Daddy, just because mommy says you’re bad doesn’t mean that really you are, does it? Just because she says it’s so doesn’t make it so, does it?”
What an observation! We walked until the tears in my eyes evaporated. I stayed up late that night talking with Mark and Jeff, who were sleeping together in Jeff’s room. I think it was the following Thursday that, having gone somewhere for an interview, Lucy came to my evening class. She looked so beautiful that I could see all the students in the class noticing her; and I felt so proud, for now she was mine. That night I came home and headed straight for the wine. Beverly was already at her evening glass. And that was the fateful night that we very lightheartedly talked about dividing up our property. Unfortunately, I was in far too good a mood at that time and I verbally agreed to quite a lot; but naturally, we weren’t exhaustive, dealing mainly with books, hi-fi, photo equipment and furniture—here and abroad. But anyway I was quite generous—little did I know that Beverly would take me at my absolute word!