Come to the Edge_ A Memoir - Christina Haag [95]
Four months earlier, we had sat on the steps of one of the row houses on East Tenth Street, across from St. Mark’s Church. It was hot that July, and we’d just had Indian food. John was studying for the bar for the third time, and I’d finished a run of All’s Well That Ends Well. In the spring, he’d decided to move downtown to Tribeca, and when I returned from Los Angeles, where I was doing a movie of the week, we looked at lofts with his real estate agent. We had decided to live together, but then, when he didn’t pass the bar for the second time, he asked if we could hold off. “It’s important. It’s for our future,” he’d said. I knew his anxiety about passing was not the entire reason, but I didn’t push it. I relished my freedom almost as much as he did, and like all romantics, I wanted “Will you marry me?” to come freely.
In front of the iron gates of the old stone church, sweat on the backs of our knees, he told me he never wanted to get divorced. For him, that would be the biggest failure, and if it ever came to that, he’d go off to the mountains alone for a spell. I told him I had realized something, too, that summer. Although there were marriages where infidelity was understood, even agreed to, and many of them worked, I knew it was not something I could do, no matter how much I loved him, and I wanted him to know this.
“I don’t want that either.”
“You don’t? Then what happens?”
He was staring at my hands.
“I don’t know … It’s like I fall off the wagon.”
Before Christmas, we met at my apartment to exchange gifts. We’d spoken but hadn’t seen each other since the night at his loft. I wore a short navy kilt with black tights and high boots, the fashion then, but when I caught my reflection in the glass, I looked like a child. I promised myself that, no matter what, while he was here I would not cry. The reality of what we’d spoken about was beginning to define itself. I’d arranged a time to get my things from his apartment, I’d returned his key, and tonight he would give me mine. I’d asked him to have an item placed in the columns after Christmas saying that we’d split up and, if he could, not to be photographed with anyone for a month. One month, I thought, would be enough. I was trying to figure out how to move on, but in my heart, I hadn’t. And when I heard his steps heavy on the stairs, I couldn’t wait until he walked through the door.
I’d bought him mother-of-pearl cuff links, a painted kite from Chinatown, and a Dalvey pocket compass. I was uncertain about the last gift, weighted as it was with meaning, but I wrapped it anyway. He gave me a down comforter and diamond drop earrings. “One a necessity, the other most certainly an ornament,” he said. With the gifts, there was a card with a photograph of a forlorn dog on the front. He asked me not to read it until he left. In the firelight, colored paper all around, he suddenly grew tearful, and it surprised him. “I’ve missed you … Why aren’t you crying, Puppy? You’re always the one to cry.”
Before he left, he handed me a shiny yellow box with a grosgrain ribbon and a tiny gift card. “Dear, Darling Christina—All my Love, Jackie,” it said. Inside was a cream chiffon scarf, edged in black, as sheer as could be. I took it out of the tissue and draped it over my shoulders.
At the door, he stopped, then turned back. His voice was soft.
“I’m the boss of you always.”
“Not true.” I was trying to smile.
“No one will ever love you as I have.” He got the words out and stood there a moment, then closed the door and slipped out into the night.
After he left, I opened the card. “Christina Christina Christina Christina I miss the name—I’ve started notes to you many times that could have burned holes through wood.” Before I reached the end, I fell apart.
That’s the thing about timing. It has nothing to do with love.
That January, the film about Stieglitz and O’Keeffe was finally happening. My part was smaller, but I was excited. No longer a feature, An American Place would air on PBS’s American Playhouse, with Christopher Plummer as Stieglitz