Free Starting Over by Dan Wakefield Page A

Pat Moynihan would last it out serving the Nixon administration, or return to Harvard. Where, it was generally agreed, he belonged.
    Potter tried to keep his eyes off Marilyn Crashaw’s knees.
    Marilyn wasn’t really “pretty”; her nose was too long, and had a slight bump on the bridge. Her teeth protruded just a little, just enough to be noticeable. Her figure was average, not fat or thin, neither voluptuous nor twiggy. Her hair was streaked blonde, and fell to her shoulders. Probably dyed or tinted. Maybe a wig or a fall. You never could tell anymore. So what was so terrific about her? Partly, perhaps, Potter was turned on by the way she dressed. It certainly wasn’t flashy by New York standards, but it was not the conservative attire of the thirty-and-over women in polite Boston-Cambridge society. The more style-conscious of those ladies had gone for the Midi in a big way this season, and the more traditional had stuck to what looked to Potter like the old cocktail dresses of the Fifties, but raised a little above the knee instead of a little above the ankle. And long hair was a no-no, except for their teen-age daughters. Marilyn, who was certainly no teen-ager, but probably around Potter’s own age, wore a plain white blouse with a gold-chain sort of necklace, a miniskirt, and boots. The boots were not extreme or kinky, but neither did they look primarily practical, as if designed for spending a year at Ice Station Zebra. The outfit looked good and Marilyn wore it with confidence, her whole manner seeming assured and at ease, as if to say Here I am, if you don’t like it, too bad. And Potter liked it, the overall impression. And her eyes really topped it off. From the first glance, her eyes seemed not only to look at him but to look into him, saying a secret and intimate hello .
    When enough time and conversation had passed to be able to make a proper exit, Potter took Renée’s hand again, squeezed it, and said to the others they had better be off, said good night to each one in turn, and when he nodded, stiffly, self-consciously, to Marilyn, she smiled, and her eyes said see you later .
    In the car going home Potter talked a lot, faster than usual. He talked of the Bertelsens, of the Boston scene, of the Harvard crowd, of the evening. But he never mentioned Marilyn. When they got to his place he made drinks and put the classical guitar record on. He did not really want to go to bed with Renée, but he knew it would be taken as an insult if he did not, if he did not at least try, and so he got pretty sloshed, and managed to do what he conceived to be his duty. Through it all, he kept seeing Marilyn’s eyes. Afterward he drove Renée home, talking more, concentrating on not mentioning the one thought that really occupied his mind: Marilyn. Renée was especially silent, curled in her seat, huddled deep in her coat. The only thing she said, just before the car pulled up in front of her door, was a question asked in a tone of cool, pretended casualness: “Who was that bitch?”

3
    It was Sunday, the worst of days, the hardest one to get through alone. It yawned open, a pit of silence. There was little traffic, most of the shops and stores were closed, and the sidewalks were almost deserted. Potter once was able to fill up a large hunk of the day in football season by watching The Pros, but this year, on the second autumn Sunday, watching the Houston Oilers combat the Oakland Raiders, Potter was swept with a wave of depression; as the two teams blammed into one another, as a quarterback was thrown for a loss or sent a long bomb soaring into the waiting grasp of a fleet-footed receiver, as a fullback hurled himself into the enemy Front Four or a kicking specialist connected for a field goal, Potter had a deep and despairing feeling that he was watching the same game he had watched ten years before, that it was all the same, the plays and uniforms and the announcer’s