It was cool enough to ride in the under-air conditioned 1968 bus, and even to shut it off, with the windows closed, so it must’ve been February. That would make sense, since our first was born in October.
We never knew exactly when she was due, because in those days, the science was far less precise. You just counted nine months from when you thought the day of conception was. With us, it could have been one of many cool and pleasant days in Phoenix’s winter. We also didn’t know her sex until she was born.
We drove to what is now 32nd St. and Shea Boulevard, although then it was simply an intersection of unpaved roads in the Phoenix desert. The goal was to drive out of the city limits and park in the desert shrubbery, which was much easier to do back then, as there were no freeways and you had to go through a winding road called Dreamy Draw. Now, of course, all of that is part of the city and totally developed. It’s a freeway exit.
At 32nd St and Dreamy Draw, John pulled into the shade under some mesquite trees, cut the engine, and we drew closer to one another. The bus was fitted out as a camper, with a sort of double bed in the back and a place to store minimal cooking utensils. We slept in it over the summer as we traveled around Arizona and New Mexico following the tennis tournaments. John was a state champion doubles player, and in the summers we went to Albuquerque and Sedona,
Although we must’ve sweated in the hot bus, it couldn’t have been too bad, because we drove out to 32nd St. many times during the week, and then went back too school and taught our afternoon classes.
To me, John was incredibly attractive. He was 6 foot four, blonde and lanky, in fantastic shape from playing tennis pretty much every weekend and sometimes mid week as well. At the time there was no such thing as an “exercise routine” but if you played tennis three times a week. You could guarantee that your body would be in really good shape.
John was 12 years older than I, and I was 29. He would never let anyone see his drivers license or know his age. It didn’t seem to make much difference, because in the standards of that day he was gorgeous, and I was totally smitten.
Yes, as the Department Chairman he was also my boss, but I never even thought about that and I guess he didn’t either. He would have been the one to have done the thinking because he was the chairman of the English department and had hired me as a professor. I was his underling, so to speak. By today’s standards I could have sued him. Nothing was further from my mind.
I was young and from New York, which was far more liberal than John Birch Arizona and fully engaged in the things people did in the 60s like drugs, sex, rock ‘n’ roll, marching and protesting. John was a serious man, but we had a serious love affair going.
Although we had practically nothing in common besides the English department at Phoenix College, we actually thought we had everything in common. (That is what desire does to you).
I even stopped smoking and started to play tennis.
That’s how we found ourselves during a nooner at 32nd St. and Shea Boulevard conceiving our first child, a child we thought it would be impossible to have..
John had just adopted two boys, because he and his wife had been unable to conceive for 18 years. At the end of the efforts he was blamed for his low sperm count, which was the story I believed.I didn’t know then that Betty was the kind of person who would have never taken the responsibility for her own inability to conceive. She simply blamed John, who simply accepted the blame. It was a much simpler day.
But that’s how after three months of not even noticing that I didn’t get my period, I began to notice that I was gaining weight. There are some things that you don’t learn when you are getting a PhD and one of them is definitely common sense. I fell for the low sperm count thing hook line and sinker, and thought it was impossible that I could be pregnant, especially since my husband at the time was an alcoholic and we never had sex because he was always too drunk.
At least that is how I remember it. There may be some details missing, but I was walking through Saks Fifth Avenue in Biltmore Fashion Park one afternoon and I ran into my friend Elaine, whose husband was handling John Hardaway‘s divorce. It was Elaine who said to me, when I said I couldn’t find anything that fit me because I was getting too fat, “you’re probably pregnant.“ I don’t know why I was so stunned by that, because we had been taking that drive to 32nd St. and Shea Boulevard for a few months already during that late winter and early spring but it stunned me.
Moreover, it was true. The product of all those afternoon delights was my first-born daughter, now one of my best friends.
Things quickly got complicated, as you can imagine. It doesn’t end there.