by Melissa Bank
"I wouldn't blame you if you left me," he said
"No," I said.
"If the roles were reversed," he said, "I'd leave you."
—•—
Driving up to the farmhouse he spoke about the first girl he slept with. He said, "When I was coming, I had to keep myself from saying, 'Marry me, marry me, marry me.'"
Over breakfast, he told me that his ex-wife, Frances Gould, was the smartest woman he'd ever known. He met her at graduate school at Yale. She had custody of their daughter, Elizabeth, and he called them on Sundays.
He referred to Frances as "Elizabeth's mother"—as in "I'm afraid Elizabeth's mother is still in love with me."
—•—
At the grocery store, a woman with big cheekbones came up to us, and I recognized her as the beauty from the first time I saw Archie.
"Corky," he said, and they kissed. "This is Jane."
They talked about their daughters. Gorky's was having a tough time with the girls at school, but the boys adored her. Corky said, "I've never understood women."
—•—
While we unpacked the groceries, Archie told me that Corky had been his mistress on and off for a dozen years. She was a big party girl, he said, she'd bring anybody home, but she drew a blank in the bedroom. "It was the saddest thing," he said.
"Sad," I said.
He glanced over at me. "She was abused as a child."
"Oh," I said.
I watched him thinking about Corky.
He said, "She was once the most magnificent woman on earth to look at."
"So," I said, "what makes you think I want to hear about this?"
"What?"
"All these women," I said.
He said, "It's my life I'm telling you about."
I said, "What's your point?"
He told me that he'd lived for fifty-four years before knowing me, and those fifty-four years made him the man he was. The man I loved. I shouldn't begrudge him those experiences, and there was no reason for me to be jealous of any woman.
I told him I thought I understood.
"Good," he said.
I said, "Let me tell you about the men I've known."
—•—
The night we went to my aunt's for dinner it was raining out, and I wondered if weather still affected her. She seemed to me now both meaner and kinder than she'd ever been.
She answered the door herself, and she looked wiry, in a loose, white turtleneck.
Archie kissed her forehead.
She was wearing lipstick, but the contour was off. I said, "Excuse us," and took her elbow.
In the bathroom, when I uncapped the lipstick, she said, "I can do it." She looked at me in the mirror. "You could use a little color yourself."
I told her I didn't wear makeup.
She said, "That's a mistake."
Once we were seated in the living room, the nurse brought three glasses of champagne on a tray, and I stared as Archie took his. He avoided my eyes, and held on to the stem of the glass. He lifted the champagne. He swirled it.
"Jane won't let me drink," he said to my aunt.
She said her nurse was just as bad.
During dinner, my aunt said, "Jane used to ask me to tell her stories about you."
When he said, "What did you tell her?" I felt sick, though I could not have said why.
She said, "I didn't tell her what a mean drunk you can be."
—•—
The night I found out she died, Archie and I lay on the sofa for a long time in the dark. He combed my hair with his fingers. When he got to a knot, he'd give it a little yank.
I wanted to feel worse than I felt, so I tried to think of the best time I had with my aunt, but I couldn't remember anything. I was going to ask Archie for his memory of her, but when I turned around, his face looked strange in the dark. "What? "I said.
He said, "Your family will be coming in."
—•—
Archie asked me to invite them over for brunch, but I told him they probably wouldn't have time before the service, and that's what my mom told me. "We'll try," she said.
Archie bought lox and bagels anyway, and set the table with lilies. All morning, he kept looking at his watch, as though he'd been stood up.
When we heard the knocker, Archie rose, but he let me go to the door.
It was just my brother. Henry kissed my cheek and said, "Dad said just to meet at the place."
I saw my dad and mom in the car, and walked out the door with Henry, who nudged me and said, "Cushy digs."
I stuck my head in the car window and kissed my father. "Hi, Papa," I said, and he said, "Hi, love."
"I'm sorry we're so late," my mom said, leaning forward to let Henry in the backseat.
I wanted to go with them.
Maybe my father could tell. He said, "We'll meet you there."
"Okay," I said.
I watched the car drive around the corner, and I turned to go inside. Archie was standing at the door, looking out.
—•—
A lot of people came to the funeral and almost as many to the cemetery. Most of them were old, and Archie seemed to know all of them.
There was no chance to talk until after the burial. We all stood around the Lincoln. It started to rain, and I could tell my father wanted to get going back to Philadelphia, but the people Archie knew kept interrupting to talk to him.
Finally, my father said, "We've got to get back."
Archie said, "We were hoping you'd stay for dinner."
Henry mouthed to me, Nice car.
"Next time," my mom said, and Archie kissed her cheek.
A guy in a black slicker was directing cars, and Archie got in his. I kissed everyone, but I didn't want to leave.
The guy motioned to the Lincoln, and Archie leaned over to the passenger side and knocked on the window. His voice was muted when he said, "Come on, honey."
"Hey," the guy in the slicker called to me, "tell your dad to pull out."
My parents pretended they hadn't heard. Henry looked over at me. He smiled.
—•—
On the way back from the cemetery, I kept seeing Archie as the old man my brother saw. So I looked out the window.
Archie knew it had gone badly, but you could tell he was trying to reassure himself that he'd done everything he could.
When we got to the West Side Highway, the lanes narrowed. On the back of a truck, there was a flashing arrow, but the arrow part was out. "It's like a hyphen," I said.
Archie smiled at me. "Danger," he said. "Compound words ahead."
—•—
That night he told me about the girlfriend of his who'd committed suicide. I knew he was telling me the truth, and that it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. It was unlike any other story he'd ever told me. He didn't improve details, or pace it for suspense. When he finished, he said, "Please don't ever tell that to anyone." "No," I said. "I won't."
—•—
I heard him talking on the phone in his study, and his voice was low and intimate. After he hung up, he found me in the kitchen. "Elizabeth's mother is in town," he said. "She wants to meet you."
"Goody," I said.
He ignored me. "You know what she said when I told her I plan to marry you? 'Well, old dear, I guess love is the real suspension of disbelief.' "
I said, "I heard how you talked to her."
"Jesus," he said. He told me he hadn't so much as looked at another woman since he'd met me. Then his voice changed. "Which is more than you can say."
I said, "What're you talking about?"
"The night you found Jamie in your apartment," he said. "Your final fuck."
I stood there.
"I thought so," he said.
—•—
He wouldn't speak to me. He slept in the guest room, and he was gone when I woke up.
At work, I was a zombie.
I called Sophie. "Cut the guy a break," she said, and reminded me that I
got jealous of women he hadn't seen in thirty years.
"It's different," I said. "I think of the sex he used to have."
She said, "It's the same for him."
—•—
I brought home shrimp and bread and an armful of flowers. The hall was dark. "Honey?" I called.
I thought, He's up there with Elizabeth's mother.
Still carrying the shrimp and flowers, I went upstairs. The bedroom door was closed, and I opened it, slowly. The room was dark. It was empty.
I saw the light coming from the study. I smelled cigarette smoke.
He was sitting at his desk, wearing a T-shirt and boxers, socks and slippers. He didn't turn around.
"Honey?" I said, and then I saw the martini.
I couldn't breathe right.
I stared at the glass until everything else blurred out. It was just the glass and me. The glass was large and elegant, shapely.
A voice said, Nobody drinks from a glass like that at home.
Maybe he just brought it out to look at.
He could just be reminiscing.
He might just be flirting.
You don't know.
He swiveled around in his desk chair, and I saw his eyes. He squinted at me, and it was his voice, but it wasn't him when he said, "What're you looking at?"
—•—
After a week, I packed my stuff.
I went up to his study.
He didn't turn around. "You're the one who did something wrong," he said. "And you're punishing me for it."
"Look," I said, and my voice was thin and false. "The reason I'm leaving is because of the booze."
"Jesus," he said. "The reason is because?"
I realized I was waiting for his permission to leave.
—•—
He called me sometimes, late. I'd listen for the alcohol in his voice. I couldn't always hear it right away, but it was always there. After a while, I didn't answer the phone anymore. I let my machine pick up.
Once, in the middle of the night, I did answer. He told me he was killing himself, and I took a cab over there.
The door was unlocked and all the lights were on. He was up in his study.
"Well, hello," he said. He smiled.
I told him he didn't seem like he was about to kill himself.
"I was being figurative." He said, "Listen to this," and he picked up a page from a manuscript, and read.
It took me a minute to understand that he was reading his own prose. It was a novel, and it opened with that party on Central Park West.
When he'd finished reading, he said, "See?"
"No," I said.
"The guy you say I am couldn't have written that page."
"I never said anything."
He said, "People wait their whole lives for the kind of happiness we have."
—•—
The publisher called me into his office. He told me that he'd just received a novel by Archie Knox, an exclusive submission. "I've never liked Archie," he said. "And Archie has never liked me."
I nodded and stopped myself.
"He'll sell it to us on the condition that you edit it."
I didn't move.
"Take a look at it," he said. "It's a fast read."
He held out the manuscript.
"You wouldn't have to change a word," he said. "No," I said.
He looked at me for the first time. "I completely understand," he said.
—•—
I read the book as soon as it came out from S——.
Everyone did. It was published in the summer, and I would walk on the beach and see people reading it.
I still look for the paperback in stores. I open it up to the dedication page to see my name. Sometimes I turn to the first page, and I remember the night he read it to me, and how he leaned back in his chair and said, "See?"
The writing is clean. I really wouldn't have changed a word. Most of it is true, too, except that the hero quits drinking and the girl grows up. On the last page, the couple gets married, which is a nice way for a love story to end.
T H E
B E S T P O S S I B L E
L I G H T
Since having children does mean giving up so much, good parents naturally do, and should, expect something from their children in return: not spoken thanks for being born or being cared for ... but . . . willingness to accept the parents' standards and ideals.
—From The Common Sense Book
of Baby and Child Care
by Benjamin Spock, M.D.
Out of nowhere, my son, Barney, shows up. I'm in the kitchen, making mint iced tea and singing along with opera, when I hear the downstairs buzzer. Through the intercom, Barney calls out, imitating himself at eight, "Open up! Mom! It's me!" I buzz him in and go to the landing. He's already rounding the second floor, and in the dim light I see his jeans and T-shirt. As ever, he has brought a woman with him.
Barney is thirty-four but looks twenty-one. He's short and muscular, dark-skinned, and he has a great nose. I see his face for only a second before he's hugging me. I'm saying, "What are you doing here? I can't believe you're here."
He takes his girlfriend's arm and, in a put-on British accent, he says, "Meet me sainted mum."
"Call me Nina," I say.
"How do you do?" she says, and shakes my hand. "I'm Laurel." She's taller than he is, and handsome. She wears her dark blonde hair in a braid.
Barney lives in Chicago and I'm waiting for him to tell me what he's doing here in New York, and why the surprise, but Laurel just says, "I hope we're not intruding."
Barney says, "Don't be silly."
I swat him.
I lead them out to my terrace, brush the leaves off the seats and table, and get the mint tea. From the kitchen, I call out, "You hungry?" and Barney answers no for both of them. Which is lucky, since all I have in the refrigerator is celery and yogurt.
Out on the terrace, Barney and Laurel sit close together; he has his arm around her, his fingers on her neck.
Laurel sits up straight in her chair, like a dancer. She puts two heaping teaspoons of sugar in her tea, smiles apologetically, and pours in another.
"How long can you stay?" I ask.
Barney says they're going to Laurel's parents' in Woods Hole tomorrow. "They're marine biologists," he says. "A family of scientists."
Now I remember Barney talking about a woman who worked in a lab. I don't listen as closely as I used to; since his divorce, he always has a girlfriend—he gets all wrapped up, but a few months later when I ask how it's going, he sounds vague and irritable.
I say, "You're a scientist, Laurel?"
She nods.
"I told you," he says. "She's an entomologist."
She says, "I study bugs." She looks around her, and at the trees, which are still in bloom. The sunlight passes through the branches and makes speckles of warm light on the brick floor. "It's so pretty out here," she says. "I didn't know there were apartments like this in New York."
I explain that Greenwich Village isn't like the rest of the city. "It's small New York," I say.
When she asks about the for sale sign on the building, I tell her the saga of the owner trying to buy me and my upstairs neighbor out of our leases.
"How is the beautiful Miss Rita?" Barney asks.
"She died about two years ago," I say. "She was almost ninety, I think."
"She was a babe," he tells Laurel.
"She was a writer," I say, looking at my son.
He says, "So who's upstairs?"
"Her niece, Jane."
Barney says, "Does she look like Rita?"
"Anyway," I say to Laurel, "I'm here forever."
"That's lucky," she says.
"I could never live here again," Barney says. He sings, "Got those New York real estate blues."
I ask Barney if he's been at Kingston Mines, the blues club where he's been playing sax on and off for years.
He says, "I've been doing other stuff," and
I can tell he doesn't want to talk about it. He leans back and picks the dead leaves off of my geranium. "So, Nina," he says. "What about a dinner party?"
"What about a dinner party?"
"Great idea." He says, "I'll round up the usual suspects," meaning his sisters. He gets the phone from the kitchen and brings it outside to us. He calls the restaurant and says, "Isabelle, please. Tell her it's Jerry Kinkaid." The name is familiar, and I suddenly remember Isabelle's greaser boyfriend from seventh grade. Barney makes his voice raspy and says, "Babe. Meet me at the tracks." He holds the phone out so we can hear Isabelle laughing. He clowns around with her, but he means to entertain us, too. He sings, "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," and hams it up; he dances, marching with a branch for a walking stick. Barney is always making everyone fall in love with him.
After he hangs up, he calls P. K. at the office. She's the youngest, a civil-rights lawyer. With her, Barney turns serious. "Hey, Peanut," he says. He smiles at Laurel, and takes the phone inside.
So I'm out on the terrace alone with Laurel. We're both quiet, and then she asks me about the documentary I produced about doormen. Barney showed it to her, and she tells me which doormen she liked best. She looks right at me while I talk, and I can tell she is really listening.
Barney comes back out and stands behind Laurel's chair. "We've got P. K., Isabelle and her beau—what's his name?"
I'm not sure. "Giancarlo?"
"That's it," he says.
"P. K. isn't bringing Roger?"
"Archived," he says. Very lightly he touches Laurel's neck and jaw and cheeks. "You need a nap, Bugsy?" He kisses the top of her head, and it occurs to me that I have not seen him this gentle with anyone since Julie, his ex-wife.
I tell Barney they'll stay in my room. I straighten it up, get towels, and Laurel helps me make up the bed with fresh sheets. Barney says to me, "I'm just going to sing her to sleep."
I go back to the terrace and sit down with my shopping list for the party. When Barney comes out, he doesn't sit with me, he hoists himself up on the wall.
I'd like to ask about Julie. I start to and stop. It feels strange with Laurel lying down in my room. But Julie was a part of this family;,you don't just forget. Finally, I say, "Have you seen Julie at all?"
"I have." He smiles, and it's insolent or sexual or mischievous, a bad-boy smile.
"How is she?"