Portrait of a Married Woman

by Sally Mandel

  Finally she drew a bath and sat in the tub with a glass of wine. Just like riding a bicycle, eh? Well, she would find out soon enough.

  The studio was in an old gray building on Central Park West. Maggie arrived early; only the instructor and one other student were there. Eliza Austin was a tall, handsome woman in her late sixties. Maggie remembered her work from an exhibit at the Winer Gallery ten years ago. The teacher held out a long, bony hand.

  “They told me we had a new one. I’m glad to see you.” She gestured toward the man perched on the window seat. “That’s David Golden.” The man nodded. “Perhaps David can fill you in on last week’s class. This is Mrs. Hollander.”

  Eliza Austin began busying herself with easels. David Golden sat and stared at Maggie out of an angular face with fierce blue eyes. He could have been anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.

  “How old are you?” Maggie asked, then blinked with surprise at herself. “It’s none of my business, of course.”

  “Forty-four,” he said.

  “I’m thirty-eight,” Maggie said vaguely. The man was smiling.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Trying to remember old times. And you?”

  “I enjoy Eliza. I’m a sculptor, in fact. But I like to keep my hand in.”

  Maggie wondered in exactly what way he enjoyed Eliza. It was outrageous to imagine him sleeping with her. Eliza was practically an old woman. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t so outrageous. It was hard to guess about a man with such uncivilized eyes.

  The class had filled up and the model had taken her place on a mat in the center of the room. She was an Oriental girl, wrapped in a beach towel. Maggie and David Golden positioned themselves side by side at the two remaining easels. With a little shrug, the model undraped herself. She was slight, but had an exquisite body. Her breasts were perfectly round. Soft, shiny black hair fell to the middle of her spine. Maggie wondered if David Golden found the girl beautiful. Peripherally, she saw that he had already taken up his charcoal and had begun to make long, bold lines. There was intense concentration on his face, but nothing else.

  Maggie lifted her hand to draw and saw that her fingers were shaking so badly that even a crude line seemed impossible. Her face was hot, her throat constricted. Tears were building. She glanced to her right and saw David Golden watching her. In a second, he was standing behind her with his right hand around hers, guiding the charcoal along her paper.

  “Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting started,” he said. Then he returned to his easel and continued working. Her paralysis gone, Maggie watched her own hand gliding across the white surface, slowly at first, but with gathering confidence. Something nearly smothered inside her began to breathe. Her hand looked to her like a small animal that had just been released from a trap. It swooped and dove and leapt across the paper. Maggie turned to David Golden, said “Thank you,” and began to laugh.

  Once or twice during the next hour, she felt the old sensation of power, the heady invincibility, an impression of being suddenly surrounded with clear light. Then she became aware of David Golden standing beside her again. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her ear. He was exactly her height. If she were to turn her head, their mouths would be level. As if she could see out of the side of her head, she was acutely conscious of his jeans, his soft sweatshirt, his battered running shoes. He had the face of a prophet or a maniac, she could not decide which.

  David reached toward her picture with a long blunt finger and ran it along the shoulder. Maggie had exaggerated the veil of hair.

  “Nice. You’re very good.”

  His arm brushed Maggie’s. She began to tremble. The finger moved along her drawing, down across the perfect breasts, down the soft line of the belly. Maggie was beginning to feel physically sick.

  “Not so dark here,” David Golden said. His fingers gently brushed the shadow between the legs. Finally the finger dropped, creating a small breeze.

  Maggie took a deep breath and tried to smile. “Thanks. I see what you mean.”

  “Now tell me what you think,” David said. He took her elbow and drew her over to his easel. He held her arm for a moment, then released it to point to the model’s head on his drawing. “I didn’t see the hair your way. It’s almost hidden.”

  The picture did nothing to minimize the discomfort in Maggie’s knees. It was powerful, sensuous, earthy. “You must be a good sculptor,” Maggie murmured.

  Eliza Austin joined them now. She said nothing about David’s work, just touched the drawing near the feet. David nodded. The instructor’s comments to Maggie were kind and respectful.

  Matthew had not come home when Maggie arrived. Fred was asleep and Susan was reading in bed with her eyes at half-mast. When the phone rang, Maggie assumed it was Matthew.

  “Hi,” she said into the phone.

  “Hello. This is David Golden.”

  Stupefied, Maggie answered, “Oh, hello!” in an overly hearty voice as if he were some dear friend who had materialized after a long absence.

  “I neglected my responsibilities tonight. I was to fill you in on the first class. Can I see you?”

  She struggled for words. At last she answered, “I don’t seem to know what to say to you.”

  “Well, as I see it, you’ve got two choices. ‘Yes’ or ‘no.’ ”

  “I appreciate the offer. It’s very kind of you. But I think ‘no.’ ” She hated the sound of her voice. She heard her mother telling the gardener he needn’t come on Saturday.

  “Okay. See you next week, then.” He did not say good-bye.

  She sat by the phone and went over the conversation again and again. The way he had said “Can I see you?” The request had seemed to hold some urgency. She was probably imagining it. He had a very soft voice with little modulation. She listened to it again: “Can I see you?” An odd thing to say to her when he was supposedly calling to do her a favor. She jumped when the phone rang again, stared at it until the third ring, then picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mags.” It was Matthew. Her heart stopped crashing around in her midriff. “Be home in an hour.”

  She was surprised at her disappointment, but then, she comforted herself, Matthew had not even remembered to ask her about class. He was well aware of her ferocious anxiety. When Matthew was worried about a problem at the office, Maggie always thought to ask how it all turned out, not necessarily from interest but at least to let him know she was concerned with his emotional comfort. Obviously, her preoccupations did not carry the same weight with Matthew.

  He was very late getting home, by which time Maggie had fallen asleep.

  She woke the next morning feeling angry. She glared at Matthew all during breakfast, waiting for him to ask about her class. He was almost out the kitchen door when Susan stomped in wearing her exercise sandals and inquired through a yawn, “How’d it go last night, Mom?”

  “Oh yes, how was it?” Matthew asked from the doorway. He looked a little guilty.

  “It was fine,” Maggie answered, keeping her eyes on Susan.

  “I expect to hear all about it tonight,” Matthew called on his way out.

  “You expect,” Maggie echoed. Then she busied herself with the children’s breakfasts and tried to stop hearing the words: Can I see you?

  Chapter 7

  Robin’s apartment always made Maggie feel claustrophobic. The place was festooned in crafts: needlepoint on the throw pillows, macrame hanging from the walls, hooked rugs on the floor, crocheted blankets on the sofa. Even the doorknobs had little knit covers on them. Being in Robin’s living room was like being hugged to death by a wildly affectionate giant panda.

  “I used to think you were supposed to douche standing up,” Robin was saying. “I did it in the shower.”

  “Oy yoy yoy,” Phyllis commented.

  “Well, how was I supposed to know? Gynecologists never tell you that kind of thin
g.”

  “Mine tells me I should have no trouble maintaining a perfectly normal sex life,” Hilary said, arranging her cards.

  “Hoping desperately for a few details,” Phyllis added.

  “Exactly.”

  “Are we ever going to play?” Maggie asked.

  “Ah, the first words from Margaret Hollander this evening,” Phyllis said. “You look kind of odd tonight. Are you pregnant?”

  Maggie laughed. “Two hearts.”

  “Two! She said two!” Robin cried with dismay.

  “Yes, darling, I heard,” Phyllis said.

  “Well, I pass, darn it,” Robin said.

  “You’d better have points up the kazoo,” Hilary said.

  “My kazoo is loaded,” Maggie answered. Phyllis gave her a sharp look. Maggie smiled benevolently while Hilary answered her bid with three spades.

  “You sure you’re not pregnant?” Phyllis asked again.

  “Yes, but I’m going to small slam. Six hearts, ladies.”

  While Hilary set down her hand, Phyllis murmured, “Matthew’s having a sexual renaissance, that’s it.”

  “I’m ignoring you,” Maggie said. “Whew, I can only lose one trick.”

  “Why are you on her case anyway?” Hilary asked Phyllis.

  “Look at her,” Phyllis urged. “She’s glowing like a ripe mango, and her blouse is unbuttoned two slots lower than usual.”

  “Phyl, how am I supposed to concentrate?” Maggie asked.

  “Let me tactfully observe,” Hilary said to Phyllis, “that you, on the other hand, are a mess. What did you do to yourself?”

  Unconsciously, Phyllis had been caressing her neck where there were two dark blotches parallel with the line of her jaw.

  “My macho husband,” she explained. “We got a little carried away over the weekend.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Hilary said with horror, but her eyes kept straying to the bruises.

  “Actually, Stephen’s coming to pick me up tonight,” Phyllis said. “Maybe he has a girlfriend in the neighborhood.”

  “You know something, Phyl,” Hilary said. “I can’t figure out why you two stay married.”

  “We challenge each other,” Phyllis said.

  “How does beating up on each other present a challenge?”

  Robin sighed. “I don’t think we should even bother playing bridge anymore.”

  “Well, I don’t mind,” Maggie said, sweeping up the last trick. “We’ll end on a high note.”

  “Sex is aggression,” Phyllis said. “You can repress it all you like, but in my opinion, there’s something to be said for letting it all hang out.”

  “And getting a broken jaw in the process,” Hilary remarked.

  “It’s just as likely to be his broken jaw as mine,” Phyllis said. “Isn’t sex supposed to be an expression of tenderness?” Maggie asked.

  “Well, maybe in the beginning,” Phyllis said. “I can’t remember back that far. But I do recall that it got pretty dull after a while, and a little harmless whack now and then livens things up a lot. It’s the element of danger, I guess. It’s very stimulating. I recommend it.”

  “What does your psychiatrist say?” Robin asked.

  “I’ve never discussed it with him.”

  “Phyllis Wheeler!” Maggie exclaimed.

  “Well, shit, he’ll just tell me it’s based on neurotic patterns and ruin all my fun.”

  Hilary leaned back, stretched, and yawned. “I’d like to find myself a sweet and gentle man.”

  “You’ve found half a dozen,” Phyllis said. “They bore you stiff and you know it.”

  “A sweet, gentle, interesting man, who’ll challenge me intellectually instead of physically.”

  “Jackson is very gentle,” Robin said.

  Hilary looked at Maggie, waiting.

  “If you want gentle,” Phyllis advised, “you’d better find yourself a gay guy. Or another woman.”

  “I don’t think I’m into that,” Hilary said. She touched her own cheek in the place where Phyllis’s was bruised. “Of course I remember back in boarding school, I had my doubts.”

  “Me, too,” Maggie said. “All us girls were madly in love with one another.”

  Hilary laughed. “For me, it was my geometry teacher. At least I chose the most masculine-looking person on campus. I remember she gave me a book once, Puzzles for the Math Genius. It was like a holy relic.”

  “Did anything ever happen?” Phyllis asked.

  “That would have wrecked it,” Maggie said. “You were supposed to worship from afar. It was all very tragic. I was infatuated with a senior. We’d stare at each other beneath the trees and sigh a lot.”

  “Exactly,” Hilary said. “And if anybody actually went over the edge into physical stuff, there was an awful scandal.”

  “Boy, it’s all a far cry from my high school in Ohio,” Robin said. “Did you keep in touch with these people?”

  “No, once they let us start spending some time with boys, it was all over for poor Miss Dunne. I noticed that she always had perspiration stains under her arms. God, I wonder whatever happened to her.”

  “Maybe now’s the time to look her up,” Phyllis suggested, and Hilary gave her a shove.

  “Boarding school ruined my life, I’m sure,” Hilary said. “I blame all my man problems on those godawful tea dances with Choate and Hotchkiss. By the time I got to college, men were an alien species. I didn’t have the vaguest idea how to talk to them. How come you didn’t get warped, Maggie?”

  “I’m not warped?”

  “You found Matthew.”

  “Just luck. Besides, if it weren’t for my Rooms here, I wouldn’t have gone out with him.”

  “Such a schmuck she was, I can’t begin to tell you,” Phyllis said. “Will somebody deal? I’m humiliated by our defeat, Robin.”

  “I figure humiliation ought to be a terrific turn-on for you,” Hilary commented.

  “Oh, shut up,” Phyllis said.

  The buzzer sounded. Robin rose to answer it.

  “That’s Stephen already,” Phyllis said. “He’ll be in heaven. Four women all to himself.”

  Robin let him in. He was a medium-sized man of sturdy build, with a shadow of whiskers that no razor could ever erase. He stood in his trench coat with shoulders hunched forward, legs apart, lending him a faintly belligerent demeanor.

  “Hello, girls,” he said. “What a pretty picture.”

  “I told you,” Phyllis said. “Who’s ahead?” Stephen asked.

  “Maggie just whipped our little behinds,” Phyllis said. “Small slam.”

  “I don’t think I’ve played bridge since Oxford days,” Stephen said.

  “Notice how he gets that in,” Phyllis remarked. “We never stray far from the halcyon days of our Rhodes Scholarship, even twenty years later.”

  “Why don’t you sit in?” Maggie asked. “I’d just as soon quit while I’m ahead.”

  “Okay, sure,” Stephen agreed. He shrugged out of his raincoat and took Maggie’s seat across from Hilary. His rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms covered with curly black ringlets. “Whose deal?”

  Robin began doling out the cards. As always, Stephen’s presence made her uncomfortable. Maggie noticed that she kept glancing at him with alarm.

  “How’re you feeling, Robin?” Stephen asked.

  Robin jumped a little. “Uh, fine,” she replied.

  He reached out to pat her belly. “You’re getting there.”

  “Stephen should have been an obstetrician,” Phyllis said. “Or certainly a gynecologist.”

  “You’re full of astute observations tonight, my darling,” Stephen remarked.

  “Aren’t I always?”

  Maggie watched the hand with interest. Stephen was a skillful player.

  “How’s Matt?” Stephen asked.

  “Fine. Working hard.”

  “I sent him a client, one of our pe
ople who’s getting into motion pictures. He must have mentioned it.”

  “No, actually,” Maggie said.

  “It may come as a surprise to you, Stephen,” Phyllis said, “but contact with you is not a major event in Matthew’s life.” She explained to the others.

  “When Stephen grows up, he wants to be Matthew Hollander.”

  Robin was squirming in her seat, but when Maggie glanced at Stephen to gauge his response to Phyllis’s gibes, she was startled to catch him regarding his wife with appreciative amusement.

  Hilary swept up the last two tricks and smiled at Stephen. “Thanks, partner. Set ‘em, down three.”

  “Another?” Stephen asked.

  “Sure, why not?” Phyllis said.

  Maggie saw Robin look longingly at the front door while Hilary dealt.

  “One club,” Hilary began, then contradicted herself. “I mean one no-trump. Oh, sorry, I’m such a tit. I mean, nitwit. I forgot to ask you if you’re the short-club type, Stephen.”

  “Nothing short about him,” Phyllis said.

  But when Phyllis bid four hearts, Stephen and Hilary bowed out. “The hell with it,” he said. “Pass.”

  “Don’t chicken out now,” Phyllis admonished him. “Faint heart never won fair lady. Or whatever.”

  “It’s okay,” Stephen said. “Hilary and I will fix your tushies.”

  Stephen led the jack of diamonds. Phyllis covered with Robin’s king from the board. Hilary played her ace and took the trick, led another diamond, which Stephen trumped with a low heart.

  “Wow,” Hilary breathed appreciatively.

  “I’d say we’ve got a damn good communication going here, partner,” Stephen said.

  Hilary smiled at him. “Maybe I’m not such a tit, I mean, nit. God, what’s this preoccupation with tits?”

  “It’s because you’ve got such nice ones,” Phyllis said. “You’d just like Stephen to know.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Hilary said.

  Robin got up with a red face. “Excuse me. Ladies’ room.”