Last Lovers

by William Wharton

  ‘Then she enrolled in a French cooking class at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. She started dancing lessons, classes in mime.

  ‘We began eating very gourmet meals at home, just the two of us, with fancy sauces, candles, and white napkins with napkin rings on the table. It was overwhelming.

  ‘She enrolled in a course at the Louvre on Sundays. When I wasn’t traveling on business, we’d go to the different museums in Paris, and she really knew what she was talking about. And I’m supposed to be the artist in the family!

  ‘Her French was suddenly improving incredibly. I was beginning to have a Frenchwoman, a very sexy Frenchwoman, for a wife. The guys at work even started kidding me about it.

  ‘Lorrie and I’d always had a reasonably good sexual relationship, nothing to shake the world, but satisfying. Now she began to be almost insatiable. She was continually wanting to try new things, more sensuous, more complicated, more involved, intimate experiments. Nothing seemed too much for her to try and she brought me along with her. I guess that’s nothing for a man to complain about, and I didn’t, but I was confused. A twenty-two-year, ongoing, relaxed marriage was turning into something else. I felt as if I were living in a porno flick with my wife as director, cameraperson, and co-star.

  ‘Then I started hearing more and more about Didier. Didier was her new French teacher. Her old one had transferred to Lyons. She asked me several times if it would be okay if she had lunch with him, she could practice her French and, at the same time, learn more about French cuisine.

  ‘That was fine with me, although it went against my own memo. I was glad to see her so much happier, doing more than just keeping house, shopping, all the things that had to be done and had filled her time before. Also, with most of the kids gone, she had much more time to herself. It was pretty lonely for her when I had to take those damned trips.

  ‘Then, one night, in bed, after we’d had a particularly strenuous sexual encounter, she began to cry in my arms. Lorrie was not the type. She hardly ever cried and it seemed such a strange thing to do after we’d just made love. I held her tightly in my arms. God, you’d think I would have known. I guess anybody else who was really paying any attention would have. I’m sure you’ve guessed what was happening, Mirabelle.’

  I’m still painting but my hands are shaking. I take a deep breath. Mirabelle wouldn’t blame me if I just stop telling about it all here. Mirabelle’s staring at me in that concentrated blind way of hers. Her face has turned white, so white I’ll have a hard time getting her true colors. I put down my brushes and turn my hands over and over, looking at them.

  ‘Lorrie told me how, that afternoon, after lunch, she and Didier had gone to a hotel and made love. He’d been wanting her to go with him for several months and they’d kidded about it but she kept pushing him off. Then, today, she had to admit to herself it was what she wanted, too. She couldn’t believe she’d actually done it, that it was done, that she’d been “unfaithful” to me.

  ‘I didn’t know how to take it. It was so much like the kind of thing I dealt with so often at work, I found myself listening, acting, feeling, almost as if it were somebody else she was talking about. This couldn’t be my Lorrie. It just wouldn’t sink in, I wouldn’t let it.

  ‘But she had to tell me. She wanted me to know all about it. Somehow, I think she felt if I knew, it wouldn’t seem so wrong. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. I was being too much the impersonal psychologist, not myself.

  ‘Didier was married, too, was fifteen years younger than Lorrie, had two small children. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she and Didier loved each other. According to her, it was all so beautiful and sad, sad for her, for Didier, for his wife, for me.

  ‘She acted as if she actually wanted me to tell her what to do, as if I were a close girlfriend in whom she was confiding, or I were a marriage counselor of some kind, not really involved.

  ‘I must admit this is part of my problem, has been for a long time. MBI values, very highly, employees who are cool, unflappable. I’d learned to live that lie. My first reaction to almost any news, good or bad, was to retreat into myself, to not react, to analyze the situation, figure out what to do next.

  ‘I did it this time. I didn’t cry. I held on to Lorrie while she cried harder. I was deeply hurt but couldn’t show it, maybe didn’t even know it. I’d learned to hide myself from myself so well I could easily do that.

  ‘After she’d cried herself out and my insides had settled enough so I could talk, I asked if she was really sure she loved him, if she wanted a divorce. There was another outburst of crying, she said she didn’t know. She shook her beautiful head, so nicely shaped, coiffed in the latest style, with little strands of lighter red-blond against the dark natural color of her hair. She said she loved me and the children; Didier loved his wife, his children. Maybe it was only an affair which would burn itself out.

  ‘But she didn’t want to lie to me. I appreciated that. I also began to think this afternoon wasn’t the first time they’d been in bed together. I hated myself for thinking it, cringed inside to the betrayal I felt, but I tried to hold myself in. It was beginning to be almost impossible. I was losing my ability to see this for what it actually was.

  ‘Simple, childlike jealousy, physical jealousy, was racking me so I felt I might vomit. Finally I got myself in control. I held on to her but I still wasn’t doing what I wanted to do, just cry like a baby myself, scream, rant about the loss, the hurt I felt.

  ‘I asked again what she wanted to do. She said again she didn’t know. She was so miserable. She wanted to promise she wouldn’t see Didier again but she couldn’t, not yet. And that was the end of our first conversation on the subject. I’ve gone over it a hundred times in my mind, wondering what I should have done, should have said.

  ‘All I did that night was lie awake, vacillating between feeling very angry, violated, cheated, as the French say, trompé, and, on the other hand, feeling sorry for, understanding, wanting to be supportive to Lorrie.’

  My hands have stopped shaking. I take up my brushes again and don’t speak for a while. I try to bury myself in the painting of Mirabelle. Her color has come back. There are tears on her cheeks. I don’t say anything. I’m doing my usual thing, trying to make the immediate go away by concentrating on something else. I work hard for at least half an hour. Then Mirabelle speaks in a voice so low I can barely hear her.

  ‘Did you still love her, Jacques? Could you understand why she did what she did? What happened after that? Tell me if you can, please.’

  I try to keep painting while I talk this time.

  ‘It didn’t stop, Mirabelle. They continued to see each other. I changed her French teacher and didn’t even consult Lorrie about it. That was stupid, it wasn’t going to make any difference. I could tell from Lorrie’s every move, her excitability, her almost manic desire to please me, the way she dressed, moved, slept, made love to me, even the way she cooked for me, that she was still seeing Didier and more than just seeing him. Her feelings of guilt must have been horrible for her and I had no sympathy. I felt myself growing away from her, from us. It was all too painful and yet I couldn’t do anything about it.

  ‘When I came back from a visit to Lyons which lasted four days, I finally got up the nerve to talk to her, try to clear things up.

  ‘She was in bed. The plane had been late and it was after midnight. I was still wearing the suit I’d worn on the plane. I’d just dropped my briefcase on the floor beside the bedroom door. I don’t know whether she was asleep or not when I came into the room. I knew I had to talk with her soon or I’d never be able to do it. I stretched out on the bed, on top of the covers with my clothes on.

  ‘She didn’t lie or even try to. She admitted she was still seeing Didier, that he made her happier than she’d ever been. She felt she’d never incited true ardor in a man in her life, this included me, especially me; that ours was only a “comfortable” relationship, and had been from the beginning. I d
idn’t, couldn’t argue with her. I’d always loved Lorrie simply, nothing complicated, pure Philadelphia dumb love; there was no world-shaking event, it just snuck up on me bit by bit, as we went together and I got to know her, the way she was. It’d somehow lasted all these years. I hadn’t even considered questioning it. It’s amazing how naïve a person can be, at least, how I was.

  ‘Then Lorrie begins revealing to me things I should have known all the time. She’s really resented living in the slipstream of my career, moving continually, not having a chance to develop personally, totally immersed in caretaking, both of the children and of me. She’s missed her support group of women in Minneapolis and now is feeling she’s changed, so she can never go back. She has no idea what we should do.

  ‘I lie back in the dark with my eyes open, at least, at last, I’m crying. But the anger, the resentment have receded. I’m crying the way you would cry at the death of a much loved parent or child. I’m crying in despair at the futility of it all. I think I’m even crying a little bit for Lorrie.

  ‘More than anything it seems, my new assignment as personnel director here in Paris has annoyed her. She was the one trained to this work and I, a mere art major, have the kind of job of which she’s always dreamed. She feels a lot of this is because she’s a woman and women never get an even chance. She says she feels her early pregnancies interrupted her career for life, took her out of the real world. She feels cheated and that most of it is my fault. I should have taken more care.

  ‘I listen in the dark and understand. She’s deeply hostile toward the society, toward our family situation, everything, but mostly toward me. She feels I have not been a husband to her, only a provider; that the children hardly even know me, that I haven’t actually participated in their lives, that she’s had to bear the entire burden.

  ‘She’s up on the edge of the bed now in her nightgown with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. I look over but she won’t look at me. I listen. She knows she’s making excuses for herself in her guilt, but at the same time I recognize she’s right. I was so busy with my own concerns, with making a success at Nard and then with MBI, over these years, I haven’t paid enough attention to her or the family.

  ‘I wait until she’s finished. I want to say the right thing, be a loving husband, do the best for Lorrie, for myself, for the children. I’m having a hard time keeping my emotions from erupting, from drowning me, from forcing me to say, do things I’d be sorry about all my life. Finally I can say it.

  ‘“Lorrie, I’m not arguing. I’m only sorry I didn’t pick up on this sooner, that you didn’t tell me about your feelings over all these years. You’re right; I haven’t been giving either you or the children enough attention. I swear, if I get the chance, when this assignment is over, all those things will change. I don’t really want to be a big deal at MBI. It’s only part of a crazy competitive world that eats a person up.

  ‘“Look, we’re going to be here another six months. I can probably even get another extension if you want. Enjoy yourself as you have been. Make the most of it. There are none of our parents, our relatives, our friends, to monitor your life. You have freedom. When Hank goes off to college in September you’ll have your life to yourself, nobody to interfere.

  ‘“Enjoy the freedom you didn’t have. Make the most of this chance you have with Didier for romance, something you feel you didn’t have. Life is too short, too important, to waste. I’m not sure I’m young enough, of the right disposition, to give you what you want here. Somehow I’ve become a real stick-in-the-mud and I don’t know exactly how it happened.

  ‘“We have a potential for twenty or thirty good years together. Let’s not throw this all away just for our feelings now. We have our own twenty-two years of shared personal history. And the kids; think of all that, please.

  ‘“I only ask that you save some time for me when I can be here, that you not tell me about the rest of your life. I’m afraid I can’t take it. You might see this as selfish, childish on my part, but I’m the victim of male possessiveness as much as the next guy. All that psychology, the rest of it, only seems abstract now, no real help. Okay?”

  ‘And that’s the way we did it, Mirabelle. Hank graduated from high school and went home to school at my old alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. I continued with MBI but tried to be home more, to give more time to Lorrie, to be with her, do things with her as much as possible.

  ‘Lorrie was more radiant every day. I think, in a certain way, she loved me more than she ever had. I asked no questions. I only worked harder.

  ‘Then, one weekend, Lorrie and Didier were going up to Honfleur for a little holiday. Somehow he’d gotten time off from his family. It was spring. Lorrie was lovely in a new dress, a light blue with tiny bluish flowers, almost like forget-me-nots, in a pattern all over it. She carried a small overnight bag and looked like someone from a modern version of a novel by Colette. I waved goodbye as she climbed into a taxi.’

  I have Mirabelle’s face finished. It came up by itself without a single major correction. Portraits aren’t what I’m good at but this time I know I’ve painted a truly beautiful thing. I stop again and just stare at her. Her absolute calm seems to be draining so much poison from me I know I’m going to have a hard time telling her the next part. I begin working her white hair over the dark underpainting. I’m deeply involved in the twistings of her hair where she’s braided it in a crown across the top of her head.

  ‘And then, Mirabelle, something broke. Maybe I went crazy or had a quiet, unobserved nervous breakdown. I don’t know.

  ‘I came inside after the taxi pulled out of sight, and everything seemed so useless, so meaningless. Life itself didn’t seem worth the living. I looked around that huge house, practically running itself, in some way an adjunct to MBI itself, not really our house, just the place where we stayed, a semiprivate hotel.

  ‘I took out a fifth of Bourbon we keep for company and sat down in the quiet. I started sipping. Generally I’m not a drinker. I don’t particularly like the taste and definitely don’t like the effect. The entire element of control has dominated my life and there has never been room for things like alcohol.

  ‘I began wondering how Didier had gotten away from his wife for the weekend. What excuses did he make, or does his wife know, and they’re having a private laugh about the American woman who’s all over him, and she’s the boss’s wife. I felt a deep disgust with it all, with myself. I cried a lot, a crying drunk.

  ‘I sipped my way through that entire fifth and finally sank into sleep on the couch. I didn’t even slide off my shoes.

  ‘In the morning I took a long shower, some aspirin, and slipped into a sweat suit. I was surprised I didn’t have a hangover. I picked up the phone and dialed our lawyer in Minneapolis. I spent most of the day on that phone working out the details. Milton, our lawyer, was convinced I’d absolutely flipped. He kept asking if I knew what I was doing, if I was all right. I assured him I was, but I wasn’t.

  ‘When Lorrie came home Monday morning, skipping up the three steps to the marble front porch, I was totally sober. I was shaking all over, but I was cold sober.

  ‘I stayed quiet in the corner by my complicated, expensive stereo as she took off her coat, went into the bedroom to change her clothes. She wasn’t expecting me to be home and I guess that’s why she didn’t see me. I was enjoying being invisible, probably watching her for the last time.

  ‘When she came out again into the living room I stood up. I took her in my arms and said I wanted to speak with her. I asked her to please sit down with me. I must have frightened her because I’ve never seen her so pale, so rattled, so startled. She sat in the couch next to the one where I’d been sitting and I sat beside her. I took her hands in mine. She sat, knees together, her neat ankles crossed. She stared into my eyes.

  ‘Do you know, Mirabelle, I can close my own eyes now and still see her there, so alone-looking, so beautiful, so scared. I’m sure this is easy for you to
understand, because you have so many memories stored in your head, but I have only a few and this is one of them. I know I’m an artist and seeing is supposed to be my business, but there aren’t many real scenes etched into my brain the way they seem to be in yours.

  ‘Lorrie asked what I was doing home, why wasn’t I at work. It was hard to start, to start all that would, before I was finished, be the end of everything we’d had.

  ‘“Lorrie, I don’t work for MBI anymore. I’ve resigned. I’m supposed to go through a series of debriefing meetings, but I won’t. I’ve called Milt and he’s made all the arrangements at home. I know this is a shock for you, but I don’t think it’s good for either of us to go on the way we’ve been going. This kind of pretending will only, in the end, kill what we have together, and I still love you.”

  ‘I wait for her to say something. If she had only said one word that would convince me this wasn’t what she wanted, I’d have stopped everything, asked to be transferred home, started all over again. Whatever she wanted I’d have done. But she just stared at me, her eyes not even blinking. Her face was chalk-white.

  ‘“Everything we own is yours, Lorrie, the house, the cabin, the car here, the car there, our stock options, and some other investments I’ve made. I’ve done the calculations and you can live your life out pretty much ‘in the style to which you’ve become accustomed.’ As you know, there are trust funds to put each of the kids through school, as far as they want to go. It’s all yours, you’re set for life.”

  ‘Her face is a blank, an unanswered, unasked question.

  ‘“I can’t keep it up any longer, Lorrie. I don’t have the nerve, the courage, to carry through with our agreement. I want to search out the rest of my life, to see if there’s anything left for me, any pleasure, any excitement, anything that still means something to me besides money, status, more money, more status.