What is Love?

by Saks, Tessa

  And then yesterday, after the afternoon spent pampered in the spa and talking—really talking—Mrs. Z went as far as confiding the difficulty she was having finding decent help. For the first time, Mrs. Z finally appeared to be warming up to Ellen, warm enough perhaps, to begin to consider her for a new friend and allow her to join the museum committee.

  Ellen was reapplying her makeup when she heard the door to the villa open. She had left the maid-service sign on the door when she arrived from her facial, and was pleased with the prompt response. She finished her face and was about to call down for more washcloths when Jonathan’s voice appeared. She started to pull on the door lever but stopped when she heard his pathetic childish tone.

  “Come on baby, you know how much I miss you.”

  Ellen’s heart froze.

  “No, baby, it’s tedious, just tedious. She is unbearable. Don’t worry … No. I told you … I haven’t touched her. I swear.”

  No, you hadn’t. She wanted to scream. You never even tried, even though I wanted you to. Even though I planned this entire trip around having you touch me again.

  “Come on sweetie, it’s not like that,” Jonathan laughed. “Yes, she tried, poor thing. I just couldn’t.” His voice reverberated up into the second floor where Ellen stood listening.

  “God no, it would be even worse than I remember. I’m sure of it.”

  Ellen unclenched her teeth as a sharp jab of anguish pierced through her. She wanted to run out screaming, but she stood motionless, her skin smoldering with rage.

  “Hell no,” he laughed. “I’m saving that for you, so stop pouting. I can’t wait to hold you.”

  The room spun. The sound of his voice echoed, his piercing laughter—she wanted to scream. Or cry. Or collapse. She had tried to have sex with him. Numerous times. As always, he was indifferent, made excuses. She had felt relief in his excuses since she hadn’t actually wanted sex anyway. But now, now more than ever, she realized how much she wanted him to want to have sex with her. She wanted to be desired. To feel loved. Why couldn’t he feel anything?

  The blood in her body suddenly plummeted, leaving her light-headed. Ellen steadied herself and sat on the edge of the tub. Pulling a length of tissue from the roll, she dabbed her eyes. Damn him. No! Damn her, that stupid girl. Without her interference, he would be begging for sex and would have welcomed the opportunities she had offered these past nights.

  She sat upright, trying to breathe deep. Ellen closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time they had sex. How long had it really been? She couldn’t recall. Was it that long ago?

  Her mind flashed back to years of late nights waiting for him to come home. She had spent a lifetime waiting until she finally realized she didn’t need to feel threatened by those late-night hussies. They were doing her a favor. Sex had never been that exciting for Ellen.

  Or had it? Perhaps when they were first married, in those early years, when she was desired and adored. She had tried—sexy negligees and chilled wine. They worked at first, until making love became a chore. And with the demands of young children, what woman would want to have sex all the time? That was when it started, or rather, when it all stopped. Yes, stopped for her and started for him. He still needed sex and Ellen wasn’t prepared to deliver.

  But honestly, she thought, he was too demanding, and—her face flushed—he was a bit perverted. How could she sit in church after a night of behaving in such a tawdry way?

  Everything had started innocently—working late, long lunches. Then as months turned into years, it became weekend trips and conferences. Yet, he always loved her. She knew it was just a physical ailment in need of release. Never love. It had never been love. Not now, not ever.

  The front door buzzed, startling Ellen back to attention.

  “Housekeeping.” A voice called out.

  “Come in,” Jonathan yelled from the sitting area. “Listen babe, I gotta go.”

  “I love you, too. I’ll call tomorrow. Bye love.”

  Ellen heard a chair scrape across the marble floor. “I’ll get out of your way here—oh, we need more of those facecloths for Mrs. Horvath—damn woman never seems to have enough of the things.”

  “That’s their job!” Ellen yelled as she burst out of the bathroom and ran down the open stairway. “This is supposed to be a five-star hotel!” She stood in front of the bewildered pair. “I just want what I’m entitled to. Is that really too much to ask for?”

  She stormed over to the cart in the foyer and rifled the towels around in a desperate search for washcloths. “Why is that so difficult? Why is that such a problem?”

  Jonathan stood motionless for a moment, then turned, tipped the maid and motioned for her to leave. She nodded silently and left, closing the door behind her.

  “Calm down. It’s taken care of—”

  “Calm down?” Ellen squeezed the cloths in her hands. “You want me to calm down?” she yelled. “I heard everything you said … every pathetic word to her …” She fought back a new harvest of tears. “Should I be calm, as I listen to you plotting your rendezvous, and on our trip?”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “Overreacting?” She waved her hands and the washcloths fell to the floor. “No!” She shook her head, pointing her finger directly at him. She wanted to slap him. “You lied to me. You’re always lying.” Ellen sat on the edge of the sofa, picking up the cloths. “I trusted you. I want to make things right and you—this is how you try?—a half effort? Or should I say, no effort?” She blotted her eyes with the washcloths. “I don’t ask for a lot. I only asked for a chance to be alone with you—”

  “But we are —”

  “Not with you phoning her!” Her voice pitching higher. “Not with you thinking about her, saying those … those loving words to her. How can we work on this if—?”

  “Maybe, Ellen, if we stopped lying to ourselves—”

  “I’m not lying! I love you and want to make this work. I’m here. I’m trying. Why can’t you? Why can’t you give me a chance? Is that really too much to ask?”

  Jonathan was silent. He looked away and shifted his stance.

  “Is it too much? Am I being unreasonable?” she demanded.

  “Yes. Yes, you are always unreasonable. You know I love her.” He picked up his tennis racquet. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried,” he mumbled and turned away.

  “No, you haven’t! You haven’t tried at all!” Tears filled her eyes. She buried her head in the white terry towel, her sobs growing louder, her body vibrating. “This whole weekend, these past seven days,” she mumbled through her tears, “you haven’t even touched me.”

  “Ellen, I …”

  “Can’t you look past these wrinkles and see me? I’m still me.”

  “I’m sorry Ellen, it’s not that easy. There’s more—”

  “But it is. You loved me once, when I was young. Why is it so different now? Why can’t you see I’m still the same person inside? Nothing has changed—except how I look.”

  “But you’re not, Ellen. You’re not the same. Once when we were young, you were carefree and fun. I felt alive being with you. Now I feel choked when I am with you, like I can’t breathe until I’m away from you.”

  “Choked? What are you talking about? I’m still that girl.”

  “No, not anymore. You’ll never be that girl. It’s a shame really … I miss her. Over the years, I’ve watched her slowly disappear. Now she’s gone … you can’t help that.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Look at this trip. You spent more time worrying about sitting next to that damn Mrs. Z than you did trying to be with me.”

  “But she finally—”

  He raised his hands in protest. “I’m just telling you what happens. You sit on the sidelines and let opportunities for us to have fun slip away and can’t even see—”

  “But you can’t blame me for—”

  Jonathan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’ve changed and turned into someone I don’t lov
e.”

  “How can you say that?” Ellen cried out. “You don’t know how I feel. You have no idea the pain I’ve endured. You’ve never felt pain—”

  “I’m not trying to hurt you—”

  “I’m the one who should be upset at the changes. I’m the one who should stare at that big belly of yours and your lack of virility, your coldness, and say that I don’t see you anymore. I don’t see the man I fell in love with.” Ellen pointed toward him. “Where did he go … all those years when I wondered who you were with? When I cried myself to sleep, longing for you to touch me? When I missed your kisses? Where did you go?”

  “I … Ellen—” Jonathan shifted his weight.

  “You vanished and left me alone. You abandoned me. That’s why I turned into this.”

  “I don’t think you understand—”

  “But I still love you. I always believed that deep down inside, you still love me. I still know that in my heart, only you are too delusional to see it. You’re just—”

  “This is just like you—turn the tables and make everything my fault.”

  “But it is your fault. It’s always been your fault. You’re selfish to the core.”

  His face tightened. He took a step closer.

  “No!” Ellen cried and held her hand up to block him. “Now I know how cruel you are. You are incapable of any kindness. I shouldn’t love you so much. Why do I? It’s stupid, believing in something, trusting in someone. Do you enjoy hurting me? Is that it?”

  “There’s just no easy way to end a marriage.”

  “I’m not asking for easy. I’m just asking for a chance to work together and try. Why is that so wrong? After forty years, can’t we at least try?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “I am trying.”

  “No, damn you!” Ellen grabbed a water bottle from the side table and threw it across the room, knocking the lamp off the front entrance table with a loud crash. “No!” she cried. “You’re not! You aren’t trying at all. You’ve been sneaking around, plotting and scheming this whole time. This trip has been a sham. I’ve been trying, and you—you haven’t put in any effort at all.”

  Jonathan reached to pick up the damaged lamp. “What do you want from me, I can’t—”

  “Counseling—leave that stupid lamp—Jonathan, we need counseling.”

  “Honest to God, Ellen, you don’t really think it would make any difference.”

  “Yes,” she cried out. “Yes, I need it. I need someone to explain to you how I feel.”

  Jonathan looked away. “I know how you feel, and I am sorry.”

  “You can’t possibly.” She looked at him, waiting for him to turn around. “You don’t even know how you feel. You think you’re in love.” She plumped the pillow beside her. “Well, if it’s love, it can wait. If it is real love, it will still be there after counseling. What do you have to lose by trying?” Ellen leaned back onto the cushion and crossed her arms. “My God, Jonathan, people give more notice before quitting a job than you’ve given me after forty years of devotion.”

  Jonathan turned to her and raised his hands in surrender. “I’m tired of fighting you.”

  “Then stop fighting and try harder to be kind. Give us a chance.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll try counseling, but I don’t see how it can change anything.”

  “At least promise you’ll try. You owe me that much. Forty years should count for something. I’ve done whatever you wanted; all I ask is for you to try. Can’t you do that?”

  Jonathan paused and cast his eyes away from her. “Yes … I’ll try,” he said quietly.

  “And stop seeing her while we’re in counseling.”

  “I can’t. I—”

  “You can. How can you honestly promise to try and focus on us when you focus on her? For heaven’s sake, Jonathan, you’re a grown man. Surely to God, you can hold back on sex for a few months. What are you so afraid of? That she’ll leave? That she only wants you for your money and will find someone else if you’re not around? Well, if she loves you, she’ll wait. If she loves you, she’ll understand you have an obligation to your wife of forty years and your family. And if she doesn’t, wouldn’t it be better to find out now?”

  Jonathan stood motionless, staring out the window, his jaw tight.

  “Have you just forgotten everything you stood for all these years, blinded by puppy love and hardened with this new cruelty? Do you enjoy being this cruel?”

  He turned, staring at her for a moment. “You wear me out, honest to God, woman, you exhaust me.” He stood silent for several minutes. “Okay … I’ll give you one month.”

  “Three. I deserve at least three months. I should actually be asking for six.”

  He looked away, clenching his teeth. She saw his neck and face redden as he tried to control his anger. He smashed his racquet against the back of the chair. “All right, you win—you always win, damn you. Three months.” He grabbed the room key off the desk. “I need some air.”

  The entrance door slammed with a loud shock. She stood, picked up the washcloths and went up the staircase and into the master bathroom. Five-star hotel! She reached for some cleanser and wiped the makeup stains off her cheeks. She studied her reflection and for the first time felt not only old, but withered. She smoothed her youth-in-a-thousand-dollar-jar cream on her cheeks and thought about his words, his feeble attempt to be kind.

  Three months. She had three months to convince him of his idiocy. It’s not over. I am not destroyed. I won’t let this hurt me. This means nothing. Ellen wanted to believe this, but couldn’t. Somehow, those fateful words he’d spoken on the phone tore through her hopes and left them shredded.

  She walked out of the bathroom and reached for the phone. She knew exactly who to call. Patty would know where to find the best counselor money could buy, and Ellen not only needed the best, she needed a miracle. Like everything else in life, with enough money, anything could be bought, including a first-rate miracle.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sam raced past store windows on her way to meet Jonathan for lunch. The fresh scent of spring filled the air and as she wrapped her coat tighter, cool gusts of wind whipped at her skirt like a sail. Two weeks had passed since she had seen him. She’d heard from him every day at the beginning of his trip, then nothing until he phoned her yesterday.

  She stopped as the fragrant scent of fresh-baked bread filled the air. The Sorbonne Bakery had been her favorite place to buy treats for Jonathan in the early days. It was her excuse to see him. She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets and continued on. He certainly didn’t need any treats now. She smiled, recalling their phone conversation yesterday and the details of his trip.

  “I knew when we landed and her luggage wasn’t there, we were in for a rocky time,” Jonathan had said with a laugh. “Ellen packed everything for the perfect getaway—then, to have to wear the same outfit or worse, buy clothes that didn’t fit her properly—she needs special alterations, you see—and to not have her creams and jars of God knows what.”

  Sam smiled, relishing in the images of his wife panicked, all over nothing.

  “If that wasn’t bad enough, we arrive at the resort and Ellen is arguing with the check-in guy. Seems they messed up and because of our delay waiting for Ellen’s nonexistent luggage, they gave our room away.”

  “No!”

  “It would have been fine, it’s a fantastic hotel with many other good rooms, except Ellen wanted everything to be just right, planned it all so perfectly, and this was going to ruin everything, so she demanded they move the other couple out of our villa.

  “They would do that?”

  “As luck would have it, the other couple turned out to be Mr. and Mrs. Z.”

  “Who?”

  “Laurence and Mildred Zeigler—the most important couple in New York, at least according to Ellen and all her shallow friends. So Mrs. Zeigler stood beside her at the desk, right at the very moment Ellen was having her fit, insisting that they move the
other couple to another villa. Then Mrs. Z spoke and it became apparent just who this other couple was. Poor Ellen almost fainted.”

  “So you didn’t get the room?”

  “Rooms. The damn thing is seven thousand square feet and sleeps fourteen. Why we needed that much space, I’ll never understand. No, we ended up in a much smaller two-story penthouse, only four bedrooms instead of seven, one servant instead of four. We spent the next nine days trying to be near the Zeiglers. At least, she tried. I was busy having fun while she was running around, all uptight, worrying what to wear, where to be and what to say to impress that ridiculous lady.”

  “She left you alone—on your romantic getaway?”

  “Yes, much of the time. Frankly, it was a relief. The time spent around her is always irritating. She’s never happy, no matter what we are doing. The ever-ready critic is always turned on. ‘This food is well below five star. The bed is too firm; the water is too cold; the beach is too windy; the mosquitoes are horrendous; the service is too slow’—shall I go on?”

  Sam couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Oh my God. So what did you do the whole time? She sounds like a total bag.”

  “No, not like that. She means well. She just wants everything to be perfect, the way she has imagined it. But it never is. Life never is. It never could be. I swear, life is a constant source of disappointment. Even her children are big disappointments.”

  Sam had had enough of hearing about the bitch. She had hung up, savoring the hilarious moments of his wife’s pathetic attempt to seduce her husband. Some kind of trip. Nothing she would’ve done. No, she would’ve had him eating out of her hand and begging for more.

  Sam arrived at the door to the restaurant and snapped back to reality. Their trip had sounded like the disaster she had hoped for, even better in fact. Perhaps he’s closer to leaving her now. Sam smiled. She thought about all the things that she could do to make him feel better.